Maloret,

Its very normal and usual to experience anxiety after going through difficult and toxic experiences. To me, it seems like you’re experiencing anxiety about anxiety, as though the fearful thoughts and feelings don’t belong, so you worry you’ll worry forever. This keeps you away from healing the initial trauma. Attention on the pain, rather than the bruise.

Consider, for instance, the toxic relationship with your ex-boyfriend. Something is/was clearly disturbed on his side, lots of undealt with hibbertyjab that he has yet to work through, and instead of dealing well, he took it out on you. People do that, its common. The maloret that went through the “toxic dumping” was perhaps confused, didn’t know what to do, and so just spun with it for awhile. Like, he’d turn off his phone, and you’d be left dumbfounded with “why”s and “what?”s and “what do I do next”s and so forth. Like an engine with nowhere to go, inner tension “something is not right”, and then stewing, spinning.

Consider a twofold healing process. One, notice and accept both sides, and then forgive both sides. Like, “I don’t know why you dumped all that crap on me, but may you be free of whatever was going on for you.” And “I don’t know why I did what I did with it, but may I be free of whatever was going on.”

The second step is preparedness, such as reading about toxic relationships, healthy relationships, boundaries, healthy communication, and so on. Residual anxiety is often the fear that the experience will happen again, that the first experience made us “just so”. Like, you remained in an abusive relationship, therefore are prone to abusive relationships. This simply isn’t true, and more information can help reveal that. For instance, if you read a few relationship books, the girl that went through those experiences with confusion goes away. You learn some things, and as you do, grow out of the girl that was. Such as, even if you met another mugger after taking a personal defense class, it wouldn’t be the same type of experience at all on your side. Much less confusion, much less disorientation, much less panic.

As far as the other tendrils of anxiety that are showing up, my guess is much of that will go away once you take back control, rekindle your self-confidence. Like, if the situation happened again, what would you do differently? When you have an answer that isn’t “roll over”, there won’t be space for anxiety to grab hold.

With warmth,
Matt