Scared As Fuck
I think for so many of us, the reason we do not make or keep lasting change is solely because of fear. Of course there are other factors, but I believe at the base of all those factors is fear, if you weren’t scared why the fuck wouldn’t you go after everything you wanted?
I was scared. Of almost everything. Until staying the same, became scarier than the change I needed to instill.
When I started on my journey to enlightenment I had no idea how much fear I would be forced to walk through. I am not even close to the same person I was before I faced what was holding me hostage. It changed me at a core level, in the best way possible. But to get here…I had to walk through the fire and all my repressed thoughts, feelings and trauma. I had to face that fear head on.
Where did all this fear come from anyway? Why was everything so hard? I started asking why over and over until I got my answer…and it was an ugly one.
When I was 3, I was sexually assaulted by a family member. Although my brain did not understand what that meant, my body and subconscious learned from early childhood I was unsafe. This fear and lack of safety manifested later into many different forms, making me the scared adult I was. When the body experiences any traumatic event, especially in early development, it creates an echo in the brain. The nervous system learns it doesn’t have safety or control add some garden value repression and you create the “quiet kid” and terrrified adult.
This thankfully is not a permanent state, it can and should be reversed. Therapy and healing the mind and body are crucial to overcoming.
Facing my fear, my experiences, and myself was by far the most challenging but rewarding things I’ve ever done. I learned so much about who I am at my core, and let go of who I was expected to be. I grew up in a conservative catholic household, church raised is a term I learned when I went South. We were a “traditional” family, a seemingly perfect family where the parents never divorced and the kids were “successful” and generally good kind people.
I was the black sheep. The one that didn’t get a college degree, unlike my Double Masters/Masters high achieving sisters. I was not the popular one in high school, I did not have giant friend groups that I still see as an adult. Although I did sports, I sucked at it. I sucked so bad that I got put on JV as a senior…do you know how embarrassing that is in high school. I quit and did not play my senior year, I couldn’t handle the embarrassment, and there were pressing matters at home that compelled me in a different direction. I took a different route often, and failed way more than I ever succeeded. I was the one that brought concern to the family with my choices and failures. I couldn’t seem to get it right, I did as much of what I thought was wanted and expected of me. Trying not to veer too far off this “path” everyone else knew about that I didn’t. It seemed like they knew what I was supposed to be doing, and how to be successful but I couldn’t get it right. I did start college once…I didn’t make it through the first semester before I just stopped going.
I felt stupid, I felt like the biggest failure, like I brought shame to the family. My mental health was garbage, my body carried 100 pounds of excess body weight, I woke up everyday praying I could just go back to bed, I was short and often untouchable to my ex-husband, I was absent in so many relationships that I am wildly surprised they still love me at all. I drank soda breakfast, lunch, and dinner. I looked forward to Sundays when Ryan would go play pool so I could eat my feelings without him knowing about it, not that the massive weight gain wasn’t obvious or anything...
But it’s hard to see what’s really going on when you are in it. You need something to spark the “holy fuck I need change” in order to really do it. That came with my wedding photos. I cried A LOT when they came back. Not because our photographer wasn’t absolutely amazing, but because it was really the first full body pictures I had taken in a very long time and I HATED how I looked in them. I was embarrassed and knew I needed change, but even then it wouldn’t be for another 7 years that I truly found my happiness. I floundered for a long time, slide backwards more than once. And generally struggled until I figured out what I truly needed to be happy…peace.
Peace with myself, my experiences, my mental health and the way I exist in this world. Don’t get my wrong I am still very much a work in progress, and always will be because growth is limitless, but I am light years away from where I was. I am hoping in sharing my story I can save those of you looking for a light at the end of a long dark tunnel, or a hand out of the dark hole of despair a lot of time in finding that peace you so desperately deserve. If I could bottle this feeling into a pill you can take everyday, I promise you I would, and I’d give it away just so you can find the life you love. For now, ill just tell you what helped me out of the proverbial hole.
I see you, I hear you, I love you.
Shelby
The pictures that unlocked the start of true change.
The Me that found happiness & peace.
