Creepy things

When I came to Canada I brought with me only the clothes I was wearing and lice. I wish I had brought something of my mother. A picture perhaps or piece of her worn out old sari. The memory of her face has all but faded and what is left is a warm feeling and still this yearning to put my arms around her neck.

But I did inherit something from her which lives on in me and to some extent in my sister. It is a fear of an insect which I cannot name here. So I will refer to it here as X. Those of you who know me, know well that I shudder at the mere sight of the word written on a page.

It is a fear that most people dismiss as silly or foolish. Oh come on they say Xs are harmless. And yet these very people run for the hills at the first sight of a tiny spider or the mere mention of snakes.
In Bangladesh, Xs can be poisonous and large and even uglier than the Xs seen here in North America.

When I was just Deaglan's age, I remember my very first sighting. I know what you are thinking Impossible! You were too young to have such a recollection. But I do remember. My mother was getting frustrated with me because I refused to eat (oh the apple doesn't fall far does it?). She told me that if I didn't eat, an X would crawl on me. She must have seen it coming because that is exactly what happened.

Fast forward a few years and we were visiting my mother's family one village over. She joined her brothers in the pond nearby for a cool swim. Moments later, she ran out of the water, screaming a scream that will stay with me forever. She was covered with leeches. Her brothers had to hold her down and use a small stick to break the leeches' suckers away from the skin carefully.

These two memories are my only explanation for why I am phobically afraid of X. I wish I wasn't. I love the outdoors but there are places I won't go, things I won't do. Recently I saw one while out with Deaglan. I didn't react. My body however did. Immediately I began to shiver and sweat. My stomach lurched and my skin broke out into goosebumps. I began brushing away imaginary Xs crawling all over my body.

I redirected Deaglan's attention. I don't want to pass this fear onto him, just as I don't want to pass on my grudges, my issues, my anxieties, or my bad habits. Wouldn't it be nice to be able to stop the cycle? To give him a clean slate?

This fear has sewn itself into the fabric of my life so that when I have an upcoming stressful situation, I dream about Xs. When I am afraid, my mind flashes images of Xs. When we were still in the orphanage, the other kids having discovered this fear of ours would chase us around the grounds holding Xs they had found for just this occassion.

I have great empathy for people suffering from crippling disorders such as OCD or agoraphobia. On some levels my anxiety as a reaction to seeing Xs is crippling. People often don't understand. They roll their eyes and cluck their tongues. Imagine! A grown woman taking cover because of a harmless little insect!

I guess we all have our inheritances!