Anxious and my parents are a trigger!?🤯

[BookwormGypsophila]

Every morning I'm home I wake up anxious with knots in my stomach, feeling like I'm going to be sick, wishing that I didn't wake up.. my depression isn't as severe as before but when my anxiety goes up like it is now the intrusive thoughts start again.

I moved country for my placement year and because we own a small business which is where I work, I live with my parents and work from home. I took the placement year just to help them out as its still a start up, but almost as soon as I got here I became paralized with anxiety and can barely do any work. I really struggle with things involving money such as having to pay bills or invoices as we had a difficult situation where our family almost broke down because of debt.. and now we have another big one because of the business. My parents pressure me to do the work I should be doing but they don't try to understand why I cant do it. From my dad especially the type of pressure I get is that the business as well as the family is going to go bust because of me, which as you guessed makes my anxiety much worse. I has become so bad that instead of just money triggering me it's now my parents too. In fact if they tell/nag me to do anything I get sick with anxiety.

I can't talk to my parents about my anxiety because they dont understand (or they dont want to..) and they are dismissive about it, e.g. "what do you have to be anxious about? Its not like you have debts or anything!"

I suffer from GAD and I'm a perfectionist (great combo!🙃), most of the time I dont know what my triggers are but once my brain finds/makes one it latches on and paralizes me from doing anything when the trigger is there.

I find it easier to deal with work affected by my perfectionist side rather than the work affected by identified triggers, e.g. money, my parents..

I used to get CBT counselling in the UK without my parents knowing and even that didn't go well because I never really knew what triggered me and even if I thought I did, it changed every week. I now just read stuff online for self help because I have no one to talk about this with.

I was jus wondering if you guys knew any techniques I could use to be able to do my work because it seems unless I do it my anxiety isn't going to go down and if there is anything I could do to remove my parents from my triggers list.

Btw not working for them isn't an option because my anxiety is much worse when working elsewhere, I tried...

Also sorry for the lengthy post 😅 and thanks in advance for any advice.🧡

[BonnieSue]

Hi friend,

(This is long, but it all seems important for you)

I too have been a perfectionist and have GAD. Are you on any medication? It doesn't sound like it or if you are it's not effective enough for you to function and that would be something to take to the prescribing doctor asap so you can get on with living. If you aren't on any med, why not? Your anxiety is crippling you just as you've described.

GAD isn't a little bit of anxiety here and there, it's a serious diagnosis of significant pathological anxiety affecting your daily life. I have found it to be extremely high anxiety that is generalized and without being related to any particular trigger most of the time. I have also noticed that this generalized anxiety tries to fasten itself to a trigger like parents, money, public speaking, etc., but if I don't allow it to attach itself by using my logical thinking, I don't develop phobias (parents, money, financial decisions, public speaking, heights, flying, leaving your home, etc.)

What my excellent psychiatrist taught me about phobias: A person who has high anxiety has a brain that would like to relieve him or her of this distress by attaching fear to something in order to be fear-free whenever they aren't around this "something". Ex: You are in a room with your anxiety level high and you are miserable. Your anxiety is trying to attach itself to something and you become afraid of, say...doorknobs...you let it attach itself and give in to the fear of doorknobs. You do this because now as long as you don't see or aren't near a doorknob, you can be comfortable because your anxiety drops down to near normal. You're fine about 97% of the time. But when you must use a doorknob, your phobia kicks in and your anxiety is unbearable and you can't use the doorknob (or fly, climb heights, make quick but thoughtful financial decisions, work around toxic parents, etc.) Make sense?

Toxic parents: parents who aren't healthy for us because of their unhealthy way of communicating with us, treating us, understanding us, and generally unhealthy relationship with us. At this time, your anxiety is treating your parents as toxic. Are they really? Well, the things you've related about them and your dysfunction (paralysis) around them suggests they are toxic to you at this time. With appropriate medication AND counseling, you might be able to undo this and be able to work around them, possibly.

Ideas you asked for: You need to be able to recognize that they may never understand your anxiety disorder and be able to set aside their comments about it as coming from people who haven't "been there, felt that" and have no idea what it's like for you. It would be GREAT, a real PLUS, if our parents understood us but it isn't NECESSARY for us to be able to function. It would be GREAT if they understood what healthy and significant things counseling can do for you, but it isn't NECESSARY for you to be able to profit greatly from counseling. And working elsewhere? You probably need that medication I mentioned working for you at the right dosage to reduce your anxiety levels and to conquer that problem.

After effective counseling and medical management, you may one day handle these challenges without major stress and come to a less stressful state in life in general and even have hope of getting off any benzodiazepine as I have. IF you ever go on one. ;o) My point is that your life can improve tremendously down the road and your anxiety levels go down to a very low level and stay there for years.

I also have been able to come to a truce with my perfectionism by giving in to it where I like having it and letting go of perfectionist standards in other areas that really don't require it. A truce, not a cure! It's an ongoing process for me. I hope this helps, and please take care of you! Blessings...

[BookwormGypsophila in reply to BonnieSue]

Thank you so much for your reply and for taking the time to give such detailed explanation.

I actually became quite emotional reading this because for the first time in my life I feel that there is someone out there that understands what I'm going through and that I'm not some weird alien incapable of basic life skills.

Even with the idea of my parents being toxic was something I really struggled to understand because I had no idea that people could become toxic at a particular moment in time, which made it something I was reluctant to speak to anyone about.

I'm still trying to adjust here in this new country and trying to understand what help is available in regards to mental health but I will speak to a doctor in regards to medication and counselling as soon as I find out if its available here or as soon as I go back to the UK.

Thank you once again for shedding light on this mysterious GAD in my life and for making me breathe a little easier today.🧡🧡🧡

[BonnieSue in reply to BookwormGypsophila]

Anytime! Glad I could help.

[Lostpurpose]

Oh boy do I relate with the toxic parent. I too went year after year working with my father trying to tell myself any positive thing I could that might keep his negativity towards me at a minimum. I dont know what diagnosis i would have, can't afford mental treatment. Have some meds. Finally at 30 years i realized I was just going to kill myself if I stayed working with him. I walked out. I won't tell you it's been better. I will tell you its been different. At least for me, the different stress is refreshing for now. I read books. I'm looking for work. If you ever need a friend whos worked with parents, I'm here.

[BookwormGypsophila in reply to Lostpurpose]

I'm glad it got better for you. For me its just a matter of staying with them for a year right now and going back to finish my studies and hopefully as our family's situation improve things with them improve too because they really didnt use to be like this.. after that year away is when I'll have to decide... also thanks for replying

[rach1402]

Some people just don't get it so talk to people who do. Is it absolutely necessary for you to live with your parents? I wouldn't be able to handle that. Do you have any other options, eg staying with friends/other relatives til you can get your own place? Do you have any help currently with managing your anxiety, eg therapy and or medication?

[BookwormGypsophila]

Right now I have no option but to live with my parents, but as I said to lost purpose its just for 1 year for now I'll have to decide when I come back from my studies. As I'm in a new country I don't really know the help available here and can't really go to the doctor at the moment, I have turned to self help for now with guided meditation, reading on the topic and joining this group.

Because I've been dismissed so much I struggle to open up and talk to people for fear of being dismissed again or being labelled as an attention seeker. If I do happen to mention my past anxiety attacks in a conversation I laught about them to not make them sound serious. I even struggle with doctors because I dont think they'll believe me unless its really bad, the only time I was able to go to the doctor was when it got so bad that I acted on my intrusive thoughts of self harm and went to the GP in tears. Luckily at the time I was able to get the help I needed and stopped the behaviour from the beginning, but right now its just me trying to manage it by myself.