Patience is a virtue that cannot be purchased at WalMart. That’s where you start. It takes practice, lots of it. Since you already know the issue, plan in advance what you need to tell her in support of your own opinion and why. She needs to know that you have considered her opinion and given good reason why it is not beneficial without terse or belittling comments. She needs to know you consider her input important and desired. As to the past, have you done things that give her good reason to bring it up? Do you have a habit of making unwise decisions? If you did, then it is all the more important to make sure she is involved in making important decisions, after all, it’s her life too. So back to patience, this is a prime time for you both to start learning compromise and respect for each other’s opinion and learn to do it together.

Gentle empathy, Bobby. I've been on both sides of that particular Help Desk and, for my psycho nickel, the support side of the desk is harder. When I'm the one in psychotic episode, I'm typically not functioning well enough to see the impact I'm having on the world around me. The psychosis offers me a bit of insulation. The view is far more clear on the support side of the desk, and an ugly proof that my psychotic episodes are far more than my own, strictly personal suffering.

For my own approach to that support side of the Help Desk:

1) When someone else's problems are hurting me, I practice detachment and keep my focus on self care. Nobody ever saved a drowning victim by drowning with them.

2) When I find myself ". . .trying to get someone to. . ." I ply therapy tools for my own control issues. I don't **get** to control how other people react to anything. Time to live and let live.

Continued support while you find what works for you, Bobby.

I don’t think her focus on the past is anything about stuff you say or do. Based on other things you’ve posted it seems she does not have the capacity or ability to let go. That is not your weight to carry. She’s an adult woman who probably needs to come to terms with needing professional help.

I agree on detaching a bit. You can’t fix her and I think you just have to find a path to self care while she figures herself out.

Tough situation for you.

The biggest thing to accept is you put your well-being first, and stop, pause, breathe, until you are calm and clear headed to respond neutrally.

What others say and do is their choice, not yours.

Anxiety is a helper. The best gift to help someone else with their anxiety is to be calm. Their problem, their decision.

I truly appreciate the fact that MID took the time to provide feedback and try to help. That said,

1. . Calmness "The best gift to help someone else with their anxiety is to be." And let's say you can do this the first time someone brings up an issue, spend a few minutes, be calm and wish her good luck. But what about the 20th time, she brings something up, and

A. Wants to change or revisit the past, and you want to scream, ITS DONE, GOT IT, we can't change the past, we can only do our best in the present and future.

B. We have a relatively high life style, higher recently, and which requires a substantial amount of work at my job, which includes dealing with people anxious about their situation. To keep them happy requires a lot of work and contact. So how I do that, when the suggestion is instead of say, it's done, or let's get over this, I should spent 15-20 multiple times a day trying to sympathize, be patient, be understanding and validate her feelings.

Is it possible that the constant validation and sympathy is part of the problem? It doesn’t sound like it’s working or helping. I personally think sometimes people just need to have “come to Jesus” type moments. I don’t know your wife or you but maybe when she’s going on and on, walk away. Probably not a popular approach but something probably needs to change in your dynamic.

Thanks for your advice. I have realized first, that I need to do a better job. Getting angry and raising my voice does not help. I can control how I respond. For example, imagine, a young woman about 25 sees her mother for lunch at an upscale restaurant. About 5 minutes into the lunch, mom says looks like you gained at a few pounds. While you cannot control what people say, you can control how you respond and try to control how you feel.

So the daughter could scream, be depressed for the next 2 weeks, attack her mother for being abusive, or say, mom I feel good and don't care to discuss this now, tell me how your organization is going. They say the Caesar salad here is very good.

So I'm working on my self-control and constructive ways of dealing with her anxiety. I do walk away, and will say, your therapist has said this going over what happened is not constructive, so please discuss something else. (that usually does not help her change, but I can only control what I do).

Yeah it's so true how we react and respond is within our control. How we manage ourselves in these interactions can actually help de-escalate things and help us not internalize the other person's stuff. Good plan!