There are some who have a phobia of heights, others are afraid of closed
spaces, open spaces, spiders, snakes, or whatever. My phobia is of women.
I know this sounds silly but it is true.

Psychiatrists say the only way to cure phobias is by actually exposing
oneself to the feared thing. So last night I came up with a plan. I would
head to a nightspot, and, sufficiently fortified with liquor, attempt to
start a conversation with one, just one, girl. I wouldn't ask for a phone
number or anything, just try to open my big mouth and mutter the word
"hello". Baby steps. Sounds easy, no?

No!

As the evening went on the fear and worry mounted. I tried to tell myself
that this was irrational, but nothing doing. It was terror, mounting
terror, the kind that makes me weep, make me scream, makes me run away,
anything to escape the sense of mindless panic creeping over me.

I saw a girl standing by herself sipping a drink. Cautiously I tiptoed
forward and stood beside her. But inside I already knew I couldn't do it.
My heart was racing, fear was enveloping me like a black cancer of death, I
could not have been more terrified if she had been holding a gun to me.

I put my drink down and dashed out of the club, starting to cry even before
leaving the building. On the sidewalk and in the subway I was sobbing
desperately, filled with shame and despair and panic and horror.

I came back to my apartment, a comfortable enough place--into which no
female has ever set foot. I flopped into bed and cried myself to sleep.

I was alone, as I always am, deathly alone, hideously alone, craving
intimacy with the desperation of the insane but imprisoned by manic phobia
and senseless fear from making even the tiniest steps towards starting
human contact.

The nightmares hit me again this morning. Bad ones. I woke up, and could
have sworn I heard a voice at my door and the lock turning. I heard
ghostly footsteps. It was the familiar footstep of my father. I felt the
bed creak under his weight as he sat down on the other side across from me.

I rolled over to face him - and he wasn't there, of course, it was a
dream. Or a hallucination. I don't know which. It didn't matter, all I
could think of was fear, raw, mindless terror. I screamed. I screamed
again. I buried my face in the pillow, trying to hide from what I knew
perfectly well were purely imaginary monsters.

Even as I write there is a vicious knot of raw fear in the pit of my
stomach. I no longer even know what it is I am afraid of. It is just
there, a malignant monster fey and drunk at the destruction of its helpless
victim.

S-youth, Sept. 28, 1997.