How do you manage/ vanquish anxiety? Impacting children really badly

[Sparklyboots]

I am perma-anxious to the extent it took a therapist to point it out - it is my default since childhood. I was highly anxious my mum and step dad would abandon me, as my birth father did. I was very little when BF left and no one thought it would really matter to me or that they should explain it. So I explained it to myself in typical childish fashion - he left because I was naughty/ there was something unbearable about me.

I understand intellectually that this is an old story that no longer serves any purpose. However, I can't just shake it out of my thinking. I don't even SEE my thinking operating, it's just such a fundamental way of being in the world - there is something wrong with me and I have to be very careful at all times not to destroy things/ drive people away. I know it's not true, but as I don't even catch myself thinking it, it's really hard to address. It's only when I step back (in therapy for example) that I can see that I have operated in most situations as if it were true.

Anyway, it's currently really fucking up my relationship with my children. They have really picked up on my massive anxiety. My DS 10, finds the pressure overwhelming and is constantly trying to avoid me/ the anxiety/ any situation in which I would be thinking something is 'wrong'. My DD 8 is constantly worried about my feelings to the point that she puts her own preferences to the side constantly with myself and other family members so no one else feels bad.

I am aware that this is on one hand, another situation where I am interpreting everything from the point of view of my own 'badness' or failures. But on the other hand those things are true, too. We are in family therapy (because of splitting up with their Dad I looked for mental health support for them) and it is clear that at the root of many of the children's difficulties is the impact of my anxiety on them.

I find it all really hard to see at the time - like I say, I don't even think I know what it might look or feel like to not operate with this baseline anxiety. I don't even really recognise anxiety in myself - I just feel normal for me. But I really want to pull it away from the children, even if I can't get over it for myself. Has anyone had success in resetting their baseline anxiety setting? Has anyone had success in resetting relationships with kids when something like this has been happening?

Are you currently in therapy? If so, stay with it. You can't vanquish the anxiety but you can lean in and find out what it is protecting you from. You are amazingly self aware and honest. I hope you can take all this to therapy, addressing this in yourself may make a massive impact on your kids if you can face it.

We're just moving this thread over to our Mental Health topic for the OP. Hopefully some more Mumsnetters will be along soon with some advice and support.

Thank you for the kindness in your response. Yes, I'm still in 1:1 therapy as well as the family sessions. It's interesting to consider maybe I persist with this approach because it is still having some sort of payout. I know in the past, my childhood story, was at least a bit about feeling like I could have control - believing that I as a tiny child had the poor to drive away people meant I might also have the poor to 'keep' them. And that was protective against the terror of realising how tiny and helpless I was. It's not exactly the same now, but the idea that worrying/ planning/ overpreparing is a form of protection does feel plausible

Sertraline. Game changer for me.

For your own sake and the sake of your children, read this;

www.betterrelationships.org.au/well-being/core-beliefs-self-acceptance/

Thanks Sarahlou, that's a really helpful resource