To be anxious, to worry, to fear something, someone, or anything - Most people don't like to think of themselves as being so vulnerable. Franklin D. Roosevelt famously said in his first inaugural address in 1933, “The only thing we have to fear is fear itself-nameless, unreasoning, unjustified, terror which paralyzes needed efforts to convert retreat into advance.”

Fear can be found in anything, and it can come in any shape, form, or size - Everyone has his or her fears to some extent. Some might be common such as fear of spiders, heights, or clowns, and others might not be ordinary. Whatever one's kryptonite might be, deep-rooted fear normally stems from life experiences. How severe one's vulnerabilities are is what drives and shapes people into who they are and who they will ultimately become. Things that occur early in one’s life have the potential to affect them in lasting and powerful ways years later.

“One should not underestimate the impact of psychological trauma on the child and, by extension, on adults. It can cause incredible suffering, ruin lives, and destroy families,” says Dr. Steven E. Zemmelman, a San Francisco based psychologist who works with adults and children having problems related to separation, anxiety, and child custody issues. “There is a growing appreciation in the field of clinical practice in psychiatry, psychology and social work that concerns the impact of early trauma on the development and functioning of individuals across the life span,” Zemmelman says.

According to Margaret Lynch, a psychology professor at SF State, fear relates to something called the “learning theory.” According to the theory, people learn fears just like they learn anything else. Some are predisposed because of our instincts like fear of heights, bugs, and closed space, all things that we presume are dangerous to our health and safety. “(Fear) could be an adaptive process,” Lynch says.

With electric blue eyes staring somewhere inside herself, SF State film major Jennifer Bacich explains why she suffered from Emetophobia - fear of throwing up - until high school. Remembering back when she was eight or nine, the twenty-three-year-old recalls how she ate something one day and started to feel nauseated, causing her to fear she would vomit sometime during the night. Even though it never happened, the paralyzing fear of retching stayed with her much longer than she thought. As Zemmelman explains, a traumatizing childhood experience stuck with Bacich for years.

“I would frequently stay up all night; scared I would get sick…any odd feelings in my stomach triggered me to a panic state. It led to insomnia at an early age,” Bacich says. Eventually she had to train herself to eat a little at each meal because she was too anxious to be hungry. She convinced herself to only drink a few sips of water. “I think it was mostly a psychological trick I managed to play on myself because I never actually got sick,” she says. “But I swear my stomach literally felt acidic and gross on a daily basis for a little less than a year. It's amazing to me because it would seem this fear caused authentic nausea.”

Zemmelman also believes that when we are afraid we tend to react in ways that are based in old patterns of behavior that are more on the unconscious level. Sometimes these fears can have positive results and lead to awakenings about what is important in life.

“I always feared being broke, unsuccessful,” says Soomi Kang, twenty-two, a student at Lincoln University in Pennsylvania majoring in diagnostic medical imaging. Kang says her fear of not being financially successful affected her mentally because she has never taken a break from working since she graduated from high school. She believed that if she stopped even for a second, she would have nothing.

Kang says whenever she used to picture herself being broke, she would envision herself in a dilapidated house, not having enough money to pay rent, buy groceries, or pay her bills. In refection though, she believes that her fear of not having enough money shaped her into the fiercely independent, ambitious, and hard working person she is today. “If I didn’t have the fear (of being broke), I would just not work and ask my parents for money because it would be easier,” Kang says.

According to Zemmelman, “It is this tension between conscious and unconscious, known and unknown, that can provide the conditions for…“individuation,” the process of finding and living one’s own true, unique life.”