My Secret Fear

I have a secret that I make sure no one knows. It’s a silly secret. A secret so silly, you might laugh when I tell you what it is. It’s silly, but also dreadfully anxiety-inducing for me. It’s actually a secret about my greatest anxiety trigger. The trigger that without fail has consumed my life for as long as I can remember – probably from even before I can remember. My secret is…

I’m terrified of doing something – anything – wrong.

There. I’ve said it. The cat is out of the bag and I feel like my heart has sunk to my feet. And you might be thinking well that’s silly, no one likes to be wrong! But what you don’t understand is the magnitude of fear and anxiety being wrong brings me. Like I said before, it consumes me. It eats my entire being in one bite with room for more. I’m so consumed with the fear of being wrong, I’ll avoid using words I’m not 100% sure of how to pronounce in fear that someone will correct me. I frequently google words I’ve used thousands of times to be absolutely sure I’m using it correctly. I won’t say people’s names unless I’m certain I know they’re correct and I know how to pronounce them – to the point that I will “forget” names to avoid the embarrassment of calling someone by the wrong name. Oh, but the fear doesn’t stop at words.

No, this fear runs deeper than that. I rarely participated in sports as a child because I hated that I couldn’t be perfect at them. I avoid trying new things because I might do them wrong. And if I am doing something new, you can bet that I researched it for an embarrassing amount of time beforehand. As you can see, this fear has prevented me from having a lot of wonderful experiences. I stick to what I know and avoid what I don’t which isn’t a great way to live life. Looking back, there’s so much I wish I would have just done even if I completely failed and made a fool of myself. I wish I would have just put myself out there because who knows, I might have actually had a lot of fun despite doing something “wrong”.

But I’ve finally come to terms with the fact that you can’t change the past, you can only change the present, so I’ve been trying to put myself out there more. I’m genuinely trying so hard to try new things even if I think I will fail. I’m trying my best to let go of my failures and stop them from making me feel so horrible about myself. I’m trying to recognize that everyone fails at some point in their life and that’s okay. Failure isn’t the end of the world. It’s difficult, but I’m trying.