Inherited Fear: Roots of My Anxiety

I feel fear in my chest. It runs through me like a cold current.

I feel it in my throat. It chokes me, thins my voice, and strangles my spirit.

It descends into my intestines. It upheaves me, swells me, and burns me from within.

I wasn't always like this. For a long time, I lived free from fear. I didn't even know what fear was. I woke up and ate if I had something. If not, I didn't. I took the subway or the bus, went to school, university, or work, laughed, loved, argued, came home, showered, read, went to bed, and slept.

I don't remember anything about fear in my youth.

But since I found out about my mom's abortion, from the moment I heard that she had to have that abortion because of the Chernobyl disaster, fear was born in me.

This fear. I was also alive back then, only two years old. But that unborn fetus, my brother or sister, didn't get the chance to live.

I couldn't cope with such a fear of losing or having to make such a decision. The fear grew, it popped up from time to time. It only increased when my babies were born, one by one. My fear of ever losing one of them swelled and became even more jagged.

Most of the time, I let it be. I've gotten used to it, and I know it shows me that I love my children and want them well.

Somehow, I felt the strong urge, deep within me, to have a third child. In therapy, it turned out three is the magic number in my life. My lost sibling would have made us three brothers. Without him or her, it was my brother and I, with the lost one in between us.

My husband and I have three kids, and now our family is complete.

Sometimes the fear keeps me awake. Other times it wakes me up from sleep. It's enough to hear through the wall one of the children sighing in their sleep, and I can't fall back asleep.

I've worked a lot in therapy with this.

Fear, my twin sister or brother. The one we lost when I was too small to realize it. But this fear, I inherited it from my mom, deeply through maternal bonds of intergenerational loss.

Why, why is my fear so strong?

All parents worry, but most sleep at night. What is so terrifying for me? Why is it so hard for me?

I've read so much about family traumas, about sufferings passed from parents to children, and so on, but I only connected these dots later.

One evening during a therapy session, we got to my fear that sits on my soul like intimate lingerie.

My therapist asked me: "Who in your family lost children?"

I answered automatically, without thinking too much:

"My mother. She lost one, aborted. I was two years old." I answered.

Her fear of death, hidden within her, came to me as I had felt her fear when I was small. It transpired through her every move, every sign, every word. It made me feel alone, yet loved in a weird sort of paradox.

I feel my mom's fear, woven together with my concern for my children. They mix. I don't know which is which anymore.

It finally made sense. Now I understand.

My mom's suffering demanded to be lived. Slowly I would begin to calm down. Your mom's trauma will heal along with me and hopefully, I won't pass it on to my daughter.

If you live with such a fear, maybe it helps you to comment on this and discuss it with others.

Whose fear are you living, along with yours? Who in your family lived what now scares you so much?

Healing can only come through a process. Family constellations help a lot. Maybe you also read Mark Wolynn's book. For me, his book was a revelation. A few deep past traumas came to the surface and I could start the healing process in therapy.

Today was about fear. Old and new fear.