I always feared Matt dying. It always seemed irrational until it wasn’t. I dreamed about him dying.
Then one day I got the call that I feared the most making all those fears valid in my head. If I had only listened to the voice was what I believe for months after he died.
Those old fears have led to new fears. Increased irrational fears of more people dying. Fears that everyone I am happy something else will happen.
Old fears played on me yesterday. When my boyfriend got on his motorcycle my brain got back into old fears that something could happen to him. We stopped at a gas station and I messaged my friends that the situation was making me nervous as f@#k. He walked over and asked if I was okay and I said yes not wanting him to know that I was anxious. He called me out on it. My fear was not related to him, it was all the other vehicles on the road with us.
And I know that every time he gets on that bike, I am going to have these fears. I also know that I would never ask him not to since it makes him happy. Past trauma will make those fears always remain. I talked to him about it and told him that I never want to get that call again.
I am still working on old fears not allowing me to have anxiety. Little things from over the course of my marriage also cause these insecurities that I get now that I am starting to date again those little things pop up occasionally that stop me in my tracks.
The key to keeping old fears at bay is not to get into my own head not letting my past experiences taint the new ones that I have. The new experiences are nothing like my old ones but the voice in my head still tries to tell me otherwise.
Just because we move on doesn’t mean that everything that has happened in the past that has shaped us also disappears. My past is what shaped me into the woman that I am but there are still pieces of that past that I would love to forget.
Old fears of losing love have come back to haunt me and I don’t know how to get away from them. But each day I wake up and attempt to move forward. To not freak out when something happens to not go back to the person I was and to fight to keep going without anxiety.
About Laurel Snook
Laurel became a young widow on October 2, 2020, her husband Matt had a heart attack he was only 37. Matt was a juvenile diabetic and they always knew he would die young but she never thought that she could be a widow at 32. Navigating grief with anxiety, regrets and guilt have been a struggle for Laurel. They had gotten into a fight days before he died and they had talked about divorce. One of the things that helped her the most is finding other widows who understood the pain she was feeling. In February she decided to start writing her story. Self-care is something else she started to do daily and art has become her outlet to get what she is feeling out which she shares on her Instagram. Being a young widow comes with its own challenges but we are not alone in this journey.
You can find her on Instagram @HealingPorcupine or her personal blog link- Healingporcupine.com.