My girlfriend is dealing with anxiety

My girlfriend has anxiety and she warned me that this could affect our relationship, but now I've handled things the wrong way and messed up everything.

I've known my girlfriend for about 7 months and we've been together for a little over 3 months. Early on, she shared with me that she had anxiety issues and warned that at times might try to push me away and out of her life. I hadn't truly understood what her having anxiety really meant because I thought everybody got anxious every once a while, and that this just meant she got it a little more often than others. However, for the 3 months we've been together, we've broken up and gotten back together 3 times. We recently broke up for the fourth time and things seem different. She said that she said just needed time to focus on herself. It felt like we were actually breaking up for good, so I ended up doing a lot of the things that this page says not to do: trying to reassure her, telling her to relax, getting frustrated and expressing it in the wrong way.

We've tried being just friends; she opened up to me about how she felt about me and the situation, and she said the feelings she had for me were still there. The next day, I jumped the gun and tried moving towards being back in a relationship again but it was far too soon, and she rejected the idea. I should have just accepted that it was too soon but I didn't; I pursued her even harder, thinking that eventually I could get through to her and win her back. My rash actions led to us getting into a fight and me saying some inconsiderate things that, in hindsight, I truly wish I hadn't. I've apologised but I know that the damage is done. I've lost the trust she had in me to be there for her and not judge her.

I truly regret and despise how I handled the situation and I hope I can redeem myself, regain her trust and maybe one day be in a relationship with her again. We cared for each other a lot and even told each other we were in love. I didn't handle things correctly because I was ignorant of the proper ways to help someone with anxiety. I wish I'd looked up the condition sooner so all of this could have been avoided and we'd still be together. I hope we can recover from this and be together again. I don't want to give up on somebody I care so much about.

If anybody has some valuable insight on how to go about the situation from here, I'll take anything I can get and incorporate it into how I handle things with her from now on. I know I've messed up but I truly want to handle things the right way now. Please help, I don't want to lose her.

Published on 24-Oct-2016

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