"Fear Itself" -- the only justified fear?

Anyone who has been around me for a length of time could probably tell you that I have a variety of FEARS. Some are common… some are irrational (my husband would probably have put a MOST before that adjective)… some I’ve had since childhood… some are newly developed. But they ALL seem to come up fairly often.

For instance: my arachnophobia. Common enough… this one has plagued me since the time I was about 6 or 7, when I lost my plastic heart ring in the grass, only to find an unpleasant surprise when my finger searched in a hole in the ground (word to the wise: NEVER put your fingers in random holes). And, fear of spiders is a really annoying fear to have! I don’t know if you non-arachnophobes have noticed… but SPIDERS ARE EVERYWHERE. Over the years I’ve been chased by boys with ziplock baggies housing the itsy-bitsies themselves… accidentally set up a tent-free camp on top of a nest of silver dollar sized RED spiders… moved into a house infested with the horrifying HOBO spiders (see picture… and then try to imagine waking up to that thing crawling on your comforter, inches from your face!)… and walked through more webs than I care to remember. They are impossible to avoid – and thus I eternally feel like a terror-stricken Miss Muffet.

And I WISH I could say that was my only fear. But, unfortunately, I carry with the following:

• Panic around birds (see earlier post Birds of Feather)
• Claustrophobia (thankfully, this one comes up a lot less often since outgrowing “Hide and Seek”)
• A love-hate relationship with Roller-coasters
• Emotional fear of abandonment (eek… maybe to serious to mention?)
• Waking nightmares when I’m alone in the apartment for a night
• An aversion to alleys because of rape fear (I’ve found most women share this one)
• The belief I’m more likely to be in a plane crash every time I fly (this one is so consuming, that I often imagine who I would call and what I would say when the plane starts going down)

Its a pretty common thought that fears are often born of naivety and immaturity. But, the scariest part about my fears (oh no! another fear!), is that they’ve seemed to pile up as I’ve gotten older. I have more fears… AND they are more intense. So, what exactly is going on here?

I think my “certif” (don’t ask), Katie, said it best recently. On a girls’ reunion trip, we were playfully confronting her about her tendency to worry about the “worst case scenario” (and, we weren’t exaggerating… this girl is always verbalizing the fears that most just think and quickly dismiss… like, “Wait, but COULD a golf ball fly over here, hit us in the head, and kill us?”). She called the culprit of these irrational fears out – a need to feel in control. To Katie – if she thinks through all possible BAD scenarios, then she feels more confident in her ability to handle the situation should the worst-case suddenly erupt.

And, I think my growing list of fears is a bit related. While Katie considers the worst so she can feel in control of the present – I DO NOT think ahead, and then find myself unable to handle my emotional response when I let my brain really imagine what COULD happen in the moment. My imagination takes over – and, before I know it, I’m letting my brain experience the thoughts and emotions of a plane crash (or spider poisoning… or bird attack… or rape contraction of a STD… or the rollercoaster car flying off the track… or being alone in life… or whatever).

But, come on. Today I turn twenty-freaking-five (one event, unlike my friends, I was NOT afraid of). And, back in the glorious teen years, I was FULLY convinced that 25 was the “it” age -- that I would have arrived to adulthood by my mid-twenties. As the Four Seasons and Fergie have sung to us over the years – “Big Girls Don’t Cry.” Its time for me to grow up and start thinking of the world as my oyster… instead of my fear-tar-tar on a plate.

So today I’m choosing optimism. I’m not going to imagine the elevator cables snapping as I head up to my 51st floor job…. I’m going to grab a paper towel if I see a spider instead of bursting into tears and running away… I’m going to think about feeding the pigeons on my lunch break (eek!)… and I’m going to take shortcuts through dark alleyways late at night (j/k! I’m not an idiot!).

Who knows? -- Maybe by 30 I’ll be fear free!