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Belongs to: Can you relate to zach s struggles with anxiety sh
Mine started after my Mother being shot and robbed (she survived fortunately) then months later I was robbed at a gas station, I have to have a fan on at all time even at work, I’m much better when I’m freezing, weird I guess lol I think it takes my mind off of it, I feel like I can’t breathe…most of the time, I overthink everything, and have a horrible time trusting ppl now, because all the ppl that were there, no one said anything, no one did anything, even the lady that worked at the gas station she wouldn’t let me call the police and she wouldn’t call for me, and no one else saw anything. I can’t make plans, so I do everything pretty much alone now, and I get it, I’ve purchased tickets to events that I’ve never made it too lol it takes me so much time to get myself together enough to make it to things, it’s ridiculous 
so hopefully one day, I can figure out a way… thanks for your message and thank you for helping remove the stigma! 
🫶🏻:pray:t2: You Got This, you are definitely not alone!!
Dang, I love what you wrote so much because it’s so real. You named it so well. Look - I have this trauma, to me, to my mom. I have this association with PEOPLE - they can’t be trusted, they’re only going to hurt me, they won’t help me. Bad things are going to happen, and I have to be alert. That’s the crazy thing about trauma, is that we try to make sense out of it…we have these ideas - maybe if I could have just been more alert, then I could have kept myself from that. Or maybe if I never left, then it wouldn’t have happened. There’s something about our own desire to “figure it out” that ends up building walls. And for good reason! If you were a castle, for instance, and someone waltzed through the front door, you’d build a lock, or put a guard out there. If they did it again, you’d probably build a moat. And if they got past that, you’d probably put another entire wall around your castle and in front of your moat so that you have double the defenses. You can’t live your life thinking you’re exposed to evil ALL THE TIME, so you end up solving problems. But sometimes the way we solve our problems just creates new ones. And that’s the challenge we face because sometimes our “vigilance” can just metabolize into anxiety, or paranoia. And that can keep us frozen in our own fear. So then you’re in a position like you are right now where your life is being inhibited by these fears, and it’s hard to untangle it, because the fears were helpful for keeping you protected, and you don’t know a different way to live anymore. So you KNOW there’s a problem, you KNOW where it came from, but you DON’T know how to change it, and that’s a tough place to be - to see yourself doing something you don’t want to be doing anymore and not know how to fix it. I’m sorry - that is really tough.
What’s encouraging though, is that you are aware. And being aware is half the battle. When we don’t know what battle we’re supposed to be fighting, we can’t possibly improve. But when we DO know, we can get curious about it and ask - ok, what am I supposed to do now? How do I make improvements here? Which is what you’re doing right now. And that is powerful.
Thank you for choosing to share, and in so doing, for caring for yourself and believing in hope.