Why am I feeling depressed, anxious and paranoid lately?

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Joe90
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21 Jun 2015, 4:35 am

I keep having these negative feelings about everything lately. I keep worrying that something bad is going to happen. I don't want to go to work any more, I've lost all interest in it and can't be bothered. I'm so scared I'm going to lose my boyfriend for some reason. Everything just seems to be worrying me.

Today my boyfriend is invited out for a meal with his daughters for father's day. But I feel so paranoid, and thoughts keep going through my mind, like what if some random woman in the restaurant likes the look of my boyfriend and ends up going over to their table and start chatting? And then suddenly my boyfriend and his daughters might suddenly turn selfish and encourage the woman to go with him, without thinking about my feelings? Just the thought of it makes me feel sick.
Then I'll be on my own again, just when I thought I had got my life together. But a rational voice tells me that he won't betray me like that, and that I'm just being paranoid. Then I start worrying that I might turn into a jealous girlfriend who gets really upset whenever he spends time with his friends or family.

Secretly I do wish he didn't have kids, even though they are not small children or don't live with him. Or I wish he just had one, not three. But I can't tell him that.

But anyway why do I keep getting these anxious feelings? Is it normal when you love someone? Or am I turning into some sort of jealous control-freak?


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BirdInFlight
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21 Jun 2015, 5:11 am

I think it's normal that the more important someone is to you, the greater the loss and pain would be if you lose them, thus the more anxious you are able to feel about that potential.

Not that everyone in a relationship is experiencing high anxiety about losing their loved one, 24/7, but just to say it's not unnatural that the more you love or need someone, the more potential there is to worry about losing them.

There isn't really an answer to that, as sometimes we are worrying over nothing.

The best I've tried to do is to try to limit how important that person is -- by which I don't mean try to love them less, lol! But just try to put a limit on how much emotional dependence I feel upon them, or other kinds of depending. In my experience, the more control I have over all departments of my life, both practical and also the power other people have over me in various ways, the less anxious I feel, because I've remained largely in charge. Anxiety can be exacerbated by feeling helpless over the possible course of events in your life; trying to limit how helpless certain turns of events might make you can ease the anxiety.

Easier said than done when you love someone though.

On the positive side, try to focus on everything about your boyfriend that makes you feel assured you are loved and he's not going anywhere. Things he says and does that affirm the two of you are stable. If he does actually say or do anything that affirms things are not stable, that's another matter, but if things are basically okay and it's just your anxiety you're trying to manage, try to focus deliberately on things that tell you there's nothing to worry about.