If Your Partner Has Anxiety, Here’s What Their Brain Is Like

There’s a lot going on right now. Let me prep you.

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Full disclosure: I wrote most of this in the middle of an actual anxiety attack. Welcome to the party. There are crudites and fruit on the table. Let me know if we’re running low on ice.

I’m not sure which one is harder: being in a relationship when you have anxiety or being in a relationship with someone who has anxiety. Either way, things can be absolutely amazing one day and a storm of confusion the next. You might be able to feel something building but when you’re in the middle of the storm it’s too late to go back. The best you can do is weather it.

People with anxiety are great people. We’re often empathetic, kind, and giving. We are worthy of love and crave it. We also know that when you don’t have anxiety and your partner does, understanding what’s happening and why is incredibly difficult.

We’re not trying to be difficult. We want to be cool, calm, and breezy. Going with the flow sounds amazing. Some days though, that’s like asking a fish not to swim.

I figured the best time to try to explain the storm is when one is pouring rain on my head.

In order to better understand your partner, let me shed some light on what it’s like to have an anxiety attack and what you can do.

We’ve been triggered by something. The problem is that we have often no idea what it is. This is why we don’t always see it coming. My attacks start the same way: I sweat, my heart races, and I shake my hands a lot. By the time I get to this point, I can’t pull the nose of the plane up.

I know I have triggers and it’s half the battle. Tomorrow, when I feel better, I will sit down and look back on everything that happened in the last few days, everything that was said to me, and try to make sense of it. I can’t do this right now. It’s too much. It’s like trying to sing an opera with laryngitis. Ain’t gonna happen.

It’ll take me two days after the dust has settled before I figure it out. From there, I sort through patterns and come up with plans on how to stop the train from…