The Year in Fear
Every irrational one that lived in my head in 2024.
Since I do an annual gratitude list each year (2024, one drops next week), I figured I’d also do a “Year in Fear” as well. I’ve compiled all the fears from the Sunday newsletter journals all last year. There were many body horror-related entries—groaning about aging muscles and losing teeth, which tracks perfectly with my overall body image problems. One of my plans for 2025 is to make a meaningful effort to ditch that crap, at least enough that I don’t have to exclude myself from certain parts of my life because I’m too ashamed of how weak and ugly I feel.
The rest are all the usual hits—financial worry, apocalyptic dread. I should add that these fears are frequent but not constant. I can recall many stress-free days in 2024 that occurred when I wasn’t so preoccupied with myself. Because I also learned that holding on to fear is reductive and grievously self-centered. And that is why it’s helpful to remind myself of that each day. Onward.
The Sunday posts are usually paywalled, but since it’s the holidays, I’m dropping them and keeping comments open. I think we all know not to say crazy shit, but please be mindful and don’t say crazy shit. — AJD
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Too Heavy For Superman to Lift
FEAR LIST 2024!
Picking up my mom at LAX.
The small anger of lack of control, resentments, showing up to the gym skinny and out of shape, tsunamis.
That I’m still an asshole.
Body eating itself.
Small confrontations that tip into anger because I know of no other way to react.
Being unprepared.
I was overworked and distracted, failing to be physically active despite its innumerable benefits to my sleep and sanity. And attending the BJJ group class.
Dreams about jaw cancer, creeping death by a lightning bolt.
Losing control of emotions and acting out in strange, aggressive ways.
Stepping into BJJ class, afraid of being annoying to people who think I suck. Also, getting sued.
Taking on too much but not being able to let go due to financial fear.
Usual death and destruction and existential dread.
Forgetting who I am and how happy I can be.
Ego shit.
Friendlessness.
Free-floating depression in a house full of love.
Traveling with the kids.
Spending too much money on baseball cards, possibly using baseball cards to express love to my child.
Financial chaos. Mouth cancer.
The ghosts of bullies. Ruined friendships. Time is zoooooming by.
*Forcefully drops forehead down on the desk* (That I can’t stay in the present and instead get swept up in a dystopian future.)
Hopelessness, the inability to hide the fear on my face in front of my children.
The rapid disappearance of options.
Financial fear over future expenses that don’t exist.
My body falling apart before I want it to; sense of competitiveness that veers into unhealthy emotional sobriety.
That I’m overextended and distracted, even though I feel satisfied.
That my body is rapidly decaying and I’ve taken on too much work.
Losing nothing important but believing it’s everything. The past.
Accountability, ambition. What asshole will success awaken inside me?
Not having a consistent value system. Laziness, greed.
Fear of instability and lack of energy. 83!
Spending. For some reason, since I’ve joined Debtor’s Anonymous, I’m now spending more. Wild.
Lack of safety. The unpredictability of my reactions to certain unsafe situations.
That I’m finding too much comfort in work success and not enough in the ease of my life, the tranquil moments.
That I won’t know how to instruct my children about how to live with terror.
I’m pressing too much for spiritual growth and cannot recognize actual growth. MONEY. Procrastination.
There’s a strangeness to the new place and tiny roads with tiny children. I’m tentatively walking with the kids and afraid we’ll lose the dogs to the night or the coyotes.
I was afraid I was taking on too many big projects, both in work and life.
I was afraid of my temper. It was explosive and threatening. It came out of a dark place. I also had some terrible, freewheeling suicidal thoughts all week that made zero sense.
I was afraid of the surgery. I don’t know why—just had a bad feeling. Thought I’d end up in a coma. Some Dalton Trumbo nightmare scenario. I was also afraid that part of me found that idea relaxing.
Post-Op rehab. Temper. Lack of a Higher Power. The collapse of humanity.
Teeth. Decrepitude. Bad writing. Narcissism.
Irreversible loneliness. Awkward coffee hangouts. Debt sinkholes.
Freezing up during stressful moments, mouth sepsis, blowing a deadline, self-harm, brokeness and brokenness.
Death. Living. Living as a form of death. Chronic loneliness. Anti-socialness. Unspecialness.
I haven’t figured out how to keep my life organized, yelling too much at my kids and not quieting my brain enough.
An inability to control my reactions to very minor slights or insults which cause major impacts.
*Deep breath* War in and outside my head, the upcoming election, being a lousy father, flying, organizing bills, the IRS, success, ambition, an escaped lobster, home invasions. That about covers it.
That I am hallucinating and under anesthesia, possibly dead.
HOLIDAY ZOOM MEETING SCHEDULE
Monday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday and Sunday.
Monday: 5:30 p.m. PT/8:30 ET
Wednesday: 10 a.m. PT/1 p.m. ET
Thursday: 10 a.m. PT/1 p.m ET (Women and non-binary meeting)
Friday: 10 a.m. PT/1 p.m. ET AND *4 p.m. PT/7 p.m. ET
Saturday: Mental Health Focus (Peer support for bipolar/anxiety/depression) 9:30 a.m. PT/12:30 p.m. ET
SUNDAY: (Mental Health and Sobriety Support Group.) 1:00 p.m PT/4 p.m. ET
* New Holiday meeting through January 2nd.
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A POEM ON THE WAY OUT:
Snow
by David Berman
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Walking through a field with my little brother Seth
I point to a place where kids had made angels in the snow.
For some reason, I told him that a troop of angels
had been shot and dissolved when they hit the ground.
He asked who had shot them and I said a farmer.
But we were on the roof of the lake.
The ice looked like a photograph of water.
Why he asked. Why did he shoot them.
I didn’t know where I was going with this.
They were on his property, I said.
When it’s snowing, the outdoors seem like a room.
Today I traded hellos with my neighbor.
Our voices hung close in the new acoustics.
A room with the walls blasted to shreds and falling.
We returned to our shoveling, working side by side in silence.
But why were they on his property, he asked.
— “Actual Air”
ALL ILLUSTRATIONS BY EDITH ZIMMERMAN
There are so many things on your list that are on my list. ❤️
This list helped me realize how much of what I have felt to be a mysterious melancholy is my mind creating similar fears.