Hello!

I’m a 30 year old male living with my wife on a 3rd world country. We have no help from our families and we’ve been through some very difficult times, but we managed to get by. My wife had a severe case of depression and even tried to take her own life at a point.

Now things got a little better, even though we are in a tight financial situation. We both feel a lot better and we even managed to get off our meds (it’s nice to be able to save the money and get rid of the side-effects).

But, there is something weird that came as a consequence of all those bad times. Whenever I receive a text message from my wife, my heart races and my anxiety goes through the roof. It’s an irrational fear that the message will be bad news.

I don’t really know if there is such a thing as “text phobia”, but that’s how it feels (english is not my main language, so it’s kinda hard to explain). I alread mentioned this to my wife and I think it made her feel bad because she thinks it’s her fault. Of course I said it’s not her fault, but now I’m kinda afraid to bring this up again with her. We both are trying so hard to be strong for each other.

I wonder if anyone else had a similar problem and I would be very grateful if someone could give me some tips on how to work on this problem.

Thanks a lot and I hope you have a great day.

  • Ignacio@kbin.social
    1·
    1 year ago

    10 years ago I started hanging out with a group of friends. I knew 3 of them since I went to high school, and I was in good terms with them at that time. And it was the most abusive experience I’ve ever passed through. Everything I said, even the most insignificant one, leaded into harsh messages by them on WhatsApp, to the point that I didn’t even read any message in fear that I could suffer an unimaginable psychological pain. Even I had goosebumps when my phone vibrated because I thought it was them, when it was just a random appointment notification or other stuff. And online too, especially when I was on Reddit, every time I wrote something, I had panic attacks when the bell showed me a notificacion. I can’t tell how much time that situation lasted because I don’t really know, but after leaving those scenarios, receiving my ADHD diagnosis and taking medication, that fear eventually disappeared.