I’m super great at being calm. Until I’m suddenly not.
It creeps up sometimes – a sheet fluttering loosely around me and then the fabric is pulling tightly, shrinking against my skin, strangling the very breath from my bones.
Hi, my name is Emma and I am an Enneagram 6.
Yes, the ongoing saga of typing myself under this incredibly nuanced and multi-faceted system has entered its (hopefully) final iteration as I discovered recently that the majority of what I do is actually completely powered by fear.
For those playing along at home, I’ve almost been through the entire spectrum. From my orderly beginnings as a One, to realising the hidden neediness and desire to please that seemed Twoish. Then I noticed my tendency to workaholism and image consciousness and I settled on Three.
It happened before the holidays.
Dave kindly and repeatedly suggested that I should take the opportunity to get away by myself. He would solo the parenting responsibilities and sail the metaphorical ship bravely through wind and storm. I would get to have all the writing time and mental health recovery that I could ever possibly desire. ‘Go for a few nights,’ he urged, ‘really, we’ll be absolutely fine.‘
I wish I could say that it was my undying love for my family that prompted me to decline, my gracious wish to just serve and silently keep my feet paddling at double-speed underneath the surface.
It wasn’t.
The picture of the escape came in snatches. But it wasn’t the alluring glossy reality that you might suspect. Instead, I saw myself – alone. Eating alone, driving alone, being alone. It was petrifying. The fear which I had never even identified in myself before was suddenly flashing before me, the white spark of lightning illuminating a reflection in the midst of a pool of darkness.
Anxiety and fear seemed foreign to me. I get angry, sure, but never scared. Panic attacks, heart palpitations, sweaty palms – that just isn’t me, I thought.
Fear, it turns out, can exhibit itself in very creative ways.
I’ve always been incredibly punctual with deadlines. During my university days, if an essay was due at the end of March, I would hand it in at least a week before hand. What seemed on the surface to be a keen sense of order and ambition was perhaps a spectre of panic instead. When the niggle came, I channelled it into action until there was nothing left to be afraid of.
I had my first panic attack on Sunday.
It was a messy cocktail involving socially overbooking my introverted self, a reactive and belligerent eldest who was dreading the onset of school, trying to host two woodfired pizza parties in two nights, attempting to drag three reluctant kids to church by myself and burning the candle down to the wick every night for as long as I can remember. I was fine, I was patient, I was handling it. Then I wasn’t. Breath caught in my chest, hands shook, voice hoarse with shouting.
It was also when I realised. I have known this feeling before.
Fear looks like anger to me. The loss of control, the threads slipping, lurching just out of reach and then it all unravels. Tangling, spiralling, choking. It blinds and binds, seizes and shakes you, until you are reduced, regretful, red-faced.
Harvey fell from a great height today. Placed kindly on a bar stool by his clueless older brother while I was helping Ivy with her potty training, he toppled – head first and smashed his head against the vinyl floor. The spectre loomed viciously, blinding me with its whispers of unfathomable endings. The bruise bloomed heavily, immediately. He screamed and arched his back. Everywhere I looked there was chaos – a wasp circling as the ice began melting, apologies and tears falling on my deafened ears.
Fear overwhelms me. Unexpectedly. It visits.
I’m adjusting to this newfound reality. Learning new language to place over old ways. Fear will always be my passenger, as Elizabeth Gilbert so perfectly expresses, but I can’t let it take over.
What I have learned is this. Morning dawns, sunlight peeks through in filtered shafts. The storm may rage and it might feel fierce, but it will always, always end.
Eventually.
