Fear is a powerful emotion. It has the ability to flood you with adrenaline to flee danger with super human speed, or freeze you completely in your tracks unable to make a sound. When most people think of fear, or more pointedly what they fear, they tend to think of things that invoke an immediate physical flight response: snakes, spiders, heights, flying, public speaking, the dentist (which is one of mine), etc. Rarely do we talk about those deep and intangible fears, those things that lie hidden in the deepest parts of our psyches: fear of failure, fear of being a bad parent, fear of intimacy, etc. While those fears may not adrenalize or conversely paralyze us the way speaking in front of a crowd does, or a spider on the wall might, they still affect us. It is those fears I've been contemplating.
Even as I sit and write this, I already feel uneasy about the idea (fear of vulnerability). I've already opened with pedantry- one of my own personal defense mechanisms. I know this about myself. Some people's fears are so deep-seated they are unaware that many issues they have in relationships are rooted in these kinds of fears. I am not one of those people. I've done the digging into the dark and dusty corners of my mind and have come to identify my fears. The problem is learning to overcome them. Saying that it's difficult is an understatement, especially when I've developed the ability to emotionally detach and discuss these concepts as though I'm talking about someone else. Even as I wrote that previous sentence, I had to go back and edit it to replace "you've" and "you're" with "I've" and "I'm." If I'm unable to detach but pressed to express myself, or if I'm unable to find the right words to express an emotion- even a positive one- I clam up tight. The funny thing is, it's not that I don't want to express myself; I often do. One of the only things I've ever wanted my whole life is to have someone understand on those deeper levels.
That, however, rarely happens and with serious and/or intimate situations it is a deep-seated fear. When I clam up it's not for lack of wanting to talk; rather, I am actually paralyzed by that fear. I can't talk. My visual-thinking brain seems to lose the ability to find meanings to words, and all words suddenly become shallow and insufficient. I will start to speak, stop, think, literally become tight-lipped and clam up, and just shake my head. I can't do it. The whirlwind in my mind at that moment is dizzying (hence the head-shaking); it is a rush of emotions along with a super-rapid calculation of how I think it will play out if I speak. Within seconds I generally come to the conclusion that there is no point to the conversation and I just shut down.
While this is the extreme and this scenario hasn't happened in a long time, I've noticed recently that it happens every day on a much smaller scale. There are so many things I want to express to people, but I can't. People who don't know me well- which is most people who know me- don't realize that I do indeed feel things very deeply. My stoicism is an external defense mechanism. Shit does bother me, and some of it bothers me a lot more than I let on sometimes. Likewise, I can have deep and warm feelings for someone yet come across as cool and aloof. Aside from the dentist, I don't really fear any of the examples I gave previously. Over the past couple of years I've even lost what little fear of death I had. In many ways I am fearless compared to some people. But in other ways, I am more fearful. A fear of snakes and spiders might paralyze you for a few minutes, but those deeper fears can paralyze you for a lifetime. It's a frightening thought.
