Chris's GreenZone Story

From reds and wrongs to greens and rights Anxiety is something I've had since I was about two years old, feeling pressure all my life.

Raised by parents that thought they were doing the right thing, but weren't.

My father served 4 years in WW2 which destroyed his life.

I think the stress he suffered in the war rubbed off on me as a kid.

My mother's mother was a neurotic worrier, which I think was also passed on to me.

As a kid in the 50s with emotional problems, was something that was not well understood, and therefore not well treated.

So what did we do, we suffered! I had fun too as a kid, but with a blind eye as to what life really was all about.

I guess I hid from it most of my life.

The 60s was a bad time for me; I quit school, got involved with drugs and the wrong people.

When I should have been getting an education and preparing for adult life, I was having fun with hot cars and poor jobs.

Every now and then I would have anxiety, but not know what it was.

It cost me jobs, girlfriend, and life in general.

All of the 70s and 80s were like that.

It all came to a head when I had my first daughter in 1990.

It was like a pressure cooker in my life, building up pressure all my life and finally blowing its top.

I was the birth of my daughter, and the birth of reality! This was the start of my panic attacks and a wake up to the real world.

A few years later, I met Dr. Sohail and that was the second wake up call.

As many before, my relationship with my girlfriend was on the rocks, and going down hill fast.

She had her own problems, which didn't help the relationship at all.

We had a second daughter, but things did not improve between us.

I thought this was normal, people not getting along.

I had no concept of boundaries because I had never been taught.

At first, with Sohail, I didn't take it seriously, it took a long time before I started to listen and learn.

And so, the work began.

I went from laughing to crying.

It took many years of hard work in private sessions and group therapy.

What an amazing journey.

The light in my life slowly went from RED to AMBER, and finally to GREEN, the whole time, fighting with anxiety and panic attacks.

But as time went on, the attacks got fewer.

There were always a few people in my life that knew what buttons to push to get me in the Red Zone.

I slowly filtered them out of my life, including the mother of my children and a friend of 30 years.

I am free of that haunting Red Zone, and although the Amber does appear once in a while, I am quickly under full control and back to the Green.

I live better now in almost every way.

My approach to boundaries is very good now, however, I do cross the odd one, but just the harmless ones, and just for fun.

Now I work, sleep, and live in my Green Zone.

My decision-making has become much easer for me.

Where I used to stand and argue, I now walk away.

Life has been hard for me, but the good part is that I now have two wonderful daughters, a home and most of all, THE GREEN ZONE to control it all.

Thanks to Dr. Sohail and Anne without whom I could not have done what I have.

Thanks for sticking with me.

I still have work to do, it's like building a car that I've done, and I now have to polish it .