Fear! We all have it.

So I mentioned fear a little bit yesterday, but I mainly mentioned how people are afraid to talk about it due to how others react. The thing is we are all afraid of things. I have seen people wig out about pet snakes and pet rats. Which  to me is a little weird  since it is a pet and it is being held by someone else. Yet who am I to judge I have things that I am afraid of that most people wouldn't understand.

So my question is what are you afraid of? Do you think other people would understand your fear? Do you feel that your fear is irrational? Does it affect your every day life?

I am afraid of a few things Doctors being at the top of the list. Then I would say that having someone break into my house to harm me would be next. Do people understand my fears? Some people do, but most people just look at me like I am crazy. Especially with the whole Doctor thing. Do I feel my fears are irrational? No. The reason is this my fear of Doctors steams from real incidences. People  I know  have died, because a Doctor wouldn't take the time to run the tests needed after seeing they didn't have insurance. Doctors have looked at people I have seen suffer and act like they were  hypocondriacs. Then there is the fact my parents rarely took me to see Doctors when I was little and when they did they were who ever was the cheapest Doctor in town. Which usually amounted to they should have been put in the mental ward, because they were loons. The one memory of a Dentist I had before going to my current dentist was being in 4th grade. The Dentist said I had a cavity so I came back to get it filled. When it came time for me to go have it filled my parents didn't go into the room with me instead they waited in the waiting area. The Dentist then turned to me and said we are going to start without the anesthetic if it starts to hurt let  me know and I will give it to you. I didn't know what to think since I had never really gone to see a dentist  before. So he started drilling without giving me any anesthetic. Then after a little while he decided to give me some. Seriously lunatic. Then every Doctor my parents took me to seemed not to be that caring with the exception of the Doctor I went to with my Grandma. If I met more Doctors like my Grandparents had I probably would like Doctors and trust them. The problem is I have  been to two  Doctors in my adult life. Both of them were good Doctors, but neither of them ever explained anything to me. The first one had her assistant call me on the phone to say I had cyst on my right overy, but they weren't worried about it. They just wanted  to continue watching it to see if it went away or got larger. Seriously that is basicly how the conversation went over the phone no less. Then she asked do you have any questions. Unfortunately, nothing brings back my shyness like a full blown panic attack. Which happens everytime I talk to a doctor. It doesn't matter over the phone or in person I go into full panic mode and I can't think. I did what that doctor wanted for a months. I don't remember how long exactly I just remember once a month going all the way out to Scottsdale and spending half my day there. All that just to be told it is a little smaller then before and we aren't worried about it. Lets plan your next visit. The next time I went to the Doctor they found bone cysts in my head. That time they talked to me in person, but again with the "I am not really worried about it, but lets run some more tests any way. While we are at it lets have a neurologist look at it as well." What irritated me that time is I didn't know I was going to have to pick up the CAT scans take them to the specialist and then relay the techno jargon the specialist said to me back to my regular Doctor. Aren't they suppose to talk to each other and give each other the information? I am a little lost on all this. How does all of that work? Why do I pay for insurance and pay so much money to see them if I (who  is not trained on medical jargon of any sort) has to play messanger. Plus can't they send info such as CAT scans through the computer or on CD? I am just saying with all of our technology it shouldn't be that hard for them to communicate with each other. I don't believe it use to be. Also why do I fill out a form that says they can talk to each other if I am doing the message relaying? I just can't handle it. Seriously why should I waste my time if they aren't going to talk to me the patient and tell me what is going on. My fear would go away if they would do or say something that gave me confidence that they want to help me. Instead they make me feel like I am just a paycheck and that I don't matter. It is ridiculous.I get they know more than me about that stuff. That is why when something is hurting really bad, hurting frequently, causing extreme dizzy spells, making me feel like I am watching everything from another room, or causing numbness down one side of my body I go to the doctor. I don't go, because it sounds like fun or I just want to spend money doing something I hate.

Alright as for why I have my other fear. The beginning reason is going to sound crazy. It started with a dream. The thing is the dream started when I was really little. I don't remember exactly how old I was when it started I just know it was before I was 6, because I was still living in our first house in Nampa. So I know I was really little. I had this dream off and on every year for until about 3 or 4 yrs ago. It is weird. The dream was usually the same one. I was an adult in a big dark room sleeping. My bed faced the door. I would wake up and see the silhouette of a man standing in the door frame. Every time I would grab a gun and shoot him. Then I would wake up. The other dream was me being chased around a hotel while holding a baby. That started at some point when I was in grade school. The first one got more frequent after I started dating this one particular guy and ended after the last contact I had with him. The thing is that guy after I broke up with him broke into my house several times. So I am not sure what to think about the frequency of the dream increasing during my relationship with him  or the fact I haven't had it since. I still have that fear though and now it is even worse then before. Some day I am sure I will get past it.  Maybe? If not then I guess I will live with it.

Does either of these fears affect my life? Well yes they do. The doctor one makes it hard for me to monitor family health problems. Then again it probably doesn't help me going in saying my Grandma had endometriosis and so did my older sister. My dad's mom died of cancer and my mom's aunt died of cancer, but I was never told what kind. My mom always said all kinds run in the family. So then the doctor looks at me like I am crazy from that point on. Is it my fault my mom has a thing against talking to her kids about such things? Recently due to certain events I have found out more like my Great Aunt Miriam died of ovarian cancer and that my Grandma at one point had Lukimia. I wouldn't even have known about my Grandma having a hystorectomy before 30 had they not found the cyst on my ovary. It was after I told my mom about them finding the cyst that she finally told me why my Grandma only had two biological kids and then started trying to adopt. My whole life I was told that she just never was able to have any more kids and always wanted more. Also I didn't know for until recently that my Father's Mother had skin cancer several times and that she died of lung cancer. What I don't get is why she never felt she needed to tell us these things? These things are important and I look like a crazy person when I say my Grandma died of cancer and my Great Aunt died of cancer,but I don't know what kind. I was always told all kinds run in our family. I can't help the doctor if I don't know what is to tell them to look for. Oh well. The other fear affects my life, because it prevents me from sleeping sometimes. When I was having that nightmare I couldn't go back to sleep for until hours later and sometimes not for until the sun started coming up. The reason being everytime I would close my eyes on those nights that dream would return. So there were lots of nights of me not sleeping. Especially toward the end of me having those dreams. Stress, fear, anger, and bad dreams that are related to exactly what is happening can keep you from sleeping more than 5-30mins at a time for months at a time. Trust me I know. I lived it for about 3 to 4 months. If you don't believe me ask my friends who were there for me during that time. They can tell you how wigged out I  was and how worried they were about me.

I guess what I am saying is this we all have fears. Some of those fears don't really affect our lives, because unless we put ourselves in a position to deal with them we won't have to. Other fears are simple and may affect our lives, but only in small ways. Like the fear of spiders or bugs. It affects our lives, but most of the time only in small ways. Then there are those fears that prevent us from living life or in some of our cases from sleeping. Granted my dreams aren't my only reason for not being able to sleep at night. There are other reasons I have for not sleeping. Either way we all have fears. We all have to learn to deal with them. Oh well. It is in our nature to fear certain things. Hopefully the fears we have protect us from harm. If not hopefully we find a way to get past them.