The Fear Is Not Mine

Metaphorical Narrative

The label came early: “This kid is afraid all the time.”

Once spoken, it hung in the air like smoke. The safest move was to wear it, to act afraid, to perform the fear. Because in that house, compliance looked like survival.

But the cost was brutal. Creativity got choked. Drawings came out shaky. Expression shrank. And the controller nodded as if their prophecy was proven true: “See? Always afraid. Never capable.”

Yet underneath the mask, imagination never stopped burning. The pocket idea for the burned dress, the endless worlds inside — they were proof that fear never belonged to me.

The truth? The fear was theirs. Not mine.

Core Insight

Fear can be installed like malware. Yelling, labeling, withholding, leaking to critics — these moves rewrite the script of a child. Fear becomes the performance, not the identity.

That’s why it feels so tangled: the fear looks like me, but it’s not. It was a projection strapped on to control me.

Imagination is the proof. If the spark to invent, dream, and create still lived in me the whole time, then fear never owned me. Fear was the costume. I was always the author underneath.

Saturday Experiment

1. Catch the costume. When you hear “I’m too afraid / too bad / not capable” — stop. Ask: “Is this my voice, or the installed fear?”
2. Expose it. Write one line that proves the opposite: “I imagine freely. I see solutions. I am not theirs.”
3. Do one creative act. Draw, scribble, sing, dance — not for perfection, but as rebellion. Every mark says: “The fear is not mine.”

Sunday Reflection

When you think of “being afraid all the time,” whose voice are you actually hearing?

If that fear was never yours, what part of you has been waiting underneath, unmasked, this whole time?

What happens when you let imagination speak without the costume?