When Fear is off the leash

Last year I wrote about Death. 

This year I’m writing about Fear. 
Death and Fear are both topics often locked away from discussion, this is my personal experience of Fear that took place over the later half of 2019.

I had one of those NHS health checks specifically for reaching 40 – it made me consider health improvements. Looking back, it makes me wonder was it desire to become healthier – or rather an underlying fear of being unhealthy, fear of illness, fear of ageing, fear of death. 

So where did my ‘desire to be healthy’ lead? I reduced my alcohol intake – did a few phases of alcohol free months and weeks. Tried to be more conscious of what I ate, took up cycling. The real coup was yoga which I started in 2017. It improved my focus, I found myself fitter and stronger than I’d ever been. So when I turned 44 this year everything was going great. I was bike racing in the spring and training well.

Then one Saturday afternoon there was a shattering event for me and my family. He was like a wild animal incensed with a violent rage – he ran at me spitting and swearing and ripped my shirt off and went to strike me as I stood next to my wife at the doors to our home. 

The blow was never landed. I half fell inside, the doors were shut. He rampaged; shouting, swearing, kicking, destroying, howling. This continued whilst my wife called the police and my children held each other in their bedroom. It seemed like an eternity before the police arrived – it was 25 minutes all told. When they arrived, he fought them all. It took 5 officers to restrain him, they had to bind him, and kneel on him. He struggled and howled for another 20 minutes. The police had to order a special van with a cage to take him away. I did say he was wild. A cocktail of drink and drugs had bent his mind into a psychotic rage.

So yes, fear. 
That is what I was meant to write about.
I felt fear that day. Not initially, but from the moment we closed the doors on him it grew. It was the unknown. Not knowing what to do – not knowing what might happen next. I felt fear for my family. I placed a piece of wood at the ready should he get inside, I called neighbours, I prayed the police would be quick. Even when they did arrive I felt fear – the event was not over, it was just more violence and rage in my peaceful garden. I felt fear because it had endured, my family had been so scared, had been weeping, and I hadn’t protected them from this scene.

Next the Police Officer is interviewing me. I run through the events, after mentioning the spitting he tells me I will need to get ‘checked out’ as the offender has Hepatitis. He has spat all over me and left bloody spit over the back deck.
More fear.

As a family, we come together to create new happy memories to overwrite these. But at some level, we’ve all been infected with fear. We’ve all escaped physically unharmed, but psychologically it’s different. There is an initial period of shock. My youngest, Lila has nightmares – she dreams the man killed me. We all have trouble sleeping and all have nightmares. We are deeply disturbed. Rerunning the events – questioning every action, every inaction.

A couple of weeks pass and the shock has subsided. Sleep improves – it’s over – it’s behind us. But it is a bluff, fear is festering. I fear of an outcome Lila dreamed – one dead dad – what if I’m not here. I have to be here for my family. I think about Hepatitis – if I’m infected, it would change my life, and that of my family. It would separate me from them. The fear from all eventualities and possibilities. It has impregnated the fears that often reside below the surface. It bubbles up now.

The biggest fears – the fear of being incapacitated (one that the freelancer or business owner knows – ‘I can’t afford to be ill’). I’ve also seen my dad suffer illness since I was 14. I cannot be ill, nor can I be taken from my family.

The summer drifts by, and now the fear weaves through.
I see my parents suffering and I feel it all the more. Raw fear for them, for me, for my family. I have felt one shattering – I fear another.

A new school term begins. I turn and look, and my daughter Erin is obviously suffering from the event. She has fear. She is traumatised – she needs counselling.  And I feel guilt, I feel failure.

Things are crumbling and it’s October. I try to stay focused. So much is happening, but there is a shadow over me. I do not feel right, so much is amiss. Then I blackout on a course, I’ve bitten through my tongue and hit my head, and the fear is off the leash. 

I see the nurse, I have an ECG and I faint after the blood test.
Something is wrong. 
It’s fear.
It’s all over me.

I’m waking in the night, my heart pounding.
Something is very wrong.

Now it’s during the day. Waves of heart palpitations – I am scared.

But it’s all in my mind. It’s fear and now it has gripped my physical self and is toying with me, torturing me.

I fear death, I fear for my family. Failures haunt me, what I didn’t do, didn’t achieve. 

I need to see a doctor and find the results of my ECG and Blood Test. They call me and say the test has been sent to the cardiologist with a query over prolonged heart beat. Three weeks to see the doctor.

I’m deprived of sleep. Now the worry about a potential heart condition intensifies, it’s like the perfect storm. Weather systems of fear collide, and I’m in the middle in this boat. It’s immense and dark. There is real panic.

I need to make a stand. 
I set off a Mayday. I have never been in such distress.

I see a friend, an acupuncturist. He helps me to find a setting to get out of this storm. It’s not easy, I’m still delivering design work for clients, taking care of my family and my children. Holding some semblance of strength when I feel weak and fragile.

The three weeks wait to see the doctor is a torture. But it holds good news, I have navigated through the storm and the waves are lessening. The doctor has the results of the Cardiologist. There is no condition or problem from his assessment.
I discuss my heart palpitations and sleep. The doctor assures me that it is all pathological it is anxiety, it is PTSD. They discuss Beta-blockers. But I feel I have been through the worst. Friends are supporting me – I’ve got this – the darkness is lifting.

So, here I am 20 days after the doctors appointment, writing about what happened. Fear has been dispersing – sometimes it blows back, but it had it’s perfect storm – and that’s passed – I endured it, and I’m getting stronger everyday.