Dear Nala,

You are so very welcome. Reading your story, it seems to me there are multiple reasons for your anxiety and self-sabotage.

First, I see a parallel between your blissful, happy, ideal childhood in the first 10 years of your life, and your blissful, perfect relationship with your boyfriend now. Your perfect childhood was suddenly discontinued when your mother got sick with depression, which turned your life upside down. You might subconsciously believe that the blissful relationship with your boyfriend likewise won’t last, and so you start sabotaging it beforehand, expecting its inevitable demise. That’s one possible reason for your anxiety, i.e. self-sabotage.

The reason for your low self-esteem could very well be that you tried to help your mother get better, perhaps ever since you were 10 years old, but nothing really helped – because she “never did anything about it.” When the child tries so hard to make their parent happy, but the parent is still depressed, the child starts blaming themselves and believing that something is wrong with them. That can be at the root of your low self-esteem.

Your mother had a lot of unresolved trauma, but she didn’t do anything to help herself. I assume she didn’t go to therapy and didn’t talk to anyone about it, since it was a taboo in her eyes. Moreover, she told you and your brother not to talk to anyone about it.  You were very affected by your mother’s condition, but you weren’t supposed to show it to anyone that something was bothering you. You were to hide it and pretend that everything is fine (“If there was a problem, I was taught to fix it with my head held high. I was never taught that it was okay to share my life with anyone and it taught me to always have my guard up. It has always made me think I can’t let anyone ever see me weak”).

So you were taught to hide your emotions, hide your weaknesses and insecurities, and pretend that all is fine. But all those negative emotions, fears and insecurities have been stored in your system, and now they are coming out all at once, causing those intrusive thoughts and panic attacks.

It seems to me that years and years of suppressed emotions are now coming to the surface, making you anxious and scared, even wanting to escape back home… But what you would need to do instead is process those emotions, process the fears and the trauma that your mother’s untreated depression has caused you. You won’t be an “anxious mess” if you process those emotions, in the safe environment of therapy. In fact, once you process it, you will be stronger and more balanced, which will greatly reduce the chance of panic attacks.

So this seems to me as the second reason for your anxiety: suppressed negative emotions, which have been a taboo in your mother’s eyes and which you were not allowed to express for many years.

And the third reason for your anxiety, as I see it, is you feeling guilty for not helping your family enough, and feeling responsible for their happiness. Your family has been guilt tripping you – perhaps they are even complaining that you live too far away, so you cannot help them the way they would want you to? And so you sometimes have the urge to get on the plane and leave your whole life with your boyfriend and go back to your parents (“even as I recognize all of the problems I have with my family, I still get homesick and want to be around them. I still feel like they are a safe place for me, especially when I am feeling so anxious”).

You think that by being closer to them you will feel better – because they would love you more (“it makes me feel like if I cannot help them then they will grow to not like me”), and it will ease your anxiety. But their love is conditional: they are guilt-tripping you for not helping them enough, and maybe even for living your life away from them.

Every child wants to be loved by their parents, and so you too, in order to feel loved, you want to please them and help them and make them happy…  but as I said before, you cannot make happy someone who doesn’t want to be happy. You said your mother never did anything to deal with her depression. It seems to me she wants you to help with the consequences of her untreated depression (perhaps finances, help in the household and suchlike?), but she doesn’t want to really help herself – to take responsibility for her depression.

If that’s the case, your help will never be enough. Even if you moved back to your parents and dedicated your life to helping them, I believe it wouldn’t be enough. Your mother would still not be happy, since she chooses to blame others rather than help herself.

So as the third reason for your self-sabotage I see your feeling of guilt and wanting to be loved by your parents, believing that if only you could be a perfect daughter, they would finally love you. So a part of you (the inner child who craves to be loved) would even sacrifice your relationship with your boyfriend in order to please your parents.

OK, I’ll stop here for now… please let me know how you see this and if you feel there is truth in what I said above.