Understanding my anxiety, my relationship with that emotion, and the emotion of anxiety in general has been something I’ve pursued since I was a little girl. Back then I was so little, alone, and felt overwhelmed and full of shame by the way I would become paralyzed by anxiety. I tried hard to figure out how to help myself. I didn’t have any information or support but I was very aware of how much I was suffering and I was desperate to feel free from the pain I was in.
I hated anxiety because I felt like it was torturing me. I felt it everyday as a little girl, a teenager, a newlywed, and a new mama. I have felt overwhelming anxiety as a result of contextual situations, physiological imbalances, and PTSD. I’ve felt it because I didn’t know how to tell people to stop hurting me, or because I didn’t know how to set boundaries that cared for me. As a child, I felt it because I was telling my parents, step-parents and siblings to stop hurting me, they wouldn’t and I couldn’t escape it.
Anx…