How long does it take you to wind down after a stressful situation?

It depends on the thing for me. I don’t have children, so I can’t speak to that, except to say I would imagine worrying about children is probably way up at the top of the list for most everyone who does have children.

If I have an ongoing situation, where the end is in the distance or nowhere in sight, I tend to stay at a constant state of low level anxiety that gets triggered now and then to peak. Times like this it takes me a while to calm back down or even to feel happy. I try to think of anxiety like labor, do your best to rest between the contractions. The problem is I know there is still going to be more pain coming down the pike, and so that makes it more difficulty to really come back down to normal.

When lots of different things are going wrong it’s basically the same, because it seems like if it’s not one thing it’s another. I think we get on overload. I know many people who start out stressed from some bad life events and if it drags on too long they start getting phobic. A common one is they become afraid to drive. Some people move more towards being agoraphobic. They start avoiding going out or doing anything adventurous.

On the other hand, if I’m basically doing pretty good and life has been relatively easy for a while, a few minutes or even hours of worry, if everything turned out ok, I would be fine almost immediately after.

One thing I’m beginning to see about myself is I’m getting a little more paranoid as I get older that bad things will happen. I don’t mean a general sense of paranoia, but it’s more situational. I have a big fear of regretting, and a big fear of having known better and letting something bad happen, because I didn’t act on my paranoia. Unfortunately, I’m right a lot. I don’t say that to brag, I would love to be wrong. What mean is I seem to be more aware than most people where the dangers are.

My husband barely suffers from anxiety. He takes things as they come and doesn’t worry about things that haven’t happened yet.

As a side note. When I lived in a very cold part of the country I often kept a small blanket in the car just in case.

I’m not an overly anxious person but, of course, there are occasions when I encounter situations that lead to high anxiety. Usually, it will be something that will negatively affect me or one of my family and over which I have little or no control. If I’m stressed by the issue/thing and I don’t DO something, my stress can last all day or all evening or my brain will be ruminating over it and that will stop me sleeping. I find if I do something it helps to dissipate my stress. It might be doing some research or even talking to my husband about my/our problem. I just find I feel less stressed when I feel I’m doing something useful in relation to the problem. Apart from calling your husband, I’m not sure what you could do about this situation before you knew what happened and after, I’d imagine the ‘what ifs’ were getting to you.

As an example, my son did something that was really out-of-order and caused us some major headaches. I got an email about it while I was overseas. For some reason I couldn’t sleep so I checked my email, and then I was sitting there at 2am with news from my daughter about my son’s behaviour, and I was very stressed, angry and unsure how to react. So I woke my husband and talked it through with him (he wanted to know about this thing). Once we’d discussed it and hashed out some ideas about what we should do, I could settle down. If we hadn’t done that, I’d have been awake all night.

I think it really depends on the person and the situation. I find that stress from situations that make us feel most vulnerable can have longer lasting effects especially if it comes from a deep fear.
Example for me would be when my daughter called me one night and she lived an hour away. She was not feeling well and felt light headed and was having difficulty breathing. She is an asthmatic and was living alone. I realized I didn’t have a key to her place. She said she was going to take some medication for her asthma and go to bed so she told me not to come. The next morning I called her right away. I did not sleep all night. Even after she told me she was feeling 100 percent better it took me the whole day to recover. I felt like I went 10 rounds with a boxer. I was worried about it happening in the future and it being something serious next time and I had no way of knowing if she was alright or a way to get in. I realize you have to let your kids be independent but it comes at a price of our peace of mind.
Another time I was let go from my job because I accidentally did something that was against the rules. I was stressed at first but since I really didn’t like my boss, so I decided not to fight it. It simply wasn’t worth the trouble. I had friends at work who took it harder than I did. They were even willing to testify that my boss was out to get me and that she had let other people who didn’t deserve to work there off the hook for doing worse on purpose. It’s a long story. So although I wasn’t happy about losing my job, I figured I could always get another job, and I did. But our kids can never be replace.

Beer or video games provide temporary respite in under half an hour to an hour. I figure if it’s as bad as I think it to be, I’ll know about it before long. Not downgrading your situation, this is honestly the way I roll. I don’t have anyone in my life that is close to me besides my grandma, so hence the answer.

Going on 3 years….I will let you know if and when. To your situation…shit happens and to me that is normal. That said I do totally empathize with what you are going through….and knowing you all these years it seems you have more than your fair share and I admire your resolve to persevere and dedication to your family. Winter can be an unholy SOB and take solace in that hopefully your son learned a valuable lesson and will not venture out in the middle of winter wearing moccasins ever again. All I can offer is a virtual hug and hope that warmer less stressful days are ahead. Keep on keeping @jonsblond

I’m an optimist, get over shit pretty quickly, take stuff in my stride.
If my kids have gone through a hazardous situation, best thing is to let relief at the outcome wash over me. That allows you to relax & even see the humour in something that otherwise can beat you down.
Focus on the positives & stuff you can control, what’s been has been.

I am not typically an anxious person. Few things cause me anxiety. It depends on what it is and what the circumstances are. My daughter is still at an age where she’s not going out independently or driving, so I don’t have any anxiety from those things. Financially, I’m in a good spot so money is not an issue. My job is stable and we have a small office, so most things at work are fairly predictable. Sometimes there are issues among employees not getting along, fortunately for me, I get along with most people. I don’t like arguing with people, so if there is an issue with the few people that I don’t care for, it will annoy me, at the most. One of my close family members has an illness, but is ok for now (getting treated) so that is a concern, but it’s kind of in the background right now.

A close friend of mine recently became a widow and her husband had a terrible illness before he died. She is now sick herself with some physical ailments and high anxiety. She is not working and extremely stressed out and thinking she is going to die. She’s wrapped up in her illness and symptoms and now her money situation. She’s really into the physical symptoms and how she feels and what is occurring and she doesn’t want to hear positive things, I guess because she does not feel positive. That kind of anxiety is the other end of the spectrum from what I have. I can’t imagine what it’s like, but it seems like it’s not fun at all.

I am a fairly anxious person although I don’t think it is obvious to most people. When my husband left me, I woke up most nights for months at 3 in a panic. It is not easy for me to manage my stress – or sleep – but therapy has been a big help. I would say that a lot of my anxiety now, such as before going on a trip, is alleviated once I am in the situation and coping. And now that I have seen that I can manage my finances and my home myself, some of the divorce stress is alleviated – if i don’t think too much about the future. Preparing for things thoroughly is one way I try to cope with stress.

@janbb You make a great point that anticipatory stress is a killer. That’s what my husband doesn’t do that makes him a calmer person, but it sometimes frustrates me he is oblivious to possible dangers and things that can go wrong in the future. Even as simple as padding enough time in case something might go wrong. Except for getting to the airport. That he is ridiculously, oddly extreme about. Now we live in a place with a nice airport so I just make it part of the trip and plan to eat there if I fly with him.

I have recently been diagnosed with GAD. I was like “no shit, really~” I don’t get to wind down to be honest, I have a stressful job and it brings it out. I’m learning to manage anxiety myself.

This helps to read how everyone else copes. Thank you.

I think it was perfectly normal for you to be totally stressed all day after that. He was fine and the car was fine, but it so easily might have been another ending. For me, it would have been helpful to take a hot bath and to drink some chamomile tea or to put on some loud rock music and dance for a while.

My bowels turn to water when I get bad news from home. I just heard that my brother had been sentenced to jail for six months rather than in-patient treatment for alcoholism, and I am still upset about it. I am not as upset as I would have been before SSRIs, but I am still upset and thrusting thoughts about it out of my conscious mind.

What’s your dose? Could you try a slightly larger one?

@marinelife 20mg. I can tell that it helps. I’m a lot calmer now and the small things don’t get to me like they used to, but I do have moments when I wonder if I should take a larger dose. I’m sorry to hear about your brother. Hopefully that big game tomorrow will help keep your mind off the stressful stuff for a bit.