Dear canary,

Yes, I feel less of a human because of my anxiety. Because I see everyone, like my peers and family not feeling the same anxiety I feel. … So that’s why I don’t feel normal sometimes, especially in public when I feel an episode coming. I micro analyze everyone’s behaviour and they all seem so nonchalant, but I’m the only one in the room bouncing my legs, feeling uncomfortable and changing positions, so I feel like everyone is watching me, even though I know no one is.

I know the feeling. I suffered from toxic shame, and it got particularly strong in secondary school. I would often blush intensely for no reason, sometimes simply sitting in class, listening to the teacher. I would start blushing on my my way to school and was constantly cooling my cheeks with my hands, because they were burning! I felt like a freak, and really so different than others, because everyone seemed to be relaxed and normal, while I was battling this demon. And I couldn’t talk about it to anyone because I had no close friends in secondary school, so I just suffered in silence.

Toxic shame for me was like anxiety for you – debilitating and something that isolated me from people. But what caused toxic shame wasn’t my blushing cheeks. Rather, it was the belief that I was to be ashamed of myself – a belief that my mother planted in me. I felt like a freak because of her constant criticism, and having blushing cheeks just “confirmed” in my mind that I indeed was a freak, abnormal and that there was something fundamentally wrong with me. Which is similar to feeling “less than human”, like you do.

I am trying to point out that you most probably don’t feel less than human because of your anxiety – you feel it because you were severely criticized by your father when you were a child:

he would constantly criticize me about little things that eventually became my insecurities. For example, he’d comment on my weight (I was very skinny), he’d comment on my height, my posture (I slouch), and little things like that. It made me insecure.

Constant criticism makes the child feel like a freak, abnormal, and less than human.

Basically, in my childhood he would tell me to focus solely on my studies, not talk to people about my personal issues (he even told me not to make friends), he would criticize me… and he did that because that was his way of raising me. He wanted me to grow up to be strong, so he would tell me things that he wished he was told as a child (focusing on studies, appearing confident, etc).

How can a child grow up to be strong if they are constantly criticized? He was like a drill sergeant and you were in a boot camp – he was beating you up metaphorically with his words, yelling at you, and this was supposed to toughen you up and make you strong. He was crushing you and your self-confidence, while believing this would help you. That’s really bad parenting!

You were supposed to appear strong and invincible, while inside you were falling apart. You were afraid, you didn’t know what to do, and you weren’t supposed to talk to anyone about it. Only to your mother. But she too told you to keep a front and pretend that everything is fine:

This is because he told me that I can’t trust anyone (same with my mother, she told me that as well), that I shouldn’t share personal information with others except my family.

Maybe she didn’t want to go to school to talk to your teachers when you were bullied because she considered it shameful that you’d have problems with it? Were their concerns along the lines of “what would the people say, how would our family look in the eyes of other people? In the eyes of the teachers?”

If so, you had the additional burden of keeping it hidden from others, pretending you were fine, while inside you were falling apart.

This is my summary based on what you’ve shared so far: first your father breaks you, makes you feel weak and insecure, and then he demands you to be strong.  While you mother demands from you to only pretend to be strong and not talk to anyone about your weaknesses. A perfect recipe for a mental breakdown, if you ask me.

You say your father has changed a lot in the meanwhile:

For example, he knows how I lack confidence and he tells me that I’ve been acting confident lately and that he’s glad I am.

The only problem is that you aren’t more confident, you are still anxious. But when you tell him that, he doesn’t acknowledge it:

When they ask me how I’m doing I say horrible, they say, “but you look better! You’re doing better.” but im not! even if I’m not hysterically crying doesn’t mean I’m not doing better. I’m just as sad and anxious as i was yesterday.

This kind of attitude – denying your reality, minimizing your struggle – isn’t really helpful. What would be helpful is if they paid for your counseling. So that you don’t have to rely on school counseling but have a real, quality support.

He tells me that I’m strong, I’m able to get through anything, he tells me not to worry (especially about school), he is literally telling me the opposite of everything he told me in my childhood.

It’s good he is telling you this now, but the damage is already done. You’d need to heal your childhood wounds, specially your lack of self-esteem. And you might need professional help for that – it’s not enough if your father tells you you are strong, while at the same time denying or minimizing your suffering. He had his chance to cheer you on, but he blew it. Now you need someone else to help you heal the damage he’s caused.

I don’t feel supported sometimes. I talk to my family about it and they do boost my confidence and support me but I’m looking for someone to understand my anxiety because that’s the main thing I’m dealing with.

Your family was involved in creating the damage, so now they can help you only partially. As I said, I think the best way they could help you is to pay for your counseling.

Also, have you thought about taking a break from school for maybe half a year, while working on your mental health? Because it seems you feel a great pressure to perform well in your studies, but find yourself unable to do it. This then becomes another way of beating yourself up for not being good enough, for underperforming and disappointing your father (not the current, more relaxed version of him, but his old self, who stressed the importance of school so much).