I’ve been in several situations that exacerbate my fear. There’s a time when I got electrocuted by an open wire that resulted in my ‘lowkey’ phobia of anything that deals with electricity. I also have this fear of totally expressing myself because I got bullied in my early childhood.
According to psychology, fear is a normal human instinct. This emotion protects us from possible dangers we might encounter. Sometimes, fear comes from what we've been through, like I said above, to warn us and keep us from going through bad things.
As an individual who’s in the daily struggle of fighting himself, I am doing something to alleviate this uncomfortable feeling because I know that being consumed by fear will affect me at some point.
Recently, I’ve been trapped in a situation where I feared of losing someone. My fear of losing him is not a result of an awful situation, but a result of my deep affection and attachment. This is different from the examples mentioned earlier, and I also don’t know why it's like that. Maybe they’re correct that when the heart takes control, you will not know what will happen or you will not understand the whole situation.
I recently had a relationship where I was afraid to take action against my partner. Despite having an issue, I’ll just let my mouth shut and do nothing about it. I am scared that I might be the reason for the faltering of our relationship. This irrational fear lasted over the duration of our 'romance', but I just kept on gaslighting myself that everything was okay and I was just overthinking. I am so dumb for doing that, but I think that’s what happens when you’re in love with someone; you keep on patiently closing your eyes because you believe that understanding, accepting, and pain are part of love.
However, he did something that became my turning point to overcome my fear of losing him. It's ironic that he’s also the one who pushed me to face this fear and end what we have. Although there’s still a fear that my decision might be wrong, I still proceed because I finally realized that I am already consumed by fear, and that emotion is just the reason why I am staying in this relationship.
It's been more than a month since I decided to part ways with him. There were a lot of sleepless nights, mental breakdowns, and tears, but here I am, not yet fully healed. I am not anticipating this, so I am quite sure that this is not the reason why I am fearing leaving him. I'm afraid because I thought he was the only person in this world who can accept my flaws and if I let him go, no one would ever love me. Maybe this thinking can be rooted in my low self-esteem and low self-worth, which I am trying to improve right now.
I think about messaging him sometimes, especially late at night, because I'm afraid he'll forget what we had and what he'd done to me. It feels unfair that the one who hurt you is the one who can easily move on and forget, while their victim was left miserable and traumatized. But I know that this is just a phase and it will fade soon.
I am distracting myself by writing and sharing my thoughts here on Hive. My academic activities also played a big factor in helping me shift my negative emotions into a more productive endeavor.My friends that I met online and on personal, also help me to cope with a sudden jolt of sadness.
Overcoming my fears isn’t easy. But I knew that once I overcame it, I would be one step ahead of my old self. It will just require a bit of courage and on my case, a bit of self respect, to do it.
