Paranoia, Anxiety, and Depression

It seems like everyone these days can lay claim to possessing various mental health issues. I suppose I can join their ranks; to get an accommodation for school, I talked to my counselor (the feelings and emotions kind, for those who, like me, always get the two mixed up). I read his diagnosis, and he said I had mild depression.

I thought I had anxiety!

I suppose the two go hand in hand–you might become depressed after you realize all the things you could have done today but didn’t because you were so anxious about doing them all.

I noticed today I noticed how this impacted my romantic relationships.

I know, I’m sorry. If you’re like me, you’ve probably groaned about how this is another hormonal and mopey blog about dating life with anxiety. Please stick with me.

I need you.

And that’s part of my problem.

My first girlfriend helped me realize the extent of my issues, but I don’t think she truly intended to do so, and I don’t think I was ready to hear it even if she did. She did give me a very valuable nugget of information; If you enjoy human taxonomies such as the Meyers-Briggs sixteen personalities or the four color codes, then you might also enjoy classifying humans into attachment styles.

[I’ll do the research later on who said what–when I write these posts, I want you to know that I do so off-the-cuff, in the spur of the moment.]

The attachment style she told me she thought I fit was anxiety attachment. I didn’t realize how right she was until after we had broken up, a few more failed attempts at relationships, leaving the LDS church, and getting engaged to my current fiancee. I would obsess over every text, thinking what to say, wondering if at the next moment I was going to get rejected, because I based everything off of my experiences, and if I got ignored, that is usually what was happening; rejection. Or so I thought.

But I would get anxious, and imagine that I was rejected, and come to find out I had just spammed them with messages while they were in the shower. In fact, I think most of the reason it took me so long to get into a healthy relationship is the fact that I drove so many people away from my anxiety to be in a relationship.

I stopped dating for a while, had a mid-life crisis, and then came back from it, ready to date. I realized that I would find someone who would just love me for me, and that I shouldn’t have to try so damn hard to satisfy someone else’s expectations. I also felt like, after years of substituting my loneliness with porn and video games, I might as well start actually doing the things that the video games and porn were playing out; I wanted to have sex and go on epic adventures.

So I spammed the internet, and ironically ended up finding true love when I was just looking to get laid…

I answered a ton of questions on OK Cupid. I don’t think that works for everyone. But It worked out for me. Sandi and I were a 98% match (after 300+ questions), and we had actually matched previously several months before, but I was still practicing LDS and she wasn’t, and I had deleted the app (not for religious reasons), and somehow managed to find her again. I felt like that was a sign enough, so I asked her out. The rest is history.

I really wasn’t looking for a hook up, but I definitely was tired of false-celibacy, i.e. porn. Our relationship was everything I ad been looking for. Adventure. Sexual freedom. Religious freedom. Intellectual freedom. Freedom in every way, except maybe with finances, but that was expected. You can’t spend every penny that you have and expect your future wife to be comfortable with that.

Now you might think, “Aww, that’s so cute.”

But I didn’t realize how hard relationships were. And the anxiety I thought I had taken care of just got worse. I keep/kept having strong anxiety attacks centering around the concept that I felt/feel like she was cheating on me. There was no real premise for this argument; hell, our apartment doesn’t even have a back door, and we’re dead if a fire starts because none of the window screens can be popped off. And she stays really busy throughout the day, making bread, planning out her new career, our wedding, yadda yadda yadda. There was no time for a soiree with another beau. I am the main show in her life right now.

I have been acting irrational. Anxious. Paranoid.

I started writing.

And here I am.

I wish to acknowledge to myself that I know that I am experiencing an irrational emotion. I have decided that instead of acting out my paranoia and putting up cameras everywhere, I will become a better person to where she would never want to leave me. I want to be the man she wants to spend the rest of her life with.

And she doesn’t! I’m the nutcase who’s afraid of a hypothetical that is not even close to the truth. Would a woman who cheats on you make a hot breakfast for you every day before you go to work? Would she greet you when you got home with a smile and a kiss? Would she pack your lunches and write you love notes and tell you how much she loves you? Sustaining an illusion like this for so long seems to be wasted effort if she really wanted to be with someone else.

I’m just the luckiest bastard in the universe.

I am in love with a woman who loves me back.