Oh, no! Mom and Dad are coming home!

I've got pretty bad anxiety right now. I'm frightened. And I've figured out where a lot of this anxiety is coming from... this particular anxiety I experienced a lot as a child living at home... it was the extreme fear that mom and or dad would come home at any minute, and I would be caught doing something, or caught not doing something I should be doing. OK, as a kid, I didn't do my fair share of chores, so when mom or dad would come home, they would lay the guilt on me for that. Or if I wasn't doing anything, I got guilt for not being more productive. Or, even if I really went out of my way to impress my mom by cleaning the house sparkling clean, instead of saying "wow the place looks really good Dave" or even just "thank you" she would always find that one little spot I overlooked and gave me some guilt that I didn't clean that spot. It would just devastate me. So, in late afternoon, I would always start to get scared because I knew any minute mom or dad might be coming home, and they wouldn't be happy with me. Before the age of 22, I can only think of like 3 times where my parents actually complemented me on anything. Everything else was criticism or judgment of some sort.

So, now, I have this anxiety, that no matter what I do or don't do, no matter how good I do it, I always have this scared-to-death feeling that mom or dad are going to come in any minute and give me some kind of guilt.

But, I'm 29 now, this type of thing hasn't happened in at least six years, I've developed a great sense of self esteem, and I've dealt with most of my childhood issues, so why do I still get this fear?

Well, I have to put a little caveat in here (if caveat is the right word). If the theory holds true that the neurons in the hippocampus shrivel up after chronically long periods of sympathetic nervous system activation, and that was or is a problem for me, then that would mean that I have a hindered ability to consciously recall memories, especially "good" memories, and most of my memories that I do have would be more subconscious fear-based memories. This is due to the fact that the amygdala in the brain is still working fine, and it plays a huge roll in the Fight or Flight response, and it is able to, the theory goes, create subconscious memories. Whereas one of the major functions of the hippocampus is to place memories into consciously recallable long term memory. So, if this is all true, then it is possible that I did receive more complements and nurturing comments from my parents than I am able to remember, due to the breakdown of neurons in my hippocampus. For more on this theory, read the book
The EMOTIONAL BRAIN: THE MYSTERIOUS: The mysterious underpinnings of emotional life by Joseph LeDoux
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