{"id":15269,"date":"2021-08-04T06:23:00","date_gmt":"2021-08-04T06:23:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/yayserver.com\/jessicaconoley\/?p=15269"},"modified":"2021-07-20T18:57:05","modified_gmt":"2021-07-20T18:57:05","slug":"fear-is-your-weapon-not-your-weakness","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/yayserver.com\/jessicaconoley\/fear-is-your-weapon-not-your-weakness\/","title":{"rendered":"The Voice at the Back of My Neck"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<div class=\"wp-block-image\"><figure class=\"aligncenter size-large\"><img src=\"data:image\/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAIAAAAAAAP\/\/\/yH5BAEAAAAALAAAAAABAAEAAAIBRAA7\" data-src=\"https:\/\/yayserver.com\/jessicaconoley\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/04\/3.png\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-15141 lazyload\"\/><noscript><img src=\"https:\/\/yayserver.com\/jessicaconoley\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/04\/3.png\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-15141 lazyload\"\/><\/noscript><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"has-text-align-center\">In this series apprentice, Imari Berry selects essays from Jessica Conoley\u2019s archives.&nbsp; Imari shares why the essay resonates with her as a newer creative, &amp; Jessica\u2019s original essay follows.<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p>I chose this essay because:  Life has a lot of  &#8220;What Ifs&#8221; and this essay talks about how scary they can be, but it also talks about fear. Sometimes playing it safe isn&#8217;t the right answer. A lot of times doing what we fear the most is the answer. But that fear can be what&#8217;s driving us to become who we are meant to be.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Initial publication date: 10\/13\/2015<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h3 class=\"has-text-align-center\">The Voice at the Back of My Neck<\/h3>\n\n\n\n<p>When I was very young I slept in a bunk bed.&nbsp; My brother slept on the top bunk, and my parents slept in a room down the hall. Dad was the best at making my bed; he could tuck the covers in so tight they wouldn\u2019t move at all.&nbsp; To sleep, I had to slide into the sheet-envelope and flatten myself into the safety of my bed. There was a security with that cocoon around me.&nbsp; And as my family slept, I would lie with the covers pulled to my chin, body pressed between the sheets, and I would hope, with all the hope a tiny girl can muster, that I would fall asleep as well. Most nights I would drift into dreams without event, but it was the nights I could not sleep that I feared above everything else.&nbsp;<br>&nbsp;<br>On those nights, when I couldn\u2019t join my family in their slumber, a harsh whisper crept across the back of my right shoulder and perched itself just out of sight. &nbsp;If a whisper could yell, that\u2019s what it did.&nbsp; The words would start, and with each syllable a hot breath steamed across my skin. &nbsp;I can still feel it, more than thirty years later.&nbsp; Fear breathing at the nape of my neck, words harshly whispered just behind my right ear, and with each brush of fear\u2019s lips, true terror set in.<br>&nbsp;<br>I would lie perfectly still thinking <em>if I just wait long enough<\/em> or <em>if I\u2019m good enough<\/em> or <em>if I hold my breath a little bit longer<\/em> the voice would go away.&nbsp; Maybe I would cry myself to sleep, but I don\u2019t remember that part.&nbsp; I do remember the voice and the paralysis. I remember knowing it was wrong to hear a voice that no one else could hear. I remember knowing I could not share the voice with anyone else. I remember I could not ask for help. But most of all, I remember the feeling of hopelessness against this disembodied entity pressing against my ear.&nbsp;<br>&nbsp;<br>Fear, and the paralysis that accompanied it, followed me as I grew into an adult.&nbsp; There was always the question of&nbsp; \u201cWhat if I do the wrong thing? What if I say the wrong thing? What if\u2026what if\u2026what if\u2026\u201d The what-ifs kept me frozen in my life, just as they kept me paralyzed in my bed all those years ago.<br>&nbsp;<br>Yet somewhere along the line I made a choice.&nbsp; I remember writing it in my journal, but I don\u2019t know why the decision came to me.&nbsp; The choice was to: \u201cTry one thing a year I was terrified of.\u201d And with this decision, my relationship with fear changed.<br>&nbsp;<br>I still live in a state of fear.<br>&nbsp;<br>But now when fear comes to me it is in the form of \u201cWhat if I don\u2019t\u2026\u201d and with each \u201cwhat if\u201d comes a choice:&nbsp; the choice to move through the fear, or the choice to let it keep me exactly where I am.&nbsp; There is something to be said for the safety of the known\u2014the illusion of security often lulls me into delaying my decisions for far too long.&nbsp; But fear is tricky. It runs deep, simmering below all illusions, eating at my Jessica-ness until there is a point where I snap.<br>&nbsp;<br>The snaps are hard\u2014emotional, disorienting, physically exhausting.&nbsp; But when I get through one, I know I\u2019ve done it right because there is no uncertainty. No questioning the decision, because it\u2019s the <em>only<\/em> path I could follow<br>&nbsp;<br>A great amount of trust is required to get me through the fear.&nbsp; If you\u2019re lucky, like me, there are people who stand at the other side of the drop\u2014letting you know they will catch you in case you don\u2019t fly. And every time I make it through the other side of that drop\u2026 Even when the outcome is different from what I expected, it\u2019s never as awful as I imagined it would be.<br>&nbsp;<br>I developed coping mechanisms to help me make the jumps when I need to\u2014the one I have the most faith in is work.&nbsp; I know if I do the work, I will not regret.&nbsp; There are infinite factors beyond my control\u00ad\u2014but the work; that\u2026 that I can do.&nbsp; I can work at shit jobs and find a paycheck. I can read books to learn.&nbsp; I can take the time to look at the world and see the stories that need to be told.&nbsp; I can put words on the page.&nbsp;<br>&nbsp;<br>But standing up to fear starts in small steps, the \u201cWhat if I don\u2019t quit, and I wake up and twenty years of my life have been spent on nothing worthwhile? What if I don\u2019t have another story in me?&nbsp; What if I don\u2019t take this chance, the one that may never come again?\u201d Making it through all of those is a good start.<br>&nbsp;<br>The fear that fuels me right now is the fear that I may waste my chance.&nbsp; If I spend my time doing someone else\u2019s work, not the work that is my own, the fear will win.&nbsp;<br>&nbsp;<br>I know there are bigger fears looming that will only be confronted in my writing.&nbsp; That\u2019s when my writing will get good.&nbsp; That\u2019s when I\u2019ll do my best.&nbsp; But when fear is that engrained, as much a part of my being as the DNA that grew into who I am, it takes time.&nbsp; I\u2019ll have to mine my way to the bottom to get there.&nbsp; The stories I write now are the steps into the catacombs I need to excavate.&nbsp; I\u2019ve made scratches in the dirt, and when I switch to a shovel my writing will improve, and when I break through the tectonic plates it may even get great.&nbsp;<br>&nbsp;<br>I write because I know it is always the things I\u2019m most terrified of that have shown me the greatest reward. I write because I\u2019m scared.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>By Jessica Conoley <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><br><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>In this series apprentice, Imari Berry selects essays from Jessica Conoley\u2019s archives.&nbsp; Imari shares why the essay resonates with her as a newer creative, &amp; Jessica\u2019s original essay follows. I chose this essay because: Life has a lot of &#8220;What Ifs&#8221; and this essay talks about how scary they can be, but it also talks&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[3,250,251],"tags":[],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v19.12 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>The Voice at the Back of My Neck - Jessica Conoley<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"In life, we are taught to run away from the things we fear. 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