Fear!

I have known fear, for most of my life I was afraid to come out because I thought everyone would hate me.

How Fear Makes You Sick
Wake Up World
By Lissa Rankin MD
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Fear Is Everywhere

It surrounds us. Many of us are completely ruled by it, moment by moment, day after day. We’re panicked rats, racing around in a maze while being chased by dragons. Life is scary.

But did you know that, even more so than smoking or boozing it up or eating fried food or being a couch potato, fear is bad for your health?
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Your lizard brain is a computer that can’t tell the difference between a cave bear chasing you and less life-threatening fears. When your brain registers the emotion of fear – whether it’s fear of being rejected by the one you love, fear of quitting your job, or fear of losing money – it trips a switch that triggers the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal (HPA) axis, activating the hypothalamus and releasing corticotrophin-releasing factor (CRF) into the nervous system. CRF stimulates the pituitary gland, causing it to secrete prolactin, growth hormone, and adrenocorticotropic hormone (ACTH), which stimulate the adrenal gland and cause it to release cortisol, which is responsible for helping the body maintain homeostasis when the brain experiences fear and assumes that a threat – like the cave bear – is a clear and present danger.

When you’re scared, your lizard brain also turns on the sympathetic nervous system (the “fight-or-flight” response), causing the adrenal glands to release epinephrine and norepinephrine, which increase pulse, blood pressure, and affect other physiological responses. The secretion of these hormones leads to a variety of metabolic changes all over the body.
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When your body is in the stress response, it can’t repair itself. Bodily functions break down every day, but they can only repair themselves when the body is in a state of physiological relaxation. When the stress response is repetitively triggered, organs get damaged and the body can’t fix them. The cancer cells we naturally make, which usually get blasted away by the immune system, are allowed to proliferate. The effects of chronic wear-and-tear on the human body take their toll, and we wind up sick.

I believe that my heart condition was caused by my fears and by living two lives, my male life at work and with friends and my life as Diana. I used to have two or three panic attacks a year and they stopped once I transitioned. I joke that my last panic attack was when I was getting ready to graduate from grad school, writing my Capstone paper and studying for exams.