Hi Flossie, Welcome to the forum!
You're definitely not alone. There's probably hundreds of us in just Brighton & Hove. This website is not very widely publicised and yet we now have 75 members in the space of 6 months. I'm very positive about that but also a little shocked that there isn't more NHS treatment out there for something that seems to be almost an epidemic.
As a child and teenager I used to get quite confused at why I was confident in most situations and yet reduced to a gibbering wreck in others. It made me feel as if I was very strange. When you're younger you just have to trust that your thoughts and feelings are normal and go with the flow and I mostly did. It just confused the hell out of me that I'd suddenly get that 'fight or flight' feeling without a rational reason.
It's so difficult to raise children when you have anxiety. There is definitely a culture of over protecting our kids in 2008 and when you factor in the added influence of our anxiety, it becomes hard to judge what is safe. I'm a nightmare! I can calculate how high a sofa is and which part of my child's body will hit the ground/carpet/tiles first and how dangerous I think that may be. On the other hand, children are very resilient and can think for themselves.
Welcome again, maybe we'll bump into each other at one of our 'meets' someday!
Best wishes,
Martin.
