Doomed

 

When I was a child, I was terrified of the dark. Not because of what I saw, but because I couldn’t see. The dark space between walls. Knowing someone or something could be there with me. a presence — watching, waiting, conspiring. It made me fear being alone, fear being with myself.

I don’t remember where the idea came from — maybe it was one of art of living courses I had attended — but one night, I decided to challenge it.

My family was awake in the living room. I quietly walked to my bedroom, turned off the lights, and stood there in the complete darkness. My heart was pounding.  I stayed by the door, just in case I had to make a quick escape. I raised my hand, snapped my fingers at the nothingness in front of me and said: “Do your worst.” As if I was calling it for a fight.

I waited. Nothing happened.

Then I stepped out, heart still thudding, but something in me shifted.

Since that night, I’ve never truly feared the dark again. The fear still visits — the same feeling that something is watching — but I know if it couldn't do anything to me back then, what can it do now?

There was another incident I vaguely remember. I had forged my father's signature — I don’t remember why — and my teacher found out. She asked him to meet her.

That night, I didn’t sleep. The fear wasn’t some vague shape in the dark — it was real, tangible, coming tomorrow.

I told my father in the morning. He postponed work. My panic only grew.

But when he finally met her, something miraculous happened. she didn't out me. She didn't tell my father what I had done. She covered for me. And just like that my fear had passed.

These incidents taught me something — We fear the unknown. That’s it. That’s the only fear that truly exists. The unknown wears many masks — shadows in a room, reactions from a parent, punishment from the world, a snake bite, a tiger tearing you into pieces — but it’s all the same, fear of the unknown. When we don’t know, we imagine what might happen. And the mind builds horrors far worse than reality.

Even if a tiger exists in your vicinity, it may have already fed and may not want to hunt you. But your mind is programmed to assume the worst and if you don't have an answer it will go into a loop building worse and worse scenarios.

However If the unknown becomes known, fear fades. Trained professionals who has dedicated their lives to tigers treats them like house cats. Sometimes this lack of fear generates the worst possible outcome but they are accepted as what has occurred and you don't feel scared about the incident. You may feel scared of it happening again, but the event itself is not scary anymore.

But when the unknown remains unknown, fear multiplies. It hijacks your thoughts, your emotions. You stop being present. You live in futures that may never come.

From my analysis,  All fears follow the same mechanism : 

• Perceive an unknown threat.
• Mind creates models of the worst case scenarios.
• You can't identify an action which will neutralize the threat with certainty.
• Your Brain will start feeling fear, your body reacts, even if the threat is not immediate.
• It hijacks your thoughts, emotions and actions and loops it without letting it go.

That’s where I am now.

Ever since the incident that broke my life, I’ve been stuck in the same loop — afraid of a consequence I never received, but believe I deserved, may come to pass in the future. 

My mind keeps preparing for it. Reading, researching, obsessing. And every time, it concludes the same thing: I won’t survive if it happens. I can't cope with it.

For the last six years, I’ve lived like I did that night my teacher asked to meet my father. 

And so I only have two choices.

Either I expose myself to what I fear, to know it as much as I can. To analyze and find ways how I can cope.

Or I accept that I can never know. Give up the futile exercise of going through all the "what ifs". Focus on the present and not live in a future that may never come to pass.

I hope I gain the power to simply accept it as a possible future and let it be.