We tend to protect ourselves from pain by leading with fear.
I put off a physical for the last two years and realized that this wasn’t a lack of self care or time. For two years I put it off because I was too busy. I didn’t want to go to Long Beach where my insurance selected my primary doctor. I decided it wasn’t that important because I felt fine. I went to see a doctor in Urgent Care or the ER in the last couple of years when it was important. I thought I broke my arm when I lost a fight to a door. Then I tripped over my own feet and sprained my foot. I waited a week, but saw a doctor for that. I was having chest pain and thought it was another pulmonary embolism. I went straight to the ER for that. Well, I might have waited until I finished the project I was in the middle of, first. I just didn’t schedule a routine physical.
Last night as I was staring at the ceiling the the dark I realized this was fear.
The fear of the unknown was greater than the fear of confronting what I was looking at. If I ignored a broken bone, it was just pain. If I ignored a pulmonary embolism, I could have a heart attack or stroke, and fear of leaving my children was greater than my fear of a few tests and blood thinners. This wasn’t a big deal because fear wasn’t as great as being still in my pain.
My fear of a physical was really the fear of a memory. The last time I made an appointment with a doctor and placed my feet in stirrups was when I found out that my twins had died, two years ago. I’m not afraid of doctors, but the fear of facing my loss again was painful.
I went into the office and my calves were tight from the tension I held there. For the second day in a row, I forgot to eat throughout the day. I woke up between 4 and 5 in the morning with my heart racing and my mind alert. My fear was tangible and I realized it as I walked through the office. It was that walk that is a strut of confidence. It was my fake it until they fear it, walk. It’s my Mom walk.
The doctor was quick and efficient. The physical was just a normal exam. The pap smear was the same as any other one I’ve had through the years. My breast exam was boring for both of us. It felt nothing like the last person to touch my boobs and that thought was probably my only genuine smile during my appointment.
The memory of my miscarriage was vivid when I was left alone in that room and my clawing sorrow was held at bay by the frivolity of social media. I focused on breathing slowly to keep the tears from falling. The office was pleasant but the space felt too small.
When I left, I drove to the beach where I scattered their ashes and watched the surf pound out a rhythm of release. The sun filtered through the heavy cloud cover and the rays of light were like a beacon of hope, reminding me that there’s release when I’m ready for it.
The last couple of months have been like picking at a scab for me. There’s an itch that I need to scratch, but I know the last time I scratched it, there was blood and it hurt. It’s been a dance of poking and prodding, and picking and scratching, but never deep enough to pull off the scab and dig into the blood at the heart of things. It was a dance between wanting to jump in and wanting to protect myself by remaining a rock. It was a dance between vulnerability and debilitating fear.
Do I expose my broken pieces and hope my trust and vulnerability wasn’t ill placed, or do I go back to saying nothing and observing everything? (Yes, it’s always about a boy.)
.As a teenager, I used to play with fire a lot. I used a can of Aqua Net as a blow torch more than once. I sprayed the inside of my sink with it and dropped a lit match to see the blue flames lick up the side of the sink as a bowl of flames.
When I was a little girl in our apartment in East Hollywood, we had an old stove that would often lose it’s pilot light. We would have to turn the oven on, then light the flame. I once waited a little too long, and singed off my eyebrows, feeling the heat of the flames on my face for several days. The smell of burning hair is seared in scent memory. When my stove doesn’t automatically light, I turn it off after four clicks in fear of another painful reminder that fire isn’t to be played with.
When I want to drink grown up things, I tend to be cautious to not drink too much when I’m not home alone. I can’t forget being too drunk to stop what happened when I was alone with someone I trusted. I can’t forget the way he got up and drove himself home as if he didn’t just leave powerlessness and shame all over my body.
I don’t drink and drive. The morning after I drove home from the Short Stop I walked outside to see half my tires parked on the sidewalk. That night I sipped a Corralejo tequila shooter with my Corona and spent half the night passed out on the bench next to the bartender. I woke up to his leery gaze at my unbuttoned shirt, barely remembering the bile I unleashed in the tiny bathroom. That morning I looked at the way I parked and felt the fear of being a little girl as a passenger in my sister’s car. Repressed memories surfaced and I can no longer forget her drunken laughter as she sped through stop signs and I held onto the door of her Honda Civic. I remember the way her orange juice coated the insides of the sloshing glass between her legs as she drove and a bottle of Tanqueray lay at my feet. I remember the smell of stale liquor and air freshener that was characteristic of her car.
I keep my secrets so I can’t be broken with them. I keep them as a shield. I can’t be hurt with weapons of my history if no one knows they exist. This also means I don’t allow vulnerability to soften my heart into gentleness and compassion. This is the insidious nature of fear. Instead of being given the opportunity to heal and feel the intense pleasures of love, I step back into the shadow of safety that is a fortress of fear.
Last week I was challenged by a woman I admire to be vulnerable. She told me to ask someone special to read a chapter of my book. Fear made me step back and told me all of the reasons why that was a really bad idea. My book is readily available on Amazon and Barnes and Noble, but I was terrified to ask this incredible man to read what I had written. I was afraid he wouldn’t want to read it. I was afraid he would stop seeing me the way I thought he did. This was fear.
In the end, I bitched out instead of bossing up. I found reasons to justify my fear. I’ve faced bigger dragons, but my fear was telling me who I wasn’t. And I fell into the patterns of my attachment style. I did what has always been my default. I over analyzed everything, and then pushed him away. In fear.
I’m looking in the mirror. I see me and I see the little girl that watches for a safe moment, then puts up walls and runs away. I’m aware of the work ahead of me. I can see where I’m holding myself back from life. This is where I find courage. This is where the work begins. I’m not alone. It’s time we made fear our bitch.