I feel like my heart is one big ball of fear

I'm scared of everything, and I'm ashamed to admit it

It must be my trauma response.

Everything I do makes me afraid on some level.

I get scared before every phone call and Zoom meeting…

Before opening every email…

Before leaving a helpful comment on somebody’s Facebook post…

Before telling a girlfriend I’m thinking about her and can’t wait to see her again…

Even opening my front door to get the Walmart groceries off my porch elicits a fear response.

It’s so bad that sometimes, I spend days on end sleeping late, or laying in bed all afternoon, watching reruns and wishing I could do something about it… all while secretly wishing I could just disappear…

Just fade into the background… and go back to the “easy” life I had before… where I didn’t deal with anything, and I didn’t have to… because if things got too hard I could retreat to my bedroom and hide there for however long it took for the “scary feelings” to pass.

But that was when I honestly couldn’t take care of myself at all. Back when I had to depend on Mom and Dad to look after me, to provide a safe, secure environment, where I wouldn’t have to face anything difficult, because my trauma at that time would not allow me to face anything difficult…

And that feels like such a long time ago… but in reality, it hasn’t even been a year and a half since I left their home and set out to reclaim my independence.

And it has been a terrifying year and a half, in many respects.

I’ve done a lot of things that felt so scary, they’ve brought me to tears. I’ve had multiple panic attacks. (Fortunately, most of them have been in the privacy of my apartment, but a few have been witnessed by family and friends. Thank goodness my family and friends are the supportive type.)

Some things are understandable. Last October, I flew to another state to attend a writer’s conference where I didn’t know anybody, save through interacting with them in a Facebook group before the event. I had to figure out how to travel alone, how to book airfare and the hotel room, had to figure out where to catch the hotel shuttle, check in to the hotel (something I’d only ever done once before in my life)…

And then, I had to meet and interact with all the people I’d been connecting with on Facebook, leading up to the event, and hope I’d make a good impression on them all and wouldn’t just be a walking, talking anxiety attack. (I did make a wonderful impression! And I had a fabulous time meeting so many amazing people — but still, I was afraid every moment of every day I was there…)

Some things that make me afraid though, it seems like maybe I should be able to handle them better. For example, I’m on the advisory council for a charity that supports terminally ill veterans and first responders through the last months or maybe year of their life. I’ve met the founder of the charity and have grown to be perfectly comfortable speaking with him and sharing my thoughts and opinions…

And yet whenever I send him an email, I’m terrified that “this email” will be the one where he finally sees through me and realizes I have no idea what I’m talking about!

Never mind that a lot of my ideas are helpful… I’m certain he’s going to tell me to just give up and go home, sometimes. That he’ll decide I really don’t belong, and the charity would be better served by someone who’s got more experience and knowledge about the things I tell him I can do to help us get more donors…

I know he trusts me… and I know I can do the things I tell him I want to do… yet I’m so afraid of messing up, it takes me tremendous effort just to sit down at my computer and start typing…

That has to be my trauma response, taking over and telling me I can’t succeed… and it’s pointless to even try…

I hate feeling this way about everything, and I hate that everything makes me feel this way. I can’t even make dinner sometimes without experiencing an intense trauma response to the simple act of just taking care of myself… just making sure that I actually eat enough to stay alive…

It would be comical, almost, if it was happening to somebody in a movie. But it’s not. It’s happening to me, every single day of my life.

Granted, some days are less terrifying than others — but there’s rarely a day that I don’t feel afraid.

I honestly thought this would get better with time. I thought that the longer I could live on my own, the easier it would get. I thought that therapy would teach me how to make the fear go away…

All it’s done is show me how to maybe get through the fear, a little bit easier than before.

And I guess that’s something to be grateful for. Because it is getting easier (even though it’s still overwhelming, every time).

What kills me though, is that I’m having so much success, and yet, I’m still afraid all the time. That’s the part that’s hard to admit, that’s hard to share with all the people who know me, and who look up to me as some sort of example.

I am succeeding… and I’m also, still, paralyzed with fear… not by all the things, but by enough of them that I don’t want other people to know how scared I really am.

I feel like if they see that I’m afraid, it’ll somehow invalidate all the progress I’m making, and they’ll stop believing in me.

And then, since they’re not believing in me anymore, they’ll stop believing in themselves, and they’ll fail at life, and it’ll be my fault because I let them see that underneath all my growth is a very, very afraid, PTSD-rattled brain, that makes me want to run away from all my responsibilities and just let the whole world pass me by…

And intellectually I know that somebody else’s success or failure in life is never my fault or my responsibility, but I feel like I need to protect everybody around me, and part of that protection means I personally must ensure that everyone is succeeding, and safe, and happy, all of the time — or I’m failing my duty, and don’t deserve to be part of the group, anymore.

This is a lot to have to carry around, and never feel like I can tell anybody about it all. It’s more than I can carry. (It’s more than I should carry, to be honest, but I just can’t let it go.)

I’m embarrassed, and ashamed, that after all these years, I still feel so darn afraid, all the time…

It must be my trauma response.

No other explanation makes it all make sense.