Isobel’s never had much of a sense of fear.
She’s sat in my arms while her dad and I screamed at each other and pointedly looked at him and told him to stop yelling, as if she was all it took to end it. She’s watched Iron Man, the Hulk, The Secret of NIMH and House without batting an eyelash. We’ve walked around at night time, in the dark; she’s slept in pitch-black bedrooms for all of her three years. She’s talked to strangers that merely looked in her direction.
Fearless. This was something that kind of worried me, that I could see becoming a problem. Especially where the talking to strangers habit was concerned.
A month ago, a wood bug was running around on the grass by her foot and she freaked out. She’s been around bugs all of her life – has been fascinated by them – but for some reason, this one bug flipped a switch.
Now, Isobel’s terrified. All. The. Time.
It started before I left for BlogHer, so I’m not sure what, if anything, can be blamed on my four-day absence. It started with that one bug, got compounded by little ants crawling in the spaces of the sidewalks we were walking on, and has now come to a head with any sound that she might hear, that she can’t immediately identify the source as being within her self-created (completely undefined to me) comfort zone.
A neighbour walks above us in his apartment and she’s losing her shit, “Mama, I don’t like the sound. I hear something. Mama, I need you! Help me!”
An ant a week ago was reason for her to climb me, as if I was some common tree, to be as high and far away from it as possible. Now, she’s not even willing to walk because her feet touching the ground is cause for terror.
It’s an annoyance, because when she’s terrified, she lets off these high-frequency screams that make me want to stab my ear drums with Qtips. Plus, there’s the climbing factor. It’s disconcerting because I don’t understand how this switch that was non-existent a month ago is now irreversible. It’s confusing because I don’t know whether to tell her not to be scared – because I don’t agree with telling her how to feel/not feel – or to try to use logic to explain why she shouldn’t be scared – so far, all logic has failed.
Her personality, except for the vanity and overwhelming tendency toward dramatics, has completely changed. She won’t talk to people – strangers, neighbours, sometimes friends, and recently, me. She’s always been a talker, never really shuts up, and now, she’d guarding herself, looking at the floor, losing her inherent confidence.
I don’t know what happened, and I’m scared. Because she was perfect as she was, and I see her being afraid to be herself. Or worse, already forgetting who she is, long before peers, disappointments in life, or just common societal bullshit has given her reason to.
I want my fearless, larger-than-life girl back. Send this terrified, meek mouse away. 
