Facing Fear

“The truth is you can’t create a risk-free environment no matter how hard you try.”             Laura Lee

“Security is mostly a superstition. It does not exist in nature. Life is either a daring adventure or nothing.”  Helen Keller

Although the idea of living on a boat was intriguing, I was leery. I had watched too many movies like The Perfect Storm and White Squall that combined with my vivid imagination to create a hefty fear of the water and, come to think of it, most things that were outside the boundaries of my comfort zone. As my kids grew up, I began to find that this fear was keeping me from living the life I wished. It irked me that I was in bondage to this fear and this eventually became one of the reasons I decided to live on a boat and cross the Atlantic. From my own perspective, doing the thing I feared has given me significant power over other fears I continue to encounter in my life. If you are interested in journeys of this nature, you can read about mine in Charting the Unknown: Family, Fear, and One Long Boat Ride, to be released summer 2010.

While doing research for my book, I discovered through the Anxiety Disorder Association of America (ADAA) that roughly 18% of the population in the United States is afflicted by some sort of anxiety disorder. Nineteen million of us have an aversion to things like bugs, storms, heights, water and closed-in spaces. If you have a fear of one or more these, like I do, it may comfort you to know that you are in good company and that there are steps you can take toward managing those fears.  (www.adaa.org)

When we first told our families that we were going to sell everything, build a boat, and cross the Atlantic, well, let’s just say there were several interventions. I can’t say that I blame them. At the root of their concern and attempts at putting Valium in our coffee was fear for our safety. As I was wrestling with the issue myself, I began reading everything I could on the subject. I found many helpful books and websites, including the ADAA, but one of the best turned out to be a little known and currently out of print book called 100 Most Dangerous Things in Everyday Life and What You Can Do About Them, by Laura Lee.

In her book, Ms. Lee reveals the stats on the various dangers we face in our everyday lives. Things we routinely deal with but rarely give a second thought. Having become desensitized to these common perils, we instead focus our fear on obscure events the odds of which actually happening are scarce. The media plays into this idea making much of the guy whose leg was chomped off by a shark and failing to report on the guy who got a splinter in his foot that festered, became gangrenous, and had to be amputated. What Lee’s book revealed to me was how irrational my fear was and how relative to my comfort level.

According to her book, here are a few examples of the precariousness we face just getting out of the bed every morning:

Fact: More people are killed each year by teddy bears than grizzly bears. Teddy bears lay on the floor or the stairs where they can be tripped over. Kids choke on their button eyes or a mouthful of fur. Between 1906 and 1995 only eighty-two documented deaths occurred by actual bear attacks-roughly the same amount that got hit by lightening. Meanwhile, deaths resulting from toys account for 140,000 injuries and 22 deaths each year. Guess which story makes the news?

Fact: Bagels, with their hard outer crusts are an accident waiting to happen. The act of attempting to slice a bagel in half accounts for the greatest common complaint in American emergency rooms and play a hefty role in the over 386,000 knife injuries each year.

Fact: Tubs and showers produce over 150,000 injuries in the US. The United Kingdom reports that there are 104 domestic drownings and a reported 30,855 injuries related to the bathtub each year.

Fact: Every year about 1,000 people are killed in the US simply going up or down the stairs in their own homes. Another 770,000 are injured. An extensive study of stair use revealed that a misstep on stairs happens to an individual every 2,222 steps they take. How many stairs have you climbed lately?

With all those stats, you might consider simply spending as much time in bed as possible. Think again. In the United States alone, 411,689 people a year experience injuries related to beds, mattresses and pillows, much higher even than motorcycle accidents: 50,000 injuries/year. Bunk bed injuries account for about 27,750 injuries out of the 411,689, the result not of falling from the bunk, but of children becoming trapped between parts of the bed.

And here is one of my own:

Fact: The US Coast Guard reports that in 2008 there were 400 fatalities and 2017 injuries resulting from the top 5 boating accidents: collision with a vessel or fixed object, flooding/swamping, falling overboard and skier mishaps. That’s much less than the amount of people who fall down the stairs in their own homes every year. According to the stats, you would be safer in a boat than in your own bed.

You’d think that knowing the dangers we routinely face would increase my agitation but in fact it comforts me, reinforcing the idea that all of life is a gamble. We plan, we hope, but a definite answer from the magic fortune-telling eight ball is elusive. In light of such opportunities for disaster, I think there comes a time when I abscond to one of two responses: I pretend it will be okay-denial- or, regardless of the uncertainty and suffering life serves up, I learn to say along with Julian of Norwich, “all shall be well, and all manner of things will be well,” and mean it. And maybe it isn’t even that simple. Because there are some days I mean it and some days I don’t. Perhaps it is something that, over time, becomes a habit.  An instinctual releasing. This is what I hope for.