TW: Realization

This is a kind of sort of companion piece to a post a made a while back about phobias. Trigger warnings apply for phobias, abandonment issues, self-loathing, and anxiety.


I spent most of yesterday afternoon catching up on one of the, in my opinion, best anime ever made - Hakuoki. I had to stop watching it for a while, because I wasn't feeling well and my depression was dragging me down every time I encountered anything sadder than Big Bang Theory. That said, I absolutely LOVE this anime. The characters are amazing, the art work is beautiful, and the plot tools are stunningly executed. The voice actors do a great job portraying the iconic characters of the Shinsengumi (at least in the Japanese dub. I refuse to watch Japanese anime in any other language than Japanese).

It also made me think about many things, but mostly about belonging. Today, many people live and function only as individuals. A single entity, focusing only on themselves and how things can benefit the lone human. As someone who has never really belonged to a group, I find this way of thinking to be very lonely.

And that's when I discovered that the one thing I fear above all other things is to be lonely.

I don't mind being alone. To sit on a corner, reading, and have no one bothering me. To work on a project by myself and have no one else injecting themselves in my space. There is, however, a great difference between being alone and being lonely. I can be perfectly content being alone with something I enjoy, and I can feel desperately lonely in a room filled with people.

I fear being abandoned more than I fear death or injury. Avoiding the feeling of being so lonely is something I will do absolutely everything to avoid, and this certainty is mainly what has caused me so much pain and stress.

The feeling of not being good enough has caused me to hate myself. It is the reason why I have worked myself into a place where my mind and body could no longer function and shut down in order to save my life. The fear of being abandoned was about to kill me, though not directly.

This fear is what has made me stick with toxic relationships in the past. It has birthed a fear of conflict and an extreme sense of guilt associated with making others feel uncomfortable.

To find that one hand reaching out to me through the darkness of my reality has made me realize that I have people around me that care. To laugh and argue with people I love and respect has taught me that you don't have to always agree with or cater to someone else in order to be friends.

The fear, just like depression and anxiety, will never fully go away, but logically, I know that people who leave me when I don't meet their expectation can leave. I don't need them in my life.

I only fear death because, just like Hamlet said, "For in that sleep of death what dreams may come, when we have shuffled off this mortal coil".


The whole soliloquy for those interested:

To be, or not to be: that is the question:
Whether 'tis nobler in the mind to suffer
The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune,
Or to take arms against a sea of troubles,
And by opposing end them? To die: to sleep;
No more; and by a sleep to say we end
The heart-ache and the thousand natural shocks
That flesh is heir to, 'tis a consummation
Devoutly to be wish'd. To die, to sleep;
To sleep: perchance to dream: ay, there's the rub;
For in that sleep of death what dreams may come
When we have shuffled off this mortal coil,
Must give us pause: there's the respect
That makes calamity of so long life;
For who would bear the whips and scorns of time,
The oppressor's wrong, the proud man's contumely,
The pangs of despised love, the law's delay,
The insolence of office and the spurns
That patient merit of the unworthy takes,
When he himself might his quietus make
With a bare bodkin? who would fardels bear,
To grunt and sweat under a weary life,
But that the dread of something after death,
The undiscover'd country from whose bourn
No traveller returns, puzzles the will
And makes us rather bear those ills we have
Than fly to others that we know not of?
Thus conscience does make cowards of us all;
And thus the native hue of resolution
Is sicklied o'er with the pale cast of thought,
And enterprises of great pith and moment
With this regard their currents turn awry,
And lose the name of action. - Soft you now!
The fair Ophelia! Nymph, in thy orisons
Be all my sins remember'd.