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.
Oh boy. You have really been through some rough times, I am so sorry about that. Especially with not having family around for support.
So what you’re describing with texts sounds exactly like what I would experience with anything related to hospitals. My wife has experienced many severe health problems, and even TV shows about the medical world would send me into a tailspin. I would have physical reactions—heart racing, intense fear, etc.
I talked to my doctor about it and he diagnosed me with panic disorder or PTSD from the experiences I had. I was put on medication that helped a ton with panic. I also continued seeing my therapist.
I am not a doctor, but maybe you’re experiencing something similar? I know you don’t want to be on meds, but maybe it’s worth talking to a doc and see what they say?
At any rate wish you the best, these scary feelings are not fun.
Yeah, I think you are right, it may be PTSD. I didn’t think it was PTSD at first because I thought that my experiences weren’t as traumatizing as those war-related PTSD stories that we see a lot online. But now, looking back after some time, I realize how bad things actually were and no one would come out of it unscarred.
Unfortunately I just can’t add any medical expenses now, because money is one of our biggest anxiety causes and this month we are happy because we managed to save up a little. But knowing it may be PTSD can help me look for new ways to deal with it. Thanks a lot for the help.
As someone who’s lost their partner recently, this is exactly right. My favorite shows used to be medical ones and I cannot even see a commercial in a medical setting without getting pulled back to that day instantly. I was diagnosed with Complex PTSD because of the experience.
Sounds like OP has PTSD also. Meds and therapy for him and her, especially couples therapy, would be what’s needed. Don’t know what that looks like in a 3rd world country though.