Fear Itself

I love to write. But, writing is an intimate act that makes me feel vulnerable. Or perhaps I should say publishing makes me vulnerable. My words existing where anyone can see them and respond to them excites, but also terrifies. I spend a lot of time afraid, which means I waste a lot of time that could be spent on something productive and fulfilling. Something like writing.

I don’t know if other writers struggle with fear to the extent I do, or in the ways that I do. But today I’m going to write about it in hopes that a) I’m not alone in this, and b) no one else will feel alone in it either.

My heart begins to race; my thoughts bound from one unlikely outcome to the next, picking up speed; my breathing becomes shallow and frantic; sleep flees from me.

That’s fear for me. And I have a lot of fears.

My fears: an inexhaustive list

I fear I’m not a good enough father.

I fear that I’m not a good enough husband. 

I fear that I don’t do enough to make the world a better, safer, happier, place.

I fear that my writing isn’t good.

I fear that I can’t make my writing any better.

I fear that people don’t like me.

I fear that I’ll never achieve my goals.

I fear that I’ll achieve my goals and still feel like my writing is bad and people don’t like me.

I fear that I don’t have anything worthwhile to add to the world.

I fear that I’ve shared too much on this blog.

I fear that if people see how much of a mess I really am, those who do like me will stop. 

I fear that I think too much.

I fear that I don’t think enough.

I fear that my fears are the result of undiagnosed chronic depression or anxiety.

I fear that they are not, and so there’s no disease to blame or treatment to pursue.

I fear that I’m too driven by fear… And so on and so forth it goes in a never ending cycle.

Dealing with fear

For me, fear is often paralyzing. It pushes me to quit before I put too much time, too much effort, too much energy into some pursuit that may not pan out. It locks me up and sends me scuttling to comfortable, safe, familiar activities that I can’t fail at. It stops me writing, and it definitely stops me querying or taking steps towards publishing.

The problem though, is that any activity you can’t fail at, probably can’t grow you either. Intellectually, I know that. It’s like working out a muscle group. If there’s no tension, no strain, there’s no increase in strength. I don’t think anyone ever made a difference in the world by sticking where it’s comfortable.

I rarely feel like I can conquer my fears; often the best I can manage is to coexist with them under a tenuous cease-fire. So what do I do? 

1) Spot the pattern

For me, step one is learning to recognize the difference between my normal thought patterns, and those driven by fear.

My mind wanders a lot. So much so that my wife and I used to play a game where, after I share a complete non-sequitur, I walk her through the constellation of vague connections which led me from whatever we were talking about to whatever I just said. It’s usually harmless, lateral moves across ideas and experiences that I’ve woven together in my mind. 

But when I’m gripped by fear, that network of associated ideas always trends negative. It leads me from one frustration to the next in a deepening spiral towards despair. For a long time, I didn’t really notice when this was happening. It just felt like my brain completing a dot-to-dot puzzle. Logical steps and orderly conclusions revealing to me a sad truth about myself.

I’ve gotten better at seeing the pattern for what it is. 

2) Call out lies

Sometimes, I can’t stop my brain from wandering down the winding stairs into the gloom. But I can mentally remind myself at each landing, on every step, that this isn’t reality. My brain is a liar. Only I can fact check my brain.

No one really cares about me. NOT TRUE.

I’ll never amount to anything. NOT TRUE.

My past mistakes disqualify me from finding joy. WRONG AGAIN.

I don’t believe such terrible things about anyone else, and if I heard someone saying that about another person, I’d step in. So why should I let my internal monologue proceed unquestioned?

3) Talk it through

When I’m in the middle of the vicious cycle, one of the lies my brain feeds me is that if I share my fears, I’ll be a burden to those around me. That’s why I can’t usually talk about the problem until I’ve spent some time debunking myself.

However, once I get enough rebuttals out and can manage to talk about things, it’s always helpful. Having the thoughts out in the open makes them so much less daunting. Like turning on a lamp to see that the terrifying shape hiding in the shadows was just dirty laundry. Darkness always dies when exposed to light.

Talking through my fears with trusted loved ones provides a “second opinion” to confirm that the negative thoughts were, in fact, lies. For me, this step also includes prayer. Talking things through with God is the most important part of the process, and I was tempted to list prayer as step 1. However, if I’m honest with myself, in the dark moments, prayer is the last thing on my mind, and it’s not until I can stop the nose dive and level out a little that it occurs to me. 

Final thoughts

I want to be perfectly clear, I am not suggesting that these three steps will change your life. I’m not suggesting that they are a replacement for professional help. I’m not suggesting they can be used instead of a doctor prescribed medication. I’m not a mental health expert. 

These are just some steps I find helpful. Maybe they can help you too.