attachment anxiety

[jamcherries]

I would like to know if anyone here has experience in dealing with a type of anxiety related to being physically/socially cut off from people.

 

The story is that I work from home, and have little human contact during the day. I share the place I live with a friend who works in an office. My problem has two elements: first, that for years I've avoided dealing with things that needed to be done (often for my own benefit, and often not difficult things) which I can't explain, but it seems to be linked to overwhelming anxiety I experience after a certain length of time out of human contact.

 

For example, I might spend the day being productive and getting things done in good spirits. But at the end of the day, when I would expect to contact my friend to meet up with her after work, if there's no answer and I don't know why I begin to feel an irrational and overwhelming anxiety. I try to distract myself but it becomes more and more 'foregrounded' in my consciousness. The urge for contact becomes almost physically painful.

 

Then, the call will arrive, and the message may be something like 'sorry, but I couldn't call you back until I'd put credit on the phone, so I'll see you in a couple of hours' etc. My dread/anxiety disappears and I feel I'm myself again. I always minimise the feeling, I'll respond: "no problem, I guessed you might be late returning" etc. I'm embarrassed about revealing a weakness. It's a weird and childish scary feeling and I'm not sure what I can do about it.

 

I've tried discussing it with different friends but I'm pretty sure they don't know what I mean. For example, the avoidant aspect is completely irrational: ie, I was given some money in a relative's will, but I didn't pay the money in to my account for months, even though I needed the money to pay bills and couldn't afford not to have it available. By contrast, in my 'healthy' self I am balanced and rational; my previous partners described me as being calm, so it seems I have hidden this successfully.

 

 

One friend had heard of a type of brief intervention cognitive therapy that might help with this, but she didn't know more. I have in the past had the open-ear form of counselling, which was not helpful, and my own attempts to get better by working on my health and diet etc do not seem to affect this.

 

Any suggestions welcome.

[mohdhm]

i hate it when i've overcome something like this, but can't give a fellow man some advice on overcoming it as well. I will try though.

 

tips: ALWAYS give the benefit of the doubt (when dealing with friends)

minimizing your feeling is good, you do not want people to think that you are needy or anxious. not caring is your goal.

 

know that people have their own lives, and life just happens. You need to get out and make some more friends, play more sports... be the type of guy where managing friends, work, and hobbies, and your life in general is overwhelming in a good way. By experiencing this, maybe you will learn to give other people the benefit of the doubt, or not make it a big deal if you miss the call or whatever.

[skydiveaddict]

Just get the hell out of the house after work man. Go for a run, anything. Pick up a new hobby where you will meet lots of new people. (I can think of one in particular),join a gym, there are lots of opportunities, just go grab them . You are making it harder on yourself than it needs to be

[BiAxident]

A psychologist might tell you that your anxiety stems from worrying about your attachment to your parents as a child, which doesnt do you much good now. A psychiatrist might tell you that your anxiety is the result of a lack of 'happy' chenicals in your brain that are produced when you are in proximity with other people, which might possibly be supplimented with medication?

 

Personally, I would try following Sky's advice, get out of the house and go somewhere that many people will be (gym, bookstore, bar, museum, etc)

[jamcherries]

thanks for the replies so far.

My situation is clearly related to living a lifestyle that doesn't fit me - I'm not temperamentally a hermit; I need frequent, engaging social contact to prevent crankiness. I had a good friend visit this weekend and I began to find ways to discuss this. Part of it is about living precariously in a big city - he too had had enough of the place after a year or so.

 

skydiveaddict: "You are making it harder on yourself than it needs to be" - Yes, it's true. I've been told this before, but I'm somehow unable to understand why that should be. As biaxident says: "A psychologist might tell you that your anxiety stems from worrying about your attachment to your parents as a child, which doesnt do you much good now." Yes, this is also well put: I have a good relationship with my mother (who had alcoholism and depression when I was young), and so I don't know in what way counselling would unroot this feeling-pattern. Perhaps an analogy would be that of having an unbalanced, overloaded feeling-metabolism.

 

[i have sometimes had good effects from supplementing taurine: less fragmented energy, greater calm.]

 

I've been taking the advice of setting up meetings with people (today three hours of French/English exchange), and would like any other ideas about that. I am seeking part-time work as a means, as most connections here seem to be formed through work: at least in this city, you don't meet new people in cafes/bars/bookstores/museums. The social networking aspect dominates.

 

mohdhm: "give other people the benefit of the doubt" - this is good advice too. A lot of these social problems make one far too concerned about how one's ego is being perceived by others - in anxiety one loses the sense that the other probably doesn't have something against you, and that one's feeling is partly an anticipatory defence.

 

Thanks again, and any more thoughts would be welcome too...