Dear noname:

I hope that the stimulus package being worked on will help you pay the taxes you owe. I have a better understanding of your situation, increasing your work load, no one to help you process the increased work load, worrying if you are doing enough for your clients, regretting not having chosen a different career that would have afforded you a life without financial worries.

But then, I know people with no valid financial worries, lots of money coming in every month, pensions and whatnot, people who are financially secure who are lying awake at night, unable to sleep, minds racing, worried, anxious. I remember a pharmacist acquaintance I had, one who served the rich Beverly Hill community telling me how many, many antidepressant prescriptions she was filling for the Beverly Hills rich residents.

My point is- an anxious mind is in the habit of being anxious and if it’s not financial worries, it will be other worries. Anxiety is like fire, you can put it out in one location but there is that other location and the other one. It comes down to lessening/regulating that anxiety every day- and you can do it where you are, living the life that you are living now.

I get scared every once in a while, just now I felt a rush of fear following a valid worry that crossed my mind, a real possibility of danger, but it was not an intense rush, my heart didn’t race, I didn’t feel dizzy, spaced out, in distress (like I used to feel years ago). It was a little rush of fear and I thought: what do I need to do about this situation, figured I need to talk to a particular person about it, and so, I will, later on today.

Look at your reaction to seeing how much taxes you owe: “I did my takes last night and fell to the floor crying seeing the number”- falling to the floor crying in an intense emotional reaction. Emotion regulation is about lessening the intensity of our emotional reactions to most circumstances in our lives.

“I say it every time, I need hope. I need hope that I can have a healthy relationship, that I can help people, that I will survive this period of isolation”- I don’t think there is a person in this whole wide world who spent more time than I spent reading, re-reading, typing, retyping and studying your words. (most recently, without sharing it with you, I put together quotes from your posts since 2017 and re-studied them). And so, having done the work and having invested the time, my following assertion is an educated assertion:

You are able to help your clients. You can survive this period of isolation. You will be able to have a healthy relationship. You Have What it Takes, you can and will make it!

anita