How Anxiety is Effecting your Relationships
Anxiety can be hard and exhausting enough trying to manage it on your own. The last thing you want to worry about is how your anxiety is effecting your relationships with those around you. Maybe you think that if you manage it on your own - like you do with so many things - no one will notice. Or you might not even realize how it is effecting your relationships or that certain struggles are a direct result of your anxious thoughts!
As a therapist who specializes in helping women navigate anxiety (as well as in my own life), I’ve seen the variety of ways anxiety can had significant impact on relationships.
Anxiety can create ongoing and overwhelming fears, doubts, and irrational thought spirals that whether you mean for it to or not, creep into and effect the dynamic of those around you - not just a romantic partner.
This is completely normal to some degree and once you gain a greater understanding of how this happens, you are able to take the steps needed to care for yourself, minimize the impact, and build the strong connections you want to build.
Need for constant reassurance
With anxiety comes overthinking and jumping to worst case scenarios. Because of this, you may seek reassurance to relieve anxious feelings around the unknowns instead of managing the distress on your own.
This may look like -
Being overly worried about your partner spending time with friends or being on their phone without you.
Pressuring your partner to share their location or activities throughout the day
Frequently seeking confirmation from friends that they want to hang out or include you in their plans
Feeling hurt or rejected if your friends don't respond to your messages immediately
Difficulty making independent decisions for fear of disappointing or upsetting your family
Constantly seeking reassurance from the relationships in your life can come across as demanding and overbearing. Everyone needs a little space and this constant reassurance can lead to strains in the relationship. This may also be extra difficult if you have difficulties trusting others in the first place due to past hurts. If your partner or friends start to feel like you’re not respecting their needed space, it may also lead to feelings of resentment.
Isolation
When you’re anxious you may feel the need to isolate and avoid social situations (especially if you struggle with social anxiety). This minimized chances for connection with your family and friends and increases feelings of loneliness. Your communication may then start to struggle as you aren’t able to share how you have been doing and feeling, missing out on moments of vulnerability and relationship building. You are then at higher risk of experiencing misunderstanding and assumptions to be made, widening the connection gap in your relationship. Social connection is imperative in maintaining a balanced well-being and continued isolation worsens not only the quality of your relationships but your anxiety and overall mental health as well.
Difficulty expressing emotions
Anxiety often leads to fears of rejection of abandonment by others, leading to difficulties in communicating authentically with others. You may repress your feelings or communicate them indirectly leading to confusion by others. You also may have difficulty identifying any other feelings beside anxious or worried, making communication of your feelings and need to others even ore difficult. You may then start to unconsciously push people away as a protective mechanism instead of nurturing vulnerability and connection. Others may start to notice your anxieties being expressed in your body language sending the message of discomfort or that you aren’t interested in the conversation. This creates a cycle, leading to an increase of anxious feelings.
Curious about how to stop masking your emotions? Click here!
Increased irritability and short temper
Anxiety often causes us to feel overwhelmed and decreases our ability to regulate other emotions. This overwhelm can make you irritable making it easy to snap at others, eve those you care about. This erodes the patience of those around you and they may feel the need to “walk on eggshells” when communicating with you or may stop them from interacting with you all together. Without open and free communication, a break down of trust and intimate connections may occur. If this is you, it’s okay! Awareness is an important first step and you can learn to create space between anxiety and how you respond to it.
Jump to conclusions and assumptions
Anxiety often leads to to overthinking and overwhelm by negative thoughts. This trickles into your relationships with others can fuel negative thoughts about your relationships. This increases misinterpretation of actions, words, and even silences. You automatically assume the negative intentions of others and get sucked into analyzing hidden meaning and agendas that may not exist. This can lead to an increased insecurities, distrust and jealousies. You may then confront the person creating unnecessary conflict, hurt feelings, and damaged trust and hurt feelings. Take a moment and look at a situation and your thought and feelings with curiosity rather than jumping to a conclusion. It really can make all the difference!
Decreased ability to be present in the moment
Anxious brains are occupied with future worries and worst-case scenarios making it hard to be grounded in the present moment, making you less aware of what’s happening around you. When this happens, you miss moments for connection. You aren’t able to listen attentively and miss subtle cues to be with the person and attuning to what they need. This leaves others feelings unheard, unseen, and disconnected potentially harming your relationship. The quality of your interactions may suffer, and the joy of simply being present with others fades.
Bottom Line
If you’re now more anxious than you were before you read this blog - know that you’re not alone! Building relationships is hard no matter what so know if it not ALL because of you’re anxiety and know it is not all your fault. It takes time and effort. Acknowledging how your anxiety affects your interactions and relationships with others you are now able to take steps to help manage your anxiety and cultivate deeper, meaningful and authentic connections.
Therapy can help
If you feel like you’re getting stuck along the way or want more guided support, it may be time to seek a consultation with a therapist. Contact Real Well Therapy here or call 512-686-7009.
Want to learn more about how anxiety therapy can help you? Click here!
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Disclaimer: the information provided in this blog post is for educational purposes only and should not be construed as medical advice or a substitute for professional consultation. If you are experiencing emotional distress, please reach out to a qualified mental health professional.
