A vacationing couple was left in the Great Barrier Reef off the coast of Australia when a dive boat crew member failed to count them upon returning to the boat — their bodies were never recovered.
A surgeon in Houston was decapitated by an elevator door closing on his head.
A 28-year-old woman died of drinking too much water in a radio station contest.
An employee fell into a large tank of hot, melting chocolate and died after being knocked unconscious by one of the mixing paddles.
A lawyer threw himself into a glass window to prove that the glass was unbreakable; unfortunately, he discovered that the windowpanes themselves broke out, and he fell from the 24th floor of the building.
Every player on a soccer team in Africa was killed instantly by a forked bolt of lightning.
A 24-year-old was trying to heat up a lava lamp on his kitchen stove; it exploded with such force that a shard of glass pierced his heart and killed him.
Nine people were killed when over a million liters of beer burst out of a huge vat, causing a chain reaction that ripped open surrounding vats of beer and flooded the streets. The flood of beer filled surrounding houses and pubs, drowning those in its path. The BBC referred to the event as a beer tsunami; it's more commonly known as the London Beer Flood of 1814.
And if you think the London Beer Flood sounds bad, there's always the Boston Molasses Tragedy. In 1919, 2.3 million gallons of molasses burst through a large storage tank and sent a wall of molasses about 15 to 20 feet high, wiping out homes and buildings and trapping people in the sweet goo. Twenty people were killed and about 150 injured. Months later, globs of molasses still clung to doors, sidewalks, and streets.
Part V
Helping Others with Anxiety
In this part . . .
If someone you care about has anxiety and worry, you naturally want to help. In this part, we detail what you can do. First, we help you find out whether your loved one suffers from anxiety, and then we show you how to talk about it. We also provide strategies for working together on the problem.
Today's kids appear more anxious than ever, about fears both real and imagined. We help you distinguish between normal and abnormal childhood fears. In the final chapter in this part, you discover how to prevent your children from developing abnormal fears and what to do if they have too much anxiety. We conclude by advising you when to seek professional help and telling you what to expect if you seek it.
Chapter 18: When a Family Member or Friend Suffers from Anxiety
In This Chapter
Finding out whether your partner or a friend has anxiety
Communicating about anxiety
Coaching your anxious acquaintance
Working together to fight anxiety
Accepting your anxious friend or family member
Perhaps your friend, partner, or relative gets irritated easily, avoids going out with you, or often seems distant and preoccupied. Possibly he seems overly worried about sickness, money, or safety. Maybe he shuns physical intimacy. Or he may leave parties, concerts, or sports events early for no apparent reason.
You could easily take his behavior personally. You may think he doesn't love you, care about you, or is angry with you. And if these behaviors represent a recent change, it's difficult to know what's going on for sure. But it could be that your friend or partner actually suffers from anxiety.
This chapter helps you figure out whether someone you care about suffers from anxiety. We also help you communicate effectively with a loved one who has anxiety. With the right communication style, instead of provoking feelings of anger and resentment, you may be able to negotiate a new role — that of a helpful coach. You can also team up to tackle anxiety by finding ways to simplify life, have fun, and relax together. Finally, we explain how simply accepting your partner's anxiety and limitations leads to a better relationship and, surprisingly, less anxiety.
For convenience and clarity in this chapter, we mostly use the term "loved one" to refer to any partner, friend, or relative that you may be concerned about.
Discovering Whether Your Loved One Suffers from Anxiety
People who live together sometimes don't know each other as well as they think they do. Most people try to look and act as well adjusted as they can, because revealing weaknesses, limitations, and vulnerabilities isn't easy. Why do people hide their anxious feelings? Two big reasons for hiding them include
Fear: Revealing negative feelings can be embarrassing, especially to someone with an anxiety disorder. People often fear rejection or ridicule, even though self-disclosure usually brings people closer together.
Upbringing: Children may have been taught to repress or deny feelings by their parents. They may have been told, "Don't be such a baby," or "Boys don't cry." When taught to hide feelings, people grow up keeping concerns to themselves.
So how do you really know whether your loved one has a problem with anxiety? And does it matter whether you know or not? We think it does. Understanding whether your partner experiences anxiety promotes better communication and facilitates closeness.
The following list of indications may help you to discern whether your partner suffers from anxiety. Ask yourself whether your partner
Seems restless and keyed up
Avoids situations for seemingly silly reasons
Ruminates about future catastrophes
Can't ever seem to throw anything away
Is reluctant to leave the house
Spends inordinate amounts of time arranging things
Has trouble sleeping or staying asleep
Has trouble concentrating
Has frequent nightmares
Avoids situations or places reminiscent of a past traumatic event
Is plagued with self-doubts
Has episodes of noticeable shakiness and distress
Is constantly on alert for dangers
Seems unusually touchy about criticism
Seems plagued by excessive superstitions
Is overly worried about germs, contamination, or dirt
Seems unusually concerned about health
Has frequent, unexplained bouts of nausea, dizziness, or aches and pains
Frequently rechecks whether the doors are locked or the coffee pot is turned off
Constantly worries about everything
Seems terrified by anything specific, such as insects, dogs, driving, thunderstorms, and so on
Responds with irritation when pushed to attend social functions, such as parties, weddings, meetings, neighborhood functions, or anywhere you may encounter strangers (the resistance could be due to simple dislike of the activity, but carefully consider whether anxiety may lie at the root of the problem)
A couple of the symptoms in the preceding list (especially irritability, poor concentration, poor sleep, and self-doubts) can also indicate depression. Depression is a serious condition that usually includes loss of interest in activities previously considered pleasurable, changes in appetite, and depressed mood. See Chapter 2 for more information about depression. If your loved one seems depressed, talk with her and then consult with a mental-health practitioner or your family physician.
Now, if you answered yes to any of the questions in the preceding list (and your partner doesn't seem particularly depressed), we don't recommend that you approach your loved one and say, "Look at this list — you're a nut case! I knew it." That would be a really bad idea.
Instead, consider asking your loved one a few questions. This definitely shouldn't occur immediately following a conflict or argument. Possible questions to ask include:
What's the biggest stress in your life lately?
What worries you the most?
Sometimes, when I go to events like this, I feel anxious. I'm wondering how you're feeling about going?
How were you feeling when we left the party?
How are you feeling about that problem?
I've noticed you've had trouble sleeping lately. What's been on your mind?<
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Try to make your questions as nonthreatening and safe to answer as possible. In addition, try to ask questions that don't have a simple yes or no answer. For example, if you ask your partner whether she's anxious, she may reply with a simple "No," and then the discussion is over. But if you ask what worries she has, you may get a more complete response. Finally, asking "what" or "how" works better than asking "why" someone is feeling anxious — people often can't answer "why" they feel the way that they do.
Our list of questions for you about your loved one's anxiety and our list of questions to ask your loved one open the door to communicating about anxiety. After you broach the subject and confirm that the one you care about struggles with anxiety, you can build a plan from there. But you need to know how to keep the conversation going.
Talking Together about Anxiety
Talking about a loved one's vulnerability isn't always easy. Keeping a few ideas in mind may help. For example, if you find the conversation turning into an argument, it's not helpful. Back off. Your loved one may not be ready to face the problem. If so, you may want to check out the "Accepting Anxiety with Love" section later in this chapter.
Not every couple communicates easily about difficult subjects without arguing. If that's the case for the two of you, we suggest relationship counseling — reading a few pages about talking together won't solve fundamental communication problems. But if you're able to talk together about anxiety without experiencing a communication breakdown, we have some general guidelines for you in the following sections.
If your loved one has a problem with anxiety, you may find yourself feeling oddly ambivalent about helping. Sometimes, those confusing feelings come from the fact that seeing one's partner improve can upset the power balance in a relationship. If you prefer being the boss in your relationship, you may feel uncomfortable seeing your partner get better and become more equal to you. If you see that struggle in yourself, we suggest you seek relationship counseling. You're likely to discover that a more equal relationship feels better than your unconscious mind thinks it will.
Helping without owning the albatross
The first order of business in a discussion of your partner's anxiety is to show empathetic concern. That means putting yourself in your partner's shoes and seeing the world through his eyes. Then you can try to understand the source of the worry.
However, expressing empathy and concern doesn't mean that you need to solve the problem. You can't. You may be able to help, as we show in the "Guiding the Way" section later in this chapter, but you don't control the emotions of other people — they do.
Realizing that helpers don't own the responsibility for making change happen is important. Otherwise, you're likely to become frustrated and angry if and when efforts to change stall. Frustration and anger only make overcoming anxiety more difficult.
Avoiding blame
Just as you don't want to blame yourself by owning the problem when your partner becomes anxious, it's equally important to avoid blaming your partner. Your loved one developed anxiety for all the reasons we list in Chapters 3 and 4. Nobody asks for an anxiety disorder. Nobody wants one, and change is difficult.
People sometimes get upset when they try to help and the response they get consists of resistance and a lack of gratitude. But your loved one may resist your help because anxiety is like an old habit. It may not feel good, but at least it's familiar. When you start to work on reducing anxiety, anxiety typically increases before it gets better.
Therefore, make every effort to avoid blame and be patient. Success and failure aren't up to you. You want to help, but if change doesn't happen, it means nothing about you.
When help turns into harm
People with anxiety desperately seek ways to alleviate their distress. One common way is to ask for reassurance. If it's your partner who has anxiety, of course you want to help by giving that reassurance. For example, people who have a great fear of illness often ask their spouses if they look okay or if they're running a temperature. Unfortunately, reassuring your partner makes anxiety increase over time.
How can something designed to alleviate anxiety create more anxiety? Well, the immediate reduction in anxiety reinforces or rewards the act of seeking assistance. Thus, giving reassurance teaches the recipient to look for answers elsewhere, rather than to depend on his own good sense. Both dependency and anxiety thereby increase.
Asking for reassurance can take many forms. Sometimes, it's hard to spot. In Table 18-1, we give you some examples of reassurance requests and alternative ways to handle them. The first column gives a brief description of the basis for the fear or anxiety and the reassurance request, and the second column gives you an alternative response to offering reassurance.
If you've been in the habit of giving your partner frequent, large doses of reassurance, don't suddenly stop without discussing the issue first. Otherwise, your partner is likely to think you've stopped caring. You need to let your partner know and come to an agreement that eliminating unnecessary reassurance is a good idea. Then, agree that you'll reassure once on any given concern, but when asked repeatedly, you'll simply smile and say, "We agreed that I can't answer that."
The following anecdote demonstrates how reassurance can aggravate anxiety and how alternative responses can help. At first, James hooks Roberto into feeling overly responsible for his insecurity and anxiety. Roberto provides more and more reassurance, and James keeps getting worse. A psychologist suggests a new response.
James and Roberto have lived together for the past three years. Both graduate students, they lead busy lives. Lately though, James has stopped attending social events, complaining of fatigue. Roberto finds himself going alone and misses James's company.
Roberto receives an announcement that he's the recipient of this year's Departmental Dissertation of the Year Award. Of course, he wants James to attend, but James fears sitting alone and feeling trapped. Roberto reassures James that the auditorium is safe and that he could get out if he needed to by sitting on the aisle. James still resists, so Roberto suggests they get Brenda, a good friend of theirs, to accompany him.
Finally, after considerable cajoling and reassurance, James agrees to go to the event. He spends the time in the audience clinging to Brenda. He feels momentarily comforted by Brenda's presence and reassurances that everything will be okay. But he believes he couldn't have made it through the awards ceremony without her there to hold his hand.
As each new outing comes up, it seems that James requires more reassurance and attention. James withdraws, becoming more isolated, and his anxiety increases.
Then James finally sees a psychologist who suggests enlisting James's friends to help out. He asks them to provide James new, alternative responses to his reassurance-seeking. At the next event, Roberto insists that James go on his own. When James asks Roberto, "Do you think I'll fall apart?" Roberto tells him, "You'll just have to try it and find out."
Initially, Roberto fell into the trap of not only being empathetic but also owning James's problem. His "help" only served to increase James's dependency. James eventually learns to rely on his own resources and feels empowered by doing so.
Unfortunately, when you own your partner's problem by giving too much reassurance and excessive help, it usually just makes things worse. Dependency, avoidance, and anxiousness all deepen. It's a matter of balance. Give truly needed help and show real concern, but avoid going too far.
Guiding the Way
Assuming you've had a healthy discussion with your partner about her anxiety problem, you may be able to help further. But first, take a look at yourself. If you also wrestle with anxiety, do all that you can for yourself before trying to tackle your partner's anxiety.
After you take care of your own anxiety, you may want to consider coaching your partner to overcome her anxiety. A coach is a guide who encourages, corrects, and supports. Part of the job of a coach requires modeling how to handle stress and worry. You can't do a good job of m
odeling if you're quaking in your boots.
Coaches can help carry out one of the most effective ways of overcoming anxiety: gradual exposure. Exposure involves breaking any given fear into small steps and facing that fear one step at a time. If any given step creates too much anxiety, the coach can help devise ways of breaking the task into smaller pieces. The following sections offer points to keep in mind when you're helping a loved one overcome her anxiety.
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