Fear

There are no words to explain how this feels but I'll give it a shot...

Everyone has a fear in life and one person's fear is not any less valid than another, even if it's completely irrational which, by definition, would make it a phobia. Some people might fear lightening, the dark or spiders but I don't so I can think rationally about those things. What are the odds that I'd get hit by lightening? What are the odds that something creepy would actually be in the dark? ...uh...Ok, maybe i'm a little afraid of the dark still. But what are the chances that a tiny spider I would encounter in my home would actually be harmful to me? In the case of the spider, I can understand how someone would fear a large, poisonous spider because that's normal. Biology dictates that you should fear things that would harm your life and therefore fear naturally serves as a function of protecting you so you don't approach the deadly spider. So fear is good. Phobias are not. But neither you nor I can tell someone their phobia is unjust. It's just something irrational that they'll always think of in that way unless they make the conscious effort to change that.

My phobia is weight gain. Pretty stupid, I know. But I fear the stigma attached to it. I have irrational thoughts about being rejected, I fear failing to be attractive and to be happy or healthy. After all, fat people are looked down on in society and there is a huge moral panic about obesity.

I'm trying to get over these irrational thoughts but it doesn't help when society still has the panic about being fat. It's like I know a secret (that its ok not to be super skinny and that diets never work) but the majority of the world doesn't seem to care or want to hear it. I feel like I'm fighting to believe something that no one else does! It's like the first person that believed the earth was round, trying to tell everyone the truth but before that caught on, people were burned at the stake for thinking like that.

So basically, I need to learn to really not care what anyone thinks. Is that possible? Are there people out there who really walk around not caring AT ALL what others think? I think it might be time to do some people watching...