Fear.

[kevyn]

2007.11.08-FearImage.png
Originally uploaded by kevynjacobs

In my DVR WorkStrides class today, we were given an assignment to draw an image of where we saw ourselves in the future and what barriers we saw standing between ourselves and our goals.

Mine was... frightening.

I threw myself into the assignment -- to the detriment of the class for most of the rest of the day. It was a 10 minute in-class assignment, but ended up spending hours on it, ignoring most of what was going on in class around me -- much the way I used to do back in elementary school (which got me labeled a "problem student" and put in the "special" class in 5th grade. *)

I went into a flow state, as I waded deep into the imagery of my fears, which was kind of cathartic, but also disturbing.

So much so, that when we were asked to show our pictures to the class, I declined. I wasn't comfortable sharing an image this disturbing with the rest of the class. Later, after much prodding, I shared the image with a couple of instructors, but only after some wheedling on their part.

After class, Anita, one of the instructors, sat down with me to have a long talk with me about what I was getting out of the class, and what my plans for the future were. After months of banging my head against a wall, it was nice to have someone from within the bureaucracy listen to me... I mean really listen to me.



^{* Remind me to tell you that story sometime.}

Comments

[kennapea.livejournal.com]

i was wondering what you were doing over there all day.



cigarettes?

[kevynjacobs.livejournal.com]

>i was wondering what you were doing over there all day.
Yeah, well, I sit over by the teachers, so they knew what was going on...

> cigarettes?
When I don't have 'em. I get crazy(er).

cigarettes

[kevynjacobs.livejournal.com]

...and they're also a way I have been committing slow-motion suicide for the past 21 years.

Re: cigarettes

[kennapea.livejournal.com]

i kind of figured.

your amount of detail is great considering the supplies.

Re: cigarettes

[kevynjacobs.livejournal.com]

Comes from years and years of practice drawing intricate little space ships when I should have been paying attention to math class.

[kadyg.livejournal.com]

Poor sweetie. I wish I could hand you a stiff drink or something.

I'm curious: Did wading into all of that and getting it on paper seem helpful at all? I ask because naming fears is usually suggested as the first step to dealing with them.

[kevynjacobs.livejournal.com]

Stiff drink sounds good.

Well, it felt good, in a cathartic kind of way. The exercise for me was an extension of the process already started in this post, when I named my fears. With the drawing, I took it a step further and drew them.

And, if they come true, then I've committed them to the Internet and future historians will see me as prescient. ;-)

[bluebear2.livejournal.com]

I remember my mum telling me when I was worried about nuclear war that she grew up during World War II and back then things looked so gloomy and everyone expected that it was the end of the world and that Hitler was the antichrist and stuff like that. She told me that there have always been bad things and the potential but you have to not let it bother you or prevent you from having your life.

[kevynjacobs.livejournal.com]

I agree there have always been bad things... but I feel like Cassandra, able to see what's coming, and no one believes me. It's a helpless feeling, like being a child, strapped in the car seat in the back while daddy drives drunk at top speed down the wrong way on the Interstate.

How do you move forward when you're paralyzed by fear?

Of course, this is the central question of human existence - when one knows one is going to die, how does one continue living? Existentialism and nihilism, all wrapped up in a neat little mental-illness package and tied with an atheistic bow.

This existenial angst is only compounding the depression, which is still not under control.