I can’t believe as I round the corner of my 450th word blog that I haven’t examined what the word fear means to me. It’s on my mind all the time. It’s on everyone’s mind isn’t it? It’s currently many people’s reality, what with drone bombs dropping and the winds of WWIII blowing. Perhaps I haven’t written about this word because I don’t wish to be a fear monger. That would make me part of the problem. Reality is, however, that we are living in fearsome times. Politicians are even selling fear to get elected.
With most relationships, after discussing things like favourite colour and lucky number, we eventually go deeper and share our fears. We might chuckle together over similar paranoias like heights, spiders, tight spaces, or that time when I was caught in a lie and had to go and apologize, which meant I missed going to a movie on our weekly family night, so I told my mom that I hated her forever. Oh. But that’s just me (note to self; add fear of mother figures).
Putting my own fears aside for a moment, it is healthy to talk about our insecurities in order to find healthy solutions to what makes us scared. That’s easy for me to say, because I’m not shy about admitting my anxieties. When it comes down to it, our survival depends on avoiding those situations where we lack confidence. I have tested my terrors, carefully, so as not to put myself at risk. Sometimes I have shouted, “I’ll show you!” and dove in (literally) head first to prevent anyone from suggesting I was a milquetoast (oh the shame of some words eh). In practise, facing your fears is a good strategy until you pee your pants, then it becomes just another comedy sketch.
Lucy, a character in the comic strip by Charles Schultz, shared psychiatric advice in some panels. She loved to label her friends’ afflictions rather than be a consoling helpmate. But for 5 cents, I guess you get what you pay for. I’ve had therapy for panic attacks that led to a depressive illness. I was grateful that the prescribed medication put me in a calmer place where I could judge the relevance of my fear responses. The professional advice also revealed something I hadn’t thought of before: The things that made me who I am have a fearsome side and a blessed side. Heads or tails, you are the coin of the realm.
Solutions found for any problem, physical or mental, are gifts we must not take for granted. There is no antidote to fear, although love and acceptance from a significant other goes a very long way. There are multiple ways to respond to feelings of apprehension, not merely the cliché of fight or flight. When something tests our resolve we don’t need to chicken-out, bury our head in the sand, or run screaming from the room. Dreadful thoughts can come for a reason or they can be needless worry. It’s important that we figure out which is which.
