We are all driven by fear itself...

My worst fear

How does one measure a fear? What drives us to fear the things we do? It’s ironic that for such a superior species we live our lives based off of fear. People’s fear of death, rejection, ridicule, safety and various other topics.

Let me pretense my fear with a little bit of background information. I grew up with a strict Asian mother. I was very sheltered by her and was never really allowed to grow socially and emotionally. I had to listen to 70's & 80's music until about 8th grade whenever I was around her. She was verbally and emotionally abusive and at times it seemed like she would take her entire anger for the day out on me whenever I "did something bad" like walked in without taking my shoes off, or taking something out of the fridge w/out her permission etc. She is the type that will put on a show in public, but behind closed doors the bullshiting stops and it gets real.

So time goes by and I'm in highschool and starting to come out of my shell and start growing a little bit socially thanks with the help of the JROTC program. I found my click I guess. My objective was just to befriend as many people as possible. Through this I gained a lot of great friendships, but at the same time was too nice and was often taken advantage of; my weakness is life is that I am too nice and caring for people at times. Starting in 9th grade towards the end of the year, a friend of mine was raped and murdered; it was surreal to see my 1st dead body at the open casket wake of somebody that was walking and talking the before the weekend. As if this wasn't enough, about two months later, my best friend committed suicide. I remember playing ball with him that afternoon after drill practice, he was happy as can be and not a sign in the world about being depressed. Sometimes i fault myself and think about if there was anything I could have done to help him, but I couldn't; he had an open casket wake too and the hardest part of the whole funeral, was burying my best friend with his parents behind me crying without breaking my bearing. Times goes by the next year another good friend gets in a car accident after she hit black ice and died. Now its coming to the point where its like who's next? 11th grade is in full swing and a friend went in for knee surgery, has an allergic reaction to the anesthetic b.c the dumb ass docs didn't do there work and find out he was allergic to it and dies. 12th grade comes and one week in the beginning of September, I have a dream where I feel something so real it scares me; I see darkness like a bunch of dark black clouds and I hear screaming and feel an intense heat and feel a very evil feeling in this, I wake up sweating next to my g.f at the time and tell her about the dream and she thinks its crazy. One week later 9-11-01 occurs and her jaw drops as our principal announces it on the pa system. Winter comes, by grandmother is slowing slipping away from her fight with cancer (we are in New England), she dies the night before the Patriots win the superbowl; I watched her slowly pass after the "death rattle" and will never forget it. Couple more deaths from car accidents go by, friend gets hit by a drunk driver and one dies from drinking and driving hence why I have a huge problem with people that get behind the wheel after drinking. I've recently gotten very close to a girl, who we are now not on speaking terms because she chose the party life where she would drink and drive b.c it was convienent to get home. I would fight with her on this all the time, but she was set in her ways and her friends that a locals going no where in life (more to this I can talk about later). It seems like every year, I'm like who's next and it scares me as time slowly creeps by.

For me I have two fears that coincide with each other, first my “subfear” I guess I’ll call it, is losing my dad, my dad has been my best friend and role model for me all of my life. Through all of the trials and tribulations he has always been there to support me and pick me up when I’m down. I almost came face to face with the fear of losing my best friend, my dad. He started having headaches after a late night of work (he works in advertising so he basically works 24-7) and left our family room to go to the bathroom. After about 10 minutes I went to check on him and noticed he was in the living room on his knees with one hand bracing the floor and one on his head. After asking him a few questions about the pain that started to radiate from his head to his arm, I determined he was having a hard attack as my best guess. I got him up and put him into the car, and sped to the hospital (my sister was in the back seat crying hysterically). I think I ran about 5 red lights and 4 yellow turning to red lights. I got to our local hospital which I later found out was a piece of crap since they laid him out in the middle of a hallway as he’s having a heart attack. The doctor’s diagnosis was he was having a diabetic attack, I told them the symptoms and my educated guess, but they dismissed it; I also knew more about my dads stats than the nurses did, this is bad. So my first mission was to get him into his own room, followed by a transfer to one of the best hospitals in the area in the next city over. So there was a young blonde nurse who was fairly cute, I went up to her and initiated a conversation as I began to flirt (keeping in mind my dad was basically dying at this stupid hospital) and eventually she gave me her cell number and agreed to help me find a room for him; five minutes later my dad had a room of his own; whoever thought a little flirting would get something done for you. Finally, I talked to the doctors there and they agreed to transfer him to the hospital in the next city. After my dad was received at the hospital, they run some tests as we wait and determined he had a mild heart attack, however there was some bad news that followed. His arteries we so clogged that they had hardened and an angioplasty was out of the question; my dad would have to go under the knife and there was no guarantee of the surgery. The whole thing became real when the paperwork of waivers came that said we wouldn’t sue the hospital in the event of his death. Needless to say he made it through the surgery and is alive and well today.

Fear of losing my dad ultimately in a vicarious sort of way coincides with my biggest fear, being alone. I am a very extroverted person and get my energy from others; the more people there are the more energy and motivation I will have. I just love meeting and being around people. I get into downward spirals when I am alone, I don’t like the feeling of not having anybody around me. I think there is something deeper in my as to why I fear being alone. I hope that if I had a chance to go on this show, I can grow and figure out myself and learn about other people’s cultures and live and learn.

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