Doubts

They creep up on you.

Noticing that I haven't posted anything directly to the Patreon in a couple months, and felt a little ashamed of myself. But then, so much has happened and I barely keep up with regular writing.

Feeling doubts creep in.

Thinking to myself, do people actually believe that I can do this? What if I'm not as good as I think I am? What if I'm filling myself? What if I end up letting down the people who believe in me?

What if I'm already letting them down?

Breathe. Relax. Focus on your midsection, just behind your navel. Feel what you're feeling. Accept that you fear. Accept that you're nervous. Don't hide from your emotions or deny them. Don't pretend they're not there because when you look away from those feelings then you don't see what they're doing to you. You don't see how they're influencing you. How they're sabotaging you.

But you try to look away, not from the feelings, but the voice behind them. Don't remember. Don't think about a middle aged man screaming in your face that you were a mistake. Don't remember the grown man who throttled you to unconsciousness and don't think about how when other people laughed at Bart and Homer in the exact same pose, don't remember the fear, don't remember how your mouth gasped emptily at air that wouldn't come, don't remember the feeling of warm wetness trickling down your thighs as the last thing you remember before the cotton filled your ears and the blackness around the edges of your sight meets in the middle.

Don't think about how you won fight after fight because nothing people did to you hurt like the headache you woke up with. Don't think about it. Feel, but don't remember. Distance yourself from it. It isn't me. Thirty years and change ago, it can't still have power over you.

I'm not a mistake. I can do this.

I can master my fear. I can move past this memory. I'm worth this. I'm worth something.

I can eventually move past this, can't I? He's almost seventy, now, I've been out of his power for more than half my life, I haven't spoken to him in over a decade, and why does this still affect me? Why do I keep hearing him tell me that I'll never have anything worth offering to anyone, why do I keep hearing him say I have to live off the charity of others because I'll never contribute anything of value to anyone?

Am I living up to those expectations with this project, to write on the charity and donations of others?

I'm trying to stick a knife in the neck of my doubts and fears. I'm trying. But they creep up. Some things don't stop haunting you.