Dear Midnight:

I re-read through your thread to refresh my memory.

I also read since you started your thread, I read replies you posted on other people’s threads. I was very impressed with your intellect, your approach: you are a very intelligent, reasonable, wider- perspective person.

Back to your thread: did you talk to your therapist about having been bullied by your brother, since you wrote on this thread that you will bring it up with him?

It seems to me that the origin of your ROCD type anxiety is in your early relationships- the one with your brother and those with your parents. There is some compromise you made at a very early age, I am thinking, a compromise with reality. Something hurt to much to keep in awareness so you closed your eyes to it best you can, removed it from your awareness so to minimize your distress (an automatic process).

And so, as intelligent, reasonable and wider- perspective as you are, you cannot integrate some crucial information so to heal, because it involves feeling that distress that was once too much to bear.

If you’d like, share next about your relationship with your mother (you mentioned having had issues with her). Just write whatever comes to your mind about her and your relationship with her through the years. If you run out of things to write, write about your father and your relationship with him.

anita