Anxious of being alone but hate being dependent

Hi everyone. It seems that my anxiety has been getting worse.. I have PTSD from a break-in years ago and it makes me anxious to be home alone even though I live in a safe neighborhood with proper security measures taken. I live with my boyfriend and he works until 9:00pm. Most days he comes straight home but about once a month he’l go out to a late dinner/drinks with his coworkers like a “late happy hour” since he’s new to his company and the area and wants to make friends. Every time he is gone I am so anxious to be alone at night when he’s out. I work from home and no matter if I go out earlier that day or see friends, etc when I am home alone from 9pm to let’s say about midnight, I am constantly anxious with lots of adrenaline. I can’t seem to fall asleep until he’s back home. Sometimes I curl up in a ball and just cry. It’s usually the weekday like a Weds and I work the next day and everyone I know goes to sleep early for work the next day. Does anyone have any ideas on what I can do on those nights where I am home alone? I hate feeling dependent and wish I could just relax or fall asleep and not guilt trip him into coming home earlier.

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So this is going to come down to facing your fears a bit. You will need to find things to help sooth yourself while he is out. So maybe make a safe place in your home that you can go to when you feel stressed out. You can double check that all your safety measures are in place and you can work on combating the thoughts in your head that are telling you that you are not safe. But the biggest thing is combating the panic that you feel. So for the immediate help your best bet is to learn as many grounding techniques as you can. I will link a site after this with many recommendations. The goal is to reduce the panic and get you out of the FFF response. Once you are calm enough you can start to rationalize your thoughts from there. You may have to stay up on those days until midnight until you can get comfortable enough to sleep because it will take time to work on that. If you are not in therapy I would highly recommend it as this is something that could seriously impact your life later. I want to validate that I don't think it's a guilt trip to talk to your partner about this and to look to him for comfort but I will say that it's not good to take away his opportunity at making friends. It is never okay to limit your SO like that. Unfortunately most of this burden falls on your shoulders as there is very little your partner can do aside from offer emotional support. You will have to work through your trauma and figure out a way past it. Again, I highly recommend therapy if you are not already in it. EMDR would be great for something like this. I want to validate also that this isn't easy. You have a horrible event happen that traumatized you. It's never easy to deal with trauma and so you are valid in having it impact you. But again, no one can make it better for you. That is work you have to put in, especially if you don't want to be dependent. For right now there here is that link of grounding techniques to see if any of them help you, and I hope that you are able to work through this. You are stronger than you think.

healthline.com/health/groun...

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Very helpful! Thank you for taking the time to type all of this up!

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Of course. I hope you can start to feel better soon. It's tough and even the smallest steps count towards progress. Be kind to yourself first and foremost.

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Hi there...I too have become very anxious being alone. My hubby works 2 jobs so I can b home due to neck injury an now extreme health anxiety. I fear I will have a heart attack or stroke due to very high b.p an anxiety like I've never experienced. He's away from 9 to 1030 at night n believe me I understand yr fear an it can b a very long stressful day. Do u have an animal? My golden retreiver is a big help just even petting them an having another warm body helps me as well as putting headphones on an listening to upbeat fav songs an sing along! As I've gotten into coloring as well anything to distract yr brain from the panic FFF response or even just getting up an cleaning, baking etc distracts u. Believe that your home/apartment is safe an truly believe that after securing everything! Sometimes our partners can't really understand our anxiety an why we can't just turn it off but mine now realizes whatever he thinks to me this is real an a valid fear to me! Maybe try n talk to your partner an explain it an he might come around an u won't have to worry about asking him to rush home after work every night. It's something only u can do as they don't always understand. I hope this helps cause I know what your going through an it's brutal. I'm here to chat if need be...good luck it's a constant process.

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This is truly such a helpful post. Thank you for brightening my day. It feels nice to know I’m not alone. I do have a dog. He does help but he’s a small dog so not as much presence as a golden retriever. we’ve been thinking about getting a second dog actually. I did get into coloring for a bit so I’ll try that again. Aside from that I deff need more hobbies and things to keep busy with! I want to help manage my anxiety as opposed to have him change his schedule to manage mine. Thank you for being helpful and for lending a hand. I just joined this and already it’s been a great decision because of people like you. I’m always here to chat too if you need!

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So glad your finding this site helpful I do too!! If your gonna get another dog I do strongly recommend a golden they r truly the most loving smart loyal dogs I've always had dogs an this one is so special she really does help n give me purpose some days without her would a gave up! Definetly getting into hobbies helps distract yr mind I do crafts too an get back into coloring it's got me out of a few bad anxiety attacks as well. It's a long lonely day alone in yr home all day too much time for yr brain to go places it shouldn't! I've been suffering horrible physical symptoms so if yr not yet please don't get to that point! Glad your following we seen very similar. I will check in on you often. Please take care. Chat anytime day or night u need it!!