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.
--

A Bad Fear Day

It happens.

It was one of those days that I felt it badly. It sneaked up in me this morning and grabbed me by the throat and threw me around for a bit. "Stuff" going on is the simple way to explain why I got overwhelmed for a bit today. I found that part of the solution to this feeling and the immobilizing condition that it brings on was to write about it... longhand and just pour it all out onto the page. Once I exhausted the word "fear", I tackled the words "afraid" and "scared" and listed all the things that I attached to them today. I finished by asking myself "Is there anything I am not afraid of today?"

The quick realization that followed the writing is that there were many things I am not afraid of; that what was scaring me was OK and that I could handle it and that I would be alright.

I followed this with a list of accomplishments for the last week, which was a far longer list then the fears and by the end, made me feel pretty good about "stuff".

This is the first time in quite awhile that I have felt this much fear, and a lot of times when I have, I have stayed stuck in it for several hours, sometimes days. It is immobilizing and has prevented forward motion before. The interesting thing about addressing it quickly in writing is in how quickly it dissipated and how much more I actually got done today because of the writing.

There is something to be said for writing in a journal. It allows one to sort out the real problems that can be worked on from the ones that are beyond control. It puts it back in perspective... at least for me.
--

Analogy

You have been driving a car down a one-way dead end laneway that narrows so that there is no turning around, and then you discover that the car does not have reverse. That stuck feeling sets in. That realization that you have spent so much time driving down the road, not taking turns, making decisions that could have taken you down other lanes. You have stayed the chosen course only to discover that you have dead-ended yourself and there does not seem to be a way out of it.

Unfortunately, this is how we sometimes live our lives. This is what seems to happen to us and we reach that dead-end in a job, a relationship, indebtedness, and a combination of the normal and mundane. We suddenly realize we are trapped and feel that we have no recourse, no way out, no answers, and no rescue.

What are you going to do when you find yourself there?

Some people seem to give up and stay with the car, stuck and complaining and accepting that there is no way out. Some people get out and push the car backwards until they can turn at the last turning point. Some people listen and realize that there are lanes that run parallel to the one they are on, and scramble through the pucker brush to the other road and hitch a ride.

The worst thing that we can do is give up. Pushing backwards to the last turning point or making the effort to push through the brambles and shambles to another road is the most progressive. Either of the two latter choices will net a change in the circumstances. Neither is easy, but neither is change.

What would you do, face down the challenge and the fear of the unknown roadway or sit at the dead-end?

Resistance

Recently a friend asked me why I don’t write, as in write more, or write professionally, rather than just the occasional piece of prose, poetry or blog post. He told me that it was as important to my soul as my work as an artisan.

I didn’t disagree with him, but in a way, I blew it off by responding that I do write, for myself and my own pleasure. Then I got to wondering why I never did pursue the writing career that I once thought that I wanted. What stopped me?

It is the very same thing that has stopped me from pursuing other interests and… my own resistance to the effort.

Coincidently this same friend mentioned a book to me last December by Steven Pressfield: The War of Art. In this book, Pressfield addresses the concept of Resistance as the enemy to our creative processes. It is the enemy and it is often confused with external factors and influences, like family and other work.

The resistance is the same thing that is causing me to procrastinate in even writing these few words. It is the unspoken fear of the blank page, the “what if I can’t fill it?”

The realization is that writing is like the jewelry work that I do and it is based on discipline and interest. It is the willingness to go and sit at the bench for a designated period of time everyday, regardless of the results. Some days the work is phenomenal, it flows and pieces just seem to happen effortlessly. Other days I can walk in, sit, and stare at the tools and the silver, I will pick up stones and beads and touch them carefully, searching for a spark of inspiration. Sometimes there is not any and those are the days that I start by making simple earrings. At least by making the effort to do something, I am succeeding in overcoming resistance. I am working and I am working as a professional and I am seriously playing.

The question now becomes, what else do I want to seriously play at?

Regret

“Many of us crucify ourselves between two thieves - regret for the past and fear of the future.” - Fulton Oursler

Fear gets us no thing and no one. Fear creates the regrets through inaction or reduced effort.

I've been thinking a lot about fear and regret lately, evaluating it in my own life and examining the limitations that it has placed on me and my life and work. It is absolutely without doubt, that every regret that I have for the past is related to a fear. I said "yes" when I would have rather said "no" or "no" for "yes", or didn't even commit in some cases.

Late last year, I decided that I wasn't going to live with regret anymore, that if I could prevent one, I would. It takes a bit of courage to try this because every decision requires facing our fear of "what if..." It's downright uncomfortable at times.

Something else to note, is that by taking the time to examine our field of regrets, we often find a lot of buried dreams. Some of them need to dug out, dusted off, and used as motivators, others need to be discarded as nothing other than passing fancy. Also, in this field, are a lot of fear based reasons for why we are perhaps not as happy or fulfilled as we would like, and like myself, you my discover why it has been so difficult to apply the words art and artist to your own work and being.

Good luck with the exhumations.
--