I’m Tired Of Being Afraid
By: Timothy O'Neill
Tags: Life Lessons, Self, Mental Health, Spirituality, Fear

I’m Tired Of Being Afraid

Fear is my arch enemy. I can’t lose this time.

Image by ambermb from Pixabay

For as long as I can remember my life choices have been primarily governed by fear. Fear of abandonment, fear of physical pain, fear of humiliation, fear of pressure and expectation, fear of my parents’ wrath, fear of not pleasing those who I rely on for emotional validation, fear of failing and falling, fear of the unknown, fear of predators, fear that I didn’t really exist, fear that life is only a dream, fear that I was trapped in a time loop, fear that I was stuck in a dimension that was ruled by entities that were inimical to human beings, fear of uncertainty, fear of death, fear of eternal torment, fear that I would be the only one who couldn’t make the leap to the other side of forever, fear that I was not up to the challenge of living life. And fear that everyday I was drowning.

With all these fears it is a miracle that I am still functional. There but for the grace of God go I. They say my fears are formed partly by traumatic past life experience, partly from trauma in this life, remembered and suppressed, and partly by social conditioning and the malign influence of forces beyond my control. I am afraid because I lack faith. I am afraid because I am living my worst-case scenario. I am afraid because when I look in the mirror I see a haunted, hungry man-child who looks nothing like the way I feel inside. And I’m so gosh darn tired of it.

But all the fears I listed above seem like symptoms instead of an actual illness. What is my diagnosis? What lies beneath all this worry? I think it’s two things. One, it’s a inherent distaste for the human experience. Two, it’s a fundamental mistrust in the intentions of the universe. What can be done about this?

The first is an issue I’ve struggled with since I first emerged from the womb. Nothing fit right. I didn’t like the feeling of skin on bones. I didn’t like that my caregivers couldn’t read my mind and that I had to sob to get my needs met. I didn’t like that there were so many crude boundaries drawn reinforcing our separation from one another, boundaries that grew more flimsy and transparent as life went on.

The second is a slightly more recent concern. Once 4D made its presence known in my life I discovered to just what degree our world is manipulated by those in the higher realms. My space was invaded and it was made clear to me that I exist at the mercy of those who control this plane of being. One night my guides showed me their shadows while playing with my environment and it was one of the most terrifying experiences I’ve ever had. I thought my worst fear had come to life. The universe was actually evil, all this was actually a joke, and I was trapped here forever.

I hovered over my body as a dark cloud of smoke. Then suddenly I poured back into myself, up to my eyeballs, and was vacuum sealed back into my body and then, and only then, did I truly know the horror of being human. I knew your density. I knew your vulnerability. I knew your anguish. So I am wary of those who try to persuade me that this is a beautiful life if you want it to be so. I know for a fact that it isn’t, but we have to pretend that it is because we don’t want to further distress the rest of the patients in this madhouse.

Trust and acceptance are my avenues towards overcoming fear. I worry about accepting. I worry that it might give way to complacency. It might mean I stop asking questions and who wants to stop asking questions, when the answers you are getting are so unsatisfying? Trust is something else entirely. What am I meant to trust? The positive intentions of those who have given me my life back only to snatch it right away again? I think I am meant to trust myself and have faith that if I am doing the next right thing then I will be supported.

And then there is the small matter of God. He is never far from my mind. I’ve been looking for Him for close to thirty years now and I have felt His presence exactly twice in my life, both times making a connection with not a singular intelligence but with an awareness of intelligent infinity that made such an impression on me that my soul soared while it lasted. I want more of that in my life. If I could touch that then there would be no need for fear, because fear would have no place in the sheer cosmic immensity of the transcendent phenomenon to which we attach the label, ‘God’.

I have been mocked for my belief. Once when I was being tortured I said ‘It’s in God’s hands’ and my torturers chuckled and said, ‘God works in mysterious ways’ and then, ‘You’re in our hands for now’. And these were entities that have perspective that makes mine look like a child building castles in the sand. They’re in the position to know and they’re atheists. Am I wrong? Is what I call God merely an energy field? Is God just music? I can’t say. I hope not, because honestly God, I have suffered a lot in search of you. A lot.

One of my stranger obsessions is my fear of my blood sugar dropping. It’s happened only twice in my life, but that was enough to permanently imprint the fear of a recurrence on my brain. I am not diabetic. My blood sugar has not dropped in ten years. Yet I am always worrying when my next meal is coming, when I can sneak in my next snack, whether I can make this drive without having to pull over and buying something sugary. It’s part of the reason I’m so overweight. I can’t cut down on my food intake for fear if I do then I will pass out. It’s a silly fear, but it has drained more of my mental and emotional resources than practically any other over the past decade. I did conquer it briefly. I did it by just being angry enough to stand up to it. I used to carry snacks in my pockets wherever I went. I decided to stop. I said if my body wanted to kill me, it could kill me. Worse case scenario though, I pass out and wake up in the hospital. That would be worth being free from this obsession.

Fear can motivate you to take action. To be proactive and constructive. But fear only motivates me to escape and avoid. Fear causes me to fall back into the same bad habits that created the fear in the first place. It’s similar to those who struggle with agoraphobia. You’re afraid of the leaving the house so you don’t leave the house, and the longer you go without leaving the house the greater your fear of leaving the house becomes. I never learned how to grow up. I dwell in the perpetual purgatory of late adolescence. And the longer I stay here the more afraid I am of moving on, so the more I cling to the things that make me dependent on others. Fear is a clever adversary. It knows all your weak points and can exploit them with the skill of a master tactician. It evolves to keep pace with you. It adapts to fit any circumstances. That’s why facing any one fear can be a fool’s quest because another one will pop up and you’re stuck playing emotional whack-a-mole.

Conquering fear requires digging down into your deepest self and summoning your values and virtues and seeing if they can contend with the monster. Fear is corrosive and can chew through almost anything, leaving it lifeless and inert, but it cannot corrupt who you truly are at your center point. We were built to react to fear instinctively in the moment, to clear and present dangers, not to be ruled by anticipation and superstition. Fear, like pain, is data. If we can distance ourselves from it using mindfulness techniques, if we can learn not to judge it, then we can free ourselves from its vise-like grip on our minds.

Another aspect of my fear is that not only do I not have control of my external environment, but that I’ve lost control over my internal environment as well. No more popping pills or knocking back a pint of vodka to feel better. No more using something tangible to produce specific, measurable results. I know now that this house of cards could collapse at any moment. That’s why I keep my readers on their toes by publishing three stories a day. That’s why I published 2000 pieces last year. That’s simply what a dying man does.

I’m tired of being too afraid to live my life. It’s odd. I’m not afraid of those who seek to kill me, but I am afraid of putting the recycling into the trash and receiving a tongue-lashing from my mother. Where are my priorities? I’m not afraid of having my soul snatched away by Satan, but I am worried that I’m inundating my best friend with too many stories. I’m not afraid of being struck down by a vengeful God, but I am afraid to call up and make a new appointment to see my psychiatrist. I’m not afraid of the angels and the demons. I’m afraid of people. I’m afraid of living. And I’m tired of it.

What is really bothering me? Trauma, certainly, but there has to be more to it than that. I think I’m really bothered by the dissonance between what I do and who I am, between what I say and what I think, between where I came from and where I am, between being a person and being something else. None of this sits right with me. It never has. As a child I would be constipated for two weeks at a time, then when I finally would go I would be literally bathing in my own filth. Now I’m only constipated when I’m stressed or using opioids. What was I so stressed about all the way back then? I think I was stressed about having a shadow that I could never shake. I could feel its presence oppressing me from my earliest memories. Eventually it got what it wanted, and then some. Now the two of us are stranded on a lonely beach in the distant past as high tide comes rolling in and the ocean of consciousness threatens to sweep us away. This shadow is the ultimate source of my fear. It is the voice that tells me I should be afraid, because everything and everyone is a threat.

The shadow makes a compelling case, but I no longer take what it says at face value. I know it’s trying to destroy me. I will not be run off the field of battle. I will not be disgraced. One day my inner and outer worlds will synchronize and I will act like the brave man I know myself to be.