Fear, my old friend

I read in a book one of the best descriptions of fear and depression I have seen so far. The book described them as people, who take up occupancy in your life. They walk alongside you throughout your day, you don’t want them there but they turn up none the less. You think you have out run them but then just around the corner there they are again, waiting for you, ready to take hold. The author of this book did a much better job of explaining and illuminating this than I am but the idea of it always stayed with me. The idea that our struggles are so well known to us that they are always there, sometimes dormant, lurking in the background and sometimes front and centre ruling our decisions and our actions. Like an old friend, something that has been around so long, you can’t remember when you first met.

My struggle is fear, it always has been. I’ve lived in the shadow of fear for as long as I can remember. When I was 13 my best friend died, a year later another friend passed away, the next my beloved grandad and two years after that, a childhood friend lost his battle with cancer. I began to live in an anxious state of waiting for the next tragedy to strike. I went through life with bated breath. Fear became my friend. Fear became my tool-to always be ready. To be prepared for the worst in all situations. To always be one step ahead of disappointment, to be prepared for grief when it would come. And life had taught me that it would come. Of that I could be sure.

So fear followed me throughout all of my life. My old friend that walked around with me, that came into new relationships with me, that said ‘Told you so’ when they ended. That told me not to bother with new ones, ‘it won’t end well’, fear would say, ‘you know that’. And I listened. Fear and I have been very close. Fear is where I run when life is hard. But not the good kind of fear, that tells you when something is wrong, that alerts you that it is time to act. The other kind, that stops you moving, that paralyses you and traps you. That tangles you up in a web of untruths and maybes. The little voice that tells you you’re not good enough, that there’s no point in even trying.

Fear is where I have run because hope was too big a risk. To hope meant to imagine a world where things were different, where people didn’t die, where people didn’t leave. To imagine a world so far beyond the one that I had known, that imagining it was almost an impossibility. To believe that there is good, that death has not won, to believe that the worst will not always happen seemed so alien to me I didn’t even dare to try.

But then one cold December night all my biggest fears came into being and I soon found that I had no other option but to sit down and have a good old chat with my friend fear. To face what he had in his ugly box of tricks. To go to the deepest parts of my soul that held my biggest fears, the parts surrounded by grief, both felt and imagined. The undreamt dreams, and hopes too big to be allowed out. I soon found that I didn’t like my old friend fear quite as much as I thought. Fear stopped me moving on, stopped me dreaming dreams; stopped me living life. And paralysed me in ways I can’t even begin to explain.

I began to wonder if maybe there was a different way. If there was a way through the dark, through the tangle, through the pain and the hurt, to a place where fear no longer exists, to a place of freedom. And slowly but surely I found it, I emptied the box one little broken piece at a time. The friends lost, the broken hearts, the disappointments, the final goodbyes. And through that I found healing. I found freedom. Freedom to live a life filled with joy and expectation, the freedom to become the person I was created to be and in uncertainty, to find courage. To know that no matter what happens I will be ok. To let go of fear, and to dare to hope. This is where I lay my foundation. In the courage to hope, to build my house on firm ground.

Of course sometimes I come home and I find fear has taken up residency again, I see him admiring the view, getting comfy. Sometimes I give him a pillow for his head and it’s like old times again. But more often than not I thank him for stopping by and reminding me how far I have come. He talks to me about pain and I tell him about joy. He mentions hurt so we talk about healing. He brings up vulnerability so I remind him it’s just another name for strength. He reintroduces himself as fear in case I’m confused so I introduce him to my new friend Courage and our best friend Hope.