Content Warning: Vomiting, graphic imagery
Fear can really humble us. In the face of something that terrifies us, we are driven to confront the cause. This can help us survive––fear is the body’s way of protecting us.
Unfortunately, fear can also be completely removed from any legitimate danger.
My fear, like those of others, has been a weakness that has paralyzed me, and has continued to limit me.
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It is often difficult to pinpoint where a certain fear originates, but I remember one particular day in grade school that plays out in my mind as if it were a silent film.
I was with my father at an information session, listening to coordinators discussing the secondary institution and program I was applying for. We were sitting off to the side in a room crowded with people, each of them displaying emotions somewhere between boredom and eagerness. During the middle of the talk, my father began snoring beside me, earning us a few dirty looks, and out of embarrassment I shook him awake.
Barely a minute passed before I heard the snoring again and I realized that something was wrong. I sprang out of my seat in the middle of the presentation as I saw that he had started to throw up obscene amounts of blood and vomit—enough to scatter the entire crowd to the edges of the room.
I recall that even though I had watched the ambulance carry him out on a stretcher, what had just occurred did not dawn on me until after I arrived home in my friend’s car, like a morbid rush of adrenaline.
~
Although fears may have planted their roots early on in our lives, one rarely realizes the degree to which they manifest until much later on.
It seems as though the more something is dutifully avoided, the more it tends to appear around you—rather, you notice it more frequently, and every encounter stays ingrained within your psyche. I have seen my cat hack out hairballs, listened to friends say they are about to throw up, and heard tales of my grandmother’s nauseating side effects from chemotherapy. I often cannot help but picture myself and those that I love having to go through these terrifying experiences, but they are just transient memories for them. Even for me, it is hard to understand why I fear just another natural bodily process; it is lonely having a niche phobia.