Dealing with anxiety in non-threatening situations
 

Help! (please). In 3 minutes i'm supposed to be seeing my counsellor but I have emailed him to say that I can't come because i'm so nervous. I'm not even sure what makes me nervous because I trust him and get on with him. He's leaving soon and i'd really like to be able to use the time that I have with him well. I just can't get over the anxiety that I feel when i'm about to go and see him. Well it's around for days before. I know that i'll regret this so much.

I seem to get nervous about everything: work, driving, watching tv, sleeping, waking up, seeing friends...everyday things. My psychiatrist put me on major tranquilisers once but they left me hardly able to talk. I just don't know what to do, and advice would be apreciated. Thanks a lot.

I would say that being left [again] is a kind of threatening situation. It sounds like you may have gone into fight-flight mode to protect yourself from the feelings of connection you feel with your counsellor, because in a few months you won't be seeing him again, and that hurts.

It sounds like you are in a constant state of anxiety, aside from this, or rather, in addition to. Can you identify what it is that you worry about each of these things?

Thanks Katherine. When I try to look logically about all the things that I worry about I can't see anything that I should be worrying about at all. For example, despite my constant worries about work I can go in and end up feeling that I love my job. It just doesn't make sense.