Hello, Fear

This is insane, I thought. What are you going to do, pass on this fear to another generation?
“It’s more scared of you than you’re scared of it,” coaxed Sherri, my counselor, as I stood frozen to the spot. “Keep moving and it will fly away!”
I barely heard her. I was too stunned to speak, my tongue no longer working. There is no way in the world that it’s more scared than I am right now, I thought, as I inched my way forward.
Sherri took hold of my hand. “If you stay there it’s going to sting you. You need to move!”
I was in a clearing in the woods, far from my bunkhouse. The bee was on my arm, and the bee was big. Correction: It was massive. Gigantic! The size of a lizard! Well, to my eight-year-old mind, anyway. And it cloaked me with the familiar paralysis that occurred every time a bee made its unwelcome appearance.
Still, I kept moving. Sherry pulled me along as fast as she could. My eyes were huge, round, glassy and unfocused. Until the bee finally flew off, the world may as well not have existed. I wasn’t just terrified, I was full-on phobic.
I know, I know. Most people don’t like small buzzing, flying things which can sting and leave an uncomfortable blotch. But I had a huge, overwhelming fear of bees. It was inherited from my mother, who was allergic to bee stings, and would react in panic when a bee appeared. From a young age, I have hazy memories of her screaming in fright when she saw a bee and running in the opposite direction. Even though I had been stung before, and I knew I was not allergic, her fear had taught me that bees are dangerous.
If a bee was in the house, I’d lock myself in my bedroom. If a bee was on a bush in the garden, I’d jump into our swimming pool to escape. A bee pretty much anywhere would send me into hiding, where I would remain for the duration, until I thought that the bee was for sure gone. Only then would I slowly venture out.
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