Okay... This is about my boyfriend with severe anxiety and hypochodria? (LONG post)

Okay, well.

My boyfriend is turning 18 in a month. I'm 16 1/2... we've been dating for 1 1/2 years today. (just thought you should know a little about us)

I don't know what to do. He has severe anxiety. Everyday about, 3-4 times daily he has severe anxiety attacks. You can look at the bottom for the story of his worst just to know how bad it is…

He's seen the doctor. He's had his blood tests (do they do diabetes testing whilst testing for anemia?) because his sister is anemic (from her menstrual periods though).
He thinks he's diabetic (his mother was but he got tested when he was younger), or
He has spinal meningitis (because a teacher told him once a little girl died in her class because of that) or
He thinks he has this one rare disease our friend almost died from or
He has cancer because he doesn’t believe you can recover from that...


He says he isn't depressed and he doesn't know what causes the attacks, but I don't know. His mother died when he was four from a car-accident… She was diabetic and passed out and collided with a truck… so that's what I think is causing it? But why 12 years later and now while he was still a child and scared of everything?

I believe he's a hypochondriac because Health related things are the only things he worries about...

But, what can I do to help? He has a hard time going to sleep because when he’s falling asleep he thinks it’s the way you feel when you’re dieing. And in school it’s hard for him not to feel weird and he always gets them during school so it disrupts his learning… I try my best when an attack hits, but sometimes he gets mad at me for doing something wrong… I’ve never helped anyone with anxiety before so I’m kind-of clueless.

He started having anxiety attacks about 2 months into our relationship, we were visiting my friends from where I moved from and we went to this lake thing where a civil battle happened and he said he thought he was getting possessed… I didn’t understand that it was anxiety but that was his first.

He makes himself throw up to feel real sometimes or pinches himself and stuff like that. Doing that worries me. He's going to a counselor but she doesn't even help all that much. He says she talks about movies? He's tried taking medicine but He's scared he's gonna overdose (He overdosed once from his friend’s Zoloft and then they put him on it again 2 years later and he said he felt the same way) and die from that so he didn't even start his new medicine that they prescribed him. He's telling everyone he has though so they won't prescribe him anything else...

How can I help relieve his anxiety? I tell him he’s gotten through all those other attacks and woke up the next morning and was living. And I explain to him the chances are slim to get the diseases he thinks he has. But that only helps for a minute and then he gets scared again.

Does anyone know of an understandable NATURAL way to relieve anxiety for him? I feel so bad for him, no one should ever feel like that…
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Two days ago we went to the pet shop and he freaked out… we left after a few moments cause the friend driving didn’t know he was having an attack… my boyfriend started getting really angry and was shaking really bad so he thought that he was going to pass out from diabetes. He starts screaming for the police or ambulance to come when we are driving the 15 minute drive home and started crying and he pukes on the side of the car and he asks me to pinch him. So I do, because I don’t know what else to do and I don’t want him getting angry again. Then he yells at me to punch or slap him in the face (but I don’t) because I guess the pinching wasn’t working anymore. My friend the driver starts crying because he’s never seen my boyfriend this way… and we stop at my boyfriend’s dad’s house and the driver runs to the front pounding on the door and crying, but of course NO ONE was home outta the 5 people who live there, they were all gone, so my friend yells curses and kicks the door and his neighbor comes out but then we were already pulling out on the drive to my house (where my boyfriend stays) and by this time he’s not hysterical as much so we go in and he gives my mom a hug and eats something and calms down and he takes a shower with me sitting in the bathroom (to make him feel safe he says) and that’s basically it but that was the worst he’s ever had. One pretty close to that but it didn’t last as long…

Hi,

I was searching the net for anxiety forums for my boyfriend (who suffers from anxiety and panic attacks) and saw your thread.
I'm 19 and he is 26 and he's had panic attacks since he was about 8, which probably stemmed from his parents splitting up around that time. Since we got together 2 years ago he has gone through varying forms of anxiety including days where he doesn't feel he can get out of bed, severe panic attacks (shaking uncontrolably, crying, becoming very angry, verging on suicidal) and most recently he's developed a phobia of illness.
This phobia of getting ill is a nightmare as if he hears about a bug thats going round he's convinced he's got it. When bird flu was rife he was terrified of birds. He's constantly thinking he has cancer (he had a spot inside his which "was definitely cancer" an insect bite on his back which "was definitely cancer") and meningitis is also what he seems to think he has whenever he feels slightly sick or has a headache. I don't know whether it is actually hypochondria that he has or whether the fear of getting these illnesses makes him worry he has it.

I really feel for you because I know how consuming it can be helping someone through anxiety, especially when it seems your boyfriend is having panic attack after panic attack. I find myself getting so frustrated with him when he says he's got meningitis etc etc, but as he and i know, it's his mind tricking him into thinking he's got it. He doesn't really believe he has.
There are a few things which have helped my b.f. which I can suggest to you if you like?

Louise

Hi there

I'm sorry that you are having such a bad time. You boyfriend is very lucky to have you.... you are a really wonderful person for standing by him and trying to seek help. I work on this Forum to help out as a volunteer. I too lived with someone who had severe anxiety for 5 years. I put my life on hold so I know exactly where you are coming from!

My husband was helped massively by Charles Linden - author of The Linden Method. It also helped me to understand the condition and there is a chapter in the Method manual which advises partners on how best to deal with a loved one with anxiety. He too was a sufferer and so your boyfriend will be able to relate to his story and Charles understands exactly what its like to go through this hell - for both of you!

You get free telephone and email support which I found invaluable. The Therapists are all lovely and they are all ex-anxiety sufferers and are dedicated to giving their clients the best possible chance of getting their lives back.

Anxiety is such a pointless condition - especially when you consider its nothing more than a bad habit!

Please post back if I can be of any more help.

all the very best.
Fliss

I know how you feel. It can be so draining to live with someone who who love who has panic attacks.

I hope you both the best.

HI there, I'm sorry to hear your boyfriend is suffering at such a young age. First of all, there are a few things you need to know about anxiety and that it can creep up at any time. Trauma can stay in your body for years and you won't know it until, boom, you think your going crazy!

I was sexually abosed by my uncle for years and when I had another traumatic trigger (hit by a car), that's when I thought I was going mad which was is also a fear of mine as my mom is shizophrenic. I didn't sleep for 2 weeks, and my doctor put me on beta blockers that made me sleep all the time. I was diagnosed with post traumatic stress disorder and suffer from phobias with the anxiety. Basically I'm afraid of dying, I guess from the accident so I really don't live happily at all. I also lost my dad when I was 14, but it feels like I lost mom too--
once he died mom's been mentally ill.

Anyway, since then I've learned coping mechanisms that help me (I refuse any drugs, I don't think they are the answer, they just mask your emotions to what started anxiety in the first place). I meditate, exercise, yoga, breathe deeply from my belly, stay off sugar and caffeine (that means soda too), positive affirmations, find something I like to do that makes me happy, listen to good music, have moral support, see a therapist once a week, etc.

Questions to ask your boyfriend:

I do have to ask though, if your boyfriend may be diabetic, has anyone checked his blood sugar levels? I know my mom is loopy when her sugar is high, she's insulin dependent.

Is he eating/drinking sugar & caffeine?

Has he seen a doctor about anything yet?


I hope this helps, I hope he can find some peace in all this.

It's too young to suffer like that. I started suffering when I was 25-years-old. Aged 18 I used to love life. PM me, yes it can all go away, horrible things do happen to people, but I do know now how to put it to the very back of my mind.

I'm sure he can enjoy life again. It costs very little to get better, I can assure you.

Hi, I've told my story in the category "is it necrophobia"
I've also completely cut out caffine from my diet because my sister thinks that it's the main problem for my panic attacks... I work in a coffee shop so I can drink up to 15 espresso's in a day... but she spent the day with me on the weekend and we went to get coffe in the morning... about an hour later i broke down in the middle of the city crying and freaking out, hyperventalating and telling her i want to live forever and that i dont want to die and personally I think that it's because didn't have a coffee for a while that it happened, bacause usually at work I have a coffee in my hand all the time, I think my panics are the come down from the caffiene. Ive gone through a couple of 'close calls' like a car accident and emergency surgey to prevent pancreatitis. but i honestly feel like im going insane, I asked my doctor about a referal to a counseller but instead he put me on seditives and antidepressants
I really think that drugs make it worse... Ive stopped the medication, quit caffine and ciggaretes and am slowly calming myself down...

I still think that I need counselling but my doctor wants me on meds and wont refer me...

I dont even know what to do anymore...

I'm scared shitless of dying and having every disease out there i just keep thinking what if I AM that one in a million for that statistic...

I don't know... maybe i am insane and don't know it...


I SAY STOP CAFFIENE INTAKE NOW! RESEARCH IT! THEN YOU'LL KNOW WHAT IT'LL DO TO YOU! even 2 coffee's a day will have a bad effect on you in the years to come!!! Your borrowing energy from tomorrow that you wont get back!!! It also is a main cause for panick attacks