On Safety

Journal prompt: what are your beliefs about your own ability to keep yourself safe? What are your beliefs about the overall safety/dangerousness of the world?

I’ve never really consciously thought about it, but I’m pretty scared a lot of the time when I’m out in the world by myself. My anxiety is through the roof whenever I have to drive somewhere, walk somewhere, or go somewhere alone. I don’t really know how that happened, but it’s been this way for as long as I can remember. Too scared to cross the street without a hand to hold. I don’t really trust in my ability to keep myself safe, I think because of the extensive trauma, too much has happened in these 33 years for me to feel like I’m in control of my environment. I don’t know how much of that is accurate because we really don’t have control of everything, and how much of that is my anxiety. I know I’m capable of doing things alone, but it’s just such a hard thing for me to do, I feel paralyzed, and I do my best to avoid situations like that, which causes me to miss out on a lot. I used to go hiking so much more because I didn’t mind going by myself once I got into the habit of doing it, now it seems so hard to do. I think the world is pretty dangerous, I don’t necessarily trust people, I don’t like when people are looking at me, and I would prefer not to run into anyone. I’m not so scared of natural disasters and acts of God, it’s people that really terrifies me. I feel like people are capable of such horrific things and so many of them have happened to me in my past and I just haven’t let it go yet. I don’t trust that I’ll be okay in any given situation, especially when something involves driving. I feel crippled by my fear of driving. There was a period where I was doing much better during the pandemic when I was driving all over to hike, but I just lost that courage somehow. I want to get back there soon, I’m always working on it.