Fear Is the Mind-Killer

Fear used to rule my life, but not this week. I put on my journalist's hat today, driving way the hell-and-gone out into the country to interview an elderly man about his pioneering family. Not so long ago, I struggled with intense anxiety to do such a simple thing as calling to make the interview appointment. Days of agony attended a simple interview.

They make pills to manage anxiety like that, but I can't take them. If I do, my mind says I need 10 pills because dontcha know I have a high tolerance. I would rather battle anxiety than tempt such a monster.

In five years, I've gone from not being able to leave the house without my husband to cheerfully undertaking a half-hour drive through the country to find a man I do not know and help him feel comfortable telling me his family stories. It's been a bare-knuckled fight, accompanied by visits to my therapist and calls to my AA sponsor, not to mention prayer and gritted teeth. Mostly gritted teeth, if I'm honest.

I don't know how many times I have (mis)quoted Mr. Nietzsche in this private war against the debilitation of anxiety disorder, which is officially a member of my mental diagnoses. The accurate quote is "What does not destroy me, makes me stronger," but "That which doesn't kill me makes me stronger" is my mantra. Saying it didn't help me drive my car when anxiety ruled my world or make any number of forays outside my comfort zone for a long time. But saying it gave me, over time, the ability to look my fear in the face and say SOMETHING to it instead of "Yes, master."

Fear is the mind-killer, I remember reading in Dune years and years ago when that book came out. That line has helped me, too. I see fear for what it is: a slayer of all that is good in the human psyche. Funny, how violent is the verbiage of courage for me.

I learned a gentler, softer language in AA. "Fear is the wind that snuffs the candle in the mind" was one thing I grabbed onto. Another was: "Courage is not the absence of fear; it is taking action in spite of fear." And finally, it still comes down to this one for me: "The battle does not have to be won today, only the first skirmish." I've boiled it down to this: Just take the first indicated step; let the rest wait until tomorrow.

I've done many things in spite of anxiety, that four-syllabled sister of fear, of which I am enormously proud today. I've read my poems to crowds in auditoriums. I have gone to visit my mother, locked in the morass of Alzheimer's, and found her doing things that broke my heart but did not break me. I have spoken in city meetings. I have driven hundreds of miles by myself to attend conferences. I've talked myself down from panic attacks. Well, let me rephrase that. I have prayed myself through all those things. Even Nietzsche is a prayer.

Once, four years ago, I allowed myself, with my sponsor's go-ahead, to take anti-anxiety medication to fly across the country on vacation. All it did was make me a loaded anxious person. After that experience, I flew stone cold sober, preferring prayer to my own stupidity.

My struggles with anxiety are assets today when I talk with women who are dealing with fear. Without fear, there would be no need for faith. Fear can be a faith builder, just as fear can be a mind killer. Everything has a shadow. Fear's shadow is courage. Every time I take that first fearful step, I prove to myself I can be more than I am afraid I am.

I know there is a God because I know freedom today. A woman who couldn't leave her home five years ago is free today. Shaking a little inside, sometimes. But walking out, nevertheless.