by Linda Batey

Created on: March 01, 2008

At age fifty, I thought my life was darned near perfect. I was married to a wonderful, caring man and we felt we had found our soul mates in each other. It was the second marriage for both of us, and we both brought two children into the mix. We had loved each other through twenty five years; through running a business together, raising a melded family, dealing with the "ex", financial up and downs, sharing the gift of grandchildren-five times! We'd seen it all and weathered the storm. We always priding ourselves on the fact that we never fought. Looking back, I now see why and that it is good for relationships to have "fights."

The past year has been brutal. I woke up one morning and realized that I had no idea of who I was. I had given in, given up and just plain given for so long that there was nothing of me left. I had completely disappeared. I had no opinions on anything, apologized for anything and everything, couldn't make a decision, constantly preoccupied by what other people thought,and said yes to every invitation to lead a group, teach a class or host a party, when I really didn't want to. I had become a people pleaser. I would do ANYTHING to avoid a confrontation, conflict or, for that matter, a real conversation. I didn't want to talk about anything "deep" because I didn't want to offend anyone or hear a negative word that might hurt me.

I journaled about these feelings for a month before I decided that I needed counseling. The idea of telling anyone my deepest thoughts gave me anxiety attacks and nausea, but I knew I had to go through with it. I found a counselor and she sounded really nice over the phone, which was helpful. Still, it took more strength that I thought I had just to keep the appointment. Her name was Laura and I was surprised at how young she looked. I sat on the couch and started blabbing; talking about the weather, my hobbies, how many kids I had and so on. She finally interrupted the babble and asked me what I really wanted to talk about. I started crying immediately and my throat was so tight I could hardly breathe. My heart was pounding with anxiety. I hated the silences between my answers and felt I had to fill them-they were too uncomfortable. As I would end a thought, she would ask me how did I feel right then? Using words to describe the "tight yellow balloon in my chest" helped me to focus my energy on it and make it go away. It was a technique that I still use today. I even found through the next weeks that anxiety about

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