Counseling for Anxiety
If you are an anxious person (or have had trauma in your life), you are more likely to have more intense bodily responses to situations. A pounding heart, shortness of breath, tense muscles and difficulty falling asleep at night are common symptoms. Women, after puberty, have twice the rate of anxiety than men. Anxiety and Depression are often mixed in individuals so that both need to be addressed, sixty percent of the time.
Hope for Anxiety
There are ways to feel safe, peaceful and full of hope for a good future without medication. The same hormone levels that activate memories or pain can activate healing, transforming connections with other. Memories do not change but no longer hurt.
Anxiety can create a mixed bag of feelings about yourself and about your relationship. Anyone who wants to be close is also vulnerable (even more so many it wasn't safe in the past to trust). It doesn't matter:
- how long we've known them
- what we've been through together
- or how great they are.
We are still vulnerable because they are the closest to us (our spouse, partner, parents or family member). We are risking more as we show more of ourselves. Sometimes this "dance" means we don't feel calm and safe.
Understanding sexual withdrawal in a relationship and resolving it, is a stage of anxiety/trauma work. Combined anxiety and depression are related to libido (initial interest in sexual activity) which can be helped in couples work.
Signs of Anxiety
Here are some of the ways anxiety can show up, especially in a relationship:
- flashbacks of previous abuse
- excessive worry
- acted out with an affair, drugs or alcohol
- no interest or desire for sexual relations (sometimes alternates with highly charged interest)
- anger
- panic attacks
