For most of my life fear pushed me back into the corners of my mind. I felt as if I kept myself hidden then I wouldn’t be afraid if I didn’t fit in. I wasn’t always like this, growing up I was like most children. I was confidant. Nothing could stop me, a force of nature, many my teachers exclaimed. I was nine, it’s when everything changed, I noticed how different I was to my peers.

They loved pointing out how clownish I was, for a while I thought that was great until my siblings pointed out it wasn’t. For years, I had the clown title engraved on my forehead. Where I went, it followed me like a tail, always getting in my way. People saw me as blonde, idiotic and a person to be made fun of. Never once did I stand up for myself, now I realize that was detrimental to my existence. It could be I was afraid that this was what my life would be like and standing up would bring awareness to it. So, I kept quiet.

That’s the problem with fear, we often see it as this red flag warning us not to step in the unknown, but it’s more than that. Fear is like the high school bully that sneers when you want to stand up for yourself. It’s the punch you get, when life throws you a curve ball and you quit. There are so many times I quit, letting life slip out of my reach. Years of disappearing finally caught up to me at eighteen when I was hit with a depression so hard I fell into it.

Fear made me seek validation

High school bullies are the worst, but they exude this confidence that makes us give into them. I had a couple of high school bullies and I always tried to validate my existence when it came to them. I wanted them to appreciate me so much that I caused myself harm.

I didn’t know what to do at the time, thinking that it was best to agree to what they said. It could be I was looking for a sister figure and that’s why I craved their attention. My sister left when I hit puberty and I had no one really to help me navigate my teen years. When, someone who was close to my sister’s age paid me attention, I was happy they gave me validation. Though, what I realize now is validation always comes at a cost to our self-esteem.

We believe if we can make someone happy then our lives would be better off. My self-esteem went into the dump, literally. I hated myself, I was willing to embarrass myself all so I could make some one happy as if I was a trained monkey at the circus. When I didn’t get validation, I went through depression. Loneliness crept in as it often does and for years I succumbed to it. When my back was against the wall, I couldn’t stand up to myself thinking if I did I’d loose all respect.

Also Read:  Lessons Learned From Being an Unemployed Graduate

Fear stops you loving yourself

In our pursuit for validation, the ultimate price we pay is to stop loving ourselves. That’s what happens when fear creeps in. Validation as I said comes at a price and one thing I discovered along the way is that eventually you stop loving yourself.

If you are trying to please everyone, eventually you sacrifice yourself. I had a friend who once pointed out I wanted to please everyone, at the time it annoyed me because it wasn’t true or so I thought. I laugh at the foolish kid now who was so wrapped up in seeking love that she seemed not to understand where she was going wrong.

If I look back, it started before high school, when I believed I had nothing to offer unlike the popular kids. I wanted to be like them and so I started pleasing everyone. At the end, I lost who I was, stopped loving myself and that feeling never went away until I was in university. It’s so easy to drown ourselves into pleasing others that we miss the whole point of life.

We forget who we are

Wanting to fit in is normal, but after a while we loose who we are and become a stranger. For years, I didn’t recognize who I was in the mirror. When I was around people, I’d smile, say the right things, but when I was by myself, a sadness would hit. So powerful it was like opioids. I was drowning in a sea of pain that the only way out was to take painkillers

Every day, for months, I took five painkillers to drown out the pain. Fear had made me a ghost in my own body. I was so used to living this way that I didn’t know who I was. I went to university and my need for approval made me vulnerable. More than ever. I was in an apartment that I didn’t mind, it had its issues, but I loved having the whole space to me. I had friends who needed a roommate and I agreed. At the time, my whole insides screamed no. They were so different from me and instinctively I knew it wouldn’t work out, but I still went to live with them.

For months, I went through a turmoil. I felt as if I was useless and nothing I did was good enough. The thoughts I had as a kid came back and I was back to where I was, drowning in a sea of pain. I got so ill because my body and mind couldn’t take it anymore. I forgot to eat and had convulsions in the middle of the night.

I was taken to the hospital, the doctors had to pump my stomach. For reasons unknown to me even to this day I have no explanation for what happened that day. The two weeks that followed were the worst, my friends turned on me when I needed them most and not getting their validation made me miserable.

I remember lying on the bed, thinking it would be best to kill myself. I almost went through with it, I had the painkillers and I calculated how many I had to take to kill myself. It was a terrifying experience and if I hadn’t spoken to my sister I probably would have done it. I believed I was the worst person who walked on the earth.

I am telling you this story to give you an example of how fear makes us forget who we are that we’re willing to do anything to drown out the pain. If I had known who I was, what those girls said to me wouldn’t have hurt as much as it did. I wouldn’t have believed in any of it, but I didn’t. I had spent so much of my life trying to fit in and seeking approval I was convinced I was an evil, fake and loose human being. And it’s funny cause in university I was a prude.

We are afraid to take risks

This one looks different depending on the person. I took risks, but the risk I didn’t take was believing in myself. I wanted to be someone, to be great or at least worth more than what I was made to believe. I never believed I was good enough.

The first time I did public speaking was in high school and I was shaking most of the time. I forgot my words. It was rather embarrassing, but I still wanted to prove a point. I was terrible at school so I wanted to do something that I could call my own. I tried my hand at performing a song, I had forced a friend into doing it and to her it wasn’t important so as a result it didn’t end well.

The one risk I was afraid to take was believing in who I was. Anything seemed more important than that. People at school called me a hunchback because of how I walked, I never looked up, but stared down at  my feet as I walked. I didn’t mind being Quasimodo or so I believed

Don’t be afraid to take risks even if it takes you out of your comfort zone, you will never know where it takes you. I learned that after twenty years that the biggest risk you can take is believing in yourself, but it’s more valuable than gold.

My journey is different from yours, but I know is that fear pushes us back in so many ways. The one way to conquer it is to know that you are capable of achieving anything you set your mind to as long as you believe it. If you don’t fear has won and you will always look behind you, be too terrified to step out in faith and constantly seek validation.

Also Read: 4 Ways to Conquer your Fears and Take Smarter Risks

How has fear held you back? Comment below

                                                           KEEP  PUSHING

                                                                VANESSA