Fear

I am one of the most fearful people I know.  I have really bad paranoia and I have to take medication for it.  I remember as a child being afraid of everything.  I watched "Mars Attack" once and I couldn't sleep for several nights because of seeing aliens heads explode!  If there were any scenes of a head dismembered from a body I freaked out!  So I decided that to conquer my fears I would watch horror movies.  It was hard and took a while but eventually I was able to conquer some of my fears through that for a while.  The only kinds of movies I would stay away from generally were demonic/ghost type ones (especially if they were based on true stories) based on my experience with the demonic since I was four years old.  Unfortunately, I also had Night Terrors so this didn't help that.  My Night Terrors got so bad that my husband and family told me not to watch any more horror movies.  I stopped watching horror movies (for the most part, I'll watch some slasher films from time to time but not often) and my Night Terrors seemed to have calmed down in some ways, though I do get demonic dreams but that's another story.  Unfortunately, I'm back to being afraid of everything again!  One of my favorite horror movies my dad and I used to watch I can't even watch anymore (The Thing) because it freaks me out now!

At night in bed, my mind always goes to scenes I've seen in horror movies on its own and it's hard to think about other things.  I get so scared going to sleep because of these scenes.  Some are unrealistic like aliens attacking, others are a little more realistic.  Sometimes my mind remembers past dreams I've had that scared me out of my wits.  I don't know why they always happen at night when I'm trying to sleep but it happens every single night and I'm constantly begging God every night to help me with my thoughts and to get to sleep without any Night Terrors.

My paranoia without medication is crazy.  There was a time I thought my mother-in-law was trying to poison me by putting bathroom cleaner on my toothbrush.  Another time I thought the ground was going to swallow me up!  With medication my paranoia for the most part is under control, though there have been some fears that have come up still.  I thought mirrors were some sort of portal to the demonic world but a friend who's an expert in this area told me not to worry about it and that that wasn't the case.  I've also been afraid of things like when I'm in the shower and see my shadow I'm afraid I'm going to see another shadow pop up (something being there with me).  Another fear I have is I'm afraid to have my arm off the bed when I'm laying down because I'm afraid something's going to grab it (I had a dream once that something demonic grabbed my arm and pulled me down and have been afraid since).  Sometimes I feel like I'm being followed or watched.  Sometimes it bothers me more times than others.  Like if I'm alone it really freaks me out.  But if I'm with my family or my husband, I feel like if that is happening they're there with me and can protect me.  At night I like to have my cat sleep on the bed with me so if I see or hear something I'll know whether or not I'm hallucinating (I take medication for that as well).  If my cat isn't responding then I know it's just a hallucination.  But if my cat reacts to whatever it is, then I know whether to worry or not.

This is just my personal experience with fear.  I have other fears as well, such as social fears.  Are people going to abandon me?  Are they going to turn on me and betray me?  Are they looking at me strangely?  What if they don't like me?  I also have normal fears like the fear of heights, small spaces, and spiders (bugs in general, but especially spiders).

So how do we deal with fear?  Something I've been thinking about lately is that Jesus wasn't really afraid of anything!  I mean there were people who wanted him dead and he wasn't afraid to say the truth.  He wasn't afraid of the demonic, they were afraid of him!  I suppose you could maybe argue he was afraid of death in the garden when he asked his Father, "Please pass this cup from me."  But I don't think it was necessarily fear of death.  I think it was more like he didn't want to be separated from the Father.  After all, we were separated from the Father because of our sin, and when Jesus was on the cross our sin was put on him, which meant he was separated from the Father then.  Was Jesus afraid to be separated from the Father?  I don't know, I can't answer that, and there are probably people more qualified to answer that than I am.  But throughout the Gospel, I really don't see Jesus afraid of anything!  You could say, "Well he was God so what would there be to be afraid of?"  Yes, but, Jesus was man as well.  Jesus was God coming down in a human body.  When people were afraid to be near lepers he actually touched them.  He cleaned them from their disease, and he cleaned their hearts.

If Jesus wasn't afraid of anything (even if you say he was afraid of being separated from the Father), what do we as children of God have to be afraid of?  Sure we don't have powers like God has, but we don't need to!  We have the all powerful Creator on our side!  We have the Savior of the world that died and came back to life on our side!

Psalm 27:1
A psalm of David. The LORD is my light and my salvation--so why should I be afraid? The LORD is my fortress, protecting me from danger, so why should I tremble?

If God is for us, who can be against us (Romans 8:31)?  No matter how alone we may feel and yes, even though I'm married, I often feel alone in my struggles with mental illnesses, we're not alone.  God is always with us.  He understands us better than anyone!  He knows exactly what we're going through, even our fears!  So we need to rely on Him to help us.

Shalom.