What Terrifies Me

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What Terrifies Me

Wish my life could be fear free

Photo by Sincerely Media on Unsplash

June 1: What terrifies you? How do you deal with it? Vidya Sury, Collecting Smiles

Decided to attempt the prompt as fear is something I have been grappling with my whole life, but it seems to get worse as the years progress.

My greatest fear is to lose my parent (my angel), and I have already lost one, and the next time I don’t think I can take the pain. I can’t even be too explicit as I write this, as I am petrified as I type the words down. I don’t want any of it to be real. I don’t want to confront it. The only one in this world who provides me comfort, even more than my dad. After the earth-shattering loss of my dad, I imagine I will be catatonic. I can’t imagine surviving it. I don’t want to write further.

I also fear losing my autonomy. It appears in my nightmares. I fear going to sleep, and once I’m dead tired, I fear waking up to face the reality.

Till I was 32, I was an eldest daughter and firstborn. You might say, but you still are? Surely birth position can’t change?

I feel like it’s been ripped away from me ever since I lost my career despite a good education. I feel a total loss of identity. Perhaps if I didn’t live in this community, society or country, I wouldn’t be feeling this way. A place where you are not measured in terms of superficial titles.

I was raised this way, as the firstborn, with all the burden and turmoil that comes with it. It is why control is so important to me, and if I can’t make my own decisions regarding my life, it will be a literal hell for me.

Why do I say only till 32? Well, the one who gave me the most trust and respect as an eldest daughter was my dad. I was his confidante since as young as I can remember. He spoke to me like I was an adult since I was 5. He trusted and confided in me. All of his anxieties. Without him, I felt completely lost.

We also fought the most, and I always thought I hated him. How far from the truth that was. How the anger rose in me if I deemed that anyone was bullying him. I felt so protective of him.

We were just too alike, and we both cared too much. Our relationship was tumultuous but left me with such a vacuum when he was taken. I feel so alone. Nothing can replace what I had.

Unless you’re a firstborn and the eldest, you won’t understand the burden of this. When you’re the eldest, you’re allowed to be a child much less than if you had older siblings. You’re always asked to set a good example and so forth. You can never fail. You’re the experiment. So failure becomes extremely upsetting. I grew to enjoy the role, to be honest, in spite of it all.

I see it in my eldest aunt, and other eldest daughters in my family. I see their loss of self without their dads. I see their loss when they had illness, lost their autonomy and became infantilised. I saw the hope drained from their faces. I hope this never happens to me. Honestly, I’d rather not be here.

I have been too open in the post, and that alone terrifies me. I am suspending gratitude for all the good things in my life, so that I can be gut-wrenchingly upfront.

I know it is the natural order, as they say, but I don’t want my beloved mum to age. She has always been like a child to me, as she was a young mum full of energy. I marvel that she did as much as she did. I wish I had a fraction of her energy and capability. She has no idea how capable she is and seems to have low self-esteem the way I do. She is passive like I am. Or probably it’s the other way around.

I am not providing any solutions in this one, but I am trying to get my life in order and trying my best to control whatever I can. I am out of my element, but it’s the only thing I can do.

I feel a desperation, as I try to get my life in order. I know I am far more capable than anyone in my life deems me to be. They underestimate me, and that hurts me deeply.

But I tend to underestimate myself too. There are only fleeting moments when I think – perhaps I can.

Writing here is one way, although lately I have been having severe migraines due to screen time.

Sorry I was so negative in this one. I hope I didn’t trigger anyone.

My heart rips into pieces when I read your stories where you confront your loss and grief. I wish I could reverse things for you. I don’t want anyone to suffer pain of loss like this.

Does confronting your fears make things better? So far, I don’t see that it does.

So how do I deal with it better? I have to work on my health and finances. I have to take charge of my own life more, and not be steamrolled, which is why I write this despite a crushing migraine.

I have to recover my faith. For my mum and aunts it’s religion, but for me it’s something closer to spirituality. But it’s something I have to work at.

At age 32, I lost my faith. Instantly. By now you can guess why.

So thankful to have a listening ear here with you. I did what they call automatic writing with no edits.

I would love to hear if anyone can relate to the above. I have a lot to be grateful for, but in this one I had to confront the reality of my fears.

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