Fear of confrontation is such a huge thing for me and it’s terrible - I’m ashamed of it. It’s especially bad at my workplace, which is public-facing. While I haven’t been physically attacked like some of my colleagues (one case was especially severe,) so many folks around here go aggro with little to no provocation and it sets off alarms in my head all the time.
The roots of my anxieties are definitely in childhood, with one parent being conflict-avoidant and the other being a narcissist with a temper. (My bro also turned out conflict-avoidant.) I distinctly remember having trouble expressing anger at a young age and I would write notes or bottle things instead of telling my parents that I’m angry. I feel like my anger was and still is, to some extent, trivialized or passed off as overreacting, ‘being moody’ or unreasonable; I have to censor my speech in order not to trigger a defensive reaction, but I also think I’m unequipped with the skillage or the strength to communicate clearly and effectively too, especially once emotions kick in. Recently, I expressed my anger to a parent through writing very civilly only to be told that my generation is oversensitive. I’m tired of letting things go and folks not apologizing, but that’s another thing.
This weakness is destroying me and I’ve absolutely tried womb-healing, childhood-healing, fearlessness audios/mandalas, Sapien’s Lion Courage tag, throat chakra healing, stoicism, repeater, subconscious connector, reality shifter, resistance dissolver, etc etc for a long time. I’m pretty desperate for suggestions here.
I read up on the Memrec method today, which revolves around exposing a person to their fear, and in that moment of peak fear, taking a pill ( Propranolol?) which affects the brain in such a way that the memory is rewritten but without the fear attached, as I understand it. The clinic treating people this way is in Amsterdam, though. Fffffuuuu—dge. There needs to be a field or frequency with all the benefits of propranolol and none of the possible physical side-effects. I’m ready to kick ass, to embrace conflict with calm, articulacy, and grace, and stand up for myself without my nerves going into overdrive. I totally believe that something out there must work on the most stubborn of brains - I just haven’t found it yet.
…any idea what more I can do?