General Help On Diffusing Anxiety And Agitation

[bluebird123]

Hi my husband has been suffering with ptsd for about 6 years, recognised but probably much longer. It all stems from difficult childhood and then time in SAP. He has been recovering from a breakdown 6 years ago and doing really well but recently returned to work and he's starting to struggle again. Unforutnately, although his employers have been really supportive, they dont know what to do and neither do we. He had some professional help but mostly he's made the improvements himself so we dont really have any ideas on what to do when he starts to struggle and how to stop it progressing. He has problems with anxiety, especially going out and he gets agitated when anxious which can be difficult to be around. He uses exercise to get rid of the adrenalin, hobbies to distract himself and daylight bulbs seem to be helping his mood but has anyone got any other techniques?
Thanks

 

[Bilby]

I'd suggest that it's probably time to get into a proper therapy program - seeing someone on a regular basis can be incredibly useful and really compliment the things that he has done to help himself so far.

My husband has problems with anxiety also, and can become very agitated. However since he began therapy, I have seen a big improvement in terms of the agitation becoming less of a problem as he is being taught some skills to help with the anxiety.

One thing he noticed was that if he was anxious and started to chew on something - like some little lollies, tic tacs or chewing gum for example, then that helped him become more aware of his breathing and made him slow it down - so it prompted him to do deep breathing if that makes sense. I think the other thing that made a real difference was talking through his traumas with someone - they were able to identify why it may be that he would therefore become anxious in certain situations - and that awareness, of why he was becoming anxious/agitated, was in itself actually incredibly beneficial.