Howdy howdy,

After kinda lurking on this subreddit, I figured now was a good time to ask my question. I’m trying to figure out how to BEST support my loved one who’s currently battling some anxiety. 

To give a TLDR of her situation, she’s currently in grad school doing an internship where she is always around people. Each interaction scares her, but it’s incredible once she finds her groove because she can blaze through them afterwards. It’s just that initial patient or two, or interaction or two, that’s debilitating to her. 

She also worries a bunch about being able to keep up with the intensity of her program. With the pandemic and recent political environment, it’s been hard for her to find time to focus. She’s scared she’ll fall behind, and she’s worried that her anxiety will fault her by preventing her from finding the strength and energy to work on her stuff. Most mornings are hard where she can’t find the energy to get out of bed. She’ll even wake up with her chest hurting, heart racing, and not feeling good knowing she has to face each day. She’s also at home doing school with family distractions, albeit they’re not totally distracting, but it can’t help with the ones you love being so close and knowing you have to work. I will say she’s INCREDIBLY intelligent and bright, so there’s no doubt that if she wasn’t worried she’d easily blast through this program at the top of her class. But, I don’t know if there are ways I can help her through this.

Finally, she also worries about how she looks. Y’all, I can’t say enough words about how genuinely beautiful she is, so I won’t. However, she gets really bad acne with wearing masks and stress, and it makes her feel so ugly. She absolutely isn’t, and she’s tried all these skincare routines, but alas nothing really helps. I will always remind her of how pretty she is, but I know that worry sits in the back of her mind all the time. 

I can tell that it takes a toll on her every single day, and I always try to love and support her through every step of the way, but I didn’t know if there were better techniques or things I could do to help ease her worries a little more. She deserves the world, and I have absolutely no problem sticking through with her, even if it’s a lifelong battle. She’s my rock, and I truly love her with every little tiny crevice of my being 🥺 Any advice would be appreciated! Thank you :)