If you have anxiety, or a related diagnosis like PTSD, how do you know if something is a real threat?

[Harriet Vane]

3 hours ago, Rosie_0801 said:

So have I, but I didn't know better despite trying to and I accept I can't do better than my best. Sometimes there is no way to get something right, or at least no reasonable way. I mean, if to do better I would have needed to be someone else, well, that's not reasonable. It's not like I was too lazy or stubborn to be someone else, or something.

Sometimes other people have better judgment because they have had more experience than us, sometimes they have better judgment because they've never had anything as impossible *to* judge.

 

Well said.

[Melissa Louise]

I will say that in highly conscientious people with anxiety disorders or trauma histories, the dangers around under-reacting are often minimized, not only by ourselves, but by others around us.

We can be very keen to be seen as not over-reacting, to show we are not being driven by our anxieties, to the point that we may sometimes deny that a subset of our anxieties live in the read world, and require attention/action.

I will emphasize again, like a broken record but I think it's important, that help on a forum can be thought provoking, or exploratory, or reassuring, or confirmatory - and all these things feel good and reduce anxiety in the short term - but these are big problems with potentially very serious outcomes, and you need confidential offline support to help you do things like assess for risk.

 

[Not_a_Number]

20 minutes ago, Melissa Louise said:

I will emphasize again, like a broken record but I think it's important, that help on a forum can be thought provoking, or exploratory, or reassuring, or confirmatory - and all these things feel good and reduce anxiety in the short term - but these are big problems with potentially very serious outcomes, and you need confidential offline support to help you do things like assess for risk.

Exactly. She really needs someone with independent perspective. 

[Drama Llama]

I have a therapist.  I'm not sure I have the right therapist. 

But sometimes, decisions can't wait for the next weekly therapy appointment.  

[Melissa Louise]

Call and ask for an earlier appointment.

If the stakes are high enough to ask us here, they are high enough to ask your therapist.

 

[Not_a_Number]

Just now, Melissa Louise said:

Call and ask for an earlier appointment.

If the stakes are high enough to ask us here, they are high enough to ask your therapist.

 

Some therapists will counsel people by phone in a crisis, too . . . 

[Melissa Louise]

Some will, some won't, and its the weekend, and so it might not be possible to run this by them if the situation involves this weekend.

~

OP, I feel worried about your situation, mostly due to something you mentioned quite some time ago.

Within the limits of the legal situation, do what you can to mitigate the risk/anxiety you are perceiving this weekend.

[happi duck]

4 hours ago, Melissa Louise said:

I will say that in highly conscientious people with anxiety disorders or trauma histories, the dangers around under-reacting are often minimized, not only by ourselves, but by others around us.

We can be very keen to be seen as not over-reacting, to show we are not being driven by our anxieties, to the point that we may sometimes deny that a subset of our anxieties live in the read world, and require attention/action.

I will emphasize again, like a broken record but I think it's important, that help on a forum can be thought provoking, or exploratory, or reassuring, or confirmatory - and all these things feel good and reduce anxiety in the short term - but these are big problems with potentially very serious outcomes, and you need confidential offline support to help you do things like assess for risk.

 

Well said!  Very important!