This written piece is a special excerpt from my upcoming up book, Lies in Disguise, How I found my truth and recovered for from Borderline Personality Disorder.
Nearly every choice I made, I made out of fear. Fear guided my steps like a compass pointing me in many directions, yet, I still ended up lost in despair.
“I’m a coward because I can’t say what I want, and I betray myself” I think to myself… Fear of rejection prevented me from enjoying life even in the smallest of tasks. I was so afraid I often remained silent, overanalyzing every thought, telling myself I shouldn’t say/do this or that and of playing out all of the “what if’s” that could happen. This created more isolation and as a result, the feeling of fear worsened. This was the vicious cycle that had me on a merry-go-round. The more I gave into my fearful thoughts by avoiding/isolating myself and situations, the more power I gave to those fears, intensifying them and crippling myself.
To overcome the feeling of overwhelming fear, I was told to examine what it was I was really afraid of. I would say things like “rejection” or “failure” which made sense to me yet it was brought to my attention that these are very abstract concepts. Abstract means, to exist in thought or as an idea, but not having a physical or concrete existence.
What does failure mean? What does it look like?
What does rejection mean? What does this look like?
These fears were not inherently born into me; they were learned … They were an abstraction not easily put into words. Breaking this down into more concrete terms helped me identify what the fears really were. Knowing what I was actually afraid of helped me to lessen the intensity and effect of the emotion. It was a strange feeling when I realized that I was so afraid of losing love and my sense of self, although never having had these in the first place. How could you lose something you never had? The fear in actuality, was a created void that I had to replace with acceptance – something I had not felt since the beginning.
This new examination of what exactly I was afraid of, produced an enlightenment in which I could clearly and realistically see that it was not rejection nor failure that had kept me a prisoner, but fear itself. Fear had led me into a desperate search for love and identity, something that in this way, I would never find. I further learned that acceptance would come after I grieved for what I did not have –– that the only person I had rejected, abandoned and failed, was myself, and I had done that by giving into my childlike fears. Overcoming this is where my true recovery began –– by soothing my frightened inner child, creating my own identity apart from others, and learning to offer unconditional love to myself.
Warmest,
Oriana
xo
Keep healing, growing and finding your truth
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