Fear has been something on my mind recently.

If you read my last post on love, you’ll already know I tend to have a strong aversion when it comes to getting close to people (especially romantically.)

It’s as if I build up this theoretical wall between myself and those around me. My inner being craves this closeness with others yet I’ve become so stuck in routine. I think about all the things I’d be giving up by getting close to someone while ignoring anything I could possibly gain.

It’s the little things too.

My nightly routine of my favorite dinner and Netflix. Sleeping in my own bed, hell, having the entire bed to myself. Dealing with my worst moments on my own because letting another in almost feels worse than the pain itself.

In the past, when I have opened up to others about my problems, my emotions were usually brushed off.

I was put in to a unique scenario growing up. I think a lot of people may be able to relate to this yet at the time, I felt completely alone in my situation. Also, since I know my family reads these, please don’t think I am calling any of you out or angry at all. I’m sharing my experience solely for the lesson and you did the best you could with what you knew at the time. We all do.

In my friend groups, my family was typically seen as the ‘go-to’ one for sleepovers, parties, a place to crash after a long night out, and so on. It was this safe space for a lot of my friends. So, whenever I brought up being afraid to ask my dad to take me anywhere or my mom being sick, I was usually slighted. I didn’t have any right to feel anything bad towards my parents because in the picture my family portrayed to others, we had the perfect chemistry.

I even vividly remember being called out in Facebook group chats about being a coward for giving up on therapy after two sessions because ‘my parents had the money for it’ or ‘they didn’t have the opportunity to go to therapy and I was willingly giving my chance up.’

I felt constantly berated for any negative feeling I ever had towards my parents which led me to bottle it all up. It had me guilting myself for being ungrateful. I had a pretty good family according to society’s standards so any negative emotion I felt soon became clearly unjustified. I thought something was wrong with me.

I attracted this kind of behavior from most of my friend groups too. Even as early as elementary school, my friends made it clear to me how much better I had it than them.

However, being told you have it so good when you’re feeling miserable is enough to have a kid, even an adult, go against themselves. I think that’s where my depression stemmed from. I’ve touched on this in multiple posts, but I never felt understood growing up.

I even went through old school papers the other week and as recent as senior year, a teacher wrote on my A- essay  ‘Great paper Kim, now can you speak in class?’

In third grade, a teacher called on me when my hand wasn’t raised. I answered the math problem correctly and I was ridiculed.

‘How can you just sit there quietly and have all these other kids try and do the work for you?’

I teared up. I was mortified.

On top of my teachers being seemingly against me, I only felt comfortable in my immediate friend groups. Being introduced to other people in social outings or working in random group projects sent me into a whirlwind of anxiety. I’ve noticed over the years though that my way of dealing with my social anxiety has changed.

I used to be quiet and kept to myself and now I find myself not being able to shut up. I talk on and on to avoid any awkward silences. I catch myself doing this in the middle of it yet I carry on. The anxiety is still there but my coping mechanism is different. I guess time has way of doing that.

When I attended college for a brief two months, I had to present a 5-7 minute Powerpoint. I rambled on for a solid 20 minutes.

As you can see though, the past twenty-one years have been a ride when it comes to my interactions with others. It’s something I still have to willingly work on everyday. After writing this all out, it is no surprise that my romantic life has been miles harder than my friendships.

With friendship, you have a bond and trust with someone. In romance, I feel there’s a whole new layer you have to unveil: intimacy. And no, not only in sexual way.

In the way that you fully see into someone else. You begin to know them in a way they’ve only known themselves.

When you take a girl who has had a hard time knowing herself over the years, showing that to someone else is petrifying. A lot of my own friends had trouble accepting me and as much as I don’t want to admit it, that has affected me.

When you’ve been given the same evidence over and over that people aren’t there for you, you begin to believe it.

So, I got really good at being there for myself.

In the beginning – around the middle of 2014, I was completely new to this. For the first time, I didn’t have a friend group surrounding me. I didn’t have people to talk to on a day-to-day basis. My phone wouldn’t buzz once most days.

I was scared. I didn’t know who I was without others and even though I felt hurt in the past, not having that solid ground was hard. That’s when my struggle with food began which continued for another year. By the end of 2015, I was restless from my eating disorder but I managed to conquer one of my biggest fears at the time: driving.

I got my license and first car within a month of each other. Even though everything else was going to shit, that became one of my biggest accomplishments at the time. Still is.

I never really touched on my driving fear, but it took two permits and four years before I was finally ready to get my license. I trusted myself (or so I said) but I didn’t trust other people on the road. A little ironic after this whole lack-of-connection talk. When I was finally able to drive, that stands out as one of my first times coming face-to-face with fear.

Continuing on, 2016 was definitely the year I focused solely on me. I shut everyone around me out because in my mind, ‘the only person I needed was myself.’ I fell completely into a self-help/positivity bubble and wouldn’t let anyone else in. I started blogging my newfound love for myself but again, my writing was personal. Even though I was sharing it with others, I mostly did it to justify why I was being such a loner. I had a found a whole world of positivity and I was finding myself, I preached.

Well, flash forward to now, and I can say that 2017 was the year of trying to connect with others again. I had been hurt so many times in the past and while yes, I did have myself, I still felt so alone. It’s good to be okay being on your own, however, humans are built to be a social species. You can only remain locked up for so long before you go stir-crazy.

I knew I was missing connection because every time I went out, all I would see was couples. Or friend groups. Or large families. The Universe kept continuously showing me what I was lacking because all I had been sulking in was the lack. Law of attraction at its most basic form.

I came to an epiphany this morning though.

As we can see, I’m super into the self-help field. I love knowing more about myself and why I behave the way I do because for so long, I had no answers. I truly thought something was wrong with me. Knowing now that all of my issues are related to some deep-rooted issues or shitty core beliefs has me itching to solve them all. I’ve been so focused on exposing everything that went wrong in my life because in turn, I thought that would be the ultimate healer. Shining light on the darkness if you will.

However, as humans, we tend to have resistance to more than one field of our lives. Some more than others, but for instance, it’s not uncommon to have a few faulty beliefs when it comes to love and a few more when it comes to our careers.

For example, you may believe that everyone you love will always leave you when it comes to relationships. With career, you may believe that only hard work pays off. Nothing worth having comes easy.

I’ve become so hyper-focused on airing out all of my dirty laundry that I’ve become overwhelmed. I have issues when it comes to relationships, friendships, body image, my work ethic, and the list could go on. There’s resistance everywhere. Thinking that I can figure out where every single thing stemmed from at the same time is insane. It’s asking for my psyche to explode.

I’ve been forcing myself to do so much in the name of ‘exposing’ my old beliefs.

 

I downloaded Tinder again, per my therapist, only to resort to my same old ghosting method.

I signed up for a fitness class I was nervous as hell to take and skipped it this morning. I immediately fell into the all too familiar shame of ‘missing my workout’ and the fear of others in my class judging me because I was new.

 

I’ve been forcing myself to cry through all these things I ‘need’ to do to get better when in reality, I feel like I’m willingly putting myself into a pit of snakes. Each snake being one of my old issues.

 

I’ll say it for myself and I’ll say it for you: you do not need to walk through hell to get to the other side of your problems.

 

Life exists for two reasons. Fun and growth.

The good times are for us to enjoy our experience down here and the bad times provide the growth our souls were looking for in coming down to this reality.

I’ve been walking through hurdles with a sprinkle of fun when I was meant to be doing the opposite.

On Friday, I sat in traffic for two hours on a commute that is typically thirty minutes. The sky was full of snow and hail, the roads were iced over, and cars were going a solid 5 mph down I-97. I was pissed initially but I decided to make the most of it. I threw on a podcast and went on my way.

At one point in the podcast (Coffee with Chrachel for those who are interested,) Rachel touched on a listener’s question. Rachel has always had a driving fear and has no desire to take the test. She lives in Seattle so she doesn’t need a license now with Uber and walking, but she grew up in Pennsylvania. The listener wondered if she ever received backlash from friends or family for not driving.

As Rachel went on about the guilt she felt about asking for rides or the heat people gave her to take the test, I reflected on my own driving journey.

I used to be terrified of even driving on a neighborhood street. I would freak out if a car even drove by me. I remember how frustrated I felt that I couldn’t get over this fear.

 

Yet, there I was, driving through ice and hail on the highway, not even blinking twice.

 

The fear was gone completely.

There was no magic medicine to cure me. I didn’t have to force myself to start driving at 19 because in my heart, I was truly ready to get my license. It felt better to start driving than to sit there a moment more without it.

In that two hours, that’s when I realized my fears are not these bowling pins I need to knock down. I don’t need to bowl a strike to reach enlightenment. It’s more so of a game of kickball.

I’m up to kick the ball aka one of my fears. I run to first and shit, they got me. I’m out. I try again and I make it to third and I’m out. I go at it again and I only make it to second. It’s this constant battle of being at different stages of the game no matter how many times I try.

Sometimes when I’m up to kick, I’m facing a different fear than before. Maybe with this fear I only ever make it to first.

 

But I still show up to try.

 

My fears are never going to be conquered in perfect consequential order. At times, I’ll feel like I’m going backwards. I might even feel like I’m making no progress at all. But alas, every day is different. You can never go backwards because each day you gain different knowledge than before. We’re always learning so even though I can feel stuck on a certain issue forever, I’m still learning more about it daily.

I’m always one day closer to healing because I decided to wake up and live another day.

That’s what I want to leave you with today.

Fear can take over our lives and we may feel like we’ve lived the same problems for decades, but we never truly do. As long as we are aware of our fears, we’re working through them. At times, you may hit an epiphany you never thought of before. At others, getting out of bed feels painful because you’re tired of re-living the hurt. But the fact that you’re reading this tells me you’ve gotten out of bed those days too.

That’s willingness.

A willingness to live in spite of every problem that has ever existed for you.

And that my friends, is the thing that matters most.