Autophobia and Athazagoraphobia: fear and loathing in New Brunswick

Fear of self and fear of being forgotten... are perhaps more related than being just phobias.

Autophobia is often associated with self-loathing and low self-esteem. Self-loathing and low self-esteem are often masked with arrogance, which is strongly associated with overbearing and egotistical attitudes.

Athazagoraphobia is often felt by people with low self-esteem with symptoms of self-doubt, the feelings of being unlovable, unwanted, undesirable. In other words, they feel that they are unremarkable people in and of themselves, thus are easily dismissed, unless of course they do something spectacular with their lives to bring some form of notoriety, which can be interpreted as egoism and arrogance.

Fears, and I know I touched on fear recently, so bear with me here, can sneak up on us. They produce symptoms of depression and bring a sense of gloom and hopelessness. Sometimes it makes us near motionless, stopping us in our tracks, figuratively and even literally. It can make us turn around and run back to our safe place to hide out until the feeling passes.

Sometimes our fears are brought on by a decision that we have to make. Sometimes it is having to face another person. Sometimes it is a physical place. Sometimes it is our own self-talk, our own personal doubts about our worth as a person that creates the fear.

The fear is a dark place in our own mind and it isn't as real as we think it is. What is real is that most of us experience it at some time in our lives, and what is real is that by taking some kind of forward action, it can be overcome. Not all at once maybe, but step by little step.

I have been thinking about this for a couple of days now and I wonder how often my own issues with self-esteem are misinterpreted and how often my fear gets in the way of growing forward?

... and maybe that is why blogging gained so much popularity so quickly, the words and actions of our lives are digitally recorded for a potential eternity, never to be forgotten.

Someday I'll deal with my fear of regret.
--

Brave Moment...

...And it was fun too.

For the first time in years I put a brush to canvas. It was not easy.

I have had the paint, brushes and canvases for well over a year and I have periodically ranted about wanting to try painting again. It was good to play in the paint - acrylic - cheap but very functional when you know that this isn't your main gig.

I learned something that helped today too.

The reason that I shied away from visual art, since I could draw OK and could use oils OK was that in my mind, my mother was better, but she didn't paint much and often voiced disatisfaction with some branch or other of the family tree in regards to art. I got turned off and also I didn't want to appear to be competing with her - and maybe that's an only child/daughter hang-up. My mother liked to work on landscapes and painted in a realistic but not photographic fashion. I am very uncomfortable with realism, besides I have a lot of doubt in my ability and I am hung-up on all of this.

But what I learned is that if I pick really contrary colours to work in: green and blue for flesh for example, that the whole activity becomes a lot more fun; after all it is hard to take a green/blue nude seriously.

The three small canvases, I think they are the standard 5x7, will be signed and dated, probably tacked up on the studio wall and will be replaced with several more blanks.

I know that the 'paintings' are NOT gallery quality, at least in my humble and self-detrimental opinion, but I'm still pretty proud of them because it's real progress. It took a lot of time and a good bit of bravery to try something that I gave up on 20 years ago.

Now I wonder what else I can rediscover and try again?

I'm a Whiner

I'm back to whine some more about my pathetic life.

Just reading that sentence makes my adult self laugh. My reality hits me square between the eyes that it is of my own making and the good and the bad have been invited into by me.

Also, the concept of our inner egos is again confirmed. That we each have a responsible adult ego, a nurturing inner parent ego and the inner child ego, and the child is whining bad today.

And yes, we are responsible for our situations - 100%!

What brings on this slight bemusement is the fact that months ago we knew that The Tragically Hip, one of my favorite bands, will be playing a concert just minutes away from home tonight. And months ago the tickets went on sale and months ago we put off buying tickets and months ago we made some decisions about the business that would substantially change the cash flow situation for the summer. And through the past few months we have maintained a positive outlook that things will get better, they have, but here we are now with no tickets, no way to really justify buying two of the few remaining tickets at the box office either. And remember that I said "better" and not "great".

I mean I could justify it in a 'we deserve this' type of move, but I can't come up with a real reason why we really deserve it.

The problem with responsibility and logic is that they can override the emotional appeal for FUN and it's my fun-loving child self that is whining at my responsible adult self. The usual litany of "it's not fair" and "it's all ..... fault", even though I can not come up with anyone to blame for this, has started in my head and I don't like it. My nurturing adult self now has the job of soothing the inner whiner.

As an aspiring artist (doesn't that sound important) my inner child gets to play a lot. It is who draws the designs and puts colours together and is always trying new things at the bench. My adult self gets shelved for a few productive hours until it is time to do paperwork and dole out rewards for good behavior. It's just that those rewards had better be cheap and $48.00/seat tickets aren't it this month, not with business cards and graphics for the booth on order and hotel fees for the show coming up on the 21st.

Now try explaining that to a disappointed child who has been hoping since April that just maybe, this time, they can go see their favorite band.

Now imagine trying to take this same child and trying to get it to co-operate and go colour in it's colouring book.

Now you know who an artist is when they are not happy with what is going on around them.

And since the child is already whining, I might just as well deal with it and let it whine and go do some responsible mundane adult stuff until it calms down.

In the hopes that you are better at soothing your inner child than I am, have a great day,
Cynthia

The creative adult is the child who has survived. - Ursula K. LeGuin

P.S. Husbands are a funny thing. They call and ask your advice and then still go and do the total opposite. He bought the tickets today.