Dear Courtney:

I read through your posts since December of last year, Dec 2014. You wrote about your anxiety since childhood, your ongoing hypochondria, accumulating unpaid medical bills because of going to the ER/ doctors with various scares. You wrote about panic attacks, about googling various symptoms online. You wrote how that was very much a part of why your marriage plans did not materialize. You did not write though anything about your childhood, about how and when the anxiety started, took hold on you.

It is very difficult to deal with fear. You tried legal drugs (“medications”)- didn’t work for you. You put some effort in not consuming caffeine, changing your diet, exercising and of course, going to the doctors, a lot, and finally even getting a diagnosis or two (which are of no value in reality).

It is still about your FEAR. It is your fear that needs to be attended to and it will control your life until you do. In small steps, little by little. If you would like, please share here about your childhood, about when and how it started. Tell about that little girl Courtney alone and afraid, alone because someone left her alone, way too long.

anita

Dear Courtney:

I can’t get over how beautiful the photo by your name. Is that you? Do you consider yourself very pretty? beautiful? Do others? You wrote before that some people tell you that you are such a pretty girl, that you should have no problems dating… is it frustrating when people say that?

So much fear underneath that pretty, glamorous shot of your face. It is that fear that needs to be attended to. No amount of prettiness and no amount of googling symptoms or doctor visits are going to take care of the great fear. How about serious psychotherapy with a good psychotherapist specializing maybe in anxiety…? Someone to take you gently into that journey? It is possible, you know, to walk that tight rope and make it. To finally exhale all the way. To finally feel safe enough.

anita