Without knowing his location, my anxiety takes over.

It's not that I don't trust where he is or who he's with, because I'm almost positive that he's either at home or at school or at work. It's just that if I don't know where he is and I haven't heard from him in awhile, my mind automatically jumps to the worst case scenario—that he's dead in a ditch. I feel absolutely crazy wanting to know where he is all of the time, but sometimes not knowing is even worse and has me preparing what I would say at his funeral.

If he leaves me on read, my anxiety takes over.

I could really care less if he has his read receipts on or not, but because he does have them on, being left on read is the cause for so much unnecessary anxiety. Sending a text to say that you're in the middle of something takes only a few seconds, and I know that, which causes my mind to immediately wonder why he would open a text and not respond. I fear that I'm suddenly not good enough for him, that I said something wrong and made him upset, or I fear that the worst has happened to him. I feel crazy as I double text him asking why he didn't reply, but no matter how hard I try, my mind won't let it go.

If he's hanging out with friends, my anxiety takes over.

I'm not his mom, so I can't and don't tell him who he is and isn't allowed to hang out with and when he can and can't hang out with his friends. That simply is not my job. But I end up worrying about him like I am his mom when he does hang out with friends. I know that he's a god guy and I 100% trust his judgment, but I don't know his friends and I constantly worry that one of them will pressure him into doing something that he shouldn't, or that one of them will make a dumb decision that will put my boyfriend in danger as well. I want him to go out and have fun, but I've seen boys be stupid and my anxiety immediately tells me that his friends are going to be stupid as well.

If he changes his profile picture, my anxiety takes over.

This makes me feel so stupid, and I admit, the first time I ever told him that this was triggering for me was an embarrassing day, but it comes with a backstory. A few years ago he changed his profile picture to a picture that I wasn't in and the next morning, I woke up to a text saying that he thought that things would be best if we took a break for a little bit. Even to this day, a simple change in his profile picture forces my mind to race and assume that it's because he's mad at me. I am in a constant state of worry that history is going to repeat itself. This is something that he will likely never understand and, to be honest, I'm not even sure that I fully understand it.

Anxiety has a crazy way of working like that.

If he's in a group chat, my anxiety takes over.

I'm not being self-centered and saying that every time he's in a group chat they're talking about me, but he's told me on more than one occasion that my name has been brought up and I would love to know what's being said about me. In the past, he's had friends make derogatory comments about me, and while I 100% trust him to shut things like that down, I am in a constant state of paranoia wondering if someone will say something like that again. He's also had friends who will try to convince him that he'd be better off single. I know that he would never believe them if he told me that, but I would kill to know if that's what's being said about me. My anxiety convinces me that his friends hate me and that the second they hear my name they have to make their bitter feelings known.