Ann Voskamp: "Hey You? You don’t have to say anything. Explain anything, excuse anything. I just wanted you to know we cheer you on, that we see the way you hurt & the way you keep on going."
My heart has a deep longing to hear those words. I live with a lot of fear. Some of the fears I have stem from past experiences.
Here are some of them:
- Someone busting through my door
- Being in a serious car accident
- Dying in a car accident
- Attacked in the dark
- Raped
- Trapped with no way out
- Beating someone up and losing control
- Shooting someone
- Living like a hermit
- Disssociating from healthy relationships
Each of these fears have a memory attached to them:
- My Dad stomping toward my bedroom and flinging my door open so hard it crashed into my metal closet doors and knocked the light off the wall then broke the light bulb. I was 12.
- In August of 1992 I was on my way to work when I had to stop suddenly. The truck behind me didn't see we were slowing down. I tried to avoid him by pulling off to the side but he hit me at 45-50 mph. My hatchback windshield shattered. I cruised on the wet grass about 100 feet and hit a tree. Double hits. I've had two back surgeries.
- In high school we had several students die in car accidents. It seems we went to at least two funerals a year. Then my friend Karen died at the hands of a drunk driver and my friend Cathy died from black ice and Valium.
- The sexual abuse started when I was four years old until I was thirteen. Most of it occurred at night.
- Some of the abuse was rape.
- Again, some of being trapped was abuse, some mental illness hospitalizations and social anxiety.
- My dad lost control more than a few times when he beat me. I want to beat someone when they threaten me or challenge my ability to defend myself.
- I've had homicidal thoughts though not for a little over a year.
- I like being by myself a little too much. I get really angry when my phone rings.
- I tend to pull back from relationships because I know they won't last.
A lot of these fears can be corrected by dispelling them with other forms of truth. I can ask myself when was the last time this happened and use that answer to retrain how I view that fear.
I can draw the fear onto a piece of paper and look for colors and symbols that represent contributing factors.
I can do word association and list out words that describe the fear. Then list words that can help turn the fear into something less scary.
There's probably other things I can do but for now, that's all I can think of.
