So after a horrible morning of anxiety I started doing some research because as i said before im a fix it kinda lady. I stumbled upon child anxiety, specifically separation anxiety. I felt like I was reading a book about my childhood! I have had anxiety for such a long time! Partly I read it and felt hopeless and partly I read it and felt like I got a little more insight about the whys. I had a less than lavish childhood and came from such a dysfunctional family. There were times I wanted to just close my eyes and disappear. Unfortunately as a teenager I started cutting myself…. just to know I could still feel I suppose. I remember as a child, my mother would leave to walk to the corner store and even just that…. I would lose it thinking she wasnt coming back! I distinctively remember her saying to me one time when I was to go with my father for the weekend, ” If you go with him, I will leave and never come back.” God that was terrifying because I think I was all of maybe 7 to 8 years old?? I already had terrible separation anxiety so that just fueled my already horrific thought! Why would she say that to me? I was so terrified of her leaving and not coming back that I had trouble going to school or her just going to a store, I never wanted her to leave my sight……. and then one day when I was 12 she just did. She came home from the bank and said she had a headache and laid down on the couch. I remember being in the kitchen and tracing a picture of the brain from some book I found in our basement. Her “headache” escalated quickly. I asked her if I could go to the mall with my friends and she gave me 20.00. I came back with an outfit and tried to show her but she just mumbled some stuff. I knew something was wrong. My older brother returned home from work shortly after this and I told him something was wrong with mom. I remember him just kneeling down next to the couch and praying. I dont know why he didnt call 911…… he should have called 911. At some point he must have called my sister because she did come over with her boyfriend and call 911. I started freaking out and asking my mom if she was going to be ok. At this point she was sitting up and projectile vomiting blood across the room. The last thing she ever said to me was ” shut up you asshole”. I know now that she was scared too. My sister told our brother to take me and my little brother to the park but I bolted before he could. I was overtaken with fear and I just ran. I ran to the park myself and sat there crying and scared to death. I knew…… something deep in me knew this was my worst fear coming true. When I returned they were getting her into the back of the ambulance and the neighbors were all around being nosey. The next 3 days were absolute hell. On the third day my sister came into the livingroom where I was sitting on the couch with my friend and she knelt down next to me. The words that followed were blurred….. ” Renae, mom died, shes gone” It felt like I was standing on a platform hundreds of feet in the air and the bottom was pulled out and I was falling. Everything was spinning and I couldnt catch my breath. I let out a scream that im sure the neighbors the next street over could hear, and then as if a piece of my soul was ripped from me, I just fell limp and cried. I cried until no more tears would come. In a moments time my entire past became a memory and my future became black. My anxiety became a reality and because of it, my anxiety is strong. When I try to tell myself it isnt real, my anxiety reminds me how real it was and how real it kept being. 6 short years later when I was 18, I was kneeling down quietly telling my little brother that our dad was gone. then when I was 28, my sister who became my rock also died. There is so much reality to my anxiety that I dont know if I can be fixed. I tell myself I am bigger than my fear but in reality my fear may be bigger than even I realize…………