Dear Anita,

Thank you for describing the view of my “old self” as being nostalgic. I can finally understand the way I have been perceiving everything I do and everything I have been trying to become. You’re right, when you want out of something you quickly think back to a happier time and forget the parts where it got ugly. I now realize that there is no going back and only moving forward. In addition, I have come to find that some of my anxiety and trouble believing in myself comes from my repetitive nature to seek out problems and solutions that have no true existence. You can’t worry about and start diving deeper into a problem when you don’t have the facts and that was exactly what I was doing. I was constantly thinking my medicine wasn’t enough and that somehow I wasn’t as smart or capable anymore, but none of that is true. It is only a self-fulfilling prophecy created in my mind.

In terms of the relationship, it’s one that is not something I necessarily want to get out of but rather take a step back from. I want to give less of my time to her so that she can understand and learn I need time for myself and my goals in life. For too long I have turned my back to many opportunities because of the deep down fear of abandonment and loss of my hard earned investment. The truth is, the more I pull away from her, while still being myself and putting in the right amount of effort, the more polarity it creates drawing her closer to me. Now, it may drive her crazy but it is something she is going to have to learn to deal with.

And I would agree that Zoloft and any other psychiatric drug have no ability to cure, but rather mask and contain the problems and only to a certain extent. I still get anxious, sometimes extremely anxious and full of adrenaline, so I know this is the case. It’s time for me to drive my anxious, driven energy into my future and into my goals rather than onto current and essentially non existent problems.

I’m considering psychotherapy so that I can get to the root of my internal problems and eliminate some of the detrimental thinking I still have deep down.

Scott

Dear Anita,

I feel like the things you mentioned above have a deeper meaning that I’m beginning to see. It does make sense in a way why I would reference her sexual past (or anything negative for that matter) to associate with her during times of distress or as a way to fault her for something when I myself am so much of an innocent man.

The troubling part for me is the amount of love she claims to have for everything, including myself, hence why she reacts with such strong emotions. She says she just cares so much about me that she gets really upset when things don’t appear right in her eyes. I can understand where she is coming from, because it happens to me to (sometimes out of insecurity), but I typically manage my emotions. It’s not to say that I haven’t ever tried to gain control over her for some things, but generally it is not me creating conflict or developing tension and expecting the other person to fix the problem.

It is very confusing for me as I feel so much love and care from her but at other times she is unpredictable and drives me crazy, stresses me out, and takes me away from my natural peace in life. It’s really hard to know what to do. Anything you’ve got in response to this helps me out greatly.

Sincerely,

Scott

Dear Anita,

I suppose I should add that I tend to think in terms of the past. So whatever it may be that I recall, I bring that past action or behavior into the now and associate it with her behavior. When I mention getting upset about her drinking, it’s because she has upset me many times whilst drinking and it tends to lead to horrible behavior and mistreatment from her. In a way, my predictions of the future are related to her past actions and I think that is what leads to my “ultimate” and basis of resentment towards her because I just expect the worst. She has been better about being nice to me and when we’re drinking because I nearly ended the relationship after a few times of her drinking and being verbally and slightly physically abusive towards me. Now it’s not that I’m some wimpy, soft guy that is afraid of her, but more so the fact that I can’t do anything back to her obviously because she is a girl. I’m strong and tall and confident in my ability to everything, but I am restricted in terms of what I can do when she acts up as in I can only give a verbal response which is hard at these intense moments. I’ve kind of been venting to you in this post so I will stop here and let you generate some thoughts on all of this.

Sincerely,

Scott

Dear Anita,

I feel calm as of right now. I am currently dealing with the negative emotions of my girlfriend and it seems impossible to get through to her. When she is angry, she is like a brick wall. I can’t say anything without her sending some short, snobby text and she puts no effort into finding a resolution. She’s also upset/mad/worried at me for reasons she won’t tell me. I know I talked about having a serious talk with her in person, I just haven’t been able to do that yet. I would say this is the worst it has been because there’s so much tension between us. Over a couple of days, she became more distant and withdrew from engaging in our conversations and sort of became annoyed. I don’t know why I still feel drawn to her, because none of it is my fault. Obviously there are some things about her surfacing that are making her think crazy.

Scott

Dear Anita,

I understand the negative thinking is automatic and that I need to calm myself down, but I just get so frustrated sometimes. It feels like I’m the only one in the relationship that suffers/struggles. I know I’ve addressed this already, but her not making the effort to start conversations is really driving me up the wall. I know my expectations can be high at times, but don’t you think it’s a bit much for me to always reaching out? I understand that this isn’t really a big deal to some people, but to me, after some thinking, I get very annoyed with it. I feel like I put in more work in this relationship. Like I mentioned before, I’m like the entertainment, never her. I’m the one who goes to see her, she rarely visits me. It’s just a lot of frustration building up and it gets hard to tolerate. I figure if you love and miss someone, you would at least try to call or text them.

Scott

Dear Anita,

I’m in the process of taking 150 mg of Zoloft to see how it can aid in my thoughts and lifting me up when I get down. I’m trying to be mindful and stay present, but I find it hard to slow down my thoughts. I know that breathing is essential (and other techniques), but as busy as I am how can I change my thoughts. I’ll find that when I’m at work I’ll be sitting there thinking, and it mostly consists of my girlfriend. I don’t understand something; how I start creating a path of negativity when I don’t get my expectations met. It feels like those little things we have talked about, like text messaging and stuff, I feel that when I don’t get an expectation met, I get upset and angry and then start the cycle of thinking. I just want to love my girlfriend and think positively about her, but it’s like my mind creates a bad picture of her in my mind. Now, I have mentioned some negative things, but I have improved in terms of not worrying so much about abandonment or losing her love.

Basically I just need to figure out some ways to change or eliminate the negative thinking that comes on so quickly when I don’t get an expectation met or see something that I might take personally.

Scott

Dear Anita,

I was prescribed Zoloft for my anxiety because it works to alleviate the generalized anxiety I have as well as the panic attacks I used to suffer from. For a while now, I’ve just been on it to maintain a stable mood, and because I have other things going on in my life that could be considered stressful such as school, work, volunteering, etc. I’m interested in talking to my doctor about Fluvoxamine, as you said it is used primarily for OCD and would maybe be more effective in keeping those ruminating thoughts of mine on a lower priority level, so that I won’t give them power.

I would be interested in hearing your experience on the medications, with how they affected you and the outcome of taking them. How did they play a role in your life? The most troubling factor in my opinion is it can sometimes be a lot of work to focus on fixing a problem with other things going on like I mentioned above, so I’m hoping to experience relief from the medicine but practice working on my thoughts and behavior.

Scott

Dear Anita,

I would agree with that statement. I’m currently on 100 mg of Zoloft, which I’ve been taking for nearly 3 years now. However, it seems as if the medicine has lost it’s ability to slow me down in times of anxious thinking. I know how antidepressants work, obviously no short term effects are felt, but over time and with adjustment to my life, physical health and such; I think it would be beneficial to up the dose and possibly get some benzodiazepines for times of extreme anxiety involving school, lots of tests and studying, and the ongoing OCD I already may have.

I have done some CBT before and it does indeed help to trace back your cycle of thinking, feelings, behavior and outcomes. If there are some free CBT worksheets I could do, that may be helpful just to write out my thinking and identify where I’m being unrealistic.

I think so too. I don’t want her to change as a person, but some of the behaviors must change in order to relieve some of my anxiety and allow for me to continue on my journey towards success. As I mentioned before, and you responded to, I think she just doesn’t like to do a lot of thinking because it annoys her to be annoyed and she would rather escape the problem solving. However, if I can calmly communicate my needs and triggers to her, I think she’ll be able to understand what affects me, and if in the near future things do not change, I will have to move on because I have a lot more school down the road for my profession.

Scott