Oof, hello r/anxiety. I feel like, in a way, I've found my people. Gosh, where do I begin? I got double diagnosed in November with generalized anxiety disorder and an ED (It's called ARFID----it's pretty uncommon. There's a reddit thread for it if people are interested called r/ARFID). The two diagnoses play off one another. I get anxious, by body detects a threat and limits my eating on top of my already large lack of motivation to eat (a symptom of ARFID), I don't eat and then feel sick because of malnutrition, I get more anxious because of this. Rinse and repeat, every day. And I'm just so, so tired. I don't even know what to do sometimes. Anyone I tell this to makes me feel dumb or crazy.

For the anxiety piece, a lot of it comes from a very consistent need I have for validation from others. I don't know where this came from or what kind of trauma resulted in it, but I need a lot of reassurance in certain areas of my life. I want to hear that I'm normal despite having two debilitating disorders. In my relationship, I seem to constantly need to be reminded that he cares about me even though it's clear to anyone else who sees us. I start to doubt it every day. And gosh, I can't even trust my own thoughts anymore because they're so affected by my ever-growing list of insecurities. I don't have the skills yet to bring myself out of this, so everything just feels tense and stressful all the time.

I'm not even sure why I'm writing this post. I should be doing other things. I just felt the need to get this out. If anyone has any similar experiences or some advice on the relationship piece, I would love to hear it. My best wishes to all of you and your journeys through this!