Dear Stephanie:

You wrote: “I feel like this anxiety has messed up my thinking and i can’t live a full life of just ignorant bliss.”

Oh, ignorant bliss! What a blissful concept, a “happily ever after” bliss, is it?

You were scared, really scared on the ferry and the morning after you were scared, not as intensely. I hope you gain insight about the nature of fear in your experience. At this point, the actual physical experience of the emotion, fear, is perceived as dangerous. In reality, the experience of fear itself is not dangerous. It only FEELS dangerous.

If feeling fear was dangerous then after a really scary theme part ride or after a horror movie viewing in a theater, there would be dead bodies all over the place, people who did not survive the fear. But this doesn’t happen (except for people who already have a failing heart, hence the warnings in theme parks).

Nature wouldn’t make fear dangerous because nature is about survival. Fear is there to motivate an animal/ person to run or fight real-and-imminent danger.

Please do post again and hope your therapy/ sessions work well for you!

anita