I’m not a very “fearful” person. I know what the Bible says about fear and how it has no place in our lives because we are saved thru Christ’s sacrifice for us, but being alone was always a huge fear. Not just physically, which definitely was a fear, but emotionally, spiritually…my relationships mostly. Feeling isolated and misunderstood. Feeling like my friends and family didn’t accept me or care. But that last one has never really been recognized, my friends and family have never left me so far and I doubt they’d start now, but I digress.

The fear of being physically alone was certainly a fear in my life though, but one that I didn’t tell too many people about. For someone who liked being by herself, it’d be kind of silly to admit that I only liked being alone, when I knew other people were close by, people I knew. But then came the news that my family was going on vacation to our old house in North Carolina, but I couldn’t go because I had already promised to work a few days for a fellow coworker. I was really excited at first. I mean, come on, for a twenty year old girl who had never spent more than 24 hours away from ANYONE, this was a great opportunity to have a shot at freedom. Complete freedom. Not being alone in a dorm room with hundreds of people nearby and rules galore, but freedom as in being in a house by myself and being entirely responsible for my own safety and wellbeing. Needless to say, the fear was there, but I wouldn’t allow myself to be afraid at first. As the weeks leading up to my family leaving wore on, the fear came creeping in. To my boyfriend suggesting I sleep with a knife by my bed, and then realizing that the friends that I’d invited to stay couldn’t come, then realizing that even my boyfriend and his family (who also live in NC) were going to be out of town also and harder to reach than normal…then, the night before my family left came. I was balling uncontrollably. I partially blamed it on lots of new things going on in my life. I had just gotten a new job and finished my training that day, which proved semi overwhelming, information wise. Plus knowing that all my family members in the surrounding area were going to be gone (cept my aunt and uncle, but I knew I didn’t want to spend too much time with them, as much as I love them, I’d rather be by myself I think), made me anxious. My stomach was churning and my tear ducts were leaking uncontrollably. Deep down I knew that nothing would happen and everything would be fine and I’d probably end up enjoying myself, but at that moment, my nerves were just on edge and my emotions were too frayed to be able to grasp hold of those logical thoughts and cling to them. I ended up asking my dad to leave me a gun. So he showed me how to handle the safety on one of his rifles and left me a box full of shells, to which I proceeded to put both by my bed in case of an emergency. The morning they left, I went back to bed nearly shivering with fear. It took me nearly twenty minutes to fall asleep again and when I woke up I was so unhappy. I didn’t want to be by myself. I wanted them here. But I finally decided not to let this stop me from having an enjoyable week, since I had finally managed to get two of my friends from NC to get a plane ticket down on Wednesday (today, my family left Saturday morning). I knew I could make it ’til then and I was going to do everything in my power to be positive and try and have fun.

I kept myself busy cleaning during the day, and with a little bit of entertaining myself like watching tv, movies, eating pizza, stuff like that. But at night, I was afraid I would have trouble sleeping due to a past experience I’d had when my parents were out of town and I was left with my two younger siblings in the house. I’d been terrified and lost about an hour’s sleep because once awakened in fear, I had a really hard time going back to sleep. So I took a long, hot bath, drank some tea with chamomile and lavender to help me sleep, wrote in my journal to get my brain cleared of all thoughts, and then prayed before I actually shut the lights off to get in touch with my Lord before I finally went to sleep so I could ask for peace.  Needless to say, it worked! I slept. And I slept pretty good despite the fear I’d had before I went to sleep. The next night, the same thing, except the fear was less. Until last night where I wasn’t afraid at all.

So, basically, long story short, I’m not afraid of being alone anymore. I’ve gotten over my fears Praise the Lord!