Dear James:

“My main problem was a desire to please my parents and have their love and support”- every young mammal and every child has this desire, it is inborn. Without the support of the mother deer, the fawn, unfed and unprotected, will die.

It was a problem for you because… you did not receive the love and support that you needed from your parents.

Just as a fawn gets very fearful finding itself alone, with his mother nowhere in sight, so does the child, feeling very fearful with his mother nowhere around. If a mother leaves her child unpredictably and repeatedly, for whatever reason, that is enough to scare a child.

Fear happening again and again, unresolved, becomes ongoing, aka anxiety.

A child gets scared when his parent gets angry, all animals fear the anger of others (an angry animal intends to harm the object of its anger, or to threaten harm), but a child’s mother anger at her own child, that is most scary for the child, because a child cannot run away from his mother, or father. Ii is very scary for a child to be stuck/trapped with an angry parent.

“I started experiencing some disturbing thoughts when I was about 4 close to 5.. not being sure I love God”- before those thoughts, before 4 or 5,  there was already anxiety-  anxiety was the cause, the disturbing thoughts- the effect. If you felt safe with your parents, if you didn’t doubt their love for you, you wouldn’t have become repeatedly fearful and then scanning your brain for reasons why it is that they don’t love you.

“It was my mother who betrayed my trust. She only did that once.. I was 5/6…. that was the first and the last when I got rejected”- according to your timeline and my understanding, her betrayal of you happened before and after that one time:

-the betrayal happened before 4 or 5

-for a year, about 5-6, you talked to your mother “in order to get rid of those emotions”, the anxiety, that is,  looking for assurance of you being “normal/good and I shouldn’t worry… I needed to be SURE.. that I am safe and she is with me”. Every time you talked to her, you felt relieved for a short time.

-after that year, at about 6, you talked to her yet again, aiming at getting that familiar relief, but this time she reacted angrily at you, “which I think made my mother angry… her face turned somewhat angry, and instead of comforting me, she said ‘go away'”.

-your anxiety persisted after that, at some point it lessened, at another it increased and sometime along the way, the core belief in you that you are “evil and I deserve being alone and miserable, and I shouldn’t bother others with my problems” was cemented in your brain. Shame and guilt are involved in this core belief (“I was very ashamed and guilty since then”).

You shared a bit more, but I will stop here and wait for your feedback.

anita