Dear V:

“Do I have this response to my friends and boyfriend because I am preempting something bad will occur?”-

– yes. You have lots of experience of bad things that already happened, and you are afraid that more will happen. You got hurt, harmed in the context of relationships with people in your family, so you are afraid of getting hurt and harmed more in the context of relationships with anyone and everyone.

I was afraid of getting hurt by people for so many years, afraid of future hurt until I realized… wait a minute, I already got hurt, the bad things I fear… already happened.

Already happened.. and I survived those things, still alive.

“these thoughts and distancing myself has only happened in the last year when my father became even worse regarding his health”-

– well, your significant anxiety is not new, you mentioned your separation anxiety from your mother when you were a toddler, then it eased and returned at a later age. Anxiety increases and lessens during the course of each and every day. Sometimes we are even calm, no anxiety, for a short time. But it returns. Sometimes anxiety shows up  one way, then later, another way.

Often anxiety increases when something bad happens, sometimes it increases for no reason at all.

Let me know what you think about what I wrote, when you feel like telling me, will you?

anita