The REAL Anxiety Disorder Recovery Blog

What am I?

by Charles Linden - Linden Tree Education , Jul 03, 2022

I don't think there will be many humans on the planet that haven't asked themselves this question at some point during childhood or even later in life.

Most clients I work with remember a time when they pondered the notion of their nature, preferences and place in the world.

It is that voyage of self-discovery that forms much of who we are, how we navigate life, our career and relationship choices and so much more.

It's a voyage every person needs to make alone, unhindered by the influence of others, allowing natural biological processes and their interaction with the world to make those decisions and come to a place of physical and emotional wellness... regardless of who we are at the end of that journey.

Through 26 years of helping people overcome their disordered emotions and through helping them to navigate the complexities of life and being in it, I have encountered and assisted people to overcome and move past, every aspect of what it is to be human from natural, normal inclinations and behaviours, to criminal behaviour, sexual abuse, physical abuse, substance abuse and addiction to all manner of sociological and economic disruptors. I have a pretty rounded view of all those issues and have successfully brought thousands out of the disorders those experiences might cause.

Let me explain something that is both apparent but also scientifically verifiable.

You are what you are!

Furthermore, at this point in time, save for a handful of relatively successful genetic therapies, there's little you can do about 99.9% of that.

That is NOT to say that you have to live the life of what you biologically are - that's what liberty is about - having the right to live your life, obviously within the law, but in any way you please. If you're not impacting on someone else's 'truth' or manipulating what they are or wish to be, as long as you are respectful and socially appropriate and don't purposefully do others harm, you are free to be and to present in any way you please. In fact, I'd actively encourage that.

With permission, we can advise or offer our experiences as guidance, but free from manipulation or agenda.

This is why I have a problem with many religions - I support a person's right to faith, but I cannot, in right mind, support the manipulation and indoctrination typically used within many structured religions.

Fear based belief isn't true belief, it's either a surrender to social or physical pressure, an insurance policy against even a minuscule quantity of doubt, or both - faith should come from un-manipulated belief based on the consumption of sensory data, facts and unhindered decision making, but certainly not from fear.

Over the years, my own experiences with fear disorder and more specifically the sub-condition commonly referred to as OCD, drove me down many avenues - all asking the ultimate questions... What am I? What should I be? What part do I play in this world?

But these questions weren't focused on my genetic truth. They were questions driven by disordered emotional responses. They were using false data to come to wrong conclusions and therefore flawed responses.

Sometimes those flawed responses impacted me heavily and caused great regret. Some of which myself and others carry around today.

The main questions (notions) that haunted me for the many years I suffered were:

• Am I gay or straight?
• Am I a boy or a girl?
• Is there a god?
• Am I normal?
• How do others perceive me?
• What if I fail?
• Am I about to die?

 With regard to the capacity to develop a fear disorder, there are two categories of people.

• Those genetically able to develop an anxiety condition
• Those that can never develop an anxiety condition

During an interview in 1998, I was asked "what percentage of people develop anxiety conditions Charles?"

In 1989, my answer was "around 25%"

In an interview in 2019, my answer was "around 35%"

In an interview in early 2022, my answer was "around 60%"

Why 60%? I actually think it's higher now... but because all 'new' humans are not only born with the genetic predisposition, but many are now also born programmed, through epigenetics, to respond emotionally inappropriately from birth. 

We have entered a period of dramatic departure from normal, natural social evolution which has, also, given rise to a catastrophic biological departure - the impact of this will rock every aspect of those people's lives, but more terrifyingly, that of their genetic line for ever more.

When young people question who they are, as I once did, they're not searching for assistance, guidance or external response, they're assessing the data created by their external and internal environments and through understanding their physical responses to that data, forming a view on how to respond.

That response is vital in that it can change, save or end lives. Confused or inaccurate data can cause catastrophic events.

Woe betide if they should vocalise their thoughts - in the hands of, often well meaning, confidents, it could mean a catastrophic journey down a very dark pathway to trauma and serious mental health issues.

I've seen it thousands of times; a sufferer opens up to a family member, adviser or school teacher, who totally misinterprets the data, or sets loose their own beliefs, agenda or ego on a situation they neither understand nor can assist with and days, week, years later, the sufferer is medicated into chemical hell, in a tennis game of treatments, being batted forwards and backwards between practices and becomes deeply submersed in physical and mental suffering... that's getting worse.

If a child, or adult for that matter, is presented with two paths leading to the same destination, one is a mile longer than the other but flat, the other a mile shorter, but half of the walk is uphill, which path do most take?

Life is exactly like that. Through data assessment, we make 1000s of decisions every day, subconscious decisions driven by available data, each leading us to a destination, sometimes correct, sometimes not so.

The problem is that many treatments and resources tempt sufferers with the impression of fast relief and the human body, programmed by evolution to follow the path of least resistance, to eat what tastes good, do what feels good and seek instant gratification and reduction in 'pain' will, inevitably be guided by, often, the wrong advice or process. This is exactly why a bottle neck exists in mental health practice and provision.

People get lost in the ever-thickening pea soup of life, plus advice, plus treatments, plus substances... physiology loses sight of 'which way is up' - disorder becomes the 'norm' and meanwhile, self-medicating has become socially and morally acceptable - be it yoga or meditation, cannabis or medication, augmenting natural human wellness is both big business and socially accepted; and in many cases actively encouraged and it's EVERYWHERE. The sales job is inescapable. 

Over the years and through my own experiences navigating these questions, I have met and spoken with many tens of thousands of people asking the same questions; many under the incorrect belief that they are indicative of core truths.

I have also met many thousands of people who are a long way down that discovery pathway, who have made very serious life decisions, often involving surgery or impactful experiences, that now know that their decisions weren't born of core truth but of a misinterpreted notion in the form of 'a question', even in the absence of data that would endorse a scientific answer.

Their truth has been corrupted and the consequences haunt them.

Like I said at the beginning of this post, you are what you are and you have every right to be who you are in a free society; no one can change their core truth and no one can change it for them.

I could cite thousands of examples of people who have ruined their chances of living in accordance with their core truth, because they've been led away from that natural process by misinformation; I know of some who took their lives because no one explained the science to them. I know of tens of millions of young people, in fact billions, for whom that core science doesn't exist, because those who are tasked to provide it and assist them don't know it either or profit from ignoring it.

I was tortured by those thoughts for 22 years of my life, but now that I understand the psychophysiology of those thoughts and their purpose, now that I am recovered from my anxiety, panic attacks, OCD, Pure O, emetophobia, health anxiety, eating disorders and low mood, I use that knowledge and my ability to communicate that knowledge in an understandable, reassuring, empowering process of recovery and activation of full human potential.

When I hear of people suffering from anorexia, OCD, phobias or panic disorder and then hear, the nonsense their advisers spout in either total ignorance or commercial bias, I could and often do, cry.

There is no need for any of that suffering and the only reason for it is ignorance.

Understanding yourself is key to driving the human vehicle, maintaining it and enabling it to reach its ultimate destination intact, well and with a pathway behind it that has enriched your journey and led to a great legacy and joy.

Many of todays children will never experience that joy and fulfilment, but only because those tasked to educate them didn't know how to direct them.

Nothing within education, clinical or psychiatric interventions provides the solution, so for many the constant cul-de-sacs and disorder will be their inevitable future.

As I see the disasters unfolding in the media, in person, in the TV programs and social media I see, my heart bleeds for each and everyone of them knowing that their lives can be so much better so quickly if only they knew how.

Charles Linden

For The Linden Centre
3rd July 2022