Yes, thank you. I am doing better. The last seven months were a rather challenging period in my life. I learned a lot in very little time. And the biggest lesson of all was accepting and understanding that it is a process. Changing a though process cannot be compared to changing a tire for instance… seemed obvious to me but i wasnt getting it in fact. I was staying on the superficial. If I do this, then i change… if i eat vegetarian, then i can control my life, if i don’t drink, then i will have control… , if i study hard…. and on and on… those are all intentions and yes they help but the problem remained…. and I kept on falling each time harder… I had no idea on how powerful and deep and tenacious this inner voice (i call it my dark creature). i had no idea on how convinced it wants me dead too! i hope i do not send too… off the wall but i do not know how to put it otherwise. It is a process that requires tools, good tools. my story is that when i was a child, i lost myself. it wasn’t my fault. things happen. we all have our stories. since i didn’t know, i understood the world the way a child does. I had to find explanations to what was going on in my life… And instead of giving power to my inner trust, my inner voice… I shut them off and did a pretty big mess in the wiring… and life went on… since I was living and understanding based on my set of imprints, I assumed everyone else had the same set… The older i got, the more alienating I felt, something must be wrong with me since we all have the same brains wiring that is… so if i don’t do well at school something wrong with me… if i can’t function or be happy, it is me… i had no idea that this child experience could have affected me in such way. no idea. the first time i heard about the notion of imprints, of how experiences (esp. traumatic or not) can and will leave deep, permanent systems/processes that we use in everyday life to understand our world… I am going on and on… sorry and may not make sense. i share this hoping something may resonate in you. sharing our experiences is powerful and goes both ways. it becomes a strength that we cannot find anywhere else. I found out (finally) on how some people can be disgusting and taking pleasure in seeing others suffer. I was naive. I trusted too much. And by confiding in them, I was giving them ammunition. They saw me as an easy target and since I was an easy target and they thrive on seeing someone fall… It almost killed me. But again, I can’t just point the finger. they think i am a freak because of these issues… the panics, the fears that keep me sometimes stuck in my apartment… They all judged me. I finally realized that in a way they are not my problem or my solution. The issue comes from within myself. I need to stop letting toxic people having their way with me. I am a good person. I have these issues, true but deep down there is someone worth and capable of many great things. I just need to go back in get the little girl and TRUST… the fear will finally go away. and whether or not i meet more people like the ones i mentioned here, i will never let them take so much of my spirit away. I am not the freak. They are. Rebecca, I wish you many very good things . Most of all, I hope you too can find your path. There is a belief in central america that when a person gets very suddenly scared, the fear is so great that the person looses its soul. It is understood as an illness and the person then in order to find her soul again, must work with a curandero, the one who will guide him back to the time when fear was not controlling him. He was in control. the illness is called “susto” which means the illness of fear. when i learned about it (I lived and worked as an anthropologist in guatemala) a light came on. what i was hearing sounded very familiar… I was controlled by fear. at some point, i got so scared that i lost my soul,myself… and i understood that my journey would be to find my spirit… I do not know you of course. I know nothing pretty much excxept for your post. but some of what you say resonates a lot,,, You too deserve peace and a life out of fear…