Phobias

I will be really honest. Because I feel like it. I hope this reaches someone out there who finds it somewhat useful, relatable, comforting, or even endearing.

I, amongst many other people have some phobias. I am not sharing that because I want to be perceived in any special or different way. But I have an unusual amount of phobias. The phobias are not weird by what they are, at least I do not think so.

How do I know this?

Well, I didn’t. I did not know, it was normal for me. I guess I started to pay attention, and I started to realize that they were phobias and not just fears when I started to open up about them to others.

To understand my story better, I would like to emphasize my stance that my family is very much a “walk it off'“ mentality kind of group. There is to be no coddling, no crying, no whining. Misbehaving was not tolerated. If I did misbehave the consequences would be served by my father swiftly and quickly. It was not some kind of spanking or time out. I also should put in here that my mom had nothing to do with my father’s anger problems. She did not make any excuses or defend his actions—they thankfully divorced.

But if you have a problem with something emotionally in my family, historically you would be told to swallow that pill and you would be expected to keep going.

If you were to literally break your leg in my family, I would not be surprised if they asked you to walk that off too. I understand there are reasons that mentality is in place in some families, but that is a longer story.

Without getting into the gritty details and only for sake of understanding my context, I will briefly share the time my father let me adopt a cat for my 11th birthday. He later killed that cat on purpose. His girlfriend had some allergies.

And you best understand, I swallowed that pill. Minutes after experiencing that, I went off and went to my cross country meet. I was expected to move forward immediately, no time to process, no time to feel. Swallow that pill. I quite literally, walked it off that day.

So I have some phobias. I live my life very intentionally and specifically in a manner that helps me cope with some irrational fears that I developed. And my point of all of this is that those phobias in these last three weeks have grown much much worse.

Both the level of stress I feel I have been pushed to and the level of fear I have recently experienced have impacted me in a way I cannot really truly describe. I am really not trying to be dramatic when I say these things. I really am trying to not be hyperbolic when I describe my thoughts and actions.

I find myself often spiraling if I do not get a text back from a friend—I am afraid for some reason they choked and died on their lunch or got into a car accident.

I have spent maybe two consecutive nights away from my home in the last four years. I leave the house for about two hours maximum before I start getting chest pains. I surly have lost friends because they did not understand these things about me.

I do no talk about my mental health to its fullest to anyone. I do not share my full truth to anyone. In a way, I have not and never will shake that “walk it off” mentality.

The receptionist at the hotel, people I run into on the elevator, strangers on the street saying hi to me (it is a Southern person thing to say hi to everyone) and even my peers; all of them start talking to me, and then when our eyes meet I feel a sense of unsettlement and unease radiate off them as response.

So between the ramped up phobias and the resulting lack of life in my eyes, I am feeling a tad disconnected from others.

May this blog post reach someone who relates. And if you’re reading this and you do not relate, that is also fine. Thank you for reading regardless.