Facing Fear

 

Fear is the root of all evil. Yoda from Star Wars said, "Fear leads to anger, anger to hatred, hatred leads to suffering". 

I am perpetually angry. I wasn't always like this. But life happened, and I dealt with its blows one after another. This year has been a massive eye opener for me. I decided to say goodbye to my hugely attention seeking, dramatic self and went into overdrive hermit mode. The result, dealing with backlogs of emotional shit that I very conveniently shoved under the rug before.

My sister tells me 'you're too boring and normal now'. I take it as a compliment that my normal exterior is doing a good job at hiding my tumultuous interior. I wake up each day, trying to be a better person. Some days are status quo and some days I fall miserably on my face. That's okay, though. I'll keep trying.

In the midst of all this shadow work, heart chakra healing, meditation, shielding, anxiety, palpitations and now finally the last resort, medication, I've come to the core of all these issues. Fear.

To tackle my anxiety and my anger issues, I need to first go back to this. What do I fear?

My biggest fear is not being alone. I keep saying that to myself. But it is fear of being abandoned. I have abandonment issues. There, out it is, a sigh of relief. I fear being used and abandoned when I'm no longer needed. Stems from past trauma and the repetitive patterns that followed.

I fear being ignored. Hate me, fight with me, love me, disagree with me, but don't pretend I don't exist. I have realised the stabbing I feel when people disregard all the effort I put in to be nice, to give, to help and just go ice cold on me. I'm not asking for anything in return. Just don't ghost me into oblivion.A smile will do. Why do I need this acknowledgment? Am I a people pleaser, a doormat? No, I'm not. If you ignore me, how will I know where I went wrong, and how will I better myself?

I fear that I may not be the best parent. My kids love me, no doubt, but every parent does something wrong. I just hope I don't damage them in any way, that when they grow up, they blame me for all their flaws. I hope they know I did the best I could.

I fear I can never trust anyone fully. I have trust issues. If you tell me, hey, I got this, leave it to me to do it, I might let you, but I won't trust you. Goes back to the first fear. I don't want to depend on anyone so much because I'm going to be abandoned anyway.

Fomo. A new age jargon meaning fear of missing out. I'm getting old, I haven't travelled, I haven't written, haven't done my Phd, haven't learnt Gaelic, haven't been a master chef, the list is endless. All I did in the last ten years was pop babies out and lose my mojo. I didn't do role playing, I didn't do S&M, none of that exciting stuff I wanted to, and now I'm fat and old.

Fear of dying. Mortality. Every man's stuff of nightmares. I don't want to die suddenly of a heart attack (the way I'm having heart issues lately it's a valid fear), or be terminally ill or have Parkinson's like my grandad or a stroke and have someone clean you up. No, man, never. So I will run those extra rounds every morning just to get this stupid fear out of my head. I have to stick around till my kids grow up. I want to be the Grandma who is always there and helping around, just like my granny did. I ain't going nowhere.

This has turned out to be a long post. I need to see a shrink but Covid has got me sitting tight at home. I don't do Zoom calls so I'll wait. Till then, I'll fight my fears some more, and pray I will be past them some day.