I'm at a real crossroads with my therapy.

While massive weight loss combined with relaxation techniques-- meditation, flexing and relaxing muscles, deep breathing, mindfulness-- have helped to lower my blood pressure somewhat and given me new coping skills, I've had a near total meltdown over the past month or so with my overall mental state.

I was studying derealization, which has been a full-time state for the past several years of my life as I wrote about here. The article mentions that this symptom is caused either by a brain dysfunction, or a traumatic event.

A couple of weeks later, I was talking to my dad, and he asked me which traumatic event or events laid the foundation for my problems. Being the second time in a short span that I'd been posed that question, I gave it a lot of thought-- and came up blank.

As far back as age four or five, I remember getting major stomach cramps or other symptoms of anxiety whenever I had to talk to strangers, or even when I knew I was being baby sat by extended family members. I would go out of my way to not make eye contact, or to provide any other cues which would initiate me being spoken to.

Put simply, there was no tramatic event in my past. And I have no concrete fears regarding my future either-- none of that "but what if I forget my car keys?" kind of compulsive worrying that one occasionally hears about. So if I have no fears from the past, and no concrete worries for the future, then why am I anxious?

Further, my daughter-- now six and a half-- has the exact same issues that I did as a child, and having been around her since she was born (duh-- I'm her father), I know of no traumatic event that triggered her social apprehensions.

All of this makes me wonder if anxiety around people is simply part of my nature-- just an outcome of my brain synapses and chemical composition. And if so, what to do about it? Psychiatric drugs? Weed, or alcohol? Try to find a job secluded in the middle of Alaska? And what to do about my daughter, so that she doesn't wind up like me as an adult?