The F Word

Fear

I have been living in fear, more fear than I realized. I previously believed that it was fear of failing at academics again that was holding me back but now I see that the fear has spread like a poison throughout so many different avenues of my life. Its seeping into my church life, my hobbies, my friendships, my relationship with God, my will to be happy. 

There were all these excuses I would use to justify not getting to really know any of the new people at my church the way I use to get to know my church family. I use to yearn to go to my church families houses throughout the week, wanting nothing more than to sit in their living room and talk with them and learn more about them. Now here I am lucky to see them on sabbath if I end up going to church at all. I'm afraid. I'm afraid of getting close to these people because I know that within the next six months to a year they will leave me again. That is what happens in my town, it is a passing through town. People go here for school then they leave, and I stay. I'm afraid to be hurt again and this is the result. I have closed myself off from my church family, from feeling close to the people I worship with and that has hurt my relationship with God in so many ways. 

When I was leaving high school my caseworker asked me what am I doing to combat my depression and I said that I have a great church family and my relationship with God is keeping me up. Now I've seperated myself from my church family and I've scared myself away from God. Why? Because of the climb. I know God is with me every second of the way and is forever by my side but there are still valleys in the walk with Christ. It all goes up and down and that climb up scares me to death. I'd rather lay still in that valley than climb up that hill shaking with fear that it will soon go downward again. I once fasted from anything with a screen and I fasted for a week. As that week came to an end I was crying, I was afraid of the week ending because it meant I would go back. I would go back to living the way I was before the week, I would go back down hill. I've scared myself away from God. 

Never in my life have I thought much of myself. My finest attributes are my eyebrows and my sense of humor. Now here I am with hobbies like crocheting, knitting, sewing, drawing, some ceramics, and graphic arts. As always with my art I put myself down and look at the work of others to judge my own. It makes it very hard to believe in myself and to believe others when they believe in me. I have three clients of my own for whom I do graphic design work and I still don't know how to price my stuff because I believe it to be worthless. I sell dolls, crocheted dolls and I still can't believe I've sold even one, let alone for $80! Every time I create something I'm afraid that its not good enough. There was a long time where I had just stopped drawing because I had gotten one bad review. I have allowed my fears to hinder my creativity. 

Growing up, I never had friends like the ones I have now. It was all superficial, completely dependent upon us being at school together. Once that was gone there was nothing to hold anything together. Now I have friends that I would do anything for, friends that I have done anything for. Friends that I'm afraid of loosing because of what I'm finding out about myself. The more I try to find out where I'm going in life the more I'm not liking about myself. Every time I'm around my friends now I try to hide these things so they don't see, so they don't leave me. Even now, writing how I feel and whining like this. All the dramatics, all the overanalyzing, all the dependencies. None of it helps anything and yet still here I am, and I hate that about myself. 

Could never just let things be easy. Never just let myself wake up and smile instead of finding the darkness in my mind and holding up in it for safety from the sadness that comes shortly after the happy. I'm pretty sure I've lost my mind...maybe just a little bit. Being so wrapped up in fear, I can't live like this anymore. So afraid to live. My ants weigh so much more than elephants. I need to dig my way out of this hole. 

Song: Daredevil by Fiona Apple