Fears, Phobias & FOMO

Fears? Hmmm. Phobias? Double Hmmm. I’ve scanned through the decades of my life and come up short.  Discrete memories of discomfort are vivid, but they remain in their specific time and space, like my discomfort riding at over night camp.  To be sure I have dislikes, like severe turbulence, but fortunately they have yet to rise to the level of fear, or phobia. I admit to some modicum of the classic female ‘fear of failure’, but that too is not quite genuine. In scouring my trove of memories, as one might search for a lost tiny gem in a musty attic, I’ve come up short; that is blank. Alas, I can’t lay claim to a fear or a phobia. But I do have FOMO!  Is this a phobia?

Alright, settle down everyone, I am here to dismantle the dramatics of our everyday anxieties. We all have fears, that much is a given. From the perfectly reasonable (stepping off a skyscraper) to the downright debilitating (spontaneous human combustion, a fear of mine, I haven’t slept well with since I first dreamed about it back during the almost Y2K non-catastrophe.) But somewhere between the healthy dose of caution and waking up screaming because the crack on your ceiling looks a bit like an arachnid lies the land of phobias.

Now, phobias are a funny bunch. You’ve got your run-of-the-mill arachnophobes like me, who would run away from a surprise spider. Then there’s the claustrophobics who are convinced a trip in an elevator is basically a one-way ticket to purgatory.

Don’t even get me started on the germaphobes – a bunch of walking anti-bacterial wipes who think a handshake is a biohazard suit malfunction. (Becoming Mister Monk is a personal fear of mine.)

Look, I get it. Some fears are primal. The fear of heights? Makes sense, gravity’s a bitch. But the fear of clowns? Come on, clowns are just sadistic and mean spirited children wearing face paint. And don’t even try to tell me you’re scared of flying. It’s statistically the safest mode of transport (unless, of course, you’re sharing a plane with a germaphobe dressed as a clown carrying a spider).

Now, some of you will argue that you’ve tried to overcome these phobias. You booked that therapy session with Dr. Feelgood, the one whose office overlooks a 40-story drop. Or you signed up for that skydiving course, only to spend the entire time composing your funeral eulogy in your head. Here’s the thing, folks – sometimes these phobias have more entertainment value than any actual hindrance. Imagine the story you’ll have at the next work function! “Oh yeah, I can’t go to the office picnic because there might be a rogue butterfly.” Hilarious.

But hey, if you’re genuinely petrified of pigeons or public speaking, then by all means seek help but there’s a difference between a healthy dose of caution and letting the fear win every single time. Just a word of advice – if your therapist’s treatment involves exposure therapy and a trip to the zoo, politely decline and find a new shrink. No one needs that kind of emotional scarring.

Look, at the end of the day, fears and phobias are a part of life. They’re what make us human, what makes us buy ten bottles of Pine-sol and twelve bottles of Pinot Noir every year. But I suggest you do not let any fear or fears be the punchline of your own existence.

I suggest you embrace the absurdity, write a self-help book titled “How to Stop Being Scared of Your Own Shadow” and maybe, just maybe, you’ll find yourself laughing all the way back into therapy? Or at least laughing until you cry, which, by the way, is a wonderful and healthy start!

—30–

One pill makes you larger,

and one pill makes you small.

And the one that mother gives you,

doesn’t do anything at all….

Go ask Alice,

when she’s 10 feet tall. (Jefferson Airplane)

Music to every boomers’ ears.

But, which side of the great divide did you settle into? Alas, are your memories enshrined in those many outstanding recreational nights?  Dare I add days? Or, were you a ‘no chemical’ gal, like me. Skip the drugs, and the rock n’ roll, for that matter.  Hello Motown.

But nowadays, is it still just music? Or has it become your unwelcome reality?

I confess, the no chemical gal has involuntarily taken pharma up on too many of its multitude of choices. Truth be told, my entire night table is filled with various pills.  Of course, there’s calcium. I want healthy bones. But the diagnoses I now harbor are many.  They might as well have asexually reproduced multiple times following a mere potent viral assault resulting in the inability to quite literally produce energy.  You see, I’m one of the #MissingMillions.  That is, one of the at least 33 million people in the U.S. that I have MyalgicEncephalomyelitis (M.E).  There are so many who suffer terribly, needing to spend the better part of each day resting in bed, and so very many who remain on their own diagnostic odysseys, as yet diagnosed.  Though recognized for at least ½ a century, the disease is very complex and remains poorly understood.  Doctors prescribe pills for our condition, as if pharma were going belly up and we’d better hoard for the next pandemic. Worse, we often don’t truly know whether this pill or that really does anything beneficial for M.E., particularly supplements people typically take to improve neuro-inflammation, remedy the disabled microbiome, or reduce overall inflammation.

But wait, there’s more! Can I add sprays and drops? Like my anti-allergy nasal sprays and eye drops? What about those antibiotic ear drops I need to take whenever my ears are exposed to water.  So, apparently it’s true; Better Living Through Chemistry (thanks Dupont).  If that’s not Boomer material I don’t know what is.