Hi All,

Just checking in after a long break from posting. I haven't posted in a long time because I seem stuck in a cycle of feeling awful for long periods, punctuated by a week or two of feeling better, then back to feeling awful again. This has now been going on for over a year, a fact that I'm having real trouble with. I also haven't posted in a while because I've been extremely busy. I know, we're all busy, but between work and therapy, I seem to have little time for anything else.

Here's what's happening in a nutshell. The part of me that seems to be at the root of much of this hell - namely a version of myself with it's own voice that attacks me by saying the most awful things about me to me - has been becoming more vocal and more sadistic. This happens in the form of intrusive thoughts and a kind of intrusive running commentary. I mean, we all have an inner critic, but this is extreme. This is a nihilistic, truly hateful voice that seems bent on making me feel completely worthless.

This is same part of me that burst into consciousness when I was 23 and called me some very nasty things, triggering my first ever panic attack. For the next 18 years, this harsh inner critic retreated into the dark and would periodically attack me in my sleep, and I would never know why I was waking up in an awful panic. Because I didn't know the cause, I was somehow able to live with it. But now, the voice of this "other" part of me has come out into the open again and is abusing me with truly awful things, such as: "You're a worthless piece of s&$t, you don't deserve to live, you're evil," and on and on.

Of course, I don't actually believe *any* of this. If I actually did, I wouldn't have a need for this other "me" to tell me, and I generally end up in this little pissing contest with myself by saying back to it, "why don't you go screw yourself" and "your statements have no credibility, so why don't you just shut the hell up", etc etc.

But naturally, hearing myself say these incredibly disturbing and hurtful things causes me intense anxiety and dread. My T feels that as disturbing as this is, it's new because now this "agent of punishment" is becoming more conscious, as opposed to attacking me in my sleep, and causing me to wake up in a state of panic without knowing why.

I'm hoping that my T is correct in thinking that this is the "core of the anxiety" and that if we can drag it out into the light, examine it and find its root cause we might be able to silence it once and for all and I'll finally get my life back. We'll see.

I would love to know if anyone else has had this experience. I guess this is what they refer to as "taming the Gremlin."

I hope everyone else is doing OK.

Russ