So when do you know you have a problem?
When the brick wall you hit on your latest strive to make your life better rises to meet you faster than you are running, and it has come from no one other than you, and the things you have not dealt with in your life.
Today this was my fear of balloons. Dumb, I know.
On my latest investigation of ways to come up with some extra cash I visited one of the only restaurants I could see myself potentially waiting tables at, for one reason or another. I was dead set to impress the manager, the staff who waited on me, and find the better side of some of its more negative aspects. What could go wrong? Oh yeah, that. My deathly fear of round floaty latex balls where kids dig their fingers, fans chop at full speed, and drunk guys stretch pull and rub in my hair. Just being around them used to cause panic attacks, now its only the aforementioned events, which unfortunately for this latest plan would be part of a course of five minutes. I barely made it through dinner.
While Ive been aware of this phobia my whole life, it has never stood in the way of anything I have been determined to do. Granted, my determination was born in full force in 2006 - at which point nothing I did truly required putting up with so much exposure to balloons. Before that, it was ok that I was afraid. While it wasnt pleasant, I would just heed to the fear and go somewhere else. Leave. Problem solved.
This time, the difference was frustration. I wanted to be there. I was determined to be there. Yet this old cranky fear was once again yanking me around like a half inflated balloon in the hands of a child, it was determining my every mood and shape. How could I live like this anymore? Be held back by inflatable latex? Survive a deadly illness yet feel the fear of death by the instantaneous pop of a colorful party prop? The irony was nauseating. And while I was tempted to ask the manager if budget cuts would, at any point in the forseeable future, take balloons off the menu for good, I left instead with the first independent, confident sheer determination I have ever felt regarding this lifelong condition. If Im afraid of something so silly, it must be a phobia. It is not normal and someone out there can treat it.
Then I landed on it. Globophobia. Thanks to the search engine. Just searching Fear of Balloons brings up Globophobia over and over again. Not only does it have a name, but the search revealed that I am not alone, which I mildly suspected. It had even been covered by People Magazine, lumped in with the fears of Bananas and Railroad Tracks (tracks I can understand.. but.. bananas? ) The guy in that article has needed to use a helium machine to blow up balloons for work and described it as torture. How brave. For me that would be a job lost. Or just insubordination - refusal. Think verbal abuse, physical abuse, making me blow up balloons on a helium machine? Id take the verbal over them any day.. Take this woman for instance:
Bless her!! Everything she says is how I and thousands more feel.
More than anything, my internet search revealed that I didnt have to live with this if I decided to proactively seek help. Now more than ever, not only do I realize I have a problem, but that I dont need to live with it any more, and that whether I continue to live with it is under my control, and I only need to decide to begin and see through the process of healing in order to escape its grip. Help is available and wants me to come to it if I want to be helped.
And more than anything, I wonder what life will be like when I am not afraid.
