I've read all your posts and it just amazes me how alike so many of us are. Makes me wonder if our cultural/religious backgrounds have contributed more than we realize to all this anxiety/panic/depression (in my case I'm SURE it has, and after reading your posts, I think alot of yours could be too). I grew up too in an Irish/Catholic family and went to paraocial schools all my life. I was so guilty ridden (for no reason) by the age of 11 that I couldn't even attend my elementary school graduation! That's really when all the anxiety started and I had bouts of agraphobia for years. By the time I was twenty I had left the church completely and only in recent years have I made an effort to go back (but I'm conflicted because I'm so disallusioned by the Catholic Church yet still too guilty to join some other church ). For years I also was afraid to be alone but at the same time wanted to be alone. Fast forward to two horrific relationships in my life - one with an alcholic and one with a controlling, abusive partner. How I ever got through those without doing myself in I'll never know. Now I AM alone (relationship-wise but living with my l5-year-old son) and I wouldn't trade it for the world. Well, that's probably not entirely true - after living with the control freak there's NO WAY I would ever let another man dictate my life for me. But on the other - the constant, daily financial struggle becomes an obsession and the worry about
how am I going to pay the rent, etc., takes over my every thought - s0 once in awhile I think "wouldn't it be nice to have someone to share the burden" but that's about
as far as it goes. I've mentioned this in my posts many times before too but the older I get, the more I think about
all those "sayings" my mother used to have that now make so much sense yet I pooh-poohed when I was young. One of them relates to your mention of hanging around with "happy" people. She used to say that putting yourself in the company of healthy, happy people will make you healthy and happy. And to a certain degree that's true - when I'd listen to people complain and whine about
inconsequential things it would make me depressed and anxious. When I would occasionally get together with girlsfriends who were mentally happy and healthy - we would laugh (great medicine) and reminisce and I would come away somehow feeling "rejuvenated" and ready to take a more positive look at the world (it sometimes only lasted a day or so but a relief for the time being). Getting back to the religious implications on our conditions - with everything that's in the news these days about
sexually abusive priests, etc., plus my own horrible experiences with nuns and the guilt they always tried to burden me with, I become more and more and more convinced that that influence on my life was the most destructive. Yes, I did have some family disfunction - but in reality my family life was not that bad - so why am I always trying to blame my condition on that - probably because I'm still to "afraid" to dare blame anything on the almight Church. Believe me, my faith in God has never waivered; but after so many years of anxiety/guilty/and depression I honestly can't blame anything other than the Chruch And maybe blaming doesn't solve anything either, but in some ways it feels good to direct the anger at a more appropriate place than inside myself for once.