quietlyradical

In many families it seems that various members have their assigned roles…the funny one, the social one, the leader, the “baby”.  A voracious reader and viewer of documentaries from a very young age, my own assigned role has been that of “trivia buff”, “historian” and “keeper of useless information”.  So, in keeping with that tradition I was very intrigued to recently discover that there is an actual scientific term for being afraid of the dark.  It is known as Nyctophobia and is considered one of the most common childhood fears.

I wish I had known this sooner!  Having had an intense fear of the dark growing up (I’m embarrassed to say that I slept with a Mickey Mouse nightlight until I was 17!) I think, perhaps that arming myself with a technical term such as Nyctophobia, might have allowed me to approach my fear academically instead of emotionally, and spared my parents, my hapless college roommate, my first husband, and myself, decades of despair (not to mention a boatload of sleepless nights!).

As a kid I had the exact position of every electrical light switch in our home memorized with extreme precision.  I could not bear to poke even one toe into a darkened room.  Instead I had a well-rehearsed method of snaking just my index finger into the gloom and flicking on the light of one room.  I would cross the lighted room to the next and repeat the process, blazing an incandescent trail from my bedroom to the family room, kitchen, or bathroom, depending on my particular needs.  The real challenge, however, was the return trip, since my parents were adamant that I extinguish all of the lights behind me.  The veritable speed with which I was able to depart a darkened room, led my great-grandmother to remark on more than one occasion, “That child speeds through the house like someone is chasing her!”  Little did Grandma know just how right she was, except of course that the “someone” was actually a “something” – my own irrational fear.

Now, however, I think that the “irrational” label was somewhat unfair.  While my family couldn’t understand my obsessive avoidance of dark rooms, especially as I transitioned into adolescence and edged ever closer toward young adulthood, just about everyone in my family was afraid of something.  For my mom it was thunderstorms (she would hide in her walk-in closet at the first sign of lightning until well past the age of 50).  My younger sister hated the costumed host of a local, late-night horror movie program known as “Sammy Terry”, so much so that in the days before remote controlled TV she would turn the TV dial backward to avoid crossing the dreaded Channel 4 where the program aired.  My older sister, inexplicably, had an intense fear of gorillas although we suspected it was probably due to watching too many of the Planet of the Apes films, than to any real life experiences.  My dad, a boxer by hobby and a fearless firefighter by occupation, could not dare to ride the Ferris Wheel, one of the gentlest rides on the Midway, lest he be overcome by vertigo induced panic attacks.

So, fear is a thorny problem.  We tend to scoff at the objects of dread for those around us, “Don’t be silly.  Why on earth are you afraid of something like that?” Yet, our own equally unsubstantiated terrors often plague us for decades even when we “know” deep within ourselves that they are probably baseless.   Add to this the complicating factor that real and growing dangers do exist in our world today:  terrorist attacks, climate change, Ebola, Ted Cruz (my own modern-day version of the aforementioned “Sammy Terry”) and one could argue that FDR’s assertion that, “We have nothing to fear but fear itself” may not be completely  true in the Twenty-first century.

Perhaps there are two important keys to remember in facing and overcoming fear.  One is that, at least in my own experience, the occurrences that have caused me the greatest pain in my life were usually things that I could not have anticipated and were in no way related to my fear of the dark.  Depression, divorce, and the loss of loved ones to diseases both physical and mental were no less devastating by the light of day than through the darkest nights.

The second key, and perhaps the most important, is to remember that we all have different fears and well as unique strengths, and that this is most likely an integral part of the intelligent design of our universe.  Fear only becomes debilitating and insurmountable when we begin to experience a group fear.  When we all decide that we need to be afraid of Muslims, or young African-American men, or politicians, or people with disabilities, or alternative sources of fuel, or police officers, or big government, or whatever, is when we run the risk of sinking into world-wide panic.  Like a herd of blindly stampeding cattle, it is in this state of societal unrest where truly horrific events can occur.

So my wish is that instead of building higher fences, buying bigger and more powerful guns, and enlarging the gaps among us, we should look for ways to ease rather than increase one another’s fears.  In that spirit I make this pledge:  I will hold your hand during the thunderstorms, block scary channels from the TV line up, help you to increase the diversity in your array of friendships, and gently encourage your acceptance of new ideas.  In return I ask only this, “Please leave the light on for me.”