Opposites Attract: What It’s Like to Have Anxiety Disorder When Your Partner Doesn’t

Here it comes again. Roiling up inside of me, sometimes untriggered, sometimes in response to things like another horrible mass shooting. Anxiety. Crushing my chest and consuming my thoughts. Making them crazed. I want to stop the thoughts, but I can’t. What if today is the day that my sons are shot at school? What if my husband has a heart attack at work? What if, on the way to shuttle them all around in my much-loved Honda CRV, I am crashed into and killed and they are left without me? What if? What if? What if? I often look at my husband in wonder. He is somber about things like mass shootings, and passionate in thought and ideas about what can be done to help, but he never seems to take it to the next level like I do. It never becomes “Why not me? Are we next? Will the boys be okay? What horror have we managed to avoid thus far that inevitably awaits us?” My husband understands risk. Percentages. He calculates seemingly casually and allows his mind to rest, if not totally at ease, at least not petrified. The likelihood is slim. The chances are few. We [...]