My story
I think my husband has anxiety - please help!
I don’t know if this is the right place to seek help or not - but I’m really not sure what to do or where to go for help….
My Husband is currently in prison, and today when I went to visit him he was telling me about all these things that he is doing and how they are getting worse.
He has told me a few times before this, but now he says they are getting worse and worse and he feels like he is “loosing it”.
The things that he does I think is anxiety related ?
Both of our favorite numbers is “9″ … So my husband has starting to do strange things with counting to the number “9″ with everything.
There are lots, but here are some examples he has told me:
Every night and every morning he says this whole big long thing about how much he loves me, misses me etc (its quite long and he always remembers it word for word) and he says that 9 times over.
After he brushes his teeth, he rinses his mouth out, 9 times.
If he sees a number 9 on the TV - like a score on the footy - he’ll stare at it until it changes.
When he is in the shower, just before he gets out he turns the cold water off and only has the hot water on and counts to 9 before he can turn it off.
He dries each part of his body 9 times (i.e - up and down the one leg 9 times, other leg 9 times, arm 9 times, other arm 9 times etc)
He will only call me when the is something that equals 9 on the time. He has to tell me he loves me 9 times when he puts down his water bottle, puts out a smoke, sees the number 9… it just goes on and on and on.
He is always adding numbers together to add up to 9.
He thinks that if he doesnt do all these things, that something bad is going to happen.
He said he has tried to stop, but he just cant - because if something goes wrong he will think “why didnt I just do it and everything would have been okay”
I dont know what to do…. I have listened to him, I am always supportive. I have reassured him that everything is going to be okay and that nothing bad is going to happen.
I have asked him to please try and stop doing it and suggested he maybe talks to someone.
He is in a terrible place, and I know that really isn’t helping… But this is just getting out of hand and it needs to stop!
I am really worried and I need to do something about this….
Any suggestions on what I can do for him, would be really appreciated.
Bobbi
January 28, 2012
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Hi Bobbi,
Sorry to hear about what you are going through. Prison can be a scary place, most of all it can be a downright lonely, boring place that breeds high anxiety in the people staying there (now, I’ve not been so I’m not speaking from experience however I’ve read some interesting, very personal descriptions from people who have been there and the loneliness/boredom are often two of the most hated parts of being in the joint). It is a pretty good breeding ground for obsessive compulsive disorder (OCD) as well, which this could be a form of.
Perhaps your husband is trying to latch onto a way to get him through the day to day, perhaps the boredom is getting to his mind and he is developing these habit behaviours because nothing else is occupying his attention. I don’t know, but to me it sounds like your encouragement for him to get help is a really good idea. There is psych help available in prison and its probably a good idea to work on convincing him to seek it. He may react negatively to this, it may be viewed as a weakness etc. but in all likelihood he will benefit greatly by seeking it.
You may also want to get him certain reading materials, books etc. that he can read in private in order to fill his mind with useful knowledge and try to work his own way out of his thinking funk. The most profound subjects I have studied, regarding the mind, are based around meditation, relaxing techniques (ie: breathing), and Buddhism. I can’t name books on here but material by Eckhart Tolle, Thich Nhat Hanh, Seung Sahn, and many others are available.
I hope this has helped somewhat, good luck and come back and chat anytime.
Steve