My partner is not the best at supporting my mental health (mostly anxiety). We both have mental health issues and I am myself very good at supporting him through anxiety, trauma and the like (not to toot my own horn but just for context).
Whenever I get anxious or my anxiety inhibits me from doing daily tasks that other people might do effortlessly if they don’t have the same anxiety (I get claustrophobic easily), he always manages to say the wrong thing, i.e. ‘of course you’re not going to make it to X event as last time you didn’t make Y event because you couldn’t get on the train’. I’ve tried to address this by asking him if he could not say those kinds of things as they trigger my avoidant behaviour with regards to public transport, but the message never really seems to come across. I’m unsure what to do with it as all he will say is ‘it’s just the truth’. I wish that he could just say ‘It’s okay, you can do it and if you are struggling I’ll support you through it’ as that would help, but I’m unsure how to make him see that. Hasn’t been productive in the past as he’ll just say ‘I am trying to support you’ and won’t listen to what I have to say.
Could you advise on how to open communication?