Walking into a room with people watching me or people walking behind me is still my biggest challenge.
Clamming up also when we’re trying to talk to someone might also be hard, easy for others. But for us to overcome what scares us, we must put ourselves in that scary place. It sounds crazy that we would force ourselves to do the very thing we know we might be scared by, but not to means we can never overcome our fear.
Feeling inhibited, struggling to understand our feelings will always slow us down from being creative. But to do that we must overcome our fear. That scary thing doesn’t have to be anything big. But it’s important we deal with what scares us, rather than avoid it.
Sometimes thinking about doing what's scary, is scarier than the action itself. Apprehension is the reason we feel the fear we feel.
It seems that every action we take is an effort to liberate ourselves from something, to replace our miserable mix of fear with something better.
Then we come back to fear again and again, but it's never quite the same.
Thanks Tim. Yes, fear is hard. We know what we feel and as much as we try, we just can't get past the fear we feel.
I believe and you're right we spend a lifetime dodging our feelings in one way or another, whether it's fear or not. Anything unfamiliar we see as fear, even if it's not fear in the true sense. Perhaps we need to work out what fear really is and see the other things as just things we need to deal.
Turning to the unfamiliar, if we give ourselves the opportunity to work on the unfamiliar without seeing it as fear, it will eventually become more familiar. That's not the same thing as fear.
I believe that in hindsight a lot of what we see when we look back isn't fear. It's all just unfamiliar.
Fear has been the one constant for most of my life and has been what has kept me paralyzed and stuck in my life. It would be the only reason that I have stayed in my current relationship, rather than be alone when being alone would be the better idea.
I have always done what was right for everyone else which greatly benefits them, but usually makes my life a living hell. I'm now in a position where I have a choice between staying in a very unhealthy relationship, trying to continue making her happy or being with my first crush, who I have wanted to be with for 35 years.
The big fear there is wondering what will happen if we move out of the friend zone and it doesn't work out. Thanks to the joys of PTSD, I have to deal with all of the same issues that you mentioned in the beginning.
My mother used to actually stare at me a lot, which made me neurotic seeing as I was always expecting her to yell at me for no good reason. I have space issues, because she used me as her emotional teddy bear, which gave me tactile issues to the point where I don't like people touching me.
So many fears that I have to deal with, thanks to my wonderful parents. I have been able to learn how to work through these fears after being in AA for so long, as far the social aspects, but they are still there, so I can't just get over it, like people seem to think.
I'm trying to do more work now, thanks to a DBT class and getting through those fears.
Thanks Randy. You've already answered what would be your own question if you were to ask it. It's never a good idea to stay in an unhealthy relationship regardless of how any new relationship might work out.
I think it takes two to make a relationship work. If you chose to move from your unhealthy relationship to a relationship where you have the potential to be happy, you will take and have that new experience.
We must always feel the fear. To stay in an unhealthy relationship is never the answer. Unhealthy relationships sadly, will always be toxic.