Why am I so anxious? Is this something left over from early life history? I don't do psychotherapy so have no idea.

When I was a kid my mother was physically very sick. She was always in and out of the hospital. I still have cards she sent me from the hospital when I was 6 years old. Later on when I was a bit older she would be in bed in the morning and I had to make my own lunch and my sibling's lunch and get myself ready for school. It wasn't mental illness. My mother had real physical illnesses. When not sick she was a very vibrant personality. She died when I was in my 20's.

I really wonder if this is where my excess anxiety began. I can remember as a child sitting alone in cavernous waiting areas of strange large urban hospitals. At that time children were not allowed to visit their parents in hospital. What were hospitals thinking??? My father would leave me all by myself in these waiting areas. I would sit there really scared of all the hospital sights, sounds and smells around me.

Maybe to make up for lost time when she was not ill my mother was the best mom ever. She was funny, fun-loving, outgoing, and always laughing. She would buy me lovely gifts and pamper me with beautiful clothes. She would take me with her on what she would call "day adventures" into the city or out in the country. When I was a young adult we were still taking adventures...weekends by the ocean or in cute little bed-and-breakfast inns in the mountains.

The last years of her life were very hard on me. My father pulled me out of a college I loved to come home and help take care of my mother. I ended up working full-time and going to college at night to finish up my degree. I drank a lot and chain-smoked and was a workaholic besides taking care of my mom. I still had a social life, boyfriend etc. -- and I considered my life "normal" -- but looking back it was anything but normal. I wasn't consciously depressed then. Maybe all the drinking was to handle my anxiety. I was an exercise addict and became so thin people thought I was anorexic. I was constantly in motion.

Now it is just me and my anxiety. No drinking, no medications, no cigarettes. Certainly not anorexia haha as I love food. Not in motion. Stagnant. The heaping anxiety is still around. One would think by now I would have gotten used to it.