fear

Have you ever been afraid? I mean really and truly afraid? Not like eek there's a spider afraid- no what I'm talking about is fear so great that it consumes you. That kind of fear is something that you can't shake just by squashing a bug or by buying a nightlight. It's something that sometimes can't be concord at all. That is the kind of fear that I am suffering from right now.

I am afraid of failing. I know that everyone says that but I am truly afraid to fail. My whole life I have felt second rate compared to my brothers the brain and the athlete. I've always thought that no matter how successful I was at something one of them would always find some way to be more successful. This is where I think the root of my fear of failure began.

However that fear was some what temporarily subdued in college when I found that when put in the right academic setting I was actually very bright. I had stellar grades and lots of friends- I had the life that I imagined my brothers had always had. But my fear roared it's ugly head again on May 17, 2009. That was the day I graduated.

With that diploma in hand all my fears came rushing back to me. What if I can't get a job? What if I'm not smart enought to survive in the real world? What if college was my peak? All those questions and more went blurring through my mind. My parents and friends attempted to calm me telling me that they knew I was bright and no matter what I ended up doing I would excel at it because that is just the kind of person I am.

I know that they were saying those things for two reasons. 1) some of them actually believed what they were saying. They actually thought that whether I ended up being a teacher or a rocket scientist I would excel at it because of my natural intelligence. And 2) they thought that by telling me they knew I would succeed no matter what they were calming that fear they knew had to be growing inside of me. Um well....they were wrong. Not only were they not helping with the fear that I already had- they were helping the fear fester and grow.

You see what I am afriad of now is not just failing- no its the fact that I really don't think that I can live up to all those high expectations people in my life have for me. What if I'm just not that bright and I can't excel at anything? What if I not even bright enough to get a job? What is going to happen when all those people who believed in me find out that I am a fraud and I'm not really what they thought I was? What happens when I realize that for my whole life I was fed bullshit about me being intelligent and smart and capable but in reality I am nothing more then average.

All the compliments in the world are great for building self confidence but in the end they are nothing more then empty statements. And for me they are nothing more then statements that cause me to be painfully afraid of the future, the real world and of growing up.

A year ago I was just starting my senior year in college and I was like the golden child. I had a great GPA, great friends and my parents were glowing with pride. Let's be honest- I was pretty good at the whole college thing. I knew how to do well in my classes while at the same time balancing school with having great friends and a great social life. College was easy- it only took me my freshmen year to master college. But now all the sudden I am like an animal captured and put in the zoo.

I have been stripped of my natural habitate and thrown into another one. Hasta Luego college- hello real world. It's like freshmen year all over again. I feel like a scared 18 year old being left at college. Everyone I know, all my friends, I've had to leave behind. I'm being forced to start over completely and I have no idea what I'm doing or where I'm going. At least in college I had an academic advisor, class schedule and campus map.

They don't make a book called THE REAL WORLD FOR DUMBIES and I'm pretty sure there are no "campus maps" for the real world. I'm not sure that I've ever felt more alone in my life then I do right now. I feel like there are so many decisions that I'm being asked to make and yet I have no idea how to make them. So many questions that life is asking me to answer right now and I have no clue where to find the answers.

And the worst part of all is that when I need my parents the most they aren't really there for me. Yea okay they are giving me a place to live and food to eat- but they aren't giving me the support I need. Their idea of support is setting job application quotas and adding more household responsibilities. Those things are so far from what I need right now I don't think they are in the same universe.

No, what I need from my parents is for them to understand that I am only 21 (almost 22) years old and some of the decisions that they are asking me to make now are going to affect the next 40+ years of my life. I need them to think back to when they were my age and how it felt to have to make huge life decisions. For me it feels like there is a thousand pound weight slowly pushing me further and further into the ground. I am literally more afraid of this then I have been of anything else in my life to date. I'm petrified that I am going to make the wrong decision or some monstrous mistake. And that fear has gotten me to the point that I am doing anything I can to just avoid making any kind of decisions at all.

I have reached the end of my rope and I don't know what to do anymore. I can't go on in fear and yet I'm not sure how to concour this one. All I really know is that I spend a lot of my time on the verge of tears and even more of my time hoping that many minute I'm going to wake up and be back in elementary school...because that's what I want- a do-over. I want a chance to go back and re-live everything because moving backwards is so much easier then moving forwards.

I just want answers and I need advice.