I Don’t Want to be Scared Any More
I’ve been scared for a really long time.
I thought I was keeping myself and those I love safe by remaining hypervigilant. I was wrong. My two biggest fears, the ones that cause the most intrusive obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) thoughts, are being away from my girls and flying. Last month, I officially took a deep breath and did both.
I stared down OCD, only allowing myself to experience uncertainty without trying to control it. I drove 13 hours within two days, took one six-hour flight from Florida to California, and another 15-hour flight to the other side of the world to Sydney, Australia, where my dad lay in a hospital bed.
To some, this may seem like no big feat. Some may even consider it an adventure, if not for an ailing loved one. For me, needing, or rather wanting to be with my dad (family being my biggest value), meant agreeing to put myself through a one-month exposure response prevention (ERP) experiment.
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The night before I flew out, I stopped to break up my driving time. There, in my hotel room, it occurred to me that what my therapist had told me was true. My brain has been stuck in a “what-if” loop for decades. The what-ifs are keeping me from both fact and adventure. Factually, the what-ifs have no data—no track record of ever happening, and when turning my attention to the false danger alarms, I am saying no to adventure—to life. As I turn on my side in my hotel room, hoping to get some sleep, I think about all the possibilities of impending doom. It’s as if it is habitual now. Somehow, I’ve got to believing that if I can scan life and detect all the possible things that could go wrong, I can crush them before they occur. I have convinced myself that I can stop anything bad from ever happening if only I predict it and prevent it.
As I laid in the hotel bed, tossing the blankets off me, I had a thought. “What if I choose to look at this trip as a blessing? After all, the data supports it. My Exposure Response Prevention (ERP) therapist says, “power is in choice.” That we move toward our values or move toward fear, he says that it doesn’t mean that we will find certainty. There is none of that. What if instead of trying to prevent danger by rituals and worries in my head, I perceive this trip as one where I get to be with my father and support him? One where I get to cross the Indian Ocean and stand between two worlds where I have so many people who love me on either side? One where I get to allow my husband, Tim, to have a daughter/daddy adventure and continue the Wide Wonder events and initiatives without me? On a side note: that’s the side effects of OCD, those around you who are more than capable of doing their part don’t feel trusted—when they absolutely should be. For the record, Tim is the best dad I’ve ever met. The data says it to be so. A trip where I get to choose the possibility that love, joy, and wide wonder are waiting for me … not the boogeyman.
I don’t want to be scared anymore.
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