Holidays, family, and emotions....

BIRDS. The mere mention of them triggers my anxiety. The presence of them activates my anxiety and fear and any interaction with them sends me to a place I fondly call crazyland. I have learned to deal with the matter as well as I can through a strategy called elimination. That's not the technical name, but it is what I know is the process. I allow myself now to look at birds, to love them for their beauty, and to even fondly talk to a seagull perching on a rail of the deck on which I sit at the beach....Of course my short-lived calm will be dispelled into frantic shouts of NOOOOOOOO and EWWWWW.....if that bird dare get within a foot of me, but most won't and so I am in control.

To make a long story short, I was contacted via  teacher internet service to create a high school unit on the short story by Daphne du Maurier "The Birds." How very ironic, verda? So I am head into the unit for these kiddos and trying to make it all fun and all....and I continue to work out my emotional problems with these creatures.

How does one develop such a phobia? Some event has to precede the phobia. What was mine? I'm not sure other than at age 5 I was not afraid of birds. Our landlord had taken me to his chicken coup and I was picking up the chickens, hugging them, etc., until he told me to never come in to the coop alone. He proceeded to tell me stories of how the rooster could even hurt me, etc. Was it this solo event that precipitated my fears? Maybe not....another memory I have of when I was about four - my next door neighbor (presumably a neighbor) was wringing the necks of chickens who proceeded to hop about with their heads off. What a gory scene! And the neighbor hastened to caution her son and me that if we did anything bad EVER that would happen to us. Not sure I ever told my mom that one.....So, who knows what happened? But the fear is real and alive.

Some family members are irritated by how I react to this fear. They see it as unreasonable and, pretty bluntly, tell me, "Stop trying to get attention. It is NOT cute." I am incredulous at their seemingly callousness to how I react, as I don't want to react violently, shrieking for all the world to hear me scream for fear of a pigeon or seagull possibly touching me. It seems irrational. But my psyche has embraced the fear factor and to eradicate it, I would have to have therapy for a long, long time. I don't have the money or time to do so and the bottom line is that this phobia does not keep me from living a productive and full and even joyous life. I must just deal with it the best I am able. To be fair, the process is known as desensitization and I have already begun that same process....

So writing and learning about birds is a good thing.  It is helpful, so as I continue to read the story and write activities, I am dealing with a subject that was formerly a torment. Now I view it as a project. Maybe one day I can touch a bird. No. I don't think so. No. Not. But I might not shriek as if I were being attacked by "The Birds." Now that I think I can do....