The Defining Power Fear Holds...IF WE LET IT

     The dictionary defines fear as "a distressing emotion aroused by impending danger, evil, pain, etc., whether the threat is real or imagined; the feeling or condition of being afraid". There isn't a person or even animal on this planet that hasn't felt that exact description of fear, felt their heartbeat quicken, the sweat bead down their forehead, and that immediate need to run. Things that cause this feeling can be as simple as a spider landing on your arm to the bone crushing fear that happens when we face losing someone we love more than life itself. There is nothing wrong with being afraid, fear is a normal reaction. It is the power we give the fear that will decide whether we allow it to define us.
     I lived in fear for many years, and even still today hold fears inside my heart. Years ago I gave my fears the power to control everything from my appearance, my actions towards and around others, and control my thoughts. I was terrified how the world would see me so I hid from it, I wore what the television said I should, followed every trend around, afraid to express my own feelings towards anything. That fear that constantly left me feeling like I was failing my mother, my family. Pain fueled my fears, pain that become too much for me to bear on my own anymore.
     I had to find a way to hide my fear, protect me from the pain it would cause, so I starved, I purged, I cut my body, and I watched every night as my own tears poured down my arms unable to let them come down my eyes, showing my weakness, allowing the fear a place to take hold. My protector became my anorexia, my razor blade and I threw all my trust into every lie that was whispered into my head playing off my own fears. If I looked thin not only would everyone at school think I was cool, but I might just be enough for her, enough for her to put down the bottle, to stop the screaming, and bruises that came every night. If I bled enough no words, no bruises, nothing could hurt me...I didn't need to cry, I controlled my pain, controlled my fear...I controlled it all.
     Even when my secret lover everyone called a demon was given a name, Anorexia Nervosa to all around me, when everyone told me they loved me I didn't have to starve, didn't have to bleed I couldn't stop, I could risk the pain. Though I couldn't see it I was defined and driven insane by my fears. I was driven even deeper into hiding, not only did I have to keep control of the so many rules I had given myself, allowed to be whispered into my head..."is the number up...fat cow you deserve pain, purge, bleed, ask for my forgiveness to keep my protection". When confronted by those around me it was simple...smile, stick to the lies I had practiced so many times in the mirrors, the mirrors that I had learned to look at people who loved me and hold back the tears and the desperate need to fall at their feet begging for the help they desperately longed to give me. My fear sent me running deeper and deeper inside myself engulfing me, ruling me, allowing my demons to consume me from the inside out, and keeping that hand pulled tightly back I so desperately longed to reach out.
      Years of being trapped alone with such horrible things racing through my head keeping all the love that God and everyone tried to pour into me out caused me a fear to even breathe. I believed that lie screaming in my head that I was no one, the wrongs in the world were on me, that bottle that eventually took my mom from me was on me, the bruises and harsh words of troubled parents was on me, a man taking me without my permission was on me, and I had to die to make it right. I poured bottles of pills inside and bled so much out of me that night that I thought it was over. Despite the yelling EMTs, the tubes, wires, alarms sounding everywhere, when the darkness hit I thought I was gone.
       I learned a whole new fear when I opened my eyes and saw the light shining inside that intensive care room. My new fear was leaving this world like this, to go believing the lies that had set up some evil shop in my head, some demon that had made herself my only love, to have the last memories I leave on this planet of a person defined by fear covered in cuts and starving away. It was a very long battle out of that place, and the fear pulled me down many times with more lies about how I would never make it out. I could no longer live like that, my fear now was being nothing to this world. I didn't want to be a dark spot in the Picture of our world the Lord paints, I longed to leave a spot of light no matter how small. That is why I write these blogs, I spent time sharing my story with others in the same place because I spent so many years trapped by my fear driven to hurt myself, and no one should feel those things, no one should feel that darkness...that loneliness. That is why I will never silence until my body no longer allows.
      I am twenty eight years old and believe me even in my recovery I hold fears still. I fear I will not be the wife I should be to my husband, the mother my beautiful three year old deserves, and I fear this disease that is trying to tear me from this world will win before I can make my little spark of light in the Lord's painting. I fear the pain that comes with this disease eating my organs, the surgeries, the grim doctor's looks, and the time I will have to take the organs of another, a gift I fear I do not deserve. There are days when I fear the end, fear the time that I will have to say goodbye, the last time I will feel my beautiful baby cuddled up next to me as I sing him to sleep, that my last words will not be enough to show them how much I loved them. I use to fear the darkness, but in my heart I know there is no darkness because the stars will guide me to His eternal light, and I remember that every time the darkness finds it's way in again.
      My point is that I still have fears, but they do not define me. It isn't about never being afraid, that is an impossible feat, it is about knowing that fear only has power when you allow it to. You decide whether to believe in the fear or the faith to overcome whatever you are facing. If you are not a believer than I speak of the faith in yourself because we should all have it believers or not. Be the spark of light in the painting of this world, no matter how small.