Emotions and Words Turned into Poetry

Atelophobia

Atelophobia
[A -tel- o -pho- bia]
The fear of imperfection. The fear of never being good enough.

I've sort of always known I've had atelophobia - ever sense I was little. As a child, I was afraid to admit things. I was afraid to admit pain. It was seen as weakness back then; and it still is now. I was afraid of crying in front of people, I still am to this day. Showing weakness is a suicide mission. You'd be asking for someone to point out how many flaws you have. What is and what isn't about you.
I talk to myself in the shower. I have different voices for different characters. I described colors on the fly - not stopping. Not pausing. Not taking a breath until I knew I was done describing the color. I described the color as if I were talking to a blind person.

Pink - Soft, fuzzy, love. Someone hugging you - whispering sweet nothings into your ear and letting you know that you're okay. The smiles of children when the date of Easter comes, when they go egg hunting. Finding candy. Keeping sweet laughs flowing through the cool breezes of the spring day. Pink.

Red - The stereotypical term to describe the color red would be 'angry.' Say you misplaced an item. You have to search all over for it. You know your room front and back. But someone moves one object. You can't seem to figure out what though. So, that boiling feeling rises up to your brain and consumes all your senses until you explode. Roses. Thorns - pricking the skin of your fingers and allowing blood to run down your slender digits. The warm liquid, the irony smell running up your nostrils. Red.

Blue - The ocean. Waves crashing against the shore. Sea creatures deep beneath the surface of the waters until you can only hear your heartbeat at that level of sea water. Jellyfish swimming on my TV screen as I listen to music to fall asleep. The notes appearing one by one in my mind. Painting a picture in my minds eye. Sadness. Someone has hurt you so much you're bound to the emotion you can barely walk in the morning. You hold it all in until the emotions can't help but break loose and pour out of you like hot boiling oil. You can't stop it. Blue.

The list goes on and on.

I then told what it was like to live with atelophobia.

It's like, knowing you can't escape your own mental prison. Your ankles are chained down to a never changing weight - unbreakable, too heavy to even fight against. Just in your cone of sight, you see a doorway. You get just enough length to run towards the door. But as you are about to grab the doorknob of freedom, the demons in your mind yank the chains.
And your legs are swept out from under you. You're dragged away to a darkness that is so petrifying even some of the most fearless people would end up begging to return to the light.
But for me and so many others, we're not allowed out.
We're trapped. Forever engraved in the floor of the mental prison this phobia has made for us.
The sinking feeling of knowing you can't escape will burn you up inside. You will soon give up. Just learn to live with it.

When this phobia evolves - when people can see it on me - there are multiple signs of it.
- I start shaking
- I could end up gagging
- I keep repeating "I feel like I'm going to vomit"
- I could have a panic attack
- I repeat "I want to cry" over and over again
- My breathing goes off track
- I stare at the ground
- I stutter a lot
And the list goes on and on.

It's a horrid thing to live with, but you get used to the sudden surges of emotional pains after a while.
So many things could trigger it.
People insulting me of my work - that's obvious.
Me ending up alone during school. No one talking to me for a long time.
Getting yelled at.
The nasty looks people give me.
The nasty things people say to me.
Me - myself - can trigger it.

It's scary...

Writing helps me, a lot though.
Because I know that my pieces will be liked by at least one person.
And I know I'm good enough because of that one person.
Writing helps me get my emotions into characters that are non-existent. Sure, they have deeper meanings, but I can make a plot and storyline out of my emotions. And that's the distracting part. I can focus on something else other than my constant fear of never being good enough.

" I can't even explain how I feel anymore, my thoughts are so messed up in my head that I don't even understand them ." - Anonymous