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Speak Up! A Life Beyond Complacency and Fear
Lessons learned through complacency, classical conditioning and fear of being a burden
As a child, I used to watch my younger brother make a fuss about absolutely everything. He was short tempered, incredibly anxious and sometimes outright defiant. I recall many events where my parents struggled with him, including (but not limited to) the fact that he didn’t sleep through the night until he was six years old. He would bounce his ball in the house when he was told not to. He wouldn’t sit properly at the dinner table. He was terrified of absolutely everything. Making him do anything was a struggle, and sometimes a big fight. His crippling anxiety right from birth in combination with the typical male defiance and rebellion took on a catastrophic and exhausting combination. My Father travelled quite frequently as part of his job, and often this monumental task of getting my brother through the day was left to my Mother.
You’re so smart and well behaved.
I on the other hand was the opposite of defiant. I was the older child by eighteen months that did everything I was told with a smile. I was also a female, which according to many of my friends and family makes a massive difference, but I can’t speak from this from experience. I learned very…
