New Relationship anxiety

[Flinger]

Everytime I meet someone I like, my brain (anxiety) sabotages me.  It doesn't matter if she looks like Jessica Alba or if she is just attractive to me.  If you are on this forum you know the symptoms, tight muscles, racing thoughts, knot in stomach, worrying, etc...I'm trying to live a good life and remove bad stuff from my life but it hasn't helped.  I am religious and do pray for help.  Is it possible to get back to rational thinking?  I'm really tired of this **** (pardon my term).  Any help would be much appreciated.  

[rzappa]

I know exactly what you mean. i'm going be 20 in September and i finally have my first bf but i keep getting extremely sick whenever i'm not hanging out with him or even when im out with him something messes with my stomach. and then i tried to be in a relationship in the past once it wouldn't go away i decided to say screw it and stop trying after i break it off my health completly back to normal :(

[graphage]

Hi Flinger.  Any updates?  I'm a 30+ year old male w/ the same situation.  I used to handle relationships fine in my very early 20's/late teens, when I was living a more wild care-free life.  Then, I gave up girls for a while to figure out more about who I am and to grow my relationship with God.  Long story short, over the last 7 years when I would start to like a girl (the girl wouldn't even know it yet), the anxiety would kick in...so to relieve the anxiety, I'd quit liking them and the anxiety would be fine.  So, now...I have found a girl I REALLY like, it happened accidently because I've known her for many years as a friend and we both started to realize we had feeling for each other....BUT the anxiety kicked in as soon as we went from friend to more than friend.  It SUCKED bad, anxiety (heart paliptations) were with me 24/7.  I did go to my doctor, got a full physical which turned out fine.  He put me on 75mg of Effexor XR which has worked quite well (I started w/ 37.5mg IR, but it didn't help as much as I needed).  The anxiety has kicked back in the past couple weeks for no apparent reason (pretty much 24/7 again, this time not quite palpitations, more like constant chest pain.  Not as bad as pre-medication though).  Every thing between her and I is great.  We have pronoucned our love to each other, been around most of each other families, etc.  But, the anxiety has kicked back in.  The biggest issue w/ my anxiety is it causes me to almost constantly question the relationship and look for possible faults (ie; do I really like her?  is she the right one? etc).  In the back of my mind, if I go back to singleness, the anxiety will go away.  I can't emphasize what a wonderful Christian girl she is though, we get along great, have a great time, we can talk for hours and hours and are so similiar in personality that it is kind of scary (in a good way).  So, I share that with you to let you know that you are not alone, but to also see how you are doing and if anyone else can relate.

I've read Panic to Power by Lucinda Bassett which was pretty good.

I'm getting ready to read "Anxious for Nothing" by John MacArthur, and then "Self Help For Your Nerves" by Claire Weeks.

[fltricia]

How  old are you?  Up until I was 16 I would get so nervous around guys that I wouldn't be able to eat.  Then I found a serious boyfriend I could relax around and I dated him for a few years.  My aunt said the same thing happened to her.  The opposite sex can be intimidating, but I think once you become an adult you outgrow that phase.

If you are over 18 I would try some counseling to see what itis that is bothering you so much about dating.