I don’t know what it is like to be unafraid and brave. I know what it is like to fake it. To be scared like you can’t believe and to be unable to stop the oppressing thoughts and still put on a good face and do what you have to do. Even now, with a great psychologist who is helping me figure out exactly how to avoid the landmines that lead to the meltdowns and medication. Even now, with a husband who I think completely groks the thoughts in my head. Even now, with a circle of friends who are aware and love me anyhow. I do not know what it is like to be unafraid. I can’t even step on an elevator without vivid and compulsive thoughts of it crashing.
I imagine that it was tiring for both of my parents to have such a fearful kid. Especially because my brother just isn’t that. He isn’t scared of the thoughts of other people and elevators crashing and ships sinking and everyone dying. He doesn’t throw up every single day of his life simply because the day is too overwhelming to consider. I know some of the things I am scared of go back to early childhood. Some are easy to avoid, wax museums. Some are embarrassing and not so easy, like the dark. (I don’t even want to talk about the humiliation that occurred in Disneyland when I was a full grown adult with a 3 year old who started crying and refused to get on the Haunted Mansion ride). I had never slept in a dark room until I went to college and I think part of my college meltdown (my first adult one!) was the fact that I shared a dorm room and suddenly was expected to sleep in the dark despite a crippling fear of it. I managed to develop some coping techniques over the months but whenever I could I slept in a lit room.
I was lucky when I married that my husband is an incredibly sound sleeper who seems completly ok with me sleeping with nightlights, actual lights, and tv. And as an adult I can’t stand in a dark room or walk through an unlit house but if needed I can and will sleep in a dark room.
One of my earliest memories and my fondest one of my parents actually has to do with that fear of the dark. As I said earlier, I imagine that it was incredibly tiring, parenting me through the minefields of everyday things that could send me into tears. (ahem escalators) One night when I was 3 or 4 I was awoken by my parents who had heard me talking in my sleeping (or crying, I am not really sure all these years later) and they brought me downstairs with them and let me lay on the floor in front of the couch while they watched tv. Every few days after that I would then lay in that dark room trying desperately not to think of all the things I think of when it is dark (then, monsters, now, home invasions and fires) and when I thought I could get away with it I would pretend to be asleep and talk or cry until my parents would come and rescue me and let me lay on the floor in front of the tv. At some point they cut me off and I am sure they thought I was trying to stay up late and watch tv but every time I thought I could manage it in the future I did it. It seemed to help me get control of the fear in a way. I would lie in bed counting to help me figure out when I could be reasonably believed to be asleep and often fell asleep before I ever got to that point. That became my coping mechanism that I sometimes use until this day (although it is rare that sleeping in the dark will cause my that much anxiety).
It took me 30 years to realize the rest of the world didn’t live this way. With little tricks and memories and being scared of their own shadow (and people I mean that literally, if I think about it too much my shadow will actually freak me out) and the thing I desire most is to put back those peices of me and be whole and not broken in this way. It is probably my biggest fear, the one I think about the most, that I will never be able to just live and breathe.
I understand , Mine is milder but its so completely out of control that i sometimes just go hide and cry because I cant deal with my own uncontrollable irrationality.
Because mine is born of vitamin starvation (from my celiac) there is no way to suppress it , or control it , just the capability to warn others of it , and to avoid situations if i can , to tell my husband in the car , I am going to freak out , I am sorry before it starts to happen.
It so hard , and while mine may not be where yours is I understand.
I felt so alone , and often still do.