Dear Anita

Thanks for sharing your thoughts on how my expression is going lately. Yeah, when you have an anxiety disorder is very important that the people close to you are a soothing presence, instead of disturbing and I kinda tried to make my parents understand that. Guess this is a significant time for them, to learn to change the dynamics in our family a little, or at least I hope

Tonight it struck me as a realization, an image or symbol I have of myself after all these years. The confusion, the obsession-compulsion, the weird or random mental habits, the daydreaming, the numbing scrolling, the fact I don’t know how to “live” and then, after all this I look myself in the mirror and I have no glow, no matter how well dressed I am, my eyes are so tired. In short, it’s another analogy like the ivy (remember?) And this on is about my brain being a mash. Harsh I know, but like a fried be 1800s style: h electroshock. There’s a poignant scene in a very crude movie Requiem for a dream, this lady goes crazy after abusing prescribed pills but her brain basically ends up as a house plant after being carelessly electroshocked. The movie starts with her looking like the classic lady next door to a shaved, pijama-ed, empty eyed shadow of her former self.

This is an extreme example of how I feel about myself, at 22. Ocd, daydreaming, routine, god knows what, electroshocked me and turned me into mash

It’s interesting because my therapist asked me the same question yesterday. Yes, my mother often showed anger but in a way I’d define more as “exasperation” rather than anger. so yes, she showed very often exasperation throughout my life and in daily life

My therapist thinks my anxiety expressing itself so forcefully and through the need of reassurance is a subliminal way for me to feel like a child again and reach at my parents. I agree with her because I can’t eat without my mother near to me, since she’s the one who knows how to act if someone chokes.

I remember the magnifying glass, and I explained to my therapist that I actually don’t like to express myself with my mom because 1. She has to put herself at the center of the emotional show going on

2. She tends to magnify while I need reassurance

Note: lately I’ve been reading what I consider an amazing article on suffering from addictive daydreaming. It hit me right at the core. And that’s what I need. To feel seen, heard, to be able to relate to. Remember how I used to say that I felt like a weird creature no one could relate to? And you used to tell me that a significant need missed from my upbringing: the relational need, well it hit me how I actually use my daydreams to “exist” somewhere (like everyone else suffering from it does) and cope with that lacking need at the foundation of my upbringing.

I do have a theory that I obsess and daydream on distant crushes and people (remember?) cause my inner child feels familiar with that and gets really vulnerable and scared when people don’t react to me. Yeah, that isn’t a verb I choose randomly: react. People who are irresponsive disturb me and make me feel like a child again, and make me obsess over it and over them

Dear Anita

By “letting it go” I mean just stop obsessing and checking that everything is under control and… What happens, it happens. I do believe in masks and in science and I’m hating people who are trying to make all this a conspiracy, adding anxiety and confusion to people. On the other hand, the “pandemic fatigue” is real. I feel like our lives revolve around the virus and how not to catch it. I try to limit my news intake and see the situation from a realistic (the virus exists and we must act accordingly) without allowing others to instill psychological terrorism in my mind.

For me, this is a very particular time. I always distracted myself with pleasure to cope: food, alcohol, vanity, daydreams. But I noticed that now, it’s that escapist pleasure that I’m losing. I can’t drink, because I take meds, I can’t enjoy food because I fear from phobia of swallowing and chocking, I’m slowly letting go of daydreaming and vanity because I want to face my struggles instead of cope like this, the same old way… I’m limited in many ways but at the same time, I try to see it all as an opportunity to embrace coming to term with myself truly and dealing with stuff, instead of running towards escapism and distraction.

Yes, I’m glad too that I’m currently in therapy and and getting the help I need. I wasn’t on meds since my teens, and I just started again. I’m in such a bad place that anything that can relieve my mind and restore some sanity to my ocd is more than welcome. It’s a stressful, ugly year. Hope you’re doing well in the midst of all this

My name is Giorgia, by the way

Dear Anita

It’s been 7 months since we left this thread.

Currently I’ve started both psychotherapy and meds, since my health anxiety has reached peaks so high that I’ve stop eating for fear of swallowing. Remember when I used to say that I would have loved to do therapy but didn’t know how? That’s how I was feeling. I knew that what I needed most in life was therapy (and yes, meds) but was at a point in life that even talking about the fact that I was struggling wasn’t realistic, in my mind. Currently they kept my ocd diagnosis.

Don’t even know why I’m saying this here but I must confess that I never forgot about this thread and that, in your own way, you tried to help me and hear me. Your opinion was that I needed to keep my emotional and mental health in check and that’s what happening lately, just wanted to let you know

What I need is to hear is that I’m not in danger and that the best is yet to come, by the way:)