I have been perpetually anxious and feared life for the better part of my relatively mundane existence. My fear arrives often, unexpectedly, and as a result of situations that many would believe should not elicit any form of anxiety. “How can simply the IDEA of the Dufferin bus scare you?” individuals have inquired, to which I have respond “That wretched route torments me while I sleep and I have woken up screaming ‘Another short turn? Whhhyyyy!’” I’m great at inventing fears from absolutely nothing, too! I have had conversations with myself in the mirror, while hyperventilating, and asked questions like “Do your friends, co-workers, and family members dislike you? Their answer would probably be ‘Not available for comment,’ because they would be too busy doing other things, like hating you”.

I tend to be melodramatic when it comes to my fear, but there is no denying its presence and ignoring it only feeds the mammoth beast. Being a fearful, anxious person does have its benefits, though. You’re never in need of a sauna because you’re in a perpetual state of sweat. You don’t have to choose your own bed time because your panicked body knocks you out for long unnecessary naps or forces you to stay awake for days on end without your input. Plus you not only get a sweet batch of fear and anxiety, you get crippling paranoia as well, for free! It’s a three-for-one deal! You can’t have one without the other. I have been paranoid about fearing something to the point that I become anxious because I fear the paranoia of the fear. TALK ABOUT A CATCH 22.

But there are ways to escape these terrifying thoughts and I was told recently by a legitimate psychic, a ninety-year-old man who called himself James: The Famous Irish Psychic (he has to be right if he’s a celebrity) that the number one way to beat your fears is saying them out loud. Speaking the words that control you apparently gets them out of you head, allows you to see how absurd they are, and kick starts the healing. Thus, here is a below list of ridiculous crap that makes my unshaven leg hair stand on end. For those of you experiencing similar emotional troubles make your own list! And for the rest of you, the normal, stable humans, I hope you enjoy how adorably neurotic this gal can be. You have no need at all to fear this list, ‘cause I already fear it enough for the both of us.

MY FEARS

  • I fear lunch. I fear that I am making the wrong decisions about lunch. I fear that I think too much about lunch.
  • I fear phone calls from my mother. I fear phone calls from my boss. I fear phone.
  • I fear drugs that can and will kill me. I fear drugs that will not and cannot kill me.
  • I fear my bank account. I fear my credit card balance. I fear my wallet. I fear my piggy bank, which is merely a bag of pennies. I fear knowing that I will never be able to use those pennies. I fear being poor. I fear being rich. I fear currency.
  • I fear Facebook. I fear Twitter. I fear Instagram. I fear LinkedIn. I fear Pinterest. I fear Vine. I fear FourSquared. I fear Google+. I fear that I fear Google +. Who the heck fears Google +?
  • I fear sharks. I fear shark week. I fear knowing that at some point I may need to wrestle a shark. I fear that my fear of sharks is irrelevant.
  • I fear being irrelevant. I fear being forgotten. I fear being alone.
  • I fear eating oysters. I fear being in a situation where I can’t eat anything but oysters. I fear that scene in Alice in Wonderland where the Walrus and the Carpenter eat anthropomorphized oysters.
  • I fear Tom Cruise.
  • I fear doing stand-up comedy. I fear writing scripts. I fear writing articles for She Does the City. I fear people reading my writing (you, that is you, current reader).
  • I fear judgment from others. I fear judgment of myself. I fear judging others.
  • I fear my loved ones dying. I fear death. I fear that the movie All Dogs Go to Heaven was pure fiction.
  • I fear transforming into a donkey.
  • I fear dreams not coming true. I fear dreams coming true. I fear being contradicting.
  • I fear meeting new people. I fear meeting with people I know. I fear meetings, specifically ones where I have to wear a pantsuit and brush my hair.
  • I fear bubble tea.
  • I fear remembering the series finale of Alf.
  • I fear that I will never truly be happy. I fear that I don’t know what happiness is. I fear that I do know what it is but I forgot.
  • I fear Listerine.
  • I fear seeing Tom Cruise.
  • I fear quitting jobs. I fear being fired. I fear being put on probation.
  • I fear that I am stupid. I fear that I am not smart. I fear people who are smarter than me. I fear people who are not as smart as me.
  • I fear that vitamins are useless yet I continue to spend money on them.
  • I fear that mysterious smell in my bedroom. I fear that mysterious smell in my kitchen. I fear mysterious smells.
  • I fear that mole/possible zit/possible blob of jam on my chest.
  • I fear the Apple Store and everyone who works there. Shoppers Drug Mart. I fear Jack Astors. I fear Urban Outfitters and everyone who works there.
  • I fear people who have rejected me. I fear people who I have rejected. I fear people who I have slept with. I fear good-looking people. I fear kissing. I fear sex. I super-fear dry humping.
  • I fear vampires. I fear ghosts. I fear the invisible man. I fear non-real things.
  • I fear police officers. I fear authority. I fear my current landlord. I fear my last landlord. I fear my landlord before that. I fear the word “landlord.”
  • I fear the word “slut.” I fear the word “drama.” I fear the word “Beaulieu” (my last name) being mispronounced.
  • I fear cactuses. I fear mice. I fear maggots. I fear things with claws. I fear things with wings. I fear things with scales. I fear scales (musical ones).
  • I fear the piano. I fear my old piano teacher. I fear piano exams.
  • I fear pregnancy. I fear pregnancy tests. I fear pap smears. I fear gynecologists. I fear stirrups. I fear speculums. I fear swabs. I fear test results.
  • I fear being offered Purell.
  • I fear dairy.
  • I fear artificiality. I fear false social interactions. I fear small talk.
  • I fear kiwis. I fear eating kiwis. I fear growing kiwis. I fear the concept of kiwis.
  • I fear marrying Tom Cruise.
  • I fear Fear itself (that movie with Reese Witherspoon).
  • I fear career failure. I fear personal failure. I fear chewing failure. I fear speaking failure. I fear walking failure. I fear high-fiving failure. I fear heart failure.

And now fears, anxieties, paranoias I release you from within my cavernous crazy cerebrum, into the violent night! You no longer control me! Be gone with you forever! (If this didn’t work that Irish psychic for sure owes me eighty bucks.)