Supporting a person with any kind of anxiety disorder is a bit of a controversial role in my eyes. On one side it’s extremely rewarding. Your efforts and maybe even your sheer presence makes another person feel better, for which you’ll be appreciated big time. On the other side however, your life might be full of worries and doubts. Whether the other person will be ok when you are not with them. If you are doing a good job at all in helping. Why your support is not enough for complete healing? What if one day you need to leave…
Are you more supportive in case you hug and feel sorry for your partner in difficult situations, or is it a better kind of support if you say ‘get yourself together, you must be strong now!’. At the end of the day you just want to help, but who knows if that kind of help is the right kind of help in the shitstorm your partner is experiencing.
Unfortunately there is no golden rule here. So, I won’t pretend I can give you the best advice ever, I can only share when someone was successful in making me feel better and when they weren’t. These techniques will probably not work equally well with everyone. We are extremely different in how we experience panic, so it’s no surprise that our needs in those situations are different.
In case you are a Helper reading this article now, please read it with a critical mindset. Even better, after having gone through it, try to discuss it with your partner. They might not agree with all of the techniques here, but this can be a good way to start a conversation about your role in their anxiety. The point is, hopefully you’ll become an even better Helper afterwards.
Patience, always
I’m sure you hear these and similar phrases way too often: ‘I can’t do this’, ‘I’m not feeling well’, ‘I don’t know what’s happening to me’, ‘I’m too scared’, ‘Please don’t leave me here now’, ‘I’m not getting on this bus’ etc.
No matter how many times you have heard these, you should never show you got bored of them or that you don’t take these seriously anymore. Saying ‘Honey, I’ve heard this so many times, I don’t care.’ or ‘Cut the crap, we are leaving with that bus no matter your whining.’ will probably hurt your partner very much.
Just because s/he has an anxiety disorder, they are not stupid. They realize they panicked before and they are still alive. Still, when they are in panic, they do feel that the world is collapsing around them and they can’t breath and everything is scary, no matter how many times they survived panic attacks before.
Try not to lose you patience in these situations, take them always seriously and show them that in one way or another, you do realize that there is a situation there the two of you need to handle somehow.
Therapy is king
Try to encourage your partner as much as possible (without becoming annoying or hostile) to attend therapy. Talk about it as a totally normal necessity at some phases in life, which it is. Avoid the ‘You need a therapist, you have to be cured.’ kind of phrases. Therapy is extremely useful in many ways, and it’s best if the person attends because s/he wants some change, not because they are forced to.
No matter how knowledgeable you are in psychology, don’t try to become their therapist. It’s simply not your role and it can have lots of negative effects both on your relationship and on your partner’s healing process.
Be there for them
While you cannot, and shouldn’t be with your partner every minute of every day, it’s important that they know they can count on you. I couldn’t say how to define the situations where your actual physical presence is required, but in really bad moments it’s best not to leave your partner alone, even if you’d have something more fun to do.
Not being with your partner physically doesn’t mean you cannot be there for them. Something like this along your ‘goodbye’ could be really useful: Hey, I’m leaving now, but I’ll check my phone often and in case there’s any kind of problem, you can always call me.’
Again, people with anxiety are not stupid, they know just as much as you do that both of you have phones and you are able to communicate. However, by adding this one sentence to the goodbye kiss will make your partner feel much safer, resulting in smaller chance of panic and so smaller chance of calling eventually.
The message here is that with the help of little gestures you can still be there for your partner, even when you are not with them physically.
'Poor you' vs 'Get yourself together'
Coming soon…
Coming soon...
Coming soon…