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Wednesday 3 June 2015

Atelophobia


I was told, from a young age that everyone has a primary fear. Whether we know what that fear is or we are still discovering it, everyone has one fear residing within them that controls our behaviour and depicts our actions.


This fear cannot be hidden or removed, it will live within us and eat on our emotions. Anything close to that fear will leave us feeling anxious, empty or that "not today" feeling. Our fears are all different, and they resonate with different emotions.
Our entire lives are defined by one exact moment or object and no matter what we do to try and avoid or change it, it will always be the same.

Our fears define us.
Our fears are what makes us who we are.




Atelophobia: the fear of never being good enough.

Lucky enough for me, mine has actually been given a definition, so I know I am not the only one out there that feels the same way. However, it's destructive.
Just as much as any fear, it plays on my emotions mentally and physically and whether I choose it or not, will always impact my societal behaviour and my relationships with other people.

I don't know where it resonates, and I don't know how to prevent the mass tide of emotions from hitting home. I don't have access to a cure and I don't know how to become of my fear once it has taken a hold of me.




I suffer, just like each and every one else.
Once the fear has been awakened, it stirs something up inside of me and little by little, it will eat away at all the 'good' in me.
It changes people. Fears make people adapt to control certain emotions and therefore, we are always on guard. We learn to prevent, reciprocate, absorb and control our feelings and reactions.

How we act and how we respond to how we feel towards certain feelings is monitored and censored and we refuse to let the monsters within us, become us.




We are so afraid of becoming our fear, that we alter who we are entirely, to house them.

My fear of never being good enough isn't a product of an experience and it doesn't mean that I am constantly feeling this way. I am usually unaware of my fear, but when the time arises and the moment presents itself, my fear will come around and remind me exactly what it is that keeps me up at night.

It's a guilt, a sadness, a deep hatred and regret for not being perfect. I fail to see that perfection in itself is imperfect and I am blind to the idea that maybe, just maybe, I can be accepted.

I wear my fear with everything I own.
I eat my fear with everything I order.
My fear is the concept of never fitting in, never being loved, never finding comfort and never quite succeeding in everything I put my heart and soul into.

Although people may encourage me, help me and try to position me to see that there is sun behind the clouds, I have learnt to embrace that without my fear: I wouldn't be me.

My fear has pushed me to believe in things that I have seen impossible, and although I may fail 80% of the time, the other 20% has made me keep going.




My failures and the idea of never quite making it in this world has made me strong.
The concept of never being good enough or never achieving perfection has made me vulnerable.
My vulnerability has made me humble and by being humble i have been able to meet and learn to be who I am today.

I wouldn't change my fear.
There are days where my pillows are stained and my stomach churns, but these are the days that make me realise that what I feel makes me human and that those moments of despair, mould and shape my character.

I thank my mother,
for showing me to embrace my difficulties and to rise above them.

To appreciate the good that is in the world and to love an nurture the people around me.
To realise that life could be worse and that during moments of pain and time of healing that my fear is a fear that can be shot down in the middle of the night and can be fought.

She reminded me that it's okay to feel pain and to show weakness.
She reminded me that although there are days where i feel like my fear will take control of me entirely, that she too, has her own fear.




That she has learnt to love and life around her fear and that she has overcome the repercussions of facing her fears her whole life.

She reminded me that I am not alone in the world full of millions and that there should never be a day that anyone ever does.
That although we like to be strong and pretend that what we feel in the bottom of our stomachs doesn't make us weak at the knees, that we are allowed to fall down.

For the dust on our chest can be wiped off, our hands can be brushed together and we can stand again... remember... fall down 7 stand up 8.

It has taken be sometime to pin-point what it is exactly makes me feel entirely at a loss for words. I could never quite explain what it was that terrified me in the middle of the night and I never knew if anyone would be able to understand.



But now that I have discovered it and made a choice to accept that my fear is what it is, I have never felt so relieved.
Because I'm not unaware, and I can anticipate the worst but more importantly- I know what it is that scares me.

Once the monster has been discovered under the bed, we can fight the ones that are in our head.

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