[tobturn]

Hey everyone

For some odd reason since the thought of disfigurement popped up in my head, and thinking about how getting severely disfigured would ruin my dream to be a respected and admired person and actor, for a long time I could not get it out of my head. Every time I wanted to take steps to pursue my career, I'd think: yes, but what if I get disfigured? That would ruin everything and I won't be able to be the person I wanted to be!

This thought made me really scared, and I just couldn't get it out of my head. It totally stopped me from following my dreams. I'm not scared of getting disfigured anymore, in fact it only lasted for about a week, but the thing I don't understand is WHY this thought made me so scared. It's a total irrational fear, and I've never had these kind of fears! It could be anxiety but I just cannot find anyone with a similar fear!

This one came out of nowhere It doesn't fit the description of any anxiety disorder... It's not a phobia either because I wasn't scared I'd get disfigured per se, the fear is only present when I think of pursuing a career as an actor, following my dreams etc. Only when I took steps to pursue my dreams, the fear returned!

Do you or do you know someone that has a fear similar to this one? Just out of the blue, totally irrational, that doesn't fit the description of any anxiety disorder?

Take care!

[tobturn]

Anyone? I'm really scared and I just wanna be able to once again do what I love...

[Perna]

I think it is like dreams and how they make sense when we are dreaming them but are hard to figure out when we are remembering/thinking about them. I know I lived alone in a downtown City, high-rise apartment building for 13 years, met my husband and married him 5-6 years later and we bought a house and did well except when my husband would go away on a business trip I could not go to sleep at night, sure there were rapists, thieves, murderers, pillagers, and burners outside my house trying to get in? I'd be able to go to sleep around 3-4 a.m., after they had all obviously gone home to bed themselves It wrecked havoc with my job, sometimes I'd take the next day off ahead of time but if he was away for a week, that was not possible for every day and I had to finally figure out other ways to get around the fear, which I didn't want in the first place either.

I think really bizarre, startling thoughts like ours are just to "grab us" so we don't go over some perceived cliff of ours. Maybe you were really too afraid to take the first steps to become an actor, really afraid you could not make it happen but you could not admit that to yourself so yourself came up with the disfigurement thing on the fly to stop you moving forward? But the disfigured thing could related to something else altogether that would get triggered when/if you became an actor but not related to the acting itself, who knows? It is so "not you" that you don't blame yourself, whereas if you did not make it as an actor, you might blame yourself or people close to you that you feel you want/need would be disappointed or angry at you, etc. The mind/body does the best it can with what it has to work for you from the unconscious/physical/animal perspective.

I "fixed" mine a bit by "accepting" it and working with it. My husband usually goes to bed well after I do so I set the house up as if he were in the other room (lights on, maybe TV, etc.) and I would just imagine him "out there" and it was comforting enough to let me get to sleep much earlier; I'd do my normal routine (reading in bed for a bit before turning out the light), wander out into the lit part of the house for a snack, etc., whatever I would do on a night when my husband was home.

I would just accept you have this fear and maybe explore parts or learning about disfigurement as an actor? Look at shows like the Phantom of the Opera and Hunchback of Notre Dame, etc. Watch more horror shows or at least think about them, see if there is something in disfigurement itself that triggers anything in you (rather than acting/pursuing your dream). I know with dreams, if I accept them and work with them, start considering their symbols, etc. I have fewer nightmares, because my mind does not need such an extreme to get my attention, I am paying attention to it and am respectful of it.

[gnat]

I have a fear of losing all my teeth. It's been a reoccurring nightmare since before I had all my adult teeth. I would get loose tooth and fear it was already my adult tooth and I would have a gap. The funny thing is after a lifetime of this fear an reoccurring nightmares I mentioned it at a family gathering and discovered my mom and one of my sisters had this same fear.

Overall though, I would think you fear is about losing your dream. I think we all experience that from time to time, but in different ways. Or maybe I've just normalized my own fears, like how every time I've put in my two weeks notice at a job I'll be super terrified something will go wrong and the new job didn't really want me and I gave the old one away.