I think I should give a little more background on my family. Up until I was about 10 years old I had the most ideal childhood. Full of so much love, laughter, happiness, I mean really, it was pure bliss. When I say family relationship issues, it’s not really between me and a family member.

My mom went through a bad depression for years (starting when I was about 10) and never did anything about it. She has so much unresolved trauma. My dad dealing with this over the years, has created his own traumas. My brother and I were always effected by this but I think watching how my mom dealt with all of her own issues and feelings, we never talked about anything that bothered us. We hid it away, our mom would tell us that we don’t need anyone knowing our family business and that we should never talk to any of our friends about our family problems. My mom had a really rough few years, a lot happened to her at once and it is what sent her into this depression that I am talking about.

My upbringing never really taught me how to process sad or negative feelings. If there was a problem, I was taught to fix it with my head held high. Kill with kindness and be a leader. I was never taught that it was okay to share my life with anyone and it taught me to always have my guard up. I truly don’t think it was intentional but growing up learning this, it has always made me think I can’t let anyone ever see me weak and it left me craving attention. I don’t think I realized that is why I have always craved attention until now, but it just clicked as I was writing this.

I don’t question my parents love for me. I know they love me, but I think sometimes it is a little bit of an unhealthy love. It is a depending love, which hurts me because it makes me feel like if I cannot help them then they will grow to not like me? I question this because that is how I feel but I feel silly saying it because if I ever talked to them about it, they would never in a million years say they would stop loving or liking me. But it is how I am asked for things. It is always such a guilt trip and makes it nearly impossible to say no. Guilt trips are a bigggg thing in my family. They have been used my whole life, and I won’t lie, I have used them too bc it just seems like the norm when communicating or needing something with my family. I know they are wrong though and I actively make sure I don’t use them on others because I know how damaging they can be. My parents & brother just need a lot of help, with so many things, and they have no one else to turn to, so they depend on me. At the same time though, even as I recognize all of the problems I have with my family, I still get homesick and want to be around them. I still feel like they are a safe place for me, especially when I am feeling so anxious.

A few side notes not on the family topic:

Things that I constantly question when I am anxious are “if my problems are with my immediate family, why are my anxious thoughts about my boyfriend?” “What if this isn’t anxiety and I really just don’t love my boyfriend anymore but I am too blind/broken/ scared to see that?” “What if I put in all of this work with therapy, and nothing changes?”

Even when I am not feeling anxious, or I take an anxiety medication (I have one btw, I just don’t like to take it regularly, I try to only take it when I am having a panic attack, my hopes are to work through my anxieties through therapy, but the medication really does help calm me down.) In the back of my mind, I feel worried about the next time my anxiety will come back up, or I will think about my anxious thoughts as a way to test myself to see if it is just anxiety or if they are really how I am feeling… this gets so hard because I start to think well, if it is in my brain right now and I am not feeling anxious then it must be valid… but I am putting my anxious thoughts in my head when I am not anxious. It’s a vicious cycle.

Again, I want to thank you both. Your insight has helped me more than you can even imagine.