I’ll try to keep it short. My husband was on anxiety meds for 2ish years. He developed panic attacks and minor depression due to life circumstances and now that it’s been a while, his doctor recommended he slowly lowers the dosage until he is fully off them. Well now he is fully off them and it’s been nearly 2 months.
He himself says that he feels much less patient and much more irritable than he used to be before. I agreed and we talked avout it taking time to readjust and just having to stay aware and try to learn patience on his own. We also talked about contacting the dr again if it doesn’t seem to get any better. He is the type to not seek out counceling very happily, so it’s not been on his mind as a possibility yet, but if things get worse he will consider it.
To me things already are worse. His irritability can be hard to live with. He can get bent out of shape over such dumb stuff. Example: we were watching a documentary and he asked me a question during it. I told him I didn’t know and that I just wanted to watch the show quietly. He found it annoying and wanted to talk about why I kept refusing to engage during the show. He’d already been super frustrated before hand because he was having difficulties with helping his dad set up wifi over the phone so it had already wound him up. This conversation between us went bad and he just got so upset and fustrated and had a short little tantrum. Here is my mistake: I made a face at him. Like a face of disbeleaf and anger I guess, which he lfet like was a face of hate. That really made his tantrum a lot worse. I wasn’t really doing it super intentionally, more like lost in the moment. I was shocked and simply left him be and decided he can come apologize when he feels ready.
So now I’m here asking for advice. How should I deal with this? Am I just supposed to give it more time and be patient? Thoughts?
TLDR: husband having a short fuse after going off meds
EDIT: Just a small edit. He came to talk to me and apologize, but at the same time is still being unreasonable. He thinks that me shutting down his continued questions during the show by saying ”I don’t know” even though we both know it’s not true was the wrong thing for me to do and that the face I made at him was cruel. I tried to bring up how his behaviour off the meds is hard to handle, but that just upset him and it didn’t go over well, even though he admits that it’s an issue. Probably right now is just the wrong moment to talk about it and I should wait for tomorrow, but I’m just super annoyed that he came to me to apologize and yet is still acting impatient and irritable.
4 comments
You know what you have to do.
What kind of meds was he on? I ask because Benzos (commonly used for panic attacks) are both dangerous to stay on for a long time and very difficult to go off. Most doctors don’t taper them nearly slowly enough, and withdrawal is extremely nasty.
Unless he can and is in the process of tackling any underlying processes that ate causing his anxiety I have to question the doctor’s judgement in taking him off the medication.
I don’t want to second-guess medical opinion and depending on what medication he is on there can be good pharmaceutical and physiological reasons to come off anti-anxiety medication but nevertheless, this seems careless and irresponsible at least. I would also question whether the doctor has exterior reasons for wanting to take him off the medication.
One of the reasons people can suffer from either acute or chronic anxiety is that they can feel that they’re not in control of their lives sufficiently for their comfort and that is not a good thing for them or anyone else involved.
As advice, I wouldn’t say divorce right away, but take some time apart while he sorts out his stuff.
Personally, I would probably think about divorce anyway.