Joined: 21 Dec 2005 Posts: 18 Location: Morgantown, WV,
Help! How Do I Tell Someone...? Posted: 01-22-06 22:43pm
Hi! Ok, so I am 23 yrs old and recently
found myself in a relationship that could
deffinetly be 'the one'...A really great
guy who is always there for me...Its
great. Ever since I was little I have
suffered from anxiety and depression. I
had learned to control them in a way as
mental illness runs all through out my
family...Thank god I only suffer from
these illnesses. I had a breakdown when
I moved for college and began to take
zoloft to help 'take the edge off' so to
speak, and help me deal...It works great!
My question is...How do I tell him all
about this...I know that it may seem weird
and I dont mean to offend anyone...But I
am ashamed of this and I find it hard to
tell people about this who have never been
around mental illness before. I dont
like how I am, but he has sensed a change
in me, basically I have been under unusual
amounts of stress and with the weather the
way it is, I am more down than usual. I
know that it would help for him to know
all this, but how?
I don't like the phrase 'mental illness'.
Use some other phrase to start out with,
like anxiety attacks, stress, depression,
etc. And don't use the word
'disorder'.
Before I had my anxiety attacks this
summer and again just recently, I thought
mental illnesses, panic attacks, stress,
etc. Were just caused by the mind and
people should just "snap out of it". Wow
was I wrong. People don't know that the
body is really the greatest thing in all
creation, and that makes it a complicated
thing; all kinds of things can go wrong
that can cause the body discomfort,
including mental stuff.
So i've told tons of people about my
anxiety attacks because I think of them as
bodily ailments like a headache or
backache or something. But i'm always
careful to describe the symptoms rather
than using labels. So when you tell your
boyfriend about it be casual like the
poster above said, and don't be ashamed at
all (there's no need to be ashamed!), and
describe the symptoms, for example: faster
heart rate, insomnia, elevated anxiety,
inability to concentrate, and safe things
like that.
My hunch is your boyfriend loves you a lot
and will want to help you do the research
to come up with ways of making things
better. My wife has been very
understanding about my anxiety, and now
we're reading a couple books on anxiety
and depression together and having fun
doing it!
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This page was last updated on June 11, 2008
