Dear canary,

I am the youngest and my parents decided that when I was born they would parent me better and I was the closest to my mother. My siblings grew up afraid because my father was strict and would yell a lot. My father didn’t yell at me as much but I learned to stand up for myself because of it.

I see. Well, it seems that their parenting better meant less emotional abuse (e.g. less yelling by your father), but not enough emotional support – resulting in emotional neglect. Emotional neglect is almost as equally damaging to the child. Of course, you weren’t completely neglected, you say you were close to your mom and were given the most attention out of your siblings. But your mother lacked certain key skills and wasn’t aware of the importance of child’s emotional health, and she didn’t react properly to your anxiety.

As far as your father, it’s good that he didn’t yell at you – probably that’s why you managed to stand up to that girl in the 6th grade, and tell her that she was rude (even though your mother advised you to ignore her, i.e. not to speak to her). But then, after expressing yourself, you ran away and cried – because it was a very stressful experience, you felt alone, and I guess there was nobody to soothe you afterwards.

You say you felt close to your mom. But I wonder if in situations like this, you still felt alone and helpless?

Dear canary,

Yes. When I was having rough days with my depression and anxiety, I felt alone and helpless. Although I told my mother everything, she would support me and give me advice and understand my pain but it still felt lonely.

Right… she supported you in the sense that she didn’t condemn you for your anxiety, she didn’t blame you, yell at you, shame  you, etc – which is great. But she also didn’t really help you – she let you skip school instead of talking to the teacher for example. As a result of confiding in her, you didn’t feel much better, and you weren’t better equipped to deal with your anxiety next time it happened. That’s why you felt alone and helpless… you were alone against the enemy called anxiety and nobody could help you. That’s pretty traumatic for a child…

But there are ways to repair the damage, so to speak. You can now create that safe container for yourself, and learn how to calm yourself down. There are many free videos on youtube on reducing stress and anxiety. I specially like the “Therapy in a Nutshell” channel – you may check it out if you’d like.

These are my suggestions for now – let me know what you think and how you feel about the things we’ve spoken about (possible causes of your anxiety) and possible help too…

Dear canary,

glad you’ve watched Therapy in a Nutshell! There’s a free course on her website, titled “Grounding skills for anxiety, stress and PTSD”. I am just watching it now 🙂

As for books, I can recommend “Running on Empty: Overcome your childhood’s emotional neglect”, by Jonice Webb.

I understand you feeling alone and scared when dealing with anxiety, because it brings you back into childhood when you too felt alone and scared. Do you have anybody who feels like a safe, soothing, calming, wise presence, that you can envision in your mind when your anxiety starts getting stronger? If there is no one in real life, perhaps a spiritual figure (I’ve described the Buddha, I guess 🙂 )

A support group would be great too. Unfortunately I don’t know any support groups for anxiety, but maybe you can look it up.

And keep posting here, if it helps you at least a little bit…

• This reply was modified 3 years, 4 months ago by Tee.

Dear canary,

do you also own an animal, or more of them? It makes sense you’d think of animals as soothing, because as children we all have our teddy bears and other stuffed animals. They are soft and fluffy are great for soothing and caressing. Perhaps you can buy a big teddy bear and hug him whenever you feel anxious thoughts coming up?

I think it would help a lot if you did some of those exercises for reducing anxiety, e.g. by Therapy in a Nutshell, at least till you’re waiting for counseling. Once you get a counselor, you won’t feel that alone and helpless anymore, and it will be easier. And as I said, perhaps try finding an online support group, if that’s something you’d feel comfortable with.