I Thought a Relationship Could Fix My Anxiety

It did, and that broke the relationship

Until I was in my late 20s I did not know what anxiety was. I would have described myself as fearless, daring, thrill-seeking even and I did not understand how people could fear the simplest things. It all changed after a spell of consecutive stomach bugs, that was much later linked to gluten-intolerance.

Within a matter of days, I suddenly lived in constant fear. Spontaneous me turned into a rigorous planner. If I had to go somewhere new, I would play through the route on Google street view, mentally note resting places, and restaurants with toilets. Every bus ride felt like running a marathon in my mind.

Over the years, it got a lot better. The constant state of anxiety that I had once found myself in turned into moments, or single days. Sometimes I was my old self for weeks or months in a row. But new situations still made me feel uneasy. I was a lot quieter, reserved, and fearful in unknown situations, like starting a new job.

That woman, shy, quiet, reserved, just starting a new job was the woman Allan (name changed) saw when we met. He was the opposite: confident, charming, chatty, sociable and flirty. He was more like the younger version of myself. I admired it. When he started to get to know me, he quickly became infatuated.

I thought he fell in love with the person he saw inside: the woman who did not know what anxiety was.

He was my crutch

Until I met him, I did not know what support looked like. I had never seen a therapist or professional about my anxiety. Always just muddled through. During my worst, I had been scared to be alone in the house for longer periods of time. I remember when my ex-husband was away with the family for the weekend I begged him to check in on me a couple of times a day. He didn’t, and when I called him he didn’t answer. He’s always been like that, he does not understand how terrifying it feels to be paralysed by irrational fears.

Allan was the complete opposite, even before I had told him about my anxiety he was more worried about me than I ever had been. He wanted to be by my side, every second of the day. We sat next to each other at work, we’d share all the same hobbies, in the rare moments that I wasn’t with him, we’d text. We’d speak on the phone the entire way when I was walking somewhere and if for some reason a taxi ride or meeting would take me longer than anticipated he was “worried sick”.

That feeling to have someone I could rely on, someone who cared about me more than anyone ever had, empowered me to step out of my shadow and face situations that would have otherwise caused me panic attacks

We got to the root of my anxiety

I had never really analysed the root cause of my anxiety, I just assumed it was my gluten-intolerance. But suddenly it was there in plain sight: confidence. Over the years of my marriage that I can now categorise as psychological abusive, my confidence had evaporated. I constantly told myself that I wasn’t good enough. I had become focused on my failures and weaved off any successes.

And yet I was terrified by the knowledge that my husband and children couldn’t cope without me. I had felt like I wasn’t capable of living up to these responsibilities. Allan helped me to see that I am enough. What I didn’t know until much later, this was just the start of the narcissistic abuse cycle: Love-bombing. He put me on a pedestal and it felt amazing. He loved everything about me, even things I had never considered to be loveable. Every achievement I reached filled him with so much pride that it filled me with more confidence in return.

He did not want me to walk

With increased confidence came increased independence and self-respect. All too quickly I learned to make my own decisions, and sometimes, they were different from what Allan would have done.

This wasn’t what he had envisioned our relationship to look like.

It took him almost a week to convince me that I had to buy the exact TV from the exact company he suggested. He didn’t give up until I caved, but I could tell how exasperated he was.

Why couldn’t I trust him to know best anymore? Why couldn’t I just accept that he knew what was right for me?

And then my new found self-confidence gave me something else: the power to set boundaries and stand up to his behaviour. I didn’t know it was abuse, but I started to question his intentions. I started challenging his constant degradations. He was losing control. He started threatening to leave, but even that did not scare me enough to give up my new found self.

He figured it out long before me

I still remember learning to ride a bike at the age of 5. My dad said he’d always hold on until I could balance myself. We’d spend days riding up and down our little street, while he was holding onto the carrier at the back. I knew he would always be there. One time when I turned around he was standing at the other end of the street waving at me. I had done it and I hadn’t even notice. My dad had known long before me when I was ready to cycle by myself.

My relationship with Allan was very much the same. He realised that I didn’t need him to be my crutch, long before I did. I recently discovered that he started looking for someone else only 2 months into the relationship. During my research, I connected with some of the other women he was chasing.

The single mother of 2 who barely got by with her part-time job, the shy woman at work who suffered from social anxiety and insomnia. The latter one he was dating for 6 months, but both of them did not need crutches. It took him over a year to find a suitable replacement. I sometimes wonder if that’s part of the reason he was so miserable for most of our relationship: He saw it long before I did: Not only could I walk without him, I could fly.

Now I know I can fly

I still get moments where I feel anxious. But major panic attacks are rare. Considering that I have lived on my own for the past 6 months, I see that as massive progress. I have not taken my anxiety pills for almost a year. For the first time, I am tackling the root cause of my anxiety how I should have tackled it in the first place: from within. When you are used to the opposite, self-love is difficult. Some days you may feel like giving up. But I know now that this is the best way to really heal. I sometimes think it’s like I tried to cheat the system and paid for it.

Quite recently, during a mindfulness exercise, I rediscovered my ability to fly. Something I had done frequently as a child to help me go to sleep. When had I lost that belief in myself? When did I forget how powerful your mind can be? When had I replaced imagining with worrying in my bedtime routine? I do not know, but I know I can change it.

The only person that can fix me is me