roddy36

When I was a child, I couldn't be alone because I started crying. My family was very religious (Catholic), and they didn't believe in doctors. My fear of being alone was a matter of going to a psychiatrist, but they never took me. As a result, I was afraid of being alone until I was 16, slept in the same room with my parents, on a bed next to theirs.

I also had a severe speech disorder, which made me incapable of pronouncing the r, the t, and the s. In school, people teased me about it, and I was always afraid of defending myself because all they had to do to fire back at me was mocking the way I spoke. Teachers often told my parents that I needed to go to a speech therapist. Once again my parents didn't follow this advice because they believed God would heal me instead.

When I turned 17, finally, my grandfather interfered and took me to a speech therapist. I was 16 when I began to fight against my fear of loneliness, which I finally defeated.

I was always shy in high school, rarely spoke to anyone. Always coping with insomnia, and fears that I'd lose my family and be left alone in the world. I was also dependent on others. Always relying on people to make decisions. My mother and grandmother were even worse than I. They were always afraid of everything around them. Extremely neurotic. 20 years later, they still are. My mother lives with my sister, and she hasn't left that apartment in 4 years, not even once. Spent most of her life lying on a bed in a small bedroom, complaining about me not living life the way she lives life.

I have the feeling the anxiety I have is inherited. Grandmother to mother, and then to me. But I have detected it, and I am fighting it, which is something the rest of my family is too dumb to do.