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Speaking Up

Anyone who met me before 2014 knows how opinionated I am. Those who only know me through social media probably think that's the first line to a joke. I am opinionated about many things, but I've lost the ability, or maybe it's the desire, to speak my mind. Recently, when confronted with a question, I balked. I said the correct thing, despite disagreeing completely. The specific question isn't important, but it's a pattern I'm seeing in myself lately, and for the most part, I despise it, In the past, I would never have allowed myself to be put into a situation I was uncomfortable with, unless I felt I could handle it without added stress. There was a time when I stressed over nothing. In my mind, able to control all. I was mistaken, but that isn't why I have changed.

Fear.

I know fear now. I've never known fear. I've had knives, guns, and other weapons pulled on me. I've been in fights where I was getting pummeled. I've faced personal loss and lived with pain most could never imagine. I've failed so many times, I should have been more cautious as life wore on. In all those times, I've never felt fear. Then one day I did and for the first time, I realized I had to use some form of self-preservation and that everything would not simply "work itself out." The hardest part has been asking for help from others. Despite what many think, it's not something I've ever done. I've gone without food, money, love, and even friendship in the past, all for the sake of doing it myself. It has cost me. It changed me, and not for the better.

So what is it about fear that allows us to be hurt. Not physically, but mentally? Why do we cower to other's wishes and whims, sitting silently like a polite schoolboy? I feel the dunce cap firmly attached as I nod and smile, knowing my answer will cause me pain and discomfort, again, not of the physical variety. As I said earlier, I've made tons of mistakes, but I'd like to think I've learned a little from all, become wiser, and while the mistakes continue, they were rarely the same ones. Yet now I feel fear and while I don't feel doomed, I repeat them, walking this metaphoric tightrope of pleasing others, while compromising the one attribute that makes me who I am or in this case was.

I will regret the last few times I was asked something and answered with what I felt I needed to say to maintain this awful sense of contentment I'm stuck in. I wait for a change, and yes, I'm waiting proactively, but the options are limited. I have received help and the help haunts me. Maybe this is why I live with this fear. I have accepted the cliche it could always be worse, as not only fact but a way of life. Sometimes I wonder, "can it?"

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