The Fear Factor - A Major Issue of Us

I completely agree. In your writing you mention so many things that i have tried to explain to my therapist but haven't found the right words to explain how i feel. I know this applies to me though. I am completely stuck in my half-life at the moment largely due to being afraid to go on meds and lose part of who I am (I also have on and off eating disorders and the weight gain could trigger that to happen again). I often obsess over my future in a way that I know is abnormal. I get angry and then deppressed sometimes because I am so self-aware yet cannot make the changes that I recognize as neccessary.

My mind won't stop fearing death. It's stupid because it's beyond my control but I can't remember the last time I was completely free of it. As a child I remember the first time I really thought about things such as existence and death. I didn't sleep for so long because I'd lie awake with my head spinning. My mom thought I was nuts and sent me to therapy. Apparently most seven-year-olds don't get like that. But I was always a weird intellectual-type kid so I didn't think anything of it and ignored all authorities on the matter. (I always had an attitude that my parents, the therapist, and my teachers were stupid and very in-the-box. 14 years later I realize that response was even more obvious foreshadowing of my condition. Hahaha.) ... But yeah it just really creeps people out when I tell them I always obsess over existence, death, life, the universe, etc.

Anyways, this is really interesting stuff, thanks. Fear didn't occur to me as being the culprit for so many of my problems, because I'm usually brave in the conventional sense, because I'm often being an uninhibited hypomaniac. But I definitely obsessively fear things. And then I obsess over the obsessive fear. I just want to turn it off. Someone should show me how to shut up and breathe.

Fear and anger do go hand in hand emotionally speaking.  They are 2 extremely powerful emotions.  Both can be, when channeled correctly, very positive and yet quite often are very destructive.

Fear begets anger and anger begets fear.  Much like anxiety begets depression and depression begets anxiety.  They do tend to feed upon each other once they get tangled and intertwined.

I often become angry at myself for being so fearful and in being so fearful, I then become so enraged with myself.  The self-hatred becomes so disgustingly vile at times.

I want to change and I want to move forward and yet, and yet, I recognize I keep myself from doing so out of fear.  Past experiences, repetitive past experiences that have become a "program" in my psyche click on and so I fear that they will do as they always do - repeat.  Living through years of abuse put on me and that which I put upon myself or, allowed to happen to me... the pain, both physical and mental, often were and are excruiating.

Fearing that pain, even if not knowing it will happen again, causes many to do self-destructive things all in a effort to avoid the pain.  Self-destructive, in the way of not making changes they so desparately know they must and moving forward rather than staying stagnant.

I love this site! It has been so helpful and almost intuitive to something that may be going on with me. I've been diagnosed for two years, I accepted the diagnoses a year ago this month. I decided to try and reach out to my ex husbands wife. There just seemed to be this big, huge wall between us. I am happy she is in my boys life, because she has raised our boys so selfishly, but everyone having a difference of opinions the kids just stuck in the middle and a lot of it was my anger and fear of what I lost, and what I would make worse trying to force myself upon them, and they were just trying to get by as a family and than here is me, wanting my place. It just has gotten out of control and all I want now, is to allow them to be a family unit and I was hoping my email would let her know, I don't want to be their enemy, or a threat. I have incredible kids and if it wasn't for her, I don't know! 

But the fear of it all just got me so scared that maybe my words would not be read the way they were implied. I just know, I am exhausted from worrying about things that I have no control over. I had to give it over to God, let Him do all the work. He will open up their hearts, As He has opened up mine! 

I am a consumate worrier.  Have been since childhood.  It didn't stop me from acting wild and abandoned as a young adult, and no one in my social group would have guessed. But my extravagent behaviour would always result in a self-hating crash and anxiety, fear, and dread would take over.

Now it's pretty constant.  One thing or another, some big, some little, some within my power to affect and some not. 

I have different facets to my fear, from standing paralized in the middle of a room not knowing what to do, to hiding from the phone, people at the door, and many many social situations, to a hateful voice in my head that feels like pure evil laughing at my distress.

I fear for the planet, and feel rage for human beings who are destroying it.  I've felt this since childhood and decided that I was too ashamed of being human, which led to a belief that I was an alien.

I am constantly tense and can never meditate or use relaxation tapes.  What I CAN do is lose myself in movies and just try to have some control over the obsessive thoughts to head them off.  Performing is good for me.  Becoming another character works for me, and the process of studying for a role gives me a focus.

I try to imagine myself without this debilitating fear and see a hypomanic fool running around making an absolute ass of herself.  I've seen myself like that and it's not a pretty picture once it gets beyond the "life of the party".  It's also an open invitation to the boiling rage that is currently fear-bound to stay under wraps.

I am struggling to get out of my half life. John's post on fear and anger is enlightening.

I know I've had lots of anger towards my family which I am trying to manage and move on from.  I also know I have a lot of irrational fear based on some really down feelings about myself, and I have a fear of rejection combined with a certain resignation which probably stunts me socially. Thanks for the post and thanks for providing a place where I feel like I "belong."

For the first couple of years after my first hospitalizations, I didn't even know that I was angry. Actually, I was afraid of anger, which I feared because, first of all, it had not been allowed in the house I grew up in; and, it was rage and I didn't want to be out of control.

I knew I had fear, though. All I could do was lie on the bed all day (when not asleep on it) and look at the title of a book, "The Courage to Heal". I knew I needed courage so I would look at the book and repeat the title many times. The courage to heal. The courage to heal. Then another self-help book got added: "Feel the Fear and Do It Anyway." I didn't read these books. I couldn't. I lacked the ability to concentrate (from my depression). But I kept repeating the titles to myself over years. It helped if only by making me aware that others had needed courage and felt fear, too. But they could be transcended.

Long story short, I finally learned that the things which were making the most angry (my husband's behaviors) would make other people angry, too. That makde me feel like I was less "crazy" as he told me I was. But he wouldn't listen to me when I tried to talk to him. I buried the feelings deeper and they got more rageful. Through time and therapy and groups, I learned that when I feel anger, it means that something needs to change if I am going to be free of that anger. I learned that the other person -- who I really wanted to see change to make me feel better -- is usually not going to change. Brick wall...Inertia.

Nope, I could change. I could change my attitude. I could spend less time with a given person. I could change my address and change my attitude some more. The need to make these changes brought up the fears, but cognitive behavioral therapy helped me address them and work them out over long periods of time.

As my angers lessened, so did my fears, but they will never be gone. I just have to keep meeting them head on, 'feeling the fear and do it anyway." Isn't that the true definition of courage?

A couple things made a lot of sense to me in these posts and in the article, that we use the fear of losing our disability rather than let go of the edge of the pool and go out into the waters.  Another was that often we will not risk getting off of disability and instead settle for a poverty existence.

They hit home for me, right smack in my center.  I crashed with my disorder a few years back and became homeless and desperate.  I have often heard that an addicted person has to hit bottom before he can accept help and help himself (or her).  The first of the 12 steps is often a tale of desperation caused by alcohol (and I think I can substitute bipolar disorder in its stead). 

I have been terrified of history repeating itself and I think I now life in a guarded way to ward off just that.  I read about a theory that the more episodes one has, the more likely s/he will have them in the future.  Not what I wanted to read.  So I'm running with fear, sometimes away from it, and when I feel up to it, I am able to feel the fear and do it anyway.

I grind my teeth when I see and realize the scripts I have been following and that fear has been a driving force in their creation.  I question how objective I can be with fear on my shoulder and in my craw.  I appreciate the topic being brought up and looked at.

There was a time in my life when I had my first breakdown and was hospitalized that I thought I would never work again or be active in my community or church.  I was home for 14 years and during that time with the help of therapy, medication, supportive friends and a great family, I have been working since this past April.  I am a sales associate at a department store working 25-30 hrs. a week.  Actually, today I am going into New York City by bus  to pick up my daughter from college because of illness.  Coming from a small midwestern town with a pop. of 500 people, this is a great accomplishment for me!  Keep trying new things and you will get more confident!