8 Tips for Getting Through Anxiety in a Relationship

Being in a relationship with someone who suffers from anxiety can be challenging at the best of times. Anxiety presents a whole new skill set you need to master, and here are some frank tips from the pro who lived through it and came out the other side:

1.       Learn to Recognise the Triggers and Symptoms

Learning how your partner responds to things is tough0especially when they can be as small as running out of milk, or as big as a major health scare.  Your partner will experience a range of symptoms and may not even recognise it themselves while they are caught up in it. Having that extra set of eyes and ears to help curb the impact makes a big difference. 

2.       Always have a Plan B, C, D and E.

People with anxiety from moderate to severe, often turn to what they believe to be solid, fool-proof planning to assist in minimising their feelings relating to a loss of control. They will often have a ‘to-do’ list with a certain number of tasks that need to be completed each day, which helps to keep them grounded and in a routine. 

3.       Change is Terrifying

Any changes to a routine or lifestyle can be absolutely terrifying to someone who finds comfort in the routine life they already live. Therefore, discussions about shifting or changing their lifestyle may not initially go down well. This person needs time and space to be able to think it through, and overcome the challenges they see in it on their own-of course with your support. 

4.       Medication Isn’t The Answer

Being medicated isn’t fun for anyone. It can produce unpleasant side-effects like sleeplessness, depression, weight gain/loss, or even psychosis. Medication is a tool that is used to assist in keeping someone with anxiety or other mental health issues stable and safe to work through their challenges. It might take a few swaps of brands and dosages to get it right, and it might take months for it settle into your system, but it will help in conjunction with other tools.

5.       It’s Intense

Depending on your situation, anxiety can also present a wide host of other emotions often felt intensely from sadness, numbing, anger or nervous to joy, happiness, triumphant or gleeful. It can be a roller-coaster of emotions that you need to be able to read and recognise-especially if there is any pattern to how often they appear and recur again. 

6.       You Will Get To Know The Doctor

As a main support system for your partner going through this, you will probably get to visit the Doctor a lot with them. It will mean you might be asked to be watchful of their patterns, remind them to take medications or perform tasks, or get them to their appointments. You will be the second set of eyes to supervise their recovery and able to be the voice of reason and love during these doctors appointments. 

7.       It’s Not Embarrassing

Almost everybody suffers from a mental health condition at some point in their lives and it is ok to seek help and assistance to recover from it. There is no shame in admitting you or your partner need some expert help. 

8.       Caring For Yourself

If you are caring for someone suffering from anxiety, you probably experience feelings of rejection, resentment, anger, frustration, and a yearning for it to just bugger off. It’s important to remember that you need care too-the world doesn’t revolve just around your partner! You must take care of yourself in every way from the basic food and water needs to those of your spirit or soul. If you find it overwhelming, say so. If you need some time out, arrange it. You must care for yourself!

Dig Deep

So you probably wanted some part of your life like your money, romance or career to change for the better. In fact, you probably want it to change dramatically for the better-instead of just getting by and saving the bare minimum, you want to be a millionaire! Instead of losing 1kg you want to drop 20kg.

Dreaming big is great fun and sharpens your focus onto what you want for yourself-but chances are, you probably got too wrapped up in the dream to actually make it a reality for yourself.

Here are the three rules for getting big results-if you want them, you must:

1. Have a clear and focused goal in mind
2. Require more from yourself
3. Take giant, monumental, mountain shifting action.

You won't get any closer to your dreams if you don't do those three things. The first one is tricky-it means you have to actually spend time and energy discovering what you want and to do that often means some serious introspection on who you are-something not everyone understands or knows about themselves. Step two is the simplest, yet most difficult.

In this, you will be forced to crush your beliefs about how bad the world is, and create new ones that actually help you. You will be forced to set your standards high-why? because your worth every bit of it and deserve the best!

Step 3 is possibly the easiest and simplest of the three-it really creates itself as the first two become clear and focused you will know exactly what kind of action you need to take. From cleaning the dishes every night, to making a few phone calls, to evaluating your finances or researching a new career or education-once you know what you want, the how becomes self-evident.

Nothing comes for free, it will require you to work for it. You will need to sweat, shed some tears and probably get angry and wish you had neever undertaken the journey in the first place. But without the journey the reward of living your dream is meaningless. Look at every self-made millionaire, billionaire, inventor, genius or activist. Each of them have incredible stories-Steven Hawkins is a quadriplegic and can't even speak with his own voice but his achievements and advancements in physics and astronomy have revolutionized the way we see the universe. Lindsay Fox was told he would never amount anything in life by his Year 10 English teacher-he now owns and runs one of the largest and most reputable transport companies in Australia!

In the face of adversity, when the going gets tough, the TOUGH GET GOING.
You pull yourself back from being the victim, you get off your butt, and you strive harder. You aim for the best because its what you deserve and want for yourself. You take the action and even if the results aren't instantaneous, they will be magnificent.

As they say, aim for the moon because even if you miss you will land among the stars...then you can try again and get a little closer each time!