Dear hiba:

I will retell your story in the way that I understand it, quoting from your post: as a little girl, your abusive father who hit you from time to time scared the hell  out of you. You grew up scared, feeling unsafe with your toxic family (“I grew up with an abusive dad and in a pretty toxic family”). An intense fear was established and maintained in you for twenty years.

You then moved to France, away from your father and the rest of your family, leaving them behind. “It felt like a dream, I was finally away from my abusive dad”. Problem is you were finally away from your father, but not from the fear that he instilled in you. You weren’t able to leave that fear behind. So the fear traveled with you.

In France, you were not in danger of being hit by your father, but fear needs danger, so during your stay in France, fear it found danger in the following:

1. Danger in not having friends (“I couldn’t make friends”).

2. Danger in not keeping up with your studies (“I couldn’t keep up with my studies”).

3. Danger in a new country (“everything was different.. than how it was back in Morocco”).

4. Danger in (imagined) breast cancer, and cancer in the neck area.

5. Danger in being bullied in school.

6.Danger in failing your second semester.

7. Danger in your grandmother passing away in Morocco.

8. Danger in having a boyfriend who doesn’t dance or talk in an attractive way in this or that moment, danger in him being “too nice”.

9. Danger in not loving him.

10. Danger in being in the wrong relationship.

Notice this: while in France, you missed your family (“I was missing my family a lot”), and when you were very fearful/ anxious in France, you decided to go back to Morocco “and thought that all my worries would go away, because I’m back in my old  room with family, it will all solve itself”.

The reason you thought that your fear will solve itself if you go back to the place where the fear originated, is because as a child in your home, you were not afraid all of the time. Sometimes you experienced a nice dinner with a family that was calm and happy that very evening, or a whole holiday, maybe. And often, I imagine, you daydreamed in your old room, played with toys, feeling calm and happy.

So when you found yourself anxious in France, you remembered not your father hitting you etc., but instead you remembered the good times, the calm when you daydreamed and/ or played in your old room, and the dinners with family during a holiday, or such.

So you went back to Morocco, were reminded of  your father’s abuse (“my dad was still very abusive to me and would hit me if I dared talking back at him”, flew back to France and your fear found #7-10 dangers, in my list above.

Let me know, hiba, if what I wrote here makes sense to you, and if you want, we can communicate further.

anita