I live with my boyfriend, we have a good, stable relationship, and we've been together for several years.
He's in the military, and he has a TDY assignment a few hours away. So he has to leave during the week and be there. He's been coming back most weekends, so I'll see him for 1 or 2 days a week, but sometimes can't, so I'll go about 2 weeks without seeing him. He's been on this assignment for about 2 months now, and it ends just before Christmas.
I have a really, really difficult time being home alone. I've never lived completely alone, and I struggle with paranoia. The silence gets to me. I'm convinced that I'm being watched. I obsessively check all of the locks and windows. I can't think about anything else, and it's like I have tunnel vision. I can't focus. I need to do schoolwork, study, exercise, cook, clean, all the normal things, but I can't. I usually lock down the house and then go to bed several hours early, because I'm so stressed I'm exhausted. I don't know how to snap out of it. It goes way beyond needing to just distract myself. It feels like the tunnel-vision, hyper-focused (on the danger, anyway), panicky, fight-or-flight reaction you get in life-or-death situations, and I can't turn it off. What can I do? Please help. He leaves in half an hour and I feel like I'm about to burst into tears. I'm completely panicked about it and all I can think about is being alone, and being alone feels unsafe.