Dear Tara:

I am combining the information you shared in your four threads in regard to your life as a child, at home, with your parents (this is a long post that covers a lot of items, so please take all the time you need to read this, part by part, perhaps):

You are now 20, a very young adult. Some time ago you were diagnosed with General Anxiety Disorder. Recently, while living with your boyfriend, you suffered from “panic attacks and constant anxiety”, and you mentioned OCD pushing you to overthink. Most recently you moved back to your parents’ house.

You wrote: “I have moved back into my parents house so I can be in a familiar environment to figure out my anxiety.. being in a comforting environment with my parents”.

Let’s look at what you shared about this “familiar.. comforting environment with (your) parents”:

“When I was a child my father had many angry outbursts, yelling, screaming, stomping… my parents fought a lot.. I was always in trouble for various random reasons almost all the time when I was younger..  felt I could not confide in anyone.. I remember a time.. standing at my parents’ door listening to them scream at each other, I remember crying, feeling as if it was my fault, because a lot of the fights I believe involved their ways of parenting me.. I can’t think back to my feelings much before the age of around 14-15. I remember my mom talking to me about their fights even from a young age, about how horrible and mean and angry my dad was.. I was mostly in trouble for various normal reasons, such as messy rooms, bad grades, attitude toward my parents, talking back, defying their wishes… When I was a bit older I remember my mom and I often screaming at each other when I reached my teens… I can remember saying.. something to the extent of ‘you only punish me for the bad things I do, you never tell me you’re proud of me for anything.'”

My input:

1. I italicized above the evidence that the home where you grew up was an aggressive home. Even if your parents no longer fight now, your memories of them fighting is still very much alive in your mind, (even if you remember so little of the details or how you felt at the time).

Like you, I grew up in an aggressive home, and like you, I was very anxious as a result. But at times, I had breaks from aggression (on the occasions that my mother didn’t verbally or otherwise attack me or someone else, or when I was alone at home), and during those breaks I daydreamed to music or otherwise  experienced a much needed heavenly peace of mind and other good feelings. Every child living in an aggressive home gets those comforting, heavenly breaks. It is so because it is impossible for anyone’s brain to endure a non-stop state of anxiety.  But those comforting breaks are only breaks, they do not undo the damage done to a child in an aggressive home.

When you moved back to y0ur parents’ home, hoping to experience the familiar comfort- at best, you can experience comforting breaks from anxiety, but you are most likely to re-experience your childhood anxiety.

2. It was bad enough that you witnessed your parents fighting and your mother telling you about the fighting, but you heard that they were  fighting about how to parent you. You naturally figured that you must be a problem child, a monster child, who ruined and destroyed her parents’ lives, her home, and your own life (“feeling as if it was my fault.. I feel like a monster..  I’ve ruined my life, just like always… I seem to destroy everything that matters to me”).

Truth is, you carried zero responsibility for their fights, but you had no way of knowing that, as a child.

3. In addition to feeling responsible for their many fights, you were also accused for your room being messy, bad grades, attitudes, etc., so you felt like  more of a monster child, more like a person who ruins everything.

But the truth is, you grew up in an aggressive home. It is impossible for a child to not be badly affected by aggression at home. It is as impossible as expecting a person punched in the face to show no bruising. Because of the aggression you suffered a lot of anxiety and anger. It’s very sad that your mother expected you to be a well behaved child who kept an orderly room and got good grades etc., while she herself misbehaved terribly by fighting with your father and telling you about those fights when you were so young!

You got punished by your parents for “defying their wishes” when your natural wish to have a peaceful home was defied over and over again, year by year, for so very long.

4. You wrote that you “can’t think back to my feelings much before the age of around 14-15”. But you are currently feeling what you felt as a young child: “I’m constantly tired, I can’t focus on anything.. It’s like a never ending cycle, I feel like a monster.. I’m a complete mess, and there is no end in sight. My days are filled with dread and anxiety or depression and loneliness”.

5. “I feel as if because I’m not doing anything particularly spectacular, I am not doing good in life at all”- As a child and onward, I too felt that I ruined everything. I felt that I ruined my mother’s  life, and that the only way I can redeem myself was to do something spectacular. I day dreamed a lot about being a famous .. someone, change the world, and make my mother’s life spectacular too, make her proud.

Funny, in a very sad way, because all I really  needed was to  believe that I am okay, that I am a good person, not one who ruins things.

anita