Sedatephobia- the fear of silence

I don't remember a time in my life where I did not fear the silence. When I was young, I constantly had to have the T.V on when going to sleep. When conversations would lull, I would get so anxious that I would start blabbering, often times regretting the words that would spill out of my mouth the moment they breached my lips. I was told that once I got older and grew more confident in myself, this fear of silence would fade away. Yet here I am at eighteen years old absolutely terrified of the silent moments. But why?

I've never believed silence is a good thing because I have no proof of it being good. This fear affects me on a daily basis. My boyfriend is a naturally quiet person. So, when the conversations drops and we sit in each other's presence with nothing to say, I worry that I bore him or that he is beginning to lose interest in me. I constantly need reassurance. When I am asked questions and my answer is followed by silence, I begin to tremble uncontrollably.

I never really understood why the silence had this effect on me until I listened to P!nk's hit single, "Sober", in which she states "I don't want to be the girl who has to feel the silence. The quiet scares me cause it screams the truth." That is when my fear became crystal clear. I am not scared of the silence, merely of what it represents.

Silence, that moment when the world around me has quieted and my conscious takes over. In the darkness when all is silent, I have to come to terms with my true feelings. Unpleasant memories, regrets, anxiety, missed opportunities, and knowing that I am not where I want to be. They attack me in waves, the first being a dull prodding and the final ending in tears. In the silent moments, I have no escape from what is real.

Silence, that moment I remember after my family had been blown apart and watching my dad sink to the lone mattress on the carpeted floor of his bedroom, overwhelmed in tears. In that silence, I felt helpless. Nothing I could do could take his pain away, so I just stood there in the doorway with tears in my eyes and focused on the low humming of the washing machine washing what little clothes we had gotten out of our previous living arrangement.

Silence, that moment my nightmares are made of. When tragedy and fear are all around me and my voice is robbed from me, so I have to suffer in silence and allow things to happen to the ones I love, I suffer anxiety attacks where I can't breathe and start sobbing uncontrollably.

To embrace silence is to relinquish control of your surroundings.

Maybe it's the relinquishing of control that plagues me and the silence is merely a scapegoat. It's something tangible. Scapegoat or not, the silence is deadly. I am trying to overcome this, but it is much easier said than done or written about. Maybe I will never overcome this fear and maybe I will always be affected by it. But maybe one day I will be able to embrace even one second of absolute silence. Maybe one day I will be able to go to sleep without having the faint melody of the music on my iPhone in the background. Until then, I am a sedatephobic.