Inky

Thank you, your reply made me relax and cry 😉

It’s so reassuring to know I am not being silly and this can be pretty normal, so thank you for that.

I said to my husband if I was in a dark room I know I’d cope, so it must be I am embarrassed to show myself panicking. I might just throw a blanket over my head haha!

Thank you I shall try those tools you’ve suggested. I ordered an oil diffuser yesterday and tonight I am going to go and buy some lavender oil to see if it will help calm me.

Thank you

Julie

Brilliant. Thank you VJ I shall contact them.

My therapist has suggested EFT and we did a session on it to help me face my anxiety driving my kids to school but she hasn’t since taught me how to use it daily for every day anxiety.

Thank you.

Julie

Thank you Anita

Yes I am ok with no contact, it hurts me more when they contact me, because it’s never pleasant. My mother wants to be in my life and the childrens but it’s on her terms, as and when she can see us. She hasn’t helped me once through my chronic ill health and I am learning to accept that and let go of the resentment and hurt I feel that she has yet again abandoned me again. I am now learning to let her see us on my terms, so when she says she wants to visit us on a certain day if I don’t feel well that day I will say no assertively and no longer feel I can’t say no. It has to be right for me.

I have seen 3 therapists the last 4 years. The first was awful, the second one was great but very expensive, this lady I am seeing now does know her stuff. She also has had PTSD but I don’t think she truly gets agoraphobia if I am honest. I am going to give it another session or two then assess how I feel.

My therapist actually said that, I need to treat myself as 2 people, I have a scared inner child which is the anxious part of me and she said that part of me is adult as I am a good parent to my children. She said because I have been abandoned and hurt all my life it’s why I struggle to not be this scared little child, my childhood was also full of trauma and I felt afraid growing up. Then my brother attacked my husband and me a year later it then brought to light this anxiety disorder that I’d had inside me all my life but it was more subtle before, now it is so intense. I did overcome things but a year ago I became ill physically and it all came flooding back hence the agoraphobia again. I worry about my health constantly and think negatively. My poor head and brain hurt and I am exhausted making my chronic fatigue much worse.

I bought a book on healing the Inner Child, I am yet to start it. I am wondering if I’d be better off giving myself my own therapy because I feel my therapist really doesn’t get how hard I find going out. Yesterday when I asked how I’d face my blood test in 2 weeks she said to do imaginable exposure and belly breathing. I asked how I’d do appointments again one day and she gave the same advice, yet I have this huge mental block and fear of the doctors surgery since I had the panic attack in an appointment last year. My fear is I won’t ever go back and face these places. I told her I had to do a fear hierarchy and then work through it physically, not just imagining situations I am afraid of. I then said the tougher ones like the doctors I could break down into smaller tasks to reach the goal of doing an appointment. I could walk up to the doctors building and stand by the door, the next time walk in a pick up a leaflet, the time after pick up my prescription, then maybe sit in the waiting room while my husband goes to his appointment….. She agreed they were good ideas but I feel it’s all coming from me. There is more to healing agoraphobia and now phobias than belly breathing and imaginable exposure.

Sorry, just therapy has definitely been frustrating the last few weeks. She did my anxiety and depression tests in July when I started seeing her, she said she would do them regular to keep an eye on my mood incase therapy was making me feel worse. She never did them again until I asked her to yesterday. My depression score was very low in July, it’s now crept up, my anxiety has lessened abit but my mood has dipped which I knew it had. I am not one for depression but I feel the therapy has made me feel worse about things. I know therapy isn’t easy and you often feel like quitting so I guess I should stick with it. I cannot put myself through starting again with someone else, dragging up my past, talking about that day with my brother again, it’s too painful to keep going through it. I think this lady is my last chance then I will work hard ont hings myself. I seem to know more than her at times and she has said I seem so knowledgeable on anxiety, she asks me often how I know certain things. I had to give my son therapy myself after the NHS let him down, and everything I taught him helped as he is now in school thriving. I know it’s in me to do it but I am stuck in a rut right now and feeling so down on myself. I beat myself up daily that I should be more active and exercising, out walking but I can’t due to my ill health. I feel I should be taking the children to all their appointments but I’m not which makes me a terrible mother I rely on my husband… I am so hard on myself and it’s getting me nowhere. I need a blood test just for an MOT to check a few things and I am worrying about my health a year on and want it doing for peace of mind, but my fear I will have a huge panic attack or faint infront of the GP terrifies me. He has said he will come to my house but I still can’t bring myself to do it. I need my hubby with me and right now he can’t get any time off work to be with me for it so until he can I can’t face it, but in the meantime it’s hanging over me. I have already put it off a month lol! I worry more about my health not having it done, yet am terrified to do it after what happened during a blood test last year.

Sorry to go of course there, my poor head is full of worries right now.

Thank you for your kind replies.

Julie

Hello Anita

I have very little contact with my sisters and mother. Only recently has there been some contact as it was my birthday and my daughters within a week of eachother and my mother and sister turned up to bring us gifts. My younger sister blanked our birthdays which is fine but she did contact me a week after my birthday to ask for my Grans address to send her a birthday card (my grans birthday is the same day as my daughters) which I completely ignored. I just feel sad that she still tries to hurt me in her own subtle ways. OTher than that there is no contact with family, I have cut myself off. Removed myself off Facebook and any other social media they were following me on.

Yes, I hate all the labels she has given me. I just need to treat PTSD as anxiety, it all comes under the same umbrella it’s just that mine has been caused by a traumatic event when my brother terrified me then my family bullied me for 2 years after.

I feel lost. I had therapy today and have come away from it crying and feeling worse about myself. Today she listened and let me get out how I am feeling. I told her since therapy my anxiety and mood has got worse and I seem to have lost all hope of overcoming my anxiety and agoraphobia this time. She said therapy can do that early on as you discuss your traumas. I talked to her today about how awful my agoraphobia is and that I am avoiding a blood test I really need to get done as I have been ill a long time. I need an eye test as I am having some issues with my eyes but that instinct I used to have when I overcame agoraphobia in 2013 just isnt there. This time it’s like that inner voice of confidence has gone. I couldn’t walk into a doctors surgery now, I have a huge brick wall I just can’t get over this time. She just said I had to do imaginable exposures at home of the things i fear, belly breathing exercises and EFT. It’s making me wonder if this will help at all. I know from last time it was acceptance, real exposure work doing a fear hierarchy that helped me. This time I have so much fear I am struggling to even work on that right now and I told her this. I am wondering if therapy isn’t for me as will she even help and can i afford to throw £40 a week away to be told to belly breathe and do imaginable exposure? She is good in that she’s explained to me now about the amydalada and how the fear part of us takes over in our brain and the rational part of us goes offline, so she knows her stuff and it’s helped early on but now the last 3 sessions I have felt bad about myself for struggling and today she only gave me those tips and little else.

Sorry for it being a long reply.

Thank you

Julie

Anita

I forgot to say. I’d never let my mum see my children without me around because last year she asked if she could have my sons over for a sleepover. I agreed on the basis that she respected mine and my husbands wishes and didn’t let my brother visit while she had my children over. She agreed but the following morning my son text me begging me to hurry and pick him up because my mum had my brother at the house. When I collected them I refused to enter the house and she shook her head at me angry that i wouldn’t come in. She didn’t speak to me for 2 weeks angry that I was upset my brother was there and i wouldn’t enter, making him feel uncomfortable. I told her she went against my wishes and should not have had my brother near my children. This is a ‘man’ (I struggle to call him that) who attacked my husband unprovoked infront of my children out of the blue and had to be arrested and taken away from our home. A year later after he swore he had gone for help with his mental illness, he chased me in his car and told my mother when he got hold of me he was going to kill me (and he meant it). My mother knew he wanted to kill me and she never called me to warn me to go somewhere safe. I saw him in my car and he chased me, I ran into a police station where he followed me in, attempted to assault me and a police officer and was arrested and thrown into a cell for the night. So she knew full well why he wasn’t allowed near my children. She took great pleasure in telling me that the boys were fine when my brother was at the house, in her words ‘they were laughing and joking with him so I think it’s just you and your husband turning them against him as they were fine when you weren’t here’. Little did she know my sons were texting me to pick them up quickly. I spoke to my boys and they were upset saying their grandmother had lied as they just said hello to him to be polite and were too scared to chat to him.

She takes great pleasure in doing things like that to ease my brothers guilt as he is apparently wracked with guilt that he hurt my children and is scared to see them as he thinks they hate him. So she wants to ease his guilt, but in the process hurt me and rub in my face that my children love my brother, which is simply untrue. My poor children are terrified of him and it’s why i cut him out of our lives.

Sorry for the whole chapter and verse, but I haven’t ever opened up about that. She can never see my children without me as I don’t trust her.

Thank you Inky.

I would move in a heartbeat but my children are very settled with great friends, if they were younger then I would move for sure but now they are all older, one son is going through his GCSE’s as of next year,s o it’s just not an option. I also have my 12 year old son to think of, he has just come through horrific anxiety and is now so happy, great friends…. I would not uproot him as it would make things worse for him just when things have calmed.

I have discussed moving with the children and none of them were happy about it, 2 even cried so I am not going to hurt my children to move away from my mum but in an ideal world I’d not live by her or any of my family as I find it very uncomfortable. Luckily the children are a 15 minute drive away from them and don’t bump into them so we also like you live in a happy little universe just the 5 of us. Of course it hurts when someone is so close by, my husband says he would rather be 10,000 miles away because then it hurts less that they make no effort to see you. He is right but I just can’t risk hurting my children further because of my mothers mistakes. I’d rather stay where we are than hurt my children.

Thank you for your kind words. You are right, it’s just not do able.

Julie

Thank you Nene – Very true, I need to focus on those that do love me and help me in life. I appreciate your kind reply. Thank you.

Anita- Firstly I just wanted to say no I don’t ever talk to my children about how bad my mum treats me. My children are fairly grown up, my eldest is 13 and he has obviously noticed that his grandmother doesn’t visit, he is aware she is with my sister and her grandchildren daily. None of this comes from me telling him, it’s just a known fact in the family. My children were aware of what my brother did as they saw it with their own eyes and they noticed from that day that I had no family anymore, it’s a really difficult thing to hide from them. I had to explain to them that my family felt the need to support my brother through his ill health and as a result we didn’t see much of them. My eldest resents my family alot for doing that but it’s not me that’s planted that seed, I hope that all makes sense. My middle child is 11 and he has asked why he doesn’t see much of family as he misses them and I find that really tough, he misses my family alot. That is why last month when my mum turned up late on the day she promised a visit my children got upset and asked her why she never visits. They have noticed it, and were asking me often why. Maybe I do come across as sad about my situation with my mother but again that’s pretty hard at times to hide.

I don’t really reach out to her but yes if she calls I answer the phone, maybe I need to stop that as it only upsets me that she doesn’t offer me any support and I need to stop telling her about the tough times I have been through recently in hope she will be the mother I want.

Thank you for your replies.

THank you Saiisha

I am looking up the books you recommended on Amazon UK now. Are they spiritual books too?

Ju