15 Unconventional Tips About Dating Someone With Anxiety That You Can’t Learn From Books.
Table of Contents
1.How to Support your Partner with Anxiety
Love, the most beautiful thing in the world, starts with one thing: Acceptance. When you accept your partner with whatever they are and are not, then you succeed in the first step of love. For example, dating someone with anxiety demands your full acceptance and some do’s and don’ts. If you have a partner who deals with anxiety, then there are some things you need to learn and unlearn.
Know that it is not difficult to love someone with anxiety – love does surpass any challenge, and anxiety is one of them. You just need to stand true to your ground, and by understanding the situation they are dealing with, you are able to enjoy all the love the relationship has in store for you.
Understand that a mental health condition does not define a person. So, think of anxiety as the third wheel of the relationship. It is you and your partner against anxiety, not you against your partner with anxiety. There’s a huge difference. Once you internalize it, you succeed in growing a successful relationship that you and your partner can cherish together.
If you have someone with panic attacks, emotional aggravation, or social anxiety, go through this article and educate yourself regarding how dating someone with anxiety can be made easy and meaningful.
2. Understand the Condition
You first need to educate yourself on the condition your partner is having. In order to lead a healthy relationship, it is important to consider what it means when your partner says they have anxiety. It is a mental health condition in which an individual faces unhealthy stress, heaps of worry, fear, and nervousness that may be chronic or get triggered.
You might be feeling physical symptoms such as rapid breathing, palpitations, trouble having to concentrate, and much more. It is not under the control of the person to induce the condition themselves. So, when your partner is having those feelings of discomfort, know that they are talking real. In severe attacks of anxiety, a person finds it hard to concentrate on the tasks at hand.
The silver lining to this is that there are countless couples in the world that are living healthy, meaningful relationships, and so can you. Anxiety can be managed and treated. One needs a supportive partner, and open communication resolves a lot of misunderstandings. What’s more, a better understanding of your partner’s triggers and symptoms can help you understand the dynamics well.
3. How to Deal with It
If you have just started dating someone with anxiety, then the situation might be a little overwhelming to you at first. However, true love and empathy ease your way into making it work. Here are some strategies that you can adopt:
It may seem to be a new situation for you to be in a relationship with a person with anxiety disorder. But if you love someone, you will do everything it takes to make it work. How do you do that? Do these coping strategies:
4. Encourage Them to Go to a Therapist
Cognitive Behavioral Therapy, Dialectical Behavioral Therapy, and others are some treatment options under individual therapy that might help your partner with anxiety. It is normal to think that you are supposed to be supportive of your partner. However, you cannot provide them with enough solutions like a professional therapist would.
So, try encouraging them to seek therapy and support them through the sessions.
Having to treat your partner by yourself can be emotionally draining or give rise to conflicts, as there might be a bias in your answers. So, the best way to help them out is to encourage them to go to a professional.
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5. You May Also Need a Therapist
It isn’t the case that your partner is dangerous for your mental health, or you have to swim against the current in order to stay sane when dating someone with anxiety. Rather, going to a professional might help you to look in detail at how you can be of more support to your partner. You might have questions you don’t have answers for. So, speaking to a professional and asking for advice with no bias can help you get supportive enough for your partner.
There are misconceptions that people often believe to be true even though they are cognitive distortions. These cognitive distortions often are based on our core beliefs and that influences our behavior, responses, and our relationships.
6. Improve Your Communication Skills
If you are dating someone with anxiety, then you would be aware that they are prone to overthinking over little things. Therefore, it is highly important that you learn to communicate clearly and openly with no obstructions as it might affect your relationship with them. Any action or any word that you stay quiet about may stir up their bouts of anxiety.
7. Learn about Their Trigger Signs
You also need to look into their triggering signs. Does a certain action you take triggers anxiety in them? Does a general phenomenon that may occur make them anxious? Then, learn your way of how you can minimize those triggers for them in your capacity.
If they do encounter any trigger, be present emotionally and mentally, and be supportive. Don’t try to negate anything. Rather, care for them with reassuring words and be there to listen to them.
8. Be Responsive, Not Reactive
If they face any anxiety or panic attacks, then try being responsive to them in a supportive manner. It might be possible to snap at your partner over them getting anxious, but this will only worsen the situation. Instead, identify the forthcoming emotions from them and prepare yourself mentally to soothe them. This way, you will be able to remain calm during the triggering situation instead of getting reactive and making the situation worse. Don’t shout or do anything that may worsen the case.
9. Set Your Boundaries
It is helpful to be supportive and patient with a partner who experiences anxiety. However, it is important you do set your boundaries. If you don’t set any boundaries, it will only aggravate the situation, causing your relationship to fall apart. Also, it will be emotionally draining for you, and you end up feeling resentment towards your partner. The best way is to set boundaries at the earliest stages of your relationship so that your partner is aware.
10. Take a Break Together
It can be overwhelming to have a routine scheduled up where you and your partner are constantly going through challenges of daily life. A fun hangout here and there every once in a while rekindles the spark in the relationship and helps you two to ease the tension and anxiety at hand. Spend time on something that will make you both happy and enjoy the moment together.
Write down what is challenging and try to narrow down what the important issues are and talk about them together in a calm manner.
This is a book that gives you journal prompts to write in every day that helps with anxiety and allow you to focus on your strengths and positive things.
11. What Not to Do
It is also important to take note of things to avoid while dating someone with anxiety, or it would just worsen the condition and the whole relationship.
12. Don’t Blame Anxiety for Everything
Anxiety does play a huge role in the life of an individual. However, a person is not able to have control of their symptoms in some cases. Therefore, you need to make sure that you can’t blame the anxiety of an individual every time a thing falls apart in your relationship. Sometimes, it could be something else, and sometimes, it might be your mistake. Have a room for open communication.
13. Don’t Ask Them to Just Snap Out of It
You can’t go on saying like, “Calm down” whenever they have anxiety. It shows that you believe what they are feeling is under their control, and they are just making it up. Your partner is aware already that what they are going through is not rational, but it is not something in their control. So, you telling them to have it under their control or saying anything that makes them look like a fool is not going to help.
Also, don’t undermine their feelings by making fun of their fears and worries. They might appear petty to you, but to them, they do hold significant control. So, if you don’t have anything to say, it is better for you to keep quiet.
14. Don’t Become the Know-it-All
It is supportive of you to take your time to research their condition. However, you are not in their shoes, and as a person without anxiety, you don’t really know what it is truly like to be the person living with it. So, acting like you know everything about the condition is not a kind act to do. So, you need to learn to respect your partner and listen to their problems actively instead of trying to shut them up. Many times, they don’t even need your advice. So, be the shoulder they want and don’t impose anything on them.
15. Encourage them to take supplements for their anxiety
There are many supplements that naturally occur in our diets and can be taken on a therapeutic level to cope with anxiety symptoms.
Also, don’t get personally offended if your partner doesn’t want to talk or behaves out of the blue. Rather than getting furious, try understanding their situation and don’t kill your heart over it.
Final Word
By following these points, it will be easier for you to date someone having anxiety. Always remember it is you two against anxiety, not you against your partner with the condition.
Originally posted 2021-12-19 06:31:04.
Megan Santiago
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