Dear Anita,

thank you for you reply.

You wrote:

“are your ways to deal with anxiety at nights when you are not busy with, or distracted by your kids and husband: you remove your focus from the unpleasant experience of anxiety to the pleasure”

I can partially agree but this behaviours also show during the day time (when I’m alone), sometimes to “reward” myself even which is absurd because I just don’t enjoy this behaviour aka eating too much sweets, binge watching etc. anymore…But I thought about what brings me to starting going down the path again and again and like you described it probably falls back to anxiety – of being alone (with my thoughts?).

You asked:

“Did you have past successful experiences with changing habits?”

I did but it always came with an abrupt and complete stop of doing something: like the occasional over drinking, the use of social media or some time in the past I even had an addictive and unhealthy habit of meeting strangers from a dating platform i overall did not enjoy but I could not control myself (I was looking for a partner back then) so I cancelled my accounts all together to stop. Also I had an excessive habit of daydreaming – I’m talking about hours over hours going to waste. It all stopped when I met my husband. These nights now and then I’m also finding myself coming back to this routine…

So it was all in all rather stopping habit than changing. I find it quite hard to stick to a new and better routine (I guess I’m not the only one).

Julia