Tackling Irrational Fear

“Do one thing every day that scares you.” ― Eleanor Roosevelt

As a young kid, the only thing I remember being afraid of was my mother’s temper. Pushing Mom to the breaking point was something my five siblings and I dreaded more than thunderstorms, spiders, or critters in the basement. Because when my mom blew a gasket, everyone within range received a severe tongue-lashing and maybe a slap or two (corporeal punishment was in vogue in the 60s and 70s). But by the time we hit our teens, all of us knew what would push Mom’s buttons, how to keep it from happening, and when it was time to make ourselves scarce. 

Now that I’m a middle-aged adult, I’m quite adept at handling my 89-year-old mother’s moods, and I consider spiders, critters, and thunderstorms as nonevents. But high-pitched noises? Strange sounds in the dead of night? These things send my heart racing and panic sets in. Combine the two– piercing noises and the middle of the night– and I’m toast. The idea of falling asleep thereafter is laughable.

Several weeks ago, my worst fears were realized. Around four a.m., a smoke detector in the lower level began its rhythmic chirping. First, I covered my head with the pillow, then I closed the bedroom door hoping to wait until morning to change the fading battery. But much like an insult, the sharp tone could not be unheard. So, I trudged down the basement stairs and located the misbehaving device. As I gazed up at the little white box chirping away like a hungry little bird, I consoled myself. It could be worse. The short, squeaky noise was preferable to the piercing, deafening blast of a tripped home security system. 

Like many irrational fears, I’m not sure when this one–an intense dislike of high-pitched noises– took over. As a kid, we didn’t have smoke detectors or alarm systems, but my mother did have a shriek that could raise the dead. Regardless of the genesis, experts say that the best cure for irrational fears is to address them. Since I was the only soul around, I had few options. It was me who would have to rummage through the garage for a ladder, locate spare batteries, and figure out how to pop open the white box. All without inadvertently signaling for help from the Fire Department.

I won’t drag you through the play-by-play. It wasn’t pretty. There were a lot of missteps due to inexperience, anxiety, and the inability to see the labeling on the receptacle. In the end, I switched out the batteries and silenced the hungry mechanical beast. But I don’t have to tell you. The stillness in the aftermath was deafening. It allowed me to hear the alarming rate at which my heart thrummed, forcing me to mutter aloud, “You have got to get over this.” 

After a few weeks of thinking about this incident, I’ve come up with a plan. It’s not perfect, but it’s a start. Before any more of the smoke detectors exercise their whiny voices, I’m swapping out the batteries in every unit. While I had originally planned on assigning this task to a paid handyman or a willing brother-in-law, that doesn’t help me address my unwieldy anxieties. And even though my plan doesn’t tackle my body’s debilitating response to high-pitched sounds, it does eliminate a big part of the problem: the surprise factor. And the inexperience factor. My reasoning is this: if I get good at swapping out batteries, I won’t freak out so much when another one goes off in the middle of the night. 

My biggest hope is that by starting now, I can banish this irrational fear forever. And I’m pretty sure it won’t take as long to eradicate as it did to figure out how to work around my mother’s short fuse.

What are your irrational fears? How have you or do you plan on addressing them?  I’d like to know.  Let me know here.

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