I am Afraid

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I have discussed stage fright before, and I have referenced my insecurities, but I believe it’s time to talk way more seriously about fear, and here’s why: I’ve been sitting here for ages trying to think of something to blog about, something worth saying. And, in keeping with the same pattern that I’ve been following for the past few months, I have come up with multiple ideas only to bat each one down, not because they weren’t decent topics, but because I've been too afraid to write them. I am afraid that I won’t do them justice, that I will say too much or too little, that I will be misunderstood, that I will be judged, that I will offend, that I won’t get my point across. I am afraid that I will fail in some way or another. I am afraid that people will assume wrong things about my heart and what I am trying to say; I am afraid that people will read between the lines and put words in my mouth; I am afraid that people will find my thoughts stale and worn out and repetitive. 

I am afraid that my fears will become self-fulfilling prophecies. 

And I can assure you, the more afraid I get, the more paranoid I become. All of this stunts me. All of this drains my creative energy when I most need that creative energy. 

I have said it before, and I will say it again. I don’t think I can stop the fear. More importantly, I don’t think that’s the point. I have chosen a career path where my insecurities will always fight to be foremost in my mind, and that alone is enough to revive all my dormant anxieties, if I let it. The trick is not to let it. But this resurgence of near-crippling stage fright is a symptom of a much larger issue. 

And there are a hundred other symptoms where that came from. 

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No matter how much I want to, I won’t tell my very favorite people how much I care about them because I am afraid they don’t feel the same and never could. In those rare times when I do reach out for council, I’ll only say a quarter of what’s bothering me because I’m afraid the other three quarters will prove I am beyond hope. In most casual interactions, I instinctively dumb down what I say so people won’t expect me to be smart and thus won’t put much stock by it when I mess up and do something stupid because I am frozen with fear. I dislike being ridiculed for how fast I read or how much I know or what I can do, so instead of sharing the things that I am happy to have accomplished I generally avoid talking about them in social settings. Even on this blog I get nervous about sharing my successes because I am afraid people will hate me for doing well. 

When it comes to blogging, I try to be as honest as possible, despite the fact that I am a very private person. I have even pulled passages from my personal journals in an attempt to be as open as I can manage, for my own sake first and foremost. I have tried to be transparent because I am afraid of not being seen, and I am afraid no one will know me unless I make myself known. But similarly, I am afraid to be known. I am afraid that once I let people see past the different layers of me, all the contradictory pieces that form the whole of me, they will see the core of me and judge it rotten. 

More troublingly, I am afraid to ask for help because I should be able to do this on my own, and I have been doing this on my own for years, so why is now any different? I am afraid that, because I have so often had to rely on my own self-analysis to stay sane, I am just pretending now to need counsel so I don’t have to be alone in my thoughts. 

My mind is a minefield, and I am afraid of stepping in the wrong spot, and I am afraid of showing people the map to my mind because it is dangerous to give others that sort of power over me. What if they detonate the whole thing instead of defusing it? 

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I am afraid that if I talk about how I am doing worse or how I am doing better or what I am thinking about, people will decide I am egocentric. I am afraid that if I pull away from social settings, people will take offense or assume I’m proud. I am afraid that people would rather label me with their own interpretation of my mind than listen to what I have to say about myself. 

Some of these fears have proved themselves to be legitimate, which makes it a hundred times worse. 

In my efforts to be brave, I have shared about the boy who died, and I have shared about losing Africa twice, and I have shared about my private terror, locked inside myself as I try to block the sound of fireworks that are not bombs but sound like bombs to the seven-year-old trapped in my head. I have tried to be brave about admitting that I am depressed and that I am struggling even though I have started to drag myself out of this pit by the velcro of my sneakers. But the more I try to be brave and speak up because I know I need to speak up, because the thoughts in my head are slowly killing me, the more I begin to fear that I am speaking up too much, that people will tire of my voice and tell me to stop speaking. People have rarely asked me to speak up. I am afraid that people will yell at me to file my thoughts away inside my head because I share too much and no one cares. 

I am afraid that you will judge me for talking about how afraid I am. 

I am afraid that you will judge me by the same standards I use to judge myself. 

I am afraid that, in trying to be raw and open, I am simply being foolish. 

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I am afraid that the horrors I have nightmares about will find me in the daylight. I am afraid that if I don’t speak up about the things that torment me, then no one will feel free to speak up about the things that torment them. And I am afraid you will think me even more egocentric for thinking that. 

I.

Am.

So.

Afraid. 

And I am afraid that makes me a coward. 

The braver I try to be, the more scared I get. 

I doubt this will ever stop completely. So I guess I have to tweak my attitude yet again, decide that the fear will take back burner despite its protests, that I will not let it put me on a leash and jerk me around just because it tell me it is stronger than I am. If this means feeding myself words that taste like lies to survive my days, then I suppose I’ll just have to grow fat on them. 

Despite how little I believe it, I will tell myself that I am not a coward, that I will write the blog post correctly, that I am loved and lovable and perhaps lovely somewhere in my soul, that I am helping people by sharing because maybe that will make them freer to share their own secret hurts, that people won’t get tired of me and my writing style and my thoughts. I will tell myself that I am not soul-exhausted, that I am covering for myself and the fact that I feel like quitting because I have forgotten how to fight. 

Somewhere along the line, I misplaced the thought that lets me be brave. I misplaced the weapon that lets me hold off the shadows behind my eyes. I misplaced the word that gives me purpose and tells me I am enough. 

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Somehow I have to find these things inside me once again. I have to delve down into the clock of my heart that makes me tick, and I have to dig out the dust that makes the gears grind, and I have to forget that I am afraid of drowning in my mind. 

At the apex of this seemingly insurmountable mountain, I will have to face the fact that I am afraid of being afraid. Here sits the root of the weed that is choking me. Here sits the root of all the fears that I have concocted in the laboratory of my brain, the place where every little terror originates. 

The fear of fear is neither healthy nor strong. It is irrational. It is a torment that creates itself. I cannot afford to let myself churn out new reasons for fear. I cannot afford to borrow lightly-used guilt from other people. I cannot afford to worry about worry. I cannot afford to deck out my insecurities in fancy clothes. These luxuries are bankrupting me. 

Somewhere along the line I stuck a post-it note in the back of my brain saying I must punish myself and never free myself, and I have to find that note so I can burn it. 

It feels like the deepest form of betrayal to tell you all of this. 

Please tell me it was worth it. 

I want to live the way I am meant to live, not perfectly, but joyfully. I want to fight to be okay. 

Please tell me I’m worth it. 

What about you, my little coffee beans? What are some of your struggles? Are you afraid of fear? How do you overcome your fears?

In Which I Wax Philosophical

If you’ve watched Batman Begins, you’ll know young Bruce Wayne suffers a justifiable phobia. Rather than simply conquering that fear, though, he uses it as a weapon against his enemies. (I wonder how well that would combat my aversion to escalators.) In Star Trek:  Voyager season 2, episode 23 (The Thaw), a personification of fear threatens to kill B’Elanna and Harry. Obviously those characters’ struggles are just the tip of the iceberg, because let’s face it, there’s plenty in this world to dread. Ebola for instance. (Bet you didn’t see that coming.)

As a child, I read and reread Z for Zachariah. Fahrenheit 451 always brightened my day. Stories like After Earth, City of Ember, The Hunger Games, and Divergent are right up my alley. With tastes like mine, you’d think I’d be Dauntless. (See what I just did there?) Yet when I was younger, I feared getting eaten by a tiger (because we all know large cat attacks are very common in Maine). A shark patrolled the undergirdings of my bed, and it was necessary for me to sleep curled in the fetal position because a giant lobster shared my sailboat sheets with me. So how could a girl who fears answering the phone possibly enjoy living vicariously in a shattered world?

Some people chase fear—they love the adrenaline that reminds them they’re alive. They love the defiance of speed and the pushing of boundaries and the straining of limits. I admire them—I really do. I applaud them from my perch on the couch with my feet tucked up so the spiders can’t get me. And while I’m busy chewing my nails at the thought of public speaking, some poor bloke in Australia is getting eaten by a crocodile.

Right now there’s nothing more dangerous in my life than crossing the street (although there’s the occasional tuna salad left over from last week and the questionable lunch meat, but you get my drift.) And I’m not complaining. I’m perfectly content watching the ceiling to make sure no workers crash through their re-shingling job and smush me.

On that note, here’s where I let you in on a little secret. Unlike some brave, brilliant souls, I have to write my blog posts at least two days in advance, and I usually spend around three hours editing. Maybe I could be better and faster if I tried, if I pushed myself and took a few more risks. But you know what really holds me back?

Fear.

It’s not that I’m afraid my readers will judge me. But I do fear failure. I dislike the idea of putting my worst foot forward, giving a bad impression, writing something dumb. More than that, I dread the time when I will have nothing left to say, the time when I will have to quit. And I hate looking like a quitter. Which is silly, if you think about it, because I don’t even know half of you. I wouldn’t know if you were judging me any more than I would know what you ate for breakfast or how many times you change your socks on a given day.

Maybe I fear myself, not you. Maybe I fear the heavy-handed editor looming over my inner shoulder, the monster at the fringes of my mind growling that I’m not good enough and never will be. Maybe I’m so focused on pleasing this tyrant, I hardly notice when I’m strangling myself.

Remember that short story collection I told you I was writing? I started it just to pass the time until I can resume my actual work-in-progress in November. And I began this experimental project with one simple rule. I can write anything I want, fill the pages with anything I dream, no reservations—but I must not limit my imagination. Mental restrictions are strictly forbidden (except, you know, where common sense applies.)

And do you know what’s happened? Has the universe exploded? Have I failed miserably? Have I written charming and beautiful prose?

I don’t know, because I never reread until I’m done. But I do know that I’m having more fun than I’ve had in a long time, and I’m remembering once more, why I started writing in the first place. Even if the work I produce is rubbish, at least I’m defying my fears. At least I’m living.

So, now that I’ve amused myself with that little tangent turned pep talk, let me resume my original trail. Reading is escapism. I need something to keep my mind from stagnating. When I’m bored, I choose something scary or interesting or cheery. When I’m depressed I indulge in something tragic, to distract myself with another’s problems.

But then the real world comes along and crashes my party. Sure, I could spend hours crowing about sunrises and sunsets and leaves and snowflakes. I could extol the virtues of pumpkins and rodents (though I figured I’d spare you that…for now.) But those are just the wrappings, the pretty bow and the pretty paper masking the not-so-pretty truth of existence.

Life bleeds mercilessly into prose and poetry. Ever read a sad story and wonder if you can hear the author crying? Art is the translation of pain. And writing is a symptom of reality, not the cure. Horrors like Ebola ravage us, and we get scared—so we write something. In our fragile minds, we create worlds we can control, where we set the rules of physics, and no one gets hurt who isn’t supposed to. Hope is easily manufactured—we could sell it in bottles if we liked. And fear becomes fun. Isn’t that how we cope?

Sometimes I entertain another fear—that the job I’ve chosen isn’t worthwhile. I love to write—but what if that isn’t enough? What if I never do anything to benefit the world? Worse than quitting is the notion of wasting my days as an eternal kidult, growing fat off the labors of others, making money off their pain. What’s the point if that’s all this is, just another case of, “I get to live my dream while life robs you blind.”

Often it feels like chasing after the wind.

But then I imagine a world without movies or music or books. I imagine an age where everyone works and nobody plays. I imagine a society so riddled with the holes of propaganda and brainwashing that all the love has spilled out into chasms of nothingness. I imagine a starry sky, devoid of music; a crimson sunset with no one to notice; the last few strains of poetry rattling around forgotten in the cranky recesses of a decaying brain.

And that scares me more than anything else.