Why am I terrified?

Over the past few days, I’ve found myself reflecting on some of my thoughts and actions from the past. I am by no means digging up the past, I just felt that there was a question I needed to answer for myself. So often, I have been the girl that gives in to her fear and it’s held me back from so many amazing things in my life, that I’m quite tired of it. Sometimes even when I just tell myself ‘go for it!’, or ask myself ‘what’s the worst that can happen?’, in the back of my mind I am still crippled with fear. I’ve been thinking about it and decided that I’d like to kind of conclude why I am so petrified, and why I let it hold me back and run away from things.

For as long as I can remember, I would live my life as my own person and not talk about it with people. I became such a private and enclosed person, and as I got older, it became more and more difficult to want to change that habit. I think I had the opinion that it would protect me from getting hurt in a way, and that if I didn’t share my life with people, it meant there’d be less people to judge me or hate me. As I was bullied, I was so naive and caught up in my own little world that I never saw it as being that ‘b’ word. For years and years, all I knew was that it hurt me so much, and I thought it would never stop. I was so young when it started that it was just my life, every day, and I didn’t know that it wasn’t normal for someone to make you hurt so much. Besides, what in this world would ever make me want to admit that I didn’t wanna live through it, when I thought their lives had been the same? 

I think that explains to me the reason I begun to not talk about the things happening in my life, but saying that it was hard to break the habit just doesn’t seem enough. It feels like nothing but an excuse. Or maybe that’s just me being hard on myself?

I’d say I was most scared of myself out of anything; what I said, what I did,  what I felt, etc. As different people came into my life and impacted it, each of them would give me a new attitude. Some would bring inspiration, some: motivation, and others would make me not care. That’s right, the girl who cared way too much about everything in her life, discovered it was possible to not give a damn about something. It was a different feeling which was freeing, but the feeling these people brought me was self destruction. When I got tired of being terrified, I would become extremely impulsive. I would know perfectly the things that were no good for me, but would embrace them to their full extent anyway and somehow, love it. I think it was the element of control that I loved, after feeling so out of control about the rest of my life. Anything I regretted I would block out, so that it didn’t take away that tiny piece of twisted happiness I’d have.

With so many people meaning such different things to me, I thought that maybe it was the people who scared me, rather than the situation. I’d grown a habit to never let anybody grow too close to me, so they couldn’t hurt me. I had such trouble trying to fit people into my life because I would never let them break down my guard. I was scared of being loved, and couldn’t embrace it so at the first sign of seeing the possibility of more pain, I would always run. For me, it seemed a pretty big thing that other people could love me, when I was far from loving myself. As I began to love myself more, it became a challenge I set myself, to not run away from someone trying to love me. So far I have only completed that challenge a few times.

Writing this has opened my own eyes to the reality of my life, but I’m glad I could realise so many things whilst I’m still so young and have my entire life to embrace the changes I can make. Fear doesn’t just disappear and I’ll probably be battling with it for a while, but I definitely need to think about things less.

Take that leap for yourself, and share it with everyone you love. Try not to think about the fear, and never let it swallow up your life.

‘Never let the fear of striking out, keep you from playing the game.’ - A Cinderella Story.


“To me, “FEARLESS” is not the absence of fear. It’s not being completely unafraid. To me, FEARLESS is having fears. FEARLESS is having doubts. Lots of them. To me, FEARLESS is living in spite of those things that scare you to death. FEARLESS is falling madly in love again, even though you’ve been hurt before. FEARLESS is walking into your freshmen year of high school at fifteen. FEARLESS is getting back up and fighting for what you want over and over again… even though every time you’ve tried before, you’ve lost. It’s FEARLESS to have faith that someday things will change. FEARLESS is having the courage to say goodbye to someone who only hurts you, even if you can’t breathe without them. I think it’s FEARLESS to fall for your best friend, even though he’s in love with someone else. And when someone apologizes to you enough times for things they’ll never stop doing, I think it’s FEARLESS to stop believing them. It’s FEARLESS to say “you’re NOT sorry”, and walk away. I think loving someone despite what people think is FEARLESS. I think allowing yourself to cry on the bathroom floor is FEARLESS. Letting go is FEARLESS. Then, moving on and being alright…That’s FEARLESS too. But no matter what love throws at you, you have to believe in it. You have to believe in love stories and prince charmings and happily ever after. That’s why I write these songs. Because I think love is FEARLESS.”
― Taylor Swift

Be fearless.

Next time I’ll be braver...

Courtney’s Imagination★