Dear AmberKymani:

At about the age of five, that is my first memory of my mother fighting with my father late at night: screaming, throwing things and her screaming that she was going out to the streets to kill herself. That was the first of many times that she threatened with much emotion, histrionics and very, very convincingly that she was going to kill herself. Fifty years later, when it is getting dark and I am alone, I get scared.

And then when she was “home” (” ” because a real home is a safe place, in my definition), she repeatedly attacked me and it came from anywhere and nowhere in particular: she believed I said the wrong thing, or didn’t say the …right thing, or she believed I felt the wrong thing or thought the wrong thing… or did… or didn’t do and she attacked me with shame, blame and even beatings.

Fifty years later, when I am not alone, and I hear a sound, a sigh, when someone looks at me… I get scared.

The first symptoms of my anxiety (ongoing, excess fear) was Tourette Syndrome: those severe motor and vocal tics was my body trying to rid itself of that excess, ongoing fear. Then there was OCD, decades of thoughts and rituals I did to prevent the bad thing from happening… and over time there were eating disorders and other diagnoses.

17 years of psychiatric drugs made me feel better here and there, but my life circumstances got worse. I too was homeless many times. I finally stopped all psychiatric drugs in 2013.

I started on my healing path five years ago with therapy of CBT and Mindfulness. He was the first good enough therapist I came across. I am still in the process, every single day. It is getting better but I noticed the fear, I notice it. I know it is there, only it is not as much. The process for me is extremely long and it requires that I have so much patience.

That excess, ongoing fear, I learned, in the physical reality of the brain, it means that there are many, many connections of fear with many, many other things: I eat-> I feel fear (what if I overeat/ binge as I have done…I feel physical pain-> fear, what if this never goes away. Someone looking at me-> fear and so on and on. Fear is in multiple connections in my brain. And as the years passed, without therapy, it was like a growing snow ball or dirt ball, gathering more and more snow or dirt or mud, more and more symptoms as it rolls down a hill.

If you feel that I can understand, from experience, your anxiety, not every bit of it, but to a great extent, let me know. I will be more than happy to share with you everything I know, everything that worked and works for me!

Take care!

anita