I can't fucking take my husband's panic attacks any more
He gets health anxiety, and yes, something is happening. But every fucking time the doctor doesn't find something, he refuses to let it go, and thinks they must have just missed it. Literally any minor pain, and he jumps to it being cancer that no one will take him seriously enough to look into and confirm. When the reality is that we're taking every reasonable precaution (and not a few unreasonable ones), and there's NOTHING FUCKING THERE.
And this is all making me feel like a monster, cause he's scared, and his mom died of cancer, and his dad dies recently (probably a heart attack in his sleep), so I can see where the anxiety is coming from. And honestly, I AM a very sensitive, empathetic person. But I am just so fucking worn down from three years of crying wolf, I can barely summon any comfort responses at all. I go stone. I do what needs to be done. I avoid telling the paramedics that he gets panic attacks, so that I don't bias them when they examine him. And I try not to talk so that I don't let out my frustration. But that's almost literally all I can do. I can't take him.
And it's not even money - though money is a huge part of the worry, today the things he's done haven't cost anything, and I know they haven't, but I still can't take it cause I feel so fucking yanked around. It's sometimes all I can do when he's asking me yet again if his panic attack symptoms are cancer or a heart attack to stop myself from yelling SHUT THE FUCK UP. NOTHING IS HAPPENING. NOTHING IS EVER HAPPENING. IF THE DOCTORS SAY IT'S NOT CANCER AND YOUR HEART IS PERFECT YOU HAVE TO FUCKING BELIEVE THEM AND LOOK AT OTHER CAUSES. STOP ASKING FOR YOUR OXYGEN CHECKED OVER AND OVER. STOP TELLING ME YOUR HEARTRATE IS HIGH WHEN IT'S THE SAME FUCKING RATE IT'S BEEN EVERY TIME THE PARAMEDICS SAID YOU WERE FINE.
I'm so mad at him. And I know I'll back down and feel sorry as soon as he looks sad, cause then the empathy hits and I care again. But right now I just wanna fucking scream him into the wall and make him shut up. I want a normal husband. I want a normal friend. I'm tired of spending four hours out of every day comforting him in one way or another. I don't have it. I just don't have it. And I know panic attacks aren't rational, and getting mad doesn't help. But I'm still so so so so tired of calmly explaining that the doctors said his heart is perfect, and that we can't assume any problem is cancer, and that if the doctors don't find something it's most probable that nothing was there, and it makes more sense to expend energy looking at LIKELY causes than continually trying to prove UNLIKELY ones.
I'm trying to get MY life in order, too. And I feel like handling his emotions takes so much of my energy that I have little to nothing left to fix myself - which only keeps the two of us in the rut we're in. And he's only getting worse. Last couple days he's insisted he can't even stand up, because his (non-dangerous, mildly uncomfortable) symptom will trigger.
I can't fucking take it, Reddit. It's so hard not to go off on him. I want to cry.
Posted Feb 25, 2016, 12:27 AM UTC · edited