Man that must have been difficult but you made it through it. Trust me that is the worst part of the entire process. My daughter does that sometimes too. She will cry and say she doesn't know why she is crying. She hasn't done it in awhile so I think she is adjusting better.
You wrote: I need to keep stamping out the inner fears and the dark thoughts.
Do you want to give details to what they are? I had those too and about 95% of them don't come true.