Dear Tracey:

This has been my experience: the fears and hurts of my childhood did not disappear with time, did not exit when I turned 18, when I moved, even when I entered a good relationship. Same fear and same hurt kept circulating in my brain all those decades. Tourette Syndrome and OCD were the two first to appear symptoms of that fear and hurt, starting at five or six years old.

Many years later I told someone: “I am afraid!” He asked: “What are you afraid of?” I didn’t know the answer. I know now: I have been afraid all those years of the same danger I experienced as a child: my mother’s disapproval of me, her harsh, relentless criticism of me, her vicious verbal attacks of me.

She hasn’t been in my life for a few years, before that- she didn’t verbally attacked me for years (But any subtle disapproval was all I needed to feel previous viciousness on her part)- but the fear kept circulating. If a person looked at me “the wrong way”- I anticipated an attack. Automatically.

Can you relate to me?

anita