The worst trick a childhood anxiety disorder pulls is, you spend your early years being applauded for being so much more mature than your peers, because you aren’t disruptive, you don’t want any kind of attention, you don’t express yourself, you keep yourself to yourself - this makes you a pleasure to have in class, etc etc - and you start to believe it’s virtue. But you’re actually way behind your peers in normal social development, and who knows if you can ever catch up.
Never heard a truer thing in my life.
holy shit wait you mean being just morbidly terrified of doing anything wrong ISN’T necessarily the same as being “well behaved?!”
Convenient children =/= healthy children
I started seeing a therapist last year and this is one of the most true things I've learned. It turned into me trying to be more outward at 17 and pleasing everyone and being extremely social and definitely that stuck with me, but I'm overwhelmed with anxiety over if I think people don't like me because of something I did. One of most significant things said to me, after years of emotional abuse, manipulation, and supression, was when I was 17 from my biological mother: "You were more mature when you were 14 ".
Yeah - I had to be a caretaker for my dying mom for 2 years and deal with my dad dying a year later and a brother who manipulated me and did nothing and I was finally coming into my own after having been developmentally delayed socially about 6 years, and look now I'm ten years our from then, turning into an alcoholic who can almost never be home or spend time alone without feeling like I should be working toward some sort of relationship and seeking validation.
I'm doing better since I started recognizing these things but goddamn.
