I used to be so afraid of walking around the streets but now I feel so great

When I was 14, going back home from school, just after I dropped out of the bus, a guy came after me and told me he had a gun (he was probably bluffing, but why would I ask him?). He took my cellphone and ran away. I got crippling anxiety from that incident and leaving home was a difficult chore. I would think all the time that something would happen with me.

When I started working, I would have to take the bus and train everyday to go to work. The first few months were stressing. My anxiety was high and that would make me take the most weird, often dangerous, paths to go back home or to the university.

At some point, I realized I was not anxious anymore. I would take the bus late at night to go back home. I would take the train at the crowded central station in my city.

Also, I started going out with my friends really often, and returning home by bus/train/uber. Those were exciting times but I still had some anxiety. My city is not the safest, far from it.

Now I live alone near a train station, and my neighborhood makes me feel quite safe. Of course I still take precautions, such as leaving my phone home, or if I take it with me I leave it in my purse and don't get distracted by it in the streets. However, I feel oddly safe walking at night, alone. Many times I've walked home alone late at night after taking my girlfriend to the train station, and often times we would go to some restaurant really late at night.

I love how the crippling anxiety doesn't scare me anymore. It seems to be gone, at least for now, and I find it magic to walk alone in these ghostly, deserted streets.