Shutterstock

Dealing with headaches and panic attacks is never easy. It is especially difficult when you are dating someone new, and they experience it for the first time.

What would you do if you had a bad headache that led to a panic attack while you were on a date with your boyfriend, so he took you home, but your parents blamed him for the issues?

That is what happened to the young woman in this story, so she yelled at her parents and said that they were out of line for blaming him. Now she wonders if she might have gone too far.

From what she wrote, I don’t think she overreacted, and her parents are being weird. Read through the full story below, and see if you agree.

AITA for telling my parents that they don’t know what’s best for me?

So some backstory to this. I (20F) have dealt with multiple different anxiety disorders all my life.

Most of them I can manage with therapy and medication, but I still struggle with my panic disorder. For those unaware, a panic disorder is where you have unexpected bouts of anxiety that also have physical symptoms.

For me, my physical symptom has always been nausea. So that also means that whenever l’m nauseous, I have a panic attack. Believe me, it’s as fun as it sounds.

Headaches can be debilitating.

Recently, my boyfriend (20M) and I went out on a date. Before the date, I had a slight headache that I thought would go away.

I was very wrong and it continuously got worse throughout the night. By the end of the night, it had gotten bad enough that I needed to go home.

It is good that he is being understanding.

As soon as I stood up, l felt a huge wave of nausea crash over me. He was driving me home, so the whole way I was freaking out, both because of the panic attack and because this is the first time he has seen me have a panic attack.

He was aware before, but I never really went into much detail.

Luckily he took it well and was extremely kind during the whole thing.

Tracking the cause of panic attacks can help to prevent them.

When I got home, I was still coming down from the initial panic.

My parents could tell and are used to this. They made sure I took my meds and made it to bed and that was the end of the night.

The next morning, my parents began asking what triggered the attack.

Most of the times I don’t know, but this one was easy to trace.

Why would they assume this?

I explained the headache situation and thought we could leave it at that.

But then they began pushing. They asked if my boyfriend was pressuring me, if he was making me do things I wasn’t ready for.

They were asking personal questions like if we had kissed or been intimate.

I’m normally pretty open with my parents, but I felt they were crossing a line.

Honestly, this is really weird.

I repeated the headache story to them, but they didn’t believe me.

I kept trying to explain, but they both had made up their minds that my attack was caused by my boyfriend. They both agreed that I should break up with him.

I was shocked.

They had met him and seemed to really like him. They both thought he could be really good for me. But all of a sudden they want me to break up with him over a story they made up in their heads.

It only happened once; that is not something to worry about.

I obviously told them no which they did not take well.

They argued saying that if I was coming home having panic attacks, then I shouldn’t see him anymore.

Eventually I told them that just because they’re my parents, that doesn’t mean that they know what’s best for me.

This was just an unfortunate argument.

Neither of them were happy with that and we ended up leaving the argument there.

Overall I think we all said things we didn’t mean, and I feel bad for yelling at them, but what they were asking was outrageous and I wanted them to see that.

AITA?

She should try to figure out what prompted them to change their opinion on the boyfriend. That was really weird.

Let’s see what the people in the comments on Reddit have to say about the situation.

I don’t think her parents like her boyfriend.

This commenter says that her parents have her best interests at heart even if they aren’t showing it well.

It is sometimes difficult to transition into an adult relationship with your parents.

Her parents have helped her with her anxiety in the past, but it is time for boundaries.

If you enjoyed this story, check out this post about a group of friends who were denied a townhome lease because they’re not considered a “family.”

This commenter thinks she got her anxiety from her parents.

What do they have against her boyfriend? They used to like him, or so it seemed, and now they are doing this. It really doesn’t make sense.

I don’t know exactly what she said in the argument, but it sounds like she was just standing up for herself and her boyfriend. That isn’t a bad thing.