I heard it somewhere recently and have thought about it for some time, and now that I am sure that it is true I want to write it.
Emotions from the past seem so scary, because we were just children when we were first encountered them!
I am writing here in context of child abuse, also emotional sneaky abuse which does not look as such at the first sight. Also the unintentional abuse, which is probably the majority. I am writing about the negative emotions like fear, anger, guilt and shame that we had to deal with as abused children.
Those feel so scary because we were just kids. We were not able to deal with them at that age. It is like being left alone in a dark room in a new place. Back then it was terrifying, but now we are adults, and sleeping in the dark in a hotel room is a normal thing to do. Those emotions would be a piece of cake for us now, if we only stopped escaping them. We escape them because we remember how scary they were. They are not anymore.
It is indeed always surprising when I let some of the old shit come up to the surface, and before the killer shot that I have been waiting for I realise that it's over. That that was it. I feel silly then. Yes it is silly what we are doing. We are pouring alcohol into ourselves, smoking packs of cigarettes, watching cat videos, doing anything just to escape something that we remember that is scary.
Not the emotion is the scary thing but the memory of fearing it.