Processing Anxiety- Personal Story

• 

This was my journal entry after processing.

“I get anxiety when my son is asking me contant questions, whining, screaming, or overwhelming my senses in general. Why? After doing some digging/processing I realized my father bombarded me with questions, screaming, belittling, and anger as a child. My body shuts down like it did as an innocent child. I remember crying and just taking the abuse. My father was so cruel.

Then I realized if I acted more like he wanted I could get less abusive reactions. I molded myself to go along with everything he said. I no longer had my own thoughts, at least not openly. Even then he was still horrible to me but it was at least less. I now realize this is why I have self worth issues and never feel lovable. I learned as a child my true self was not lovable or wanted. My true self was not worthy of anything besides abuse and anger. Not only did my dad make me feel unworthy unless I was hiding my wants and needs, but my mom was working constantly and didn’t even want me to begin with, double whammy (she did come around and we have a great relationship now). 

I now see any good times I did have with my dad were false because I was being a version of myself he wanted. How can you truly enjoy yourself with fear behind every word? How can moments be genuine if you are worried he can snap at any time? My words became not my own but the ideal perfection my dad craved me to be. Hence being a perfectionist. This is the only time my subconscious thinks I am valuable when I am perfect, which is impossible. 

My inner dialogue is now my father criticising my every mistake; for mistakes make me unworthy of love and only worthy of abuse. I now see my dad never knew me. I am a beautiful person, but he only saw my anxious, fearful, perfect side. The side where I needed to agree to survive. I needed to agree to feel any kind of messed up thing he thought was love. This set me up to strive for perfection. Is this bad? Not necessarily, however it creates a very critical self. My biggest fear is casting my trauma onto my son. I love him dearly. I do my best so he knows he is worthy of my understanding and love when he makes mistakes. He does not need to be perfect for my love because he is already perfect in my eyes.”

After my processing session and writing my thoughts in my journal entry, my anxiety around my son vanished. I can handle his outbursts of any scale with love and understanding. I no longer get so irritable and overwhelmed by him and I am being the mother I always knew I had in me. I successfully processed my trauma from my father in this area. Other trauma still pops up, but I continue to work at them as they come.