Anita,

Thats interesting about ‘it’ being safety. That makes a lot of sense! May be why no amount of money in savings or income or job creates that feeling of safety.

I have one sibling and my brother is 5 years older. By the time I was 10 he became pretty aggressive, pushing my parents around physically and breaking cabinets/phones. The police came a lot and a couple years later he got his first dwi. When I was 15 he went to jail after getting his third in NJ, but before he did he broke his hand assaulting me. (My mom also lost her job that year managing a printing press because it went out of business. It took her 4 months to get another comparable but lower paying position elsewhere.) He got divorced a couple years ago and during that time got sober for a year and since then he’s been completely different. He still drinks here and there but he has calmed down completely. He was a total stranger to me until the divorce. Now we talk on occasion and he just got remarried and I was in the wedding. I doubt I’ll ever feel close with him but when he went to jail I started acting out and that’s when I went from a straight A student to getting expelled within a three year period of time.

He now has a son and has worked at the same job even after going to jail. He was so well liked there they saved his job and he’s worked his way up to the top over the last 13 years. He’s still friends with kids he went to elementary school with and doesn’t seem to have issues anymore at all. He seems content and has become a lot of fun to be around.

Ive struggled to maintain relationships but over the last couple years I’ve had some consistency and that has been a major change. I reunited with one high school friend after his mom saw me working in an urgent care and got my number to give him. I don’t delete numbers anymore and I just got Facebook last Septmeber and like seeing posts from friends I’ve had living and working in different areas.

Im going to start meditating about this feeling of safety I seem to seek. That made a lot of sense. My childhood wasn’t perfect but it also wasn’t so detrimental I thought it could produce these behavioral problems I seem to have. I’d like to really identify what the fear is, how it’s triggered, and what action I can take to make my choices based on intuition and not fear. One of my favorite quotes is from Nelson Mandela, “May your choices reflect your hopes, not your fears”. I also just watched a documentary about Maya Angelou and her capacity to shape her world despite serious childhood scars is incredible. I hope to have a backbone like that.