Dear J:

I was very anxious, very distressed as a child and teenager. I wasn’t the … independent type and yet, at 24 I left the country I was born in and traveled by myself in London and from there in San Francisco and onward in the U.S. I didn’t know anyone in London or in the U.S. It was so easy. The thing is, I was anxious living with my mother, afraid every day, often depressed. You’d think I’d be too afraid to travel the world by myself?

Oh, no! Everything was easier once I was away from my mother.

I found out the scariest thing for me was to live with her… and for her. I was trapped and it was a miserable experience. Being on my own, even without a plan or anyone was a breath of fresh air.

It was always the guilt, the heavy guilt I felt about my mother, believing (falsely, so it turned out to be!) that she couldn’t live without me. It was an excruciating prison I was in. Nothing was more difficult in my life than being in that prison and so far everything has been easier living away from her.

So I am thinking it is possible that your therapist is wrong, that your anxiety, like mine, has to do with living with your mother, and that maybe in your case too, living away from her would be like a bird finally spreading her wings and flying in an open sky of possibilities.

Of course, there were clouds in my “sky of possibilities”- the guilt and distorted thinking/ being blind to reality filled my sky with fog. There is more to my story, but I will stop here. Wondering if you can relate to some of it…?

anita