The Beginning … and End … of Anxiety!
Not a cure all but a bloody good start!
When I was about 5 or 6, there was a person who threw cans or bottles at our house at nighttime.
I was scared every night I heard them. They always did it through a storm. Why weren’t they in bed, all safe and warm? And why my house? What had I done to them?
I’d lie awake hearing this noise and couldn’t imagine it being anything else. Our next-door neighbor had a chimney made out of brick that went straight up into the darkness. The sounds I heard were exactly like empty cans and bottles being thrown against that brick chimney and our house.
At school I read a story about a boy who was also scared at nighttime.
In the story, the boy’s dad sat with him one night as they looked out the window at all the things that happened in the night. The cat that glided past, unheard but seen as a shadow across the fence. It startled the boy, but his dad explained what it was. In fact, it was their cat, which the boy loved and cuddled almost every day. They watched and saw many things that, without explanation, could be seen as “monsters under the bed”, or outside, in this case!
The night went on and, all of a sudden, a light appeared over the horizon. The sun was coming up. The dad and boy had been up…
