Fear and I have known each other for a very long time, longer than I've known anyone still living. (If I've known someone only sporadically, then I've known them for less time, you see.) In fact, it was my evil cousin who introduced me to Fear. From then on, Fear has never left my side. Few other's have been so constant.
What has Fear given me?
Distance from others — no sense in letting anyone close, they will only hurt you, as has happened very time I turned away from Fear's advice.
Detachment from my feelings — if you cannot feel, you cannot be hurt, except with those pesky sticks and stones. It's also good to detach from my compassion because what good does it do me to care about others when I cannot help them and they will turn on me as soon as they no longer need me.
A philosophy of life — all things can hurt me, and the Universe hates me quite specifically. Fear left me no room to question how the Universe would target me and why it would hate me. In turn, I was given the gift of the fear of the dark, being alone, other people, knives, tools, and heights. Fear set no limits, leading to my fears of dolls, frightening books that seemed to call to me after I read them, furniture, cats, dogs, commitment, in fact everything on the planet except trees, my bed, and non-terrifying books. Only those were my haven. You could usually find me in a tree or on my bed with a book.Yet, even with these gifts, I managed to get hurt, often. Betrayed, abandoned. Even beat up occasionally (always boys started these fights — I don't know why). Fear told me it was my fault for not following its instructions to the letter. And Fear caused me to cling desperately to whatever single person didn't hurt me. Very few people can cope with that: my dad, my little brother, and my friend Leah, when I was a child. My friend Steve since college, because he has fears and clings too. We are a pair.
As I've grown older, I've learned that Fear wasn't such a caring companion after all. I've even escaped this "friend" from time to time and doing so was heady and felt brilliant, all light and power and freedom.
Fear bided it's time, knowing there would be a place where it could come back into my life. And there was. Moving in with Thom, I grew to fear all my insecurities and flaws, for he felt no compunction about telling me about them.
Fear and I parted company and became distance acquaintances when i left Thom and bought my own home. I even freed myself from much of my fear of the dark (but not all of it), and of being alone (with a cat).
But things happen and confidence and freedom are fragile things in the face of Fear. After all that has happened lately, I am now Fear's favorite again, but I now know its other names: PTSD, free-floating anxiety, and learned fear. As I work on pulling the dark, sticky tentacles of Fear from my mind, it clings tighter, making my fears more vivid and powerful. However, I have help, and I have friends who know all this about me and more, and they haven't turned away from the darkness inside me. Some admit to struggling with Fear themselves; Fear, that slut.
Fear is still controlling me, keeping me inside, keeping me immobile. But it cannot keep me from my therapy and psychiatry appointments. And it cannot keep me off the internet. I am struggling with my fear of scarcity, of not having what I need, and for very good reasons. But fearing them only brings them closer.
Over at JulieLand, Julie pulled a tarot card about fear just last night.
"The keynote here is: what you resist will persist. What you fear most is what you will become.
"Hear is the lesson:...stop talking about horrible things happening and get rid of ‘what if’ in your vocabulary. This card may signal a time of worry about the future or of trying to exercise your control over that which is not yet in form – the future. ...changing [the] shape [of fear] into the things that you need, not those that you fear."
"...my fine and brilliant mind." Yep. And your strong and beautiful spirit as well.
ReplyDeleteYou absolutely will soar. It has already begun.
Julie
Ohhh fear. Feaaar fear fear. It seems to me there were enough fear and anxiety-inducing things that happened in your youth to make fear a reasonable response for a lot of the time. PTSD, as you say. My husband still sleeps in the same position he used to sleep for fear of his mother attacking him in his sleep--only minus the open window for escape.
ReplyDeleteIt's hard maybe for our inner wee people to realize that they're no longer at the mercy of (in your case) Unknowing Adults and Evil Boys.
"It's also good to detach from my compassion because what good does it do me to care about others when I cannot help them and they will turn on me as soon as they no longer need me."
ReplyDeleteThis struck home with me today. I also have been focused on and examining my own Fear. The card at Julie's came directly after an hour and a half long conversation I had about Fear and it's lies. Now here you are saying so eloquently everything I'm processing right now!
The quote above is especially poignant in my view. I am struggling with reclaiming my self and this is definitely one part that I'd like back. My compassion seems to be buried under that same Fear of betrayal and abuse. And considering that in this case it is not lying and everyone I have sought to help has a some point turned on me I find it particularly hard to overcome this particular fear and return to compassion. It helps me to realize that I don't help people to 'get something' back. And that the right to protect myself from abuse and pain is not negated by compassionate action. I CAN help others AND still set boundaries that protect me.
Also I've learned Compassion & Forgiveness go hand and hand. To forgive is not to condone or allow but to accept another or oneself as a whole complex being who can and will make mistakes. Compassion is the same thing accepting people as complex and beautiful beings and seeing beyond their faults or mistakes.
Was watching Star Trek last night & it brought this home. The Empath (Dianna Troi- Star Trek Next generation) lost her abilities to feel what other were feeling and was suddenly "all human'. She of course immediately lashed out at every friend she had in her fear and loss. And I mean really lashed out said some really hurtful things and acted completely hostile and closed off to every one of her friends. The best thing was that her friends took it all in stride. They kept trying to help. To the point where one who she had just told "I want to be alone, get out." just looked at her in a angry way and said "No." And in the end they all brushed off her actions and words once she had recovered and was attempting to apologize. Because, THEY WERE HER FRIENDS.
The point I got out of all of this and am trying to share with you is... Even people you love will hurt you. (AND vice-versa!) The trick is finding those worth suffering for and who think you're worth suffering for too.
It is a trick sometimes, walking the line between compassion and doormat. Once when I didn't want to go out, I didn't want to deal with the world, and it had gotten worse and worse, I canceled on two of my friends. Who promptly came over. Note: Do not give your house key to friends unless you are prepared for them to use it. Good friends will ignore your trying to push them away, when they know you are in pain and need them.
ReplyDelete