5 Practical Steps To Explain Anxiety To Your Partner

It is really tough to live with anxiety and anxious thoughts, especially when your partner doesn’t understand what you’re going through.

Follow this guide to explain your emotions and mental state to your partner in a way they will understand.

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• The Impact Of Anxiety
• Types Of Anxiety
• Anxiety Symptoms
• It’s Difficult To Live With Someone That Has Anxiety
• How To Explain Anxiety to Your Partner
• How To Deal With Anxiety

I was officially diagnosed with depression and anxiety when I was 23. But, looking back, I had anxiety symptoms from my school days already.

Anxiety is a constant battle for me and one that kicked into overdrive when I became a mom.

The Impact Of Anxiety

Your anxiety can become all-consuming and have far-reaching consequences.

It impacts your relationship with your romantic partner, other family members, baby, best friend or friends, and yourself.

A lot of people don’t understand the big deal around the anxiety issues you’re going through, which causes:

• You feel isolated and alone.
• Misunderstandings or fights happen.
• And you don’t get the support you need.

It’s a good idea to discuss how to explain your situation to your loved ones, but first, let’s get a common understanding of anxiety.

Types Of Anxiety

Mental health professionals have divided anxiety into these different anxiety disorders:

Social Anxiety Disorder

Social anxiety (or people’s anxiety) is a type of anxiety where you struggle to cope with social situations or social events.

You get overwhelmed by:

• The number of people present.
• How you should act around people.
• What to say when someone speaks to you.
• What to wear and do.
• And what is “socially acceptable” or not.

You can suffer from social anxiety in particular circumstances — like public speaking — or whenever other people are around you.

Panic Disorder

You have a panic disorder when you suffer from episodes of anxiety attacks (panic attacks). During these episodes:

• You feel overwhelming fear.
• You experience heart palpitations.
• You have difficulty breathing.
• And you experience chest pain.

Anything can trigger an anxiety attack, particularly when you are feeling extreme stress.

Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD)

PTSD can develop after a particularly shocking event or an event where you experienced extreme physical harm or were threatened with severe bodily harm.

Typical examples of events that trigger PTSD include:

• Personal assault.
• Military combat.
• The unexpected death of a loved one.
• Natural disasters.

Traumatic birth experiences can also cause the mother to suffer from PTSD.

Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder (OCD)

You suffer from OCD when you have repeated, unwanted thoughts. Often people that suffer from OCD develop repetitive behaviours such as hand washing or flipping light switches in an attempt to keep these thoughts away.

Generalized Anxiety Disorder (GAD)

GAD is when you suffer from chronic anxiety, stress, worry and tension even when there is nothing to trigger these feelings.

These different types of anxiety are not exclusive — you can suffer from one or more of these at the same time.

Anxiety Symptoms

Typical signs of anxiety include:

• You over analyse everything.
• You question every decision you make.
• You try to plan ahead as much as possible.
• You overreact when something doesn’t go according to plan.
• There are thoughts constantly running through your head.
• You have difficulty sleeping or falling asleep.
• You always feel on edge.
• You have anxious thoughts where you can’t help imagining the worst outcomes for various situations.
• You’re very indecisive, afraid to commit to one thing in case the other choices are better.

Physical symptoms of anxiety include:

• Racing or pounding heart.
• Sweaty palms.
• A tremor in your hands.
• Wringing your hands.
• Unable to sit still.

It’s Difficult To Live With Someone That Has Anxiety

When you have an anxious partner, but you have never experienced anxiety yourself, it’s challenging to understand your partner’s behaviour.

Relationships are hard work under the best circumstances but add in mental health issues, and it gets even more complicated.

It can often lead to lots of fights and misunderstandings.

One of the hardest things to understand is why something that seems insignificant to others feels like an insurmountable problem to you.

So it’s a real challenge to explain what you’re going through in a way your partner understands.

And the last thing you want is conflict that will add to your condition.

How To Explain Anxiety To Your Partner

Here are the steps I’ve used that worked the most effectively.

Step 1: Use Real Examples

My husband is someone that needs actual, real-life examples to truly grasp my explanation of my anxious moments.

So use a recent example or incident and explain how you felt and what you were going through.

Emphasise that even though it seems like nothing to your partner — and maybe, looking back, you realise it was nothing — at the time, you felt overwhelmed and like you couldn’t cope.

Explain it’s something you can’t control, that even though you know you’re not acting rationally, you can’t help your feelings or emotions.

For example:

We have to register my son at pre-school. The registration form is 21 pages long (!), and they need all sorts of information.

Even just thinking about it causes panic to rise in my throat.

So I explained to my husband that it felt like too much, it was overwhelming, and I needed help. I told him I couldn’t help this overwhelming feeling, and I couldn’t just wish it away.

He ended up helping me with the registration form, and once we started, it was easy to continue.

Step 2: Describe Your Thought Processes And Emotions

You can also explain what you’re going through by giving a blow-by-blow account of your thought processes.

This will help someone else understand why it’s so easy for you to get overwhelmed.

For example:

Same as above, we need to register my son at pre-school. My thought processes go:

• Ok, it’s time for him to go to school.
• He looks ready.
• What if he isn’t ready?
• Oh God, I’m going to ruin my child forever.
• Will he make friends?
• Will the teachers treat him fairly?
• I won’t be there to protect my son!
• What if he doesn’t need me anymore?
• How do I register him for primary school? (which is three years away!)
• What primary school is a good school?
• Oh crap, I’m going to have to be part of mommy chat groups.
• …and so it goes on.

All these thoughts happen in what seems a millisecond, and suddenly, I’m paralysed with indecision and overwhelm.

I’m sure you have many such thoughts and emotions you can use to explain to your partner.

And remember: emphasise that you can’t help or prevent these thoughts or the corresponding emotions.

Step 3: Explain How Your Emotions Triggered A Fight

When you experience anxiety, you often either:

• Freeze response — you don’t do anything because you’re too overwhelmed. The other person might get upset because they expected you to act and didn’t.
• Fight response 1 — you ask for help and get upset when the other person doesn’t want to or can’t help.
• Fight response 2 — you get upset because the other person doesn’t automatically help or take over responsibility, even though you haven’t asked for help.
• Fight or flight response — you get upset that the other person doesn’t understand what you’re going through or thinks you are faking it. You either fight about it, or you process it internally. This will lead to a fight eventually.

So when you are in a place to talk rationally to your partner, go through steps one and two above, and then take it a step further to put it in context as to why it caused a fight — or your unhappiness.

For example:

Back to the previous example of registering my son for pre-school.

The registration form sat in my inbox for days before I dared to face it.

My husband could have gotten very annoyed with me (luckily, he didn’t) but say he did, and it led to a fight.

So later, I would talk to him and, after following steps 1 and 2, explain that due to my overwhelm and anxiety, I couldn’t face the registration form and didn’t know how to ask for help.

I would explain that I could understand why he was frustrated — he couldn’t read my thoughts, after all.

Step 4: Clarify Your Frustration

I’ve mentioned this a few times, but be sure to explain to your partner that you are just as frustrated by the situation as they are.

In fact, when you know you’re not acting normal or rationally but can’t do anything to prevent it, it often contributes to anxiety.

Step 5: Explain What You Need From Them

I can imagine it’s pretty frustrating living with someone suffering from anxiety.

It must be frustrating to understand the situation but be helpless to change anything.

Some partners, however, could just simply not believe you or could discount how serious the situation is.

So close the conversation by saying all you need is support and understanding — not judgement or a dismissive attitude.

A negative attitude toward you and your mental health will only contribute to the problem and won’t solve or help anything.

Putting It All Together

For my pre-school example, I would approach my husband as follows:

• Step 1: Use the fight we had about the registration form as an example to give context to the conversation.
• Step 2: Describe my thoughts and emotions.
• Step 3: Explain to him that due to my overwhelm and anxiety, I couldn’t face the registration form and didn’t know how to ask for help. I would explain that I could understand why he was frustrated.
• Step 4: Clarify to him that I don’t want to be like this, that it’s just as frustrating to me as it is to him.
• Step 5: Apologise and ask for support and understanding.

How To Deal With Anxiety

To have a productive conversation with your partner about your illness is a good thing, but it’s like putting a plaster over a bullet wound.

The most important thing is getting professional help for your mental health condition.

Anxiety disorder symptoms can take over and ruin your life.

But mental health professionals are trained to know the appropriate treatment to help you.

I can tell you from first-hand experience: It may take a long time, but once the treatment kicks in and the noise in your head dies down, you feel at peace.

All the little things that used to bother you will no longer seem so important.

You only really know how bad the situation was once you get better.

Anxiety issues are common, and it’s nothing to be ashamed of. And it takes a strong person to admit they need help — it’s not a sign of weakness.

So take charge of your own mental health, and get the help you deserve.