Controlling Fear

I’m sure we’ve all heard the saying, "There’s nothing to fear, but fear itself." That is a very witty take on something that every human being has in common. We all fear something. This fear can be as simple as fearing small spiders, or as complex as fearing all men. Some experience in our lives has taught us to fear and what to fear. The question is not, why or what we fear? The question we should be seeking is how our fears affect our lives? I was introduced to my deepest fear years ago. It’s not hard to acknowledge our fears. We can feel in deep within ourselves every time the dreaded thing comes around, we cringe, our skin crawls, hair stands on end, we want to run, yet we are scared stiff. Though I’ve known my deepest fear, I’ve never realized how it truly impacts my life, until now. My deepest fear tremendously complicates my life because it tangles itself in, or creates other anxieties and fears. When I started to unravel them, I recognized that fear runs my entire life.

It was smoldering hot, and the air too thick to breathe. I awoke trembling. My body silently screaming something was wrong. My skin and clothes were drenched in sweat. It had taken everything I had to peel myself off the leather seat. My mind was racing, and none of it was making any sense. My eyes darted about, searching for my mom or dad, but they were no where to be found. My vision grew blurry, my muscles too weak to hold my body up-right any longer. I tried to grasp the door handle, but there was no use. I slid down in the seat. I knew what was going to happen next, I was going to lose consciousness. I had no idea when my mom or dad would come back, but it couldn’t be that long, or so I kept telling myself. However, it felt as if I lied there until my bones decayed. I tried to keep myself awake the only way I knew how, I had to talk myself through it. I reminded myself of the things I needed to stay alive for. My parents hadn’t seen me graduate high school yet. My nieces still needed me to read to them, and love them unconditionally. My volleyball team needed me to play some awesome D this season. Of course my 16th birthday was coming up, and I was going to be ripping up the streets in my new car! I still had so many great times to enjoy. It couldn’t end in a parking lot, stuck to the back seat of my mom’s Jeep! I heard the doors unlock, my mom opened the driver’s door,

"Mary! Mary! Are you ok!" Her voice was frantic. I didn’t have much left, but I managed to mumble,

"Help me." I was scared she didn’t hear me, or worse that she wasn’t really there, that my mind was just playing tricks on me. The next thing I remember is the tangy taste of lemonade in mouth. She had been there!

That was the day I realized my deepest fear. I’m sure everyone has heard people having the fear of dying alone. Well, that is mine. Not in the sense of alone without my true love, but literally, dying alone, with no one around me. I can in vision my fear coming true in one of two ways.

In a scene from the movie Steel Magnolias: the mother sits by her daughter, which lays in a diabetic coma. She will not leave her side for a moment, in fear of her waking for two minutes, and not being there for it. My fear is that while I may lay in a hospital bed tapping a dance between life and death, my loved ones will step away. They may decide they need a breath of fresh air, or a cup of coffee. Of course, that will be the moment I will take the step toward death, and I will be alone.

Another way my fear can potentially come true is that I will be home asleep and never wake up. Countless times in my deep sleep, my blood sugar has dipped too low for me to help myself. But, fortunately someone has always been there to save me. I am not always surrounded by people, yet miraculously every time I’ve ever experienced a debilitating low blood sugar, someone has been there. But, next time, I may not be so lucky.

My fear of never waking up, keeps me stirring for hours, even if someone is laying next to me. I fear it may be my last night I’ll ever decide to close my eyes. As I think about it, as a young girl, it would always take me hours to fall asleep. I don’t think any other ten-year-old girl knew what it felt like to be awake at one o’clock in the morning, but I did. Today, at the age of nineteen, if I happen to be alone during the night, I can be found sobbing and watching the shades of grey become darker until I can no longer see anything but pitch black. I scream and tremble, reluctantly into sleep.

Don’t get me wrong, I am not afraid to die. I am afraid that my life will be cut short due to something preventable. This makes me fear things that will happen after I die, questions that may be raised, whether I be alone or not. I torment my naive mind with bubbles of thought that burst with those annoying "what if?" or "if she had only…" questions and statements. Then, my deepest fear becomes, what if I could have cheated death one more time, if I had only not been alone? Or my loved ones placing blame on themselves, "what if I had been there? I should have been there!" Or throwing guilt on me, "if only she had taken better care of herself!" Maybe, I could save so many of the people I love from grief and distress.

All of these fears and anxieties I have, come from some experience I have encountered in my life- diabetes. It seems all my potent fears stem from this disorder which I was diagnosed with as a child. I’ve had twelve years to think about what this villain named Diabetes, is going to do to my body, and to my life. I have simple fears about getting back test results taunting me with the decision of going securely back home, or forced to a sinister hospital room. I fear going to my annual eye examination, because I might be told I’m going blind due to glaucoma. As you can tell, fear truly does run my life. The most difficult part about this situation is not that fear calls the shots, but that I didn’t even realize I was answering to it until just days ago.

Most of the time, we can all laugh in the face of fear. We deceive it, just as it deceives us. If we are afraid of the dark, we sleep with a light on. If we are afraid of spiders, we defeat it with the bottom of our shoe. If we are frightened of fish, well then, we never go near a body of water, or the aquarium lined wall at the pet shop. But, maybe the next time you jump in fear, you should think about where that fear came from, and how it affects your life. Living in fear can be worse than not living at all. Maybe there is nothing to fear, but fear itself because when you fear something you’re more apt to notice it, before it’s too late.