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I am sure that mental health professionals, psychologists, psychiatrists, Freud-saturated mouthpieces and hypnotherapists among others can (or feel they can) deconstruct and dissect all our fears and discover the pure root of all our pathologies and then help to dissolve them. I know this is an unfair assessment as I tend to exaggerate initially to hammer a point, but I believe that not all fear need be negative or inhibiting. To put it plainly, I think we are all a bit weird. Yes, that means you.

I remember reading an interview in which a decorated World War One veteran was asked if he was ever scared while in combat. I will paraphrase his response - "Hell yeah. Any fool who says he was not scared is a bloody liar or mentally defective." The interviewer then asked why he didn't run away when ordered to go 'over the top' (meaning to climb the trench and charge the enemy lines with his unit), and the man said "Collective courage, your friends and fellow soldiers are damned well going, and I'm going too." Of course, war is an obvious example of fear because it is intrinsic to our primal natures to preserve our own lives. Even though we may at times find life to be difficult, confusing, incomprehensible and absurd, we much prefer to be alive rather than not. A large component of fear is a survival mechanism that is there for our protection. In this way we have a connection to other forms of life.
One noteworthy affliction that seems to be increasing in prevalence in the last few decades is anxiety and panic disorders. A panic attack has been described by sufferers as one of the most frightening episodes experienced. Basically it is your body's natural 'fight or flight' reaction that involves a large release of adrenaline to different parts of the body in order to deal with what is perceived to be a mortal threat to it. Except that a panic attack happens when you might be sitting in a chair reading a paper and not facing an annoyed grizzly bear in the woods. Most panic attack recipients end up in the emergency section of a hospital thinking that they are dying, to which a slightly irritated physician will say "There is nothing wrong, here's some Xanax, off you go."
There is no question that irrational fear can be a severely debilitating condition and should be approached by mental health professionals with a personalized treatment. To be sure, I am not a specialist in....well anything (although I show great aptitude in parallel parking). There is some comfort to the fact that all of us are in this together, and our fears seem to be more manageable when we have company in it.
In closing, never be afraid to say that you are scared, unless you are in the company of anyone else in which case just mumble it inaudibly. Courage, people.

Learn more about this author, Joseph Broadworth.
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