Topix Questions 35: As a Child, Did You Find It Easy to Fit In? & 36: What is Fear? Is it Helpful, Limiting, Both?

Question 35/424:  As a child, did you find it easy to fit in?

I think that as a child I generally had a decent time fitting in.  I always had a group of friends to talk to or hang out with.  I struggled the most with making friends with boys.  This was a huge disappointment because prior to going to school, most of the kids I hung out with were boys.  I had an older brother and my mom ran a daycare where she watched primarily boys (in fact, it’s possible the only kids she watched were boys).  There are many stories told about me as a young kid, from age 1 to age 3, where I would get so jealous of my brother having friends that didn’t want to hang out with me that I would be violent with them, or I would unplug their video game system mid-game.  I was devastated when my brother went to school and I was left home with my mom all by myself, I wanted nothing more than to go to school with my brother (which I of course didn’t realize how school operated since we were 3 years apart in age).  I would sit at the front door and sob when my brother left for school, which resulted in my mother enrolling me in preschool earlier than most at 3 years old.

As soon as I entered the classroom and saw all of the other kids playing, I was in my element.  I have always been a social person and an extrovert and generally had no trouble making friends.  Early on in my life I was of the belief that a person had one best friend, and I met my first best friend in preschool. She was a girl who had been adopted from the Philipenes and was honestly probably the first person I had ever met who didn’t have white skin like me.  She was tan with black hair and the first thing I said to her after asking her name was, “Are you Pocahontas’ daughter?”  I realize that’s an inappropriate question to ask but I was 3 and Pocahontas was the only “princess” movie I ever cared to watch and I loved it so much that the idea that this person in my preschool class could potentially be related to Pocahontas (based on her skin, hair and eye color) was magical to me.  Of course, she was just confused and said no but despite this awkward interaction we became friends and stayed close friends until middle school.

Once we got into elementary school it because obvious that I couldn’t expect my friend to be my only friend or for me to be her only friend and so I started branching out and making friends with new people.  I made friends with a girl who lived not far from me because we met in gymnastics class and our moms made friends with each other.  I made friends with a girl who rode my bus who was older than me but very loud and easy to talk with.  One day when she was sitting with other people, I decided to sit next do a girl who was always very quiet and read all the way to and from school.  I sat next to her and saw she was reading Goosebumps, a book series I also loved.  I tried to start a conversation with her, but she only looked up from her book to acknowledge the fact that I was talking and then returned to her book.  So I pulled a book out of my backpack and read, too.  The next day another girl sat with us, someone who had sat with the quiet girl in the past, and the three of us squished into a bus seat and all read paperback books on the way to and from school.  That friendship of the three of us lasted for a long time.  We were the three musketeers and people almost always associated us with one another all the way though high school and into college, even after the quiet girl changed school districts.

I’ve always been known to have a pretty active social life, and I don’t feel like I struggle to make new friends.  I like having people around me who all kind of suit different aspects of my life.  I like having friends who will watch scary movies with me, I like having friends who will watch romantic comidies with me, I like having friends who appreciate the same books as me, I like having friends who enjoy singing and dancing, I like having friends who enjoy going out, I like having friends who enjoy having stay at home hangouts.  I am a true blue extrovert and so I derive my energy and my happiness from being around people, especially people who accept me for who I am and love even the annoying bits of me.  Maybe that’s not the same thing as fitting in, but it’s always been enough for me.

Question 36/424:  What is fear?  Is it helpful, limiting, both?

Fear is certainly both helpful and limiting depending on the context.  I feel like my thoughts on risk(s) are pretty similar to my thoughts on fear in that it is unavoidable.  I think fear can help to motivate people to be proactive so as not to lose the things that matter to them.  However, fear can also limit people by preventing them from taking risks or chances that could potentially help them in the long run. 

I often say that I envy people who are able to take risks and chances without being weighed down by the fear of the unknown or potential negative repercussions that stem from those choices.  I also accept that my own fears do limit me and are a major contributing factor to my own discontent in my life.  I say that I suffer from decision paralysis which means to me that when faced with a decision – especially a difficult one – I often get so hung up on the negatives or the fears associated with it that I simply don’t make a decision at all.

It's interesting to think about things like risk and fear, and I think for me a lot of my fear is also tied into shame.  I am scared to do things because I am afraid of failure.  I’m not afraid of the failure itself, but I am afraid of the judgement that comes along with the failure.  What will people think of me?  Will they think less of me because I have failed?  Will they judge me for having taken the chance in the first place?  Will this be the thing they associate with me for the rest of my life?  If all of those things are true, than is the risk even worth taking?  Even when it comes to small, not necessarily life altering, decisions, I usually think more about how other people will feel, think or respond than how I actually feel about the situation.  This is a bad habit I am working on breaking because I know logically that living my life based on the assumed thoughts and feelings of others is really no life at all.

I also know that to live without fear is also dangerous.  A person who could not actually feel fear would certainly put themselves into dangerous situations without any regard for the consequences because they wouldn’t have that fear.  Fear, also known as the fight, flight or fawn response, is something bred into us since the beginning of time.  Fear is how all living beings have been able to live and evolve over time because they learn when to be cautious of something and therefore avoid certain death.  I would certainly never wish to live without fear, but I would like to be able to have the power to turn off the feeling of fear when it feels irrational.

I also think that in a lot of ways I was raised to push through things like fear and anxieties.  I think I was much better at that when I was younger than I am now as an adult who worries about things like stability and security, but there are still plenty of times when I have friends say they can’t believe I could go out and do something that they could never convince themselves to do.  Like performing on stage as an adult who is 13 years out of practice.  That was a scary thing, and I did wait until I found a smaller group to join which felt less intimidating than a larger more established group, but I still know that plenty of people would simply never.  I think it’s easier to acknowledge the fear and to push past it in situations where it is not upheaving your life.  I definitely struggle more with letting fear dictate what I do when it comes to making big life decisions than I do with small things like meeting up with a new friend, trying a new activity for the first time, driving to a new city I don’t know much about or other small things like that.

Fear is part of life, and it is a necessary and important part of life.  However, it’s also important to not let fear overtake you.  The fears should be acknowledged and the situation should be assessed, but if you can prove that your fear is unsubstantiated, then I think it’s important that we all challenge ourselves to push through and see what can be found on the other side of the fear.