Someone once asked me what I was deeply afraid of. I just shrugged and replied with my phobia of spiders. But deep down I'm terrified of much more than that... guess I was just too scared to tell them the truth.

. . .

I'm afraid I've wasted too much of my life stressing over stupid things that won't matter in the long run.

I’m afraid I’ve been trained to only see the worst in people or that I expect too much out of them and it drives them away.

I'm afraid of losing control. That one day I'll just snap and do something completely unpredictable and hurt someone close to me. I'm scared that I'll let my wild emotions take over. I'll get angry and lash out or I'll start crying for no apparent reason. I'm terrified that the people closest to me will find out that I can't keep my emotions under control and they'll either leave out of disgust or fear.

I'm afraid my ambivalence and indecision will control my life and I'll always be stuck in the middle, not being able to decide whether to go left or right. I'm afraid that my contradicting emotions will confuse people to the point where they won't want to be around me because they can't tell how I feel about a situation.

I'm afraid that all my thoughts and ideas are stupid or unoriginal and not worthy of saying out loud. Yet I always say my thoughts out loud by mistake and deeply regret for days on end. Sometimes I try so hard not to open my mouth because I’m worried about what will come out if I do. I'm afraid of speaking without thinking so I try very hard to keep quiet.

I'm afraid of getting too attached to a person or an object. I'll get so excited about it and then suddenly it'll disappear from my grasp, because nothing ever stays and everything/everyone eventually leaves. I'm terrified of abandonment. That everyone who ever cared about me will see the real me and leave.

I'm afraid of intimacy. I'm afraid that it's been so long since I've loved someone in the real way that I don't remember how to. I'm afraid that I can only give love to people I know will hurt me and that I know it won’t work out with so I won’t have to do the work of really loving someone up-close or know what’s it’s truly like to be loved back. If the right kind of love came into my life, the kind I deserve and have been waiting for, I wonder if I’d be able to accept it.

I'm scared I won't be able to get close to someone because of my fear and they'll think I'm pushing them away instead. I'm terrified of rejection which is why I don't tell people that I love them and instead I just let them slowly drift away until I'm all alone once again. I'm afraid of pining over people who didn't deserve my romantic longing and getting depressed over someone who probably wasn't even thinking about me at all.

I’m afraid that I’m not close enough with my friends and that they’re all closer to each other than they are to me — because I’m not around as much. When I’m not around so much of the time I get paranoid that they think I don’t care or that my love is less valid because they can’t see it. I'm scared to get too close to any of them but I want to be closer to them at the same time.

I’m afraid that my worries and concerns are boring and not worthy of sharing with other people, so when people ask me how I am, I say “fine” and I ask them how they are instead. They ask me if something’s wrong, and I tell them nothing. I’m terrified about what would happen if I told them what was wrong, that they wouldn’t care, that they would only pretend to care or that they would just tell me not to worry and everything’s going to be okay. I'm afraid I wouldn’t be able to tell them what’s wrong if they were ready to listen...

. . .

Maybe I'm just being over-dramatic and irrational?

© Sam T. Parker