Dear Neera,

I am sorry you’re feeling very anxious and sensitive, sometimes crying during the night, not being able to calm yourself down. What I believe would help you is to first have a clearer picture of your family. You say:

I know my anxiety stems from growing up in an environment where I saw domestic abuse. I also dealt a lot with emotional abuse. Although I genuinely believe I have the most caring family,

If you witnessed domestic abuse and were exposed to emotional abuse, then your family cannot be “the most caring family”. They might have had good intentions and didn’t know better, however damage and harm was done to you and your mental health. Your parents did that, with their abusive behavior. The first thing would be to realize that some of their behavior wasn’t loving and caring at all, and that you suffered because of it.

That’s the first step – to basically admit that your family caused you harm, even if they didn’t intend to, and that there is a wounded inner child in you, which is still being triggered, as a result of the abuse that you’ve experienced. That would be the first step on your healing journey, I believe.

Once you admit that, you can start working on protecting yourself (and your inner child) from further abuse, setting boundaries, etc. That would help you not to feel so helpless any more, but gradually feel more and more in control of your life and your emotional reactions.

What do you think?