What Triggered The Anxiety?

When the doctor asked me what triggered my anxiety I wasn’t quite sure what to tell him.  I knew exactly what it was but how was I supposed to explain to him that my husband got drunk one night and decided to threaten me (which he had never done before) and it triggered memories of my abusive stepfather.

I wasn’t prepared to answer tons of questions about what’s been going on between my husband and I.  Truth is he has never been “suggestive” abusive.  Sure he gets angry but I have never felt threatened.  I blamed it on the booze and swept it under the rug.

My husband agreed to quit drinking and so far hasn’t touched a drop.  That was a month ago.

When I met my husband he was sober and for 6 of the 7 years we have been together he was sober.  And even when I have seen him drunk he had never once been a mean drunk…not ever.  So I am still baffled as to why on this particular Sunday he decided to turn into a real douche bag.

I know we had been having a lot of problems because I wasn’t wanting to by intimate as much mostly due to the fact that I had been on anti-depressants for so long that they had suppressed everything.  I didn’t care about anything except just getting through the daily routine of life so that I could go to bed.

I started to like the fact that he was gone working all the time so that I wouldn’t have to deal with him constantly nagging me about sex.  Sometimes I think that the fact he nagged me all the time about it was the reason I was so withdrawn from him.  I could feel myself endlessly thinking to myself, “Why don’t you just play a little hard to get buddy?”.  And when he would drink it would be even worse.  And somehow I was supposed to have sex with someone who could barely stand up.

After that particular Sunday I tried everything I could to get the anxiety under control.  I tried meditating, yoga, chamomile tea, hot baths, lots of breathing exercises but nothing worked.  I wasn’t eating, I couldn’t sit still, I couldn’t focus, and the only reason I was sleeping was because of Ambien.  Like I seriously couldn’t wait to take the Ambien so that I could finally get some relief and relax enough to fall asleep.  But I didn’t stay asleep…I would sleep for 4 or 5 hours and then wake up in a state of pure panic.

It was ruining me.

Finally after 3 weeks of it I had had enough and went to the doctor.  I also joined the gym.  The meds make me a little loopy but the gym gives me back my energy and the state of panic, although it isn’t gone, is at a controllable state.