Dear Lisa:

Of course you are and have been suffering from anxiety, an ongoing state of fear, and so have I. So do millions of people, as anxiety seems to be the human condition. Unfortunately. Your individual anxiety, in my experience with people,  is one of the more intense in human experience, and very long term. Not outside the human experience, but on the more intense end of the spectrum.

And it is possible for you to manage it better, to continue to do what you have done to manage it and do more of it. You function very well considering your anxiety.

You wrote: “I just want to be able to go to my room and hide”- just like you did as a little girl.

You wrote: “My biggest fear is becoming too comfortable. I fear that because the more comfortable I get the more honest I get. That is not good. I have to appear happy and calm all the time because my true self is in pain and anxious and defensive”-

that core belief that you were taught as a child, that you have to appear calm, to not show your distress, that core belief is harming you. It creates a pressure to “appear happy and calm all the time”- an impossible goal that causes anxiety… as in, when is the next time I lose that happy-and-calm appearance?

Changing that core belief, accepting that no one can look happy and calm all the time, and that neither should anyone appear that way, will help with your anxiety.

anita