EPISODE SUMMARY:
"What's waiting on the other side is usually not a monster anyway. It's just another door to self-reliance."
Content Warning: This episode discusses an encounter with suicide/self-harm.
UK: Call 111 (NHS mental health services) or call the Samaritans at 116 123.
US & Canada: Call or text 988 to reach the Suicide & Crisis Lifeline.
International: Find confidential support in your country at findahelpline.com.
What did "fear" mean before it meant being scared? Centuries ago, the word described an ambush, a sudden strike in broad daylight. In this Halloween special, Wish traces fear from its ancient root to the feeling we know today. She shares the worst fear of her life, a real ambush in her own home, and the "never panic" lesson from her dad that carried her through it. She also talks about trusting your gut as a solo traveller and facing fear with curiosity and calculated risk. When your alarm bell rings, do you freeze up, or are you brave enough to step through the door?
Listen to the Episode
MAIN TOPICS:
00:00 — Content note and intro
01:54 – The epitome of fear
04:35 – The ambush
09:37 – Never panic
22:26 – Fear and solo travel
25:13 – Calculated courage
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Wish(00:00.258)
Before we begin today's episode on fear, please note that this conversation includes a brief, frank discussion of suicide and self-harm. Please listen with care or skip this one if it's not the right space for you right now. Support resources and helpline links are available in the episode description. Take care of yourselves and here is today's Epitome Anatomy.
I'm going to set aside my edible series just for a special because it's now Halloween releasing this episode. So confronting fear is a real-life underground experience. We've turned fear into silly costumes and seasonal jump scares, but centuries ago, the root of this word wasn't about monsters hiding in the dark.
It meant an ambush and an expected strike in broad daylight. I wanted to focus on that reflective feeling of being scared. Our brains tend to feel fear in many different forms. It doesn't need to be trauma. Most of it comes from our imagination, lived experience, or something as natural as human instinct.
Welcome to Human Thesaurus Presents Epitome Anatomy. My name is Wish, a retired tech operator, indie author, cat mom, and self-aware live explorer. Epitome Anatomy is an opinion piece on the power of words and their ethos that I extracted from this life.
Ready for the epitome of fear? Let's go. Our keyword is fear. According to VerywellMind.com, psychologists define fear as a protective primal emotion that triggers both biochemical and emotional responses. It alerts us to danger or the threat of harm.
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Which may be physical or psychological. While the biochemical changes fear causes are universal, the emotional responses vary greatly between individuals. Fear can also be a symptom of several mental health conditions, such as panic disorder, social anxiety disorder, phobias, and post-traumatic stress disorder or PTSD.
The word fear evolved from an ancient root meaning to try, risk, or go through. Over thousands of years, its meaning shifted from the external act of facing a dangerous trial to the internal emotion that we feel when encountering danger. So I'm gonna give you some linguistic timeline here of the root word of fear. So the first one is from Proto-Indo-European. It
Began with the root per P E R, which meant to go through, try or risk. And then there's the Proto-Germanic. As Germanic languages develop, this root transformed into fērō or fēran, shifting the meaning from taking a risk to the hazard itself. So when you return it into that, it now meant danger.
Ambush or calamity. And then there's old English after that. By the early Middle Ages, it became the noun fǣr. Crucially, it did not mean the feeling of being scared, it meant a sudden danger, ambush, or unexpected attack. And then it evolved again by Middle English, around the 12th century, the word transitioned into fere. During this era.
the meaning evolved from the external event, which means the ambush, to the internal psychological state of being afraid. So now we're using the Middle English meaning up to this point.
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Fear is a very interesting, a vast perspective of different assessment of how a person would emote. I do have a lot of thoughts about this fear and looking at the old English root fair, meaning as a literal ambush or an expected attack, I could look back.
into this moment of my life where it wasn't a spooky ghost story or a Halloween costume trick or treating fun, but a real, you know, I think it's a real nightmare wherein I felt that I can't believe it's happening to me. So I have a few of these moments, but I think the biggest one
Again, like we've spoken about trauma on my other episode before, but this one I think it's not a trauma to me, but it's one of the most significant portions of my life. And until now, it kind of determines how I look, see, observe people. Because this moment.
Okay, I'm just gonna tell you about it before we assess everything. So, this real ambush for me was in a nutshell. I have this former friend, ex-friend, who was close to me. I was in my mid-20s. I tend to take care of people. I've always been motherly, so I take care of people. I was in the expat community in Manila, and I I take care of foreigners who happen to be
you know, interning in the Philippines or just move to the Philippines from other countries. And I help them to network and connect to other people outside of their job. I'm I'm their kind of support system in Manila. They get referred to me and then I just introduce them to the whole bunch of friends and for them to have a more fulfilling stay in Manila. So one of these people is yes my my former friend. He was very, very
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positive, a very positive, happy person. So every time I run into trouble when I talk to him about it, when I dump all of these rants and sadness or whatever during that period, he's always positive about everything and he will just pull you up and make you feel better about the situations. And he's he doesn't really stay in town all the time. But whenever he's around, I would entertain him. I would
Take him out for dinner or coffee. So this particular night we had coffee and we went to my apartment, played with the cats, and watched some random YouTube videos. So yeah, this was the beginning of YouTube at that time. There's not a lot of slop, but there are lots of funny memes and things like that. Before we go out that night to party. So we were there and then
Suddenly he stood up, his face looked different, and then he suddenly turned as if he's not there. I I I can't explain it. It's just like a possessed person. And then he kept on chanting something in German, and then he told me to kill him. That I should kill him. Because he's he's an actor. I thought he was just kidding and he was just, you know, spooking me. I could see that I was like, you're joking. I realised that.
It doesn't look like him at all. As if I can't get through him. I have to turn him around because he was standing up. And then he started holding my arms and encouraging me to kill him. And I was like, what what is this? And then that's where all the horror as if I'm trapped in a horror film. We started chanting something in German. I lived on the seventh floor at this building. I'm on the seventh floor.
And then there's a mezzanine floor below me on the sixth floor. So when you look outside the window, when you look down, there's like a tiny area. It's a blank space in the building. It's not even accessible to public. So it's only accessible by a big window in a padlock. So I think it's like the expanded portion of the building. Anyway, when he was chanting, he started opening my window, chanting in German.
Wish(09:07.778)
That's where I realised that yes, something is wrong. He's not himself. And I started calling people on the phone. Our friends. For some reason, nobody's picking up their phones. This is not yet the smartphone era. This was a few months before smartphones were introduced. And yeah, he was opening the window. He he's pretty much chanting and saying that he wanted to like die. And I was like, please don't do it, please. And then I was pulling him away from the window.
There's like three layers of that window I remember. There's like a screen, there's a glass and another glass sliding window. I was trying to call people for help, and then now half of his body is outside of my window. At that time I was so petite. My waistline was 23, if all that matters, but I was only like 45, 46 kilos at that time. And he was at least double my size.
I was really trying to pull him back. He was kicking me in the breast in my arms. I had marks. I had bruises in my boobs and in my arms. And I was screaming for help. And there were my two cats. I had two Siamese cats at that time and they were so spooked that they went to the bathroom. I was screaming. And then he was kicking me. I I have no choice. Nobody's answering their phones. So I have to reach.
For the intercom, because in the Philippines, every single condominium buildings, they always have security 24-7. So I called downstairs in an intercom to ask for help. For some reason, when I called, nobody's answering. Nobody's answering downstairs as well. I really felt so trapped. I was trying to think of how to help him, how to let him snap off it.
And then when I turned around, because nobody's answering the intercom either, nobody's answering their mobile phones, when I turned around, he was not on my window anymore. I looked outside the window and I see him on the mezzanine floor. That blank space on the sixth floor. That means he jumped off one floor down. He was slump face down on the
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The floor. And that's when I locked my cats in my bathroom and I ran. And the elevator for some reason didn't want to work. I was barefoot. I ran down the emergency exit, seven floors down, and then went and saw the security guards. I think they they got coffee or something. That's why they weren't answering the phone. And I screamed.
Help me, he's in the mezzanine floor, my friend jumped. And then they rallied all the guards. I think there were four or five of them. And some of them were trying to access the mezzanine floor because again it has a padlock and it's only accessible through a window. I went back up my unit, another guard as well came with me.
And then I was telling him what's happening. I said, just all of a sudden this happened. We both look at the window. He's now about groaning and chanting again and stood up. Stood up and going towards the wall. So that mezzanine has a wall of let's say eight to ten feet high and he's walking towards it. That's when the s security was screaming downstairs with the other security guys and
Trying to open the window. The the security guard with me pulled me, sat me down on the floor, and he said, Stay there, don't look. I didn't know. I I I wanted to scream. I didn't know what to do, but I sat down, I just listened, and then I could hear everyone like quick, quick, and then he's gonna jump, he's gonna jump, and then crash. Crash.
I need a minute.
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You will never ever forget that sound.
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Sound of a crash and broken glass.
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And it started raining. And my phone started ringing.
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The first person who called me back, she was the ex-girlfriend of our friend who jumped. I told her what's happening and I asked her to come quick. And another call came. He's like my big brother in Manila and I asked him to come. But a friend of mine, thankfully she's nearby, she came and we went downstairs and then we went to where he jumped. He's alive.
Still chanting the Pajero broke his fall. He fell onto the its windshield before he came tumbling down to the ground. So that broke his fall. Ambulance came, it was drizzling. I remember it was there's like this light rain amongst all of us. I can't get close to him because the guard said the police will be here and
We just need to make sure that we protect you and him. Because they want to know what happened. And he was sent to the hospital. To make the story short, he survived with a lot of injuries. If I could remember correctly, his just a tiny portion of his liver was saved, and some of his internal organs were bruised, a few of his ribs were broken, his arms needed like years of therapy. But my concern was that
What happened there? My concern was what happened to his brain? What happens to his mind? Why did he turn like that? He looked possessed. He looks he looked like a different person all of a sudden. His parents live overseas, so they all have to come rushing. I think after forty eight hours of reports of doctors, of documentation, they have to take photos of my bruises, of
of my injuries of the house for investigation. The first accusation was I pushed him off the building. That was the first assumption. Thankfully a lot more witnesses from five security guards all knew what happened. They all saw what happened. I didn't even see what happened towards the end. They all immediately cleared me because his family started accusing me by that time. So
Wish(16:13.29)
After 48 hours or more, I was permitted to see him. I wanted to see him because I know there's something that broke on him psychologically. Something snapped and I knew it's not normal. So when he woke up, I was there and the only thing I told him was, please get yourself checked. Something happened to you. Something in your brain broke and something's not right. You need help.
I told him you need help and I need help because I can't sleep. By that time, I can't sleep. Every time I close my eyes, I felt like I'm going to fall. It's always been like that. I have to go to a psychiatrist, ask for help. I hate psychological medications, but I had to because I haven't been sleeping. And I had to go to therapy and I have to heal myself. And I told him that I'm trying to get out of it.
in one piece and I hope you do too. That's the only way that both of us would be able to get out of it healthily. It's an unforgivable thing to do to a friend or to anyone. So when it comes to suicide, I have so many things that I think about it, but number one for me is it's quite selfish. I know it's it's more layered than this, but in this situation for me it's quite selfish for my friend.
To do it to another friend. To do it to me. Like, why do I have to witness that? I didn't have to. Sorry, this is quite quite an emotional thing. I I'm actually surprised that I'm still emotional about it. So yeah. but you know what happened in the end of it? The conclusion was he made up a story of why he snapped to his family. They all denied it.
There must be something psychologically that happened there that he needs therapy. They denied him that and they blamed it on drugs and they sent him back to where they live in a different country. So I ended a friendship right there and then because what's the point? I don't want to hang out with him. I don't want that to happen ever again. So I cut it off. For years and years, he got better and better and he kept on bugging me. He told me to get over it because he's well. He's alive.
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So I need to get over it and he misses me and we should be friends. I know it's fucked up. I never said a word until he kept on doing this. He kept on messaging me. He pops in once in a while in my mess messaging services. I want him to stop. I asked our other friends to tell him to stop bothering me because there's no point. And he wouldn't stop. So in the end I told him to stop. Finally I said my peace. We're not friends.
Whatever happened, happened, and I'm glad it's well. But I wanted to stop. So this is my worst fear. I was trapped in a nightmare. When that shock hit me, you know the physical has nothing. It's just physical pain, right? They're very painful. But it's all the psychological repercussions that was harder to get over.
It was a real ambush to my entire system, to my entire humanity, to my entire self. But you know, after all of this, I will keep on coming back to what my dad taught me and my siblings about fear and panic. Ever since we were kids, we're taught never to panic in any situation. Because if we panic, our chances of survival will be lesser. Our chances to get
past any of the hard situation will be harder. If we panic and if we are driven by fear, we will become paralysed. Whenever there's this tiny, tiny situation, when we're kids, right? Everything is just elevated; all emotions is just we don't have a lot of perspective that a single thing that happens is just like so panicky. Every time we panic at this tiny thing, for example, someone spoke to you or
A cousin is silly enough or naughty enough to surprise you, you know, in a dark corner in the neighbourhood. Our dad would punish us because he said, I told you not to panic. That training was being used in a lot of situations so far in my life. I try not to panic. I would panic for a second, and my training kicks in when I need to have a clear mind.
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I may be shaking and whatever with adrenaline, but that split second, I would act accordingly, according to what is needed of me to survive. So in this case, with all of that what's happening, there's a certain form of surrealism in what's happening. I can't believe it was happening to me. I can't believe that this is happening in my house. And I can't believe that this is what it is. It's like a movie.
It's like a dream. It's like a nightmare. That is real fear for me. From there, I think I I became more hyper-aware since then. So, okay, that was quite long. I needed to share that because I think that for me embodies how I had the worst fear I've ever had in my life. It may be nothing to to some, but
Fear is relative to each other's experiences and we cannot cancel each other's experiences and each other's tolerances in terms of fear and other emotions. I don't have a right to say that my story is better than yours, so on and so forth. It it doesn't work like that. We all have different fears, we all have different nightmares that must have happened to each and every one of us. We cannot subtract.
That these are the experiences. And the most important thing is how we get through life after we experience those fear or nightmare. Okay. Let's breathe. Let's make light of this now. So another part of the fear as a woman and as a solo traveller, I travel a lot on my own. I love dating myself, I love my solo time, I go to different cities.
in different countries on my own. I navigate unfamiliar corners of different cities. I always have things in mind that I need to consider before I go to certain places. Number one for me is safety. Because yes, I I'm I'm scared. I'm scared of going to a new place each time. But we're lucky in this time and age that we have all most of the information online
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That we're able to research and discern whether where we're going is safe or not. Because number one for me to walk in a city alone is that I will be safe. At night, after dinner, with one or two glasses of wine, that I know that I will be safe to get back to the hotel. There's always this anxious imagination and there's this deep primal gut instinct that.
Would tell you in a city, even though you're well-researched, that you have to trust that gut. Like for me, it's like something is off here. I should go. I always trust that. Everywhere I go, no matter how safe the city is, if I feel that something is off, then I go. I leave. I make myself safe. You cannot eliminate that feeling, especially being a woman, and you always have to trust your gut.
What a woman has to go through every single time we get out of the house. It's really a big issue. It's not a feminism thing. It's always the instinct. It always needs to be trusted. We're not 100% safe out there, and it's always just this primal gut instinct that we have to follow all the time. This moment where this subtle instinct keeps us out of harm's way, sometimes you you can't even logically justify it.
But just do. Don't doubt that there are variables when it comes to this kind of fear. In general, when it comes to fear, I get scared a lot, but I never let it deter me from doing things. When there's this fear of feeling in danger in public as a woman, then that's a different thing altogether. In general, for example, there's always the other side of the unknown.
And that's always scary. It's either a change or it's either a move or it's just jumping off with a bungee cord, you know, for fun or skydiving, or there are lots of different fears, and I always suss them out in a way that I have this calculated risk. My mindset is curiosity. I'm always curious. So even if I'm scared of doing something,
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I will do them because I wanted to know the other side. I wanted to know what's what's there on the other side of that fear. So I do it anyway. A lot of things stop us from doing it because we're scared of failures. We're scared of physical injury. We're scared of something illogical. But I always just have this calculated risk, whether I'm gonna do them or not. I think one of my bragging rights is that I am brave.
I am really, really brave with a lot of things. There are some things that I know that I'm afraid of and that I will never ever do. And it may be irrational, but I could justify that it would not stop me from living life. In the grand scheme of things, I always face my fear because I want the optimal experience of my life. I don't wanna be on my deathbed or at the last few seconds of my life and
Say, shit, why didn't I do that? So I don't want those any regrets. So I will always be curious. I will always calculate the risks involved, and I will keep on going past through my fears. Because that wall of dread is mostly irrational, or we jump into conclusions. What's waiting on the other side is usually not a monster anyway. It's just another door to self-reliance. And that's how I lived my entire life.
Regardless of the circumstance, I know I am a survivor, I know I'm resilient, and I know that I would learn from them. So, as you walk through your own shadowy corners this Halloween season, ask yourself when you feel that alarm bell ring, are you freezing up or are you brave enough to step through the door and see what's waiting on the other side?
What's the most shocking moment that tested your instincts and how did you conquer it? Please leave a comment or send me a text or voice note through the link right at the top of the description. I'd love to hear your story. If you enjoyed this episode, hit like, subscribe, and share this with someone who needs a little bravery today.
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You can also find the full transcript and show notes at humanthesaurus.co. Until next time, trust your gut and happy Halloween. Or in Middle English, I greet you a blisful al-halwen eve! Until next time, ciao!
Epitome Anatomy is produced by me and Jeremiah Ronquillo, Music by Ketsa UK and Pixabay. All rights reserved by Woshblase Media. Thank you and see you in the next episode.
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