Coping Anxiety

The Anxiety Of The Carer

Much is written of ‘coping anxiety’. Most advice is directed to the actual sufferer for whom ‘coping with anxiety’ is a very real problem. Much advice is offered on how to handle their personal anxiety.

This article is directed to the sufferer’s ‘carer’ and their coping anxiety, for the person coping with the anxiety of coping with a sufferer of anxiety or more severe mental disorder.

Firstly we have to sort out what level of ‘anxiety’ we are dealing with here.

What we are not talking about is the everyday anxieties, of having to get up, wash and dress, applying make-up badly, forgetting to feed the cat, going to work, missing the bus or train, arguing with a queue (line) jumper, finding out you left your purse at home. These are very real but ‘momentary’ anxieties. As the day progresses, a natural coping anxiety deals with these daily occurrences. A return home to sort the problems or a good whinge to a colleague will often clear the trivial anxiety from your mind.

No, this article is about the role of the personal carer.  This is about their ‘coping anxiety’ when dealing at a very personal level with sufferers of mental disturbance.

Just so that we don’t confuse the carer and coping anxiety we are talking about.

We are NOT talking of this group.

Ambulance Driver, Paramedics, Police, Hospital Nurse, Clinical Specialist, Counsellor, Crisis Team Member, Community Practice Nurse, Doctor, Head of Psychiatry or Psychology, Care in the Community Carers.

These and others are invaluable members of our society BUT they are paid to do their job and are judged by skills, boxes ticked and numbers, albeit numbers of service users treated, seemingly helped or cost to their respective institutions.

Their ‘coping anxiety’ is momentary although they may well take residual caring anxieties of their day home with them.

We ARE talking about the ‘coping anxiety’ of Spouses, Partners and Children, who if not 24/7, spend the majority of their time with a now mentally disturbed partner, parent or other family member. (remembering that extreme anxiety is a mental disturbance, albeit temporary).

The vast difference in the coping anxiety of an impartial observer and that of a close relative or friend is probably that of  shared history…of family bonds, shared time on earth together, life’s ups and downs, loves, losses and whatever came their way, was shared.

Now, that close friend, partner, child or parent is in a dark place. It may be for a short while, as in an extreme panic attack, it may possibly be for a long time or even forever. The coping anxiety in such a situation and the self-doubt that sets-in can be massive and easily end up with further ‘in-house trauma’ and the ‘carer’ requiring serious help.

In effect, we are talking of lives closing down if the sufferer being cared for is so mentally stricken as to require 24/7 attendance.  The carer’s life is slowly but surely put on hold, not being able to go out, yet unable to stand the intensity of the drama being daily enacted within. There seems to be no escape route if you are halfway decent person. To wave goodbye is tantamount to total failure.

Things change over time and where once, the partner’s embrace was irresistible, now that same embrace, if offered, is from someone you don’t recognise and the manner offered, if bordering on manic, makes you pull away, hating yourself but unable to respond.

Over time, part of the intensifying coping anxiety is the realisation that you are basically,on your own. There is nobody to turn to that has the vested interest to help, other than momentarily. This is not to discount the good friends, i.e. the ones that remain in touch. These friends or relatives will come and go in decreasing visits, actually giving respite to the carer as they offer good advice and wise counselling to the sufferer. The sufferer is often on their best behaviour during such visits, giving the impression that ‘things’ aren’t as bad as feared but as you wave the visitors goodbye, you know you are returning instantly to your own private hell.

If we are talking about severe mental illness, then the sufferer may have to be hospitalised but increasingly this is not done these days and the sufferer is left in the hands of those nearest and dearest… and drugs.

Drugs may help and they may not but experimentation goes on for months or years on end as dispassionate care is dispensed. Meanwhile, the mechanism of relationship destruction is working flat out. Tensions will reach highs & lows previously thought impossible and physical violence cannot be discounted as frustration all round boils over.  This will be the signalling point that the carer’s ‘coping anxiety’ has reached illness stage.

The moral of this article is that ‘we’ are all mentally fallible, no matter how strong we are perceived to be or how caring we are. When aspirations are dashed and a feeling of a life diminished descends, there is only trouble ahead.

What the carer must do as a major part of their strategy in dealing with their coping anxiety, is to find mental space somewhere, albeit at a ‘carers’ regular gathering where problems are shared and partially rationalised but in a bar with conversational friends, at the movies or visiting friends is all good.

You will have arranged with a ‘capable’ relative, friend or professional carer to sit for your charge while out. You will know of the extreme jealousy, suspicion, fear, panic and potential hatred that awaits you on your return but this is a time to put your coping anxiety on the back burner.

This regular time-out is yours.

Post from Aled Davis

Depression Anxiety Panic Attacks

Depression anxiety panic attacks forge strong linkage. Understanding exactly what’s going on in a sufferer’s head and knowing what to do at the moment of strike is perplexingly difficult. What chance does a work colleague, family member, partner or close friend have, to help in circumstances when logic and self-understanding have temporarily left the person for whom they care.

Firstly, observers have to ask themselves honestly, whether they have what it takes to help and whether they are up to a ‘caring’ role. Depression, anxiety and panic attacks take a victim into a far-away anxiety state that doesn’t necessarily welcome well-meaning visitors. It is clinging and stamina draining to intervene when someone is, out of the blue (or long term) struck with such driven fear as to consider themselves about to die and death looks to be a preferable option at the time.

This website is about depression, anxiety, panic attacks and fear. It will highlight some ways and means of understanding and combating this overpowering dread.

Me? I’m what is regarded as an ’eternal optimist’ and it may seem strange to associate myself with depression, anxiety and panic attacks but I happen to believe that serial optimism can sometimes hide just another form of anxiety. Is overriding optimism maybe a mental ‘technique’ where reality is brushed aside to avoid coming ‘face to face’ with it?  It could be. Is it possible for an optimist to suffer depression, anxiety and panic attacks to the same extent as a pessimist; you bet it is.

As a husband & father, I am constantly aware of my daughter & wife’s fairly extreme anxieties, for one reason or another.  I may well be the cause of much of my wife’s anxiety but this can then exaggerate into an excessive dive into depression and anxiety that takes over! I will do anything to reassure them but need them to gradually understand the fantastic ‘power’ of their own thought process, so they can more easily cope with what this world throws at all of us on a daily basis.  Yup, life sucks, quite often

Before recent retirement, I was CEO for three engineering companies dealing with all sorts of ‘people’ problems but latterly, leaving engineering behind me several years ago, my work has been as a visiting debt counsellor. This work has reinforced a need to understand people without judgement, to unravel their true fears (and potential) for the immediate and future. These fears can cause mild to extremes of depression, partnership splits, domestic violence, self-harming and regrettably some suicides. With the 2009 worldwide financial crisis hitting the ‘average Joe’ extremely hard, I know that debt is going to cause severe trauma to many and the more ‘real world’ help there is about, the better.  My visits had an average of 2-4 hours duration and in that time; I would gain a better understanding of the individuals concerned than some of their closest friends/family. The questions I asked were up, close and personal and I also had every little detail of their financial picture in front of me.  The depression, anxiety and panic was mostly hidden at first but soon surfaced as hard facts of life were outlined to them.  The pleasure I got from seeing them visibly breathe out and live again, as a viable solution was found, stayed with me and accelerated my interest into all reasons and potential cures of panic.

So my contribution is that of a highly interested observer, getting to know anxiety, decidedly non-academic and blatantly real world.  If my ‘as I see it’ layman-speak can help someone through a bad period in their life then I will be really delighted!