I've found this thread really helpful to read through. Useful to hear peoples experiences and what they are doing to help their mental health. I've had issues for as long as I can remember with what I class as high funtioning anxiety. I've always come across as a bit shy maybe even boring but these have been traits on how I've managed to deal with my mental health. I can sometimes go months without feeling down. I'm very much an introvert and find social situations with people I don't know well stressful and mentally draining. It's not too bad when I'm in social situations on my own as I can leave if it gets too much. It's much worse if I'm out with my wife to somewhere I feel socially awkward. I feel guilty dragging her home after a few hours when I feel mentally depleated. Thankfully I'm not in these situations too often.
My main issue is a form of seperation anxiety which mainly occurs when my wife is on a night out with her friends. We've been maried for 9 years and have complete trust in her so it's not like I'm worried that she's out firting with other men or anything like that. If I have enough notice that she's going out and know roughly when to expect her home I'm able to mentally prepare for it. I can find things to do for x hours and keep the negative thoughts that something bad will happen out of my head. My anxiety flairs up when something comes up for her at short notice or when she goes out and doesn't know when she'll be back.
The last time this happend was a month ago. We went to a quiz night, I was on a team with a few guys, I didn't really know and she was on a team with her friends (mums of our kids friends). I was completly expecting to do the quiz and then go home togher once it had finished as her mum was babysitting. When it finished their group decided to go to the local pub to carry on the night, they were getting quite merry by this point! I could have gone with them but decided to go home because I didn't want my mother-in-law to be up too late and that I didn't fancy going to the pub with all the mums. She said she wouldn't stay out too late so I was reasonably alright about it. Midnight passed a couple of hours later and still no sign of her. I was gettting tired and started to let all these negative thoughts that something bad will happen to her enter my head, my watch alerted me that my heart rate topped 120bpm sitting still and I started panicing. Tried calling her mobile several times but she didn't hear it to pick up. Not my finest move but next I phoned the pub she was at to get hold of her. Ironically she already had her coat on and was just about to head home anyway (no reason not to believe this as she was home soon after). She wesn't best pleased as it was undersatandably a bit embarassing for her being called over to take a call. Looking back on it I feel a bit silly as it shouldn't have been a big deal.
As I'm writing this I feel my level of anxiety starting to creep up. On Saturday she's going out for lunch with her mum friends and going to the pub after. A couple of the group are well known to get wasted and stay out all night where as the others range all the way down to going home immedately after the lunch. My wife is somewhere inbetween but the frustrating thing is that she's been unable to tell me roughly when she'll be back, it depends on what the others are doing. I find it difficult to sleep when she's out so my biggest fear is being awake half the night and having to do most of the childcare in the morning while she's feeling rough. In reality she'll probably be home before midnight and everything will be fine but it's the not knowing which I find difficult to cope with.
If she was out all the time I would really struggle but it's only once or twice a month and most of the time I know when she'll be back so I can get my head into the right place. So 99% of the time I'm completely fine. However right now there's a fight going in in my head trying to push out any negative thoughts. As long as I don't have a row with her, all will be fine again on Sunday.
To be honest I'm not sure why I'm writing my thoughts, nobody is going to have the magic bullet to "cure" me but it helped me think a bit clearer having written it all down.
How did I manage that? Must've double tapped back.