Chapter 1 - Untitled

My Theory of Fear



No matter how much we tell people that we aren't scared, we are. Everyone is scared at some point, if not all the time. That may seem impossible: being scared literally all the time. I guess I should explain. Fear doesn't have to be realized or even directly felt to be there. Instinctual fear is not realized and is not directly felt. It affects how you think, act, feel, and how you all around live your life. When people are scared by instinct, they can't realize it themselves. Even if you understand it, there is no way (I think) to pick out that fear and describe it. One thing that will bring up this instinctual fear is something that we will all experience at some point in our lives even if it's only for a short while. There is absolutely no way possible that someone can live their life without experiencing this fear. The fear of being alone is very influential.



This instinctual fear goes back to our ancestors. Back when we relied solely on being in a pack to survive, we feared being alone. When we hunted, traveled, and lived in groups, being alone meant certain death. We could not survive on our own. We still have that fear. As children, we fear being separated from our parents, our siblings, family, or whoever else is our care taker. To be separated from those who teach us to take care of ourselves means death. Even though we do not think of that as being our reason scared, it most likely is the reason, in my opinion anyway. If we aren't taught how to live, then we will die. This is programmed into our brains. Even though we aren't consciously thinking about this, we always know it. We carry this fear on as we grow up, as well. Many people become insecure because they are alone or because they are scared of being left behind or abandoned.



As humans, the majority of us are compassionate. It may seem like there are more people that are uncaring, mean, or cruel and sadistic, but if you look at humanity as a whole, the majority is caring Even though many people may seem mean, when it comes to a very life-altering experience, such as the 9/11 crashes, MOST people will help each other. I brought up compassion because since most of us are caring and at least semi-considerate we need and want someone to be there for us in return. Although we are now older and able to take care of ourselves if forced to, we still have the instinctual fear that we will die if we are alone. Even though we may not die if we are alone, we will definitely be better off with people with us.



I was talking to someone briefly today about my theory, and they brought something up that I thought would be good to add to my theory. They said that maybe part of the reason some of us are always insecure from this instinctual fear is because we might have been neglected as children, being forced to teach ourselves how to live. The people that fall into that category tend to act either tough or constantly dangerously depressed. They never had the person that they trusted most to come to them when they needed them. This may have caused them to be untrusting in people. To be untrusting in everyone around you, shutting everyone out for fear of abandonment causes you to be “drowning” in constant insecurities. People who close themselves away to avoid being left behind tend to have a very hard time keeping relationships. That may seem like an obvious thing to state, but it has a lot behind it. They have a hard time with relationships because they are scared of trusting people. They can't trust people because the person that they trusted when they were little showed them neglect, therefore they weren't able to trust their trusted person anymore. Being unable to learn trust causes insecurities and trouble in relationships. This leads to being alone, thus being in constant fear.



All of this may not seem connected to my journal entry at all yet, but it will soon. Long beginning explanation, I know, but I had to explain the first part of my theory for the second part to make sense. Anyway, my explanation for people who “hate” themselves, and in some cases kill themselves is simple but will take a while to explain.



People don't hate themselves. It all comes down to insecurities and fears. People may say that they hate themselves, but, in my opinion, nobody truly hates themselves. If they hated themselves, then they wouldn't want to be themselves, and like I explained earlier: when it comes down to it, nobody would actually seriously choose to change who they are. No one wants to lose their personality. People become insecure because of their fear of being alone. People always try to find reasons for insecurities and problems. It's impossible not to think about your insecurities at some point. Even if you don't consciously think about exactly what is wrong, your mind will come up with the most rational solution possible for you. Most people come up with “I hate myself. I'm such a terrible person because I feel like crap constantly”. Most people can't find a more logical solution, so they blame themselves for how they're feeling.



Feelings are hard to explain. Very few people are good at explaining them. I am one of those few people. Ever since I was little I had to be very aware of myself, my emotions, my actions, and thoughts. Because of my medications I had to pay attention to how they were affecting me. I first had to learn to do this in first grade when I was diagnosed with ADHD and prescribed with the first medication I'd ever taken other than a cold medication. Then, when I was in fourth grade, I had to pay attention even more when I was diagnosed with Bipolar Disorder and prescribed another medication. I had to be very in tune with myself and the people around me. Overtime I became very good at being able to explain my emotions without thinking about how to phrase things and reading other people's emotions and actions as well. Many people cannot do that though. They can't find words for their emotions or feelings. That's why many people are unaware of this whole fear and insecurity concept.



When people can't explain something, they make up a solution to give themselves a reason to why they're feeling the way they do. Usually that solution, no matter how wrong it may be, includes blaming yourself. Most people will blame themselves before they'll blame other people if they truly don't know what's wrong. This is why people “hate” themselves.



I guess another reason that people “hate” themselves would simply be that they've done something wrong, like hurting a friend or making a mistake. But again, they don't actually hate themselves. They may be very disappointed in themselves at the time, but they don't hate themselves. People get over mistakes and move on in their lives. Very rarely does a life end over a mistake.



People kill themselves for many reasons. The majority of suicides, however, are caused by an unknown fear. That unknown fear is the unexplainable, instinctual fear that everyone encounters at some point in their lives. People commit suicide for other reasons as well. Those reason might include loneliness, insecurity, hatred, personally unexplainable emotions (You yourself can't explain it), hard to deal with circumstances such as a break up or bad home life, or a chemical imbalance in the brain and blood. Every one of those occur because of that instinctual fear except for the chemical imbalances. Some people are born with chemical imbalances and will live with them for the rest of their lives, no exceptions. I have no explanation for the chemical imbalances; I am not a doctor. I have chemical imbalances such as Bipolar Disorder and ADHD yet I understand little about them when looking at it by a medical standpoint.



Suicide is sadly very common. I can't say that I've never considered it, but my medications were adjusted and I am better now. Some people don't believe in medications and commit suicide simply because their disorders and chemical imbalances become too much to handle. But I'm getting a little off base.



Fear is a very controlling emotion. When it comes down to it, we are almost always afraid of something whether it be that instinctual fear, or a simple fear like the fear of failing a test or doing bad on a business presentation (although that last example is more of a worry than a fear). Fear can make us feel things we can't explain. It can cause us to cover up those unexplainable feelings by laughing and joking around or by making us quiet and closed to people. It's because of this fear that we do the unexplainable thing we do and feel the unexplainable things we feel. Fear can make us believe we aren't worthy of life and make us think we hate ourselves. While in truth, we are all worthy of life, and we never truly hate ourselves. We only hate the circumstances we're in at this point in life. Hopefully my theory gave you a better, or at least new, understanding of unexplainable feelings and our untruthful solutions that we make for ourselves.

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