Flood anxiety & panic

I know this sounds crazy but ever since a few weeks ago when we had some bad storms move through our area and our porch and basement got flooded, I get very anxious now when I see the forecast for more bad weather.

I have tried to take steps to prevent the flooding from occurring like adding sand bags at the end of our driveway, etc. but I still feel very uneasy, and with the forecast of more bad weather over the next few days I’m on edge.

One of the things that bother me is that my wife thinks I’m acting silly and she recognizes that I have anxiety about it. She tried to help but she looses patients with me, guess I can’t blame her. She thinks my prepping for another storm is simply my anxiety fueling it, and says something like “ you going to put sandbags on the driveway every time we get rain”.

I’m just kind of at a loss of what to do, I want to make sure we are as prepared as possible in case it gets bad but at the same time I don’t want to anger her by doing so.

Any advice would be nice.... FYI. I do have prescription for Xanax to use as needed because of some other unrelated anxiety issues I had a few years ago, totally different subject matter.

Thank you very much for the kind words. Hopefully this wet weather and Hurricane Florence will miss us and things can get back to normal.

We have done exactly that, sandbags are on the standby and ready to go. My wife came around to the idea after seeing so many other people in our area get flooded that she said it is probably for the best to be prepared. In addition I’m doing my very best to manage my anxiety about the whole thing.

One thing that kind of helped but kind of didn’t was that today I went over to help a friend pump out his basement that got over 30” of water in it. Numerous people in his neighborhood had the same issue which is different then mine. His the water is actually coming up though the ground and into the basement where mine happens with flash flooding and large amounts of water come in my driveway from the street. I say it helped me by realizing how good we currently have it because my basement is currently dry and his is a disaster, I feel so bad for him. On the other hand since seeing that it certainly has raised my anxiety level of what could be with this hurricane approaching.

Trying to maintain and control my thoughts.....

Are you on the East Coast? My hub's family is as well...and many of our friends! Sending prayers for all of you in the area!

Work your coping skills...and remember the media really hypes things and can be a trigger...so stay informed, but also watch your input to help keep your anxiety from getting heightened unnecessarily.

S.C.