Friday 17 October 2014

Facing anxiety

I want to face my fears so I can learn to stand up to them, but the problem is that most of my fears are social anxieties. I fear having nothing to say. I fear being perceived as boring. I fear making small talk with strangers. I fear being judged and lauged at. I fear being inadequate at my job and letting people down. Facing those types of fears doesn't make for a great story. You can't jump out of a plane and say it's done, because it's an ongoing battle. It's something you just have to deal with, every day, and it never goes away.

Imagine you live up in the clouds, like on The Jetsons, and the only way out is by parachute. Every day you have to strap on that chute and jump, and every night you come back home, up in the clouds. Now imagine that, somehow, you never get used to it. Every day you worry that, today, maybe your chute won't open, or the cross-winds will blow you into the ocean, or the straps will break, and the fear just grabs you every morning. Maybe today is the day you fail so badly you can't get up again. What would you do? If that fear stays with you, all the time, you never even get to enjoy success, because what if it's tomorrow you fail, or the next day? It becomes less a question of facing fear and more of wondering when you're going to fail.

And it's exhausting.

Mokalus of Borg

PS - I wish it was like jumping out of a plane.
PPS - Then I'd probably get sick of it every day.

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