Overwhelming Fear Quotes & Sayings

Normal memory gradually fades into the past. Traumatic and repressed memories have a tendency to linger around. They are splintered into fragments during overwhelming events experienced as a child. Images, sensations, emotions, and beliefs are torn apart. These disconnected pieces can later erupt into consciousness as separate "memories." These fragments may surface in the form of explicit memories, which are frighteningly vivid snapshot or video-like images of traumatic experiences; or they may surface as implicit memories, which include physical sensations, emotions, or beliefs that were part of the original traumatic experiences. When implicit fragments emerge into the present without an accompanying visually explicit memory, it is very hard to discern that these feelings of anxiety, fear, shame, rage, numbness, and loneliness are related to prior trauma. — Connie A. Lofgreen

I assigned myself the role of Lot's wife, because her behavior seemed the most human, the most sinful, and therefore closest to mine. Consumed by curiosity, I was drawn to the magnificent, horrible sight of fire and disaster as houses collapsed and towers folded like dominoes amidst human wailing that rose to the sky. My curiosity, brought to an explosive point by the divine warning, was suddenly transformed into my sole trait, overwhelming reason and the feeling of fear, turning me into a weakling of a woman, unable to resist my inquisitiveness, and I would turn around abruptly with my whole body as if rotated by the centrifugal force of my curiosity, which had passed through me like a sword. — Danilo Kis

It's scary for me to act. It's terrifying. But I must be addicted to the adrenaline rush of the fear. It's like bungee jumping, I suppose. But after I accomplish it, I get this great sense of satisfaction and an overwhelming feeling of well being. — Virginia Hey

Fear of this order is not an emotion. It is like a virus overwhelming every cell of his body, while his mind struggles to remain clear. — Helen Dunmore

There's a kind of theology at work here. The bombs are a kind of god. As his power grows, our fear naturally increases. I get as apprehensive as anyone else, maybe more so. We have too many bombs. They have too many bombs. There's a kind of theology of fear that comes out of this. We begin to capitulate to the overwhelming presence. It's so powerful. It dwarfs us so much. We say let the god have his way. He's so much more powerful than we are. Let it happen, whatever he ordains. It used to be that the gods punished men by using the forces of nature against them or by arousing them to take up their weapons and destroy each other. Now god is the force of nature itself, the fusion of tritium and deuterium. Now he's the weapon. So maybe this time we went too far in creating a being of omnipotent power. All this hardware. Fantastic stockpiles of hardware. The big danger is that we'll surrender to the sense of inevitability and start flinging mud all over the planet. — Don DeLillo

I went from a morning of fear and panic to mind-boggling confusion, to an overwhelming sense of guilt, to stuffing a pair of socks down my pants. — Ashley Newell

Anything that's human is mentionable, and anything that is mentionable can be more manageable. When we can talk about our feelings, they become less overwhelming, less upsetting, and less scary. The people we trust with that important talk can help us know that we are not alone. — Fred Rogers

An intuitive grasp of your character is formed by exploring scenes of profound emotional import-moments of overwhelming shame, joy, fear, pride, regret, forgiveness. — David Corbett

Severe depression, put simply, is an overwhelming and unmanageable onslaught of every normal, human fear and difficult emotion. It is a loss of and lack of perspective and proportion. — Sally Brampton

And I understand now, maybe not completely, but more, that in times of overwhelming joy, immobile sadness, hysterical laughter, absolute fear, and sometimes just perfect quiet there is Life. Real Life. And it really is that simple. I take my gift now. I go live. — Dito Montiel

Life, from beginning to end, is fear. Yes, it is pain, yes, it is desire, but more than anything it is fear; a certain amount rational, an enormous amount irrational. All political cruelties stem from that overwhelming fear. To push back the threatening forces, to offer primitive sacrifices, to give up some in the hope that others will be savedthat is the power struggle. That is the outsidedness of the poor, the feeble, the infantile. That is the outsidedness of Jews. That is the outsidedness of blacks. That is the outsidedness of women. — Vivian Gornick

He stared at Ryan and felt that overwhelming feeling he sometimes got when he looked at his boys - part pure joy, part fear of what could happen to them in this cruel world, part wishes and hopes, all blended together in the only thing in this entire planet that felt completely pure. — Harlan Coben

Horse Frightened by a Lion depicts a majestic stallion in a very different situation. Stubbs painted this magnetic masterpiece to illustrate the nature of the sublime, which was one of his era's most popular philosophical concepts,and its relation to a timelessly riveting feeling: fear. The magnificent horse galloping through a vast wilderness encounters the bottom-up stimulus of a crouching predator and responds with a dramatic display of what psychologists mildly call "negative emotion." The equine superstar's arched neck, dilated eyes, and flared nostrils are in fact the very picture of overwhelming dread. The painting's subject matter reflects he philosopher Edmund Burke's widely circulated Philosophical Enquiry into the Origins of Our Ideas of the Sublime and Beautiful, which asserts that because "terror" is unparalleled in commanding "astonishment," or total, single-pointed,
indeed, rapt
attention, it is "the ruling principle of the sublime. — Winifred Gallagher

At the apex of Prince's career, I listened almost exclusively to metal. My sister actually purchased 'Purple Rain' on cassette, which I write about in my anthology ["Chuck Klosterman IV: A Decade of Curious People and Dangerous Ideas"]. And I felt ashamed that I liked Prince so much. A typical rock fan would be embarrassed that they liked Warrant or Ratt at the time, but I had the exact opposite experience. And I had this overwhelming fear that Prince was actually a better guitar player than any of the metal gods. — Chuck Klosterman

Procrastination is a common reaction to feeling overwhelmed or fear of failure. Instead of taking on too much at once and overwhelming yourself, break things down and take one small action step at a time. — Lauren Mackler

Ah, this is your cousin, is it, Harry?" said Mr. Weasley, taking another brave stab at making conversation. "Yep," said Harry, "that's Dudley." He and Ron exchanged glances and then quickly looked away from each other; the temptation to burst out laughing was almost overwhelming. Dudley was still clutching his bottom as though afraid it might fall off. Mr. Weasley, however, seemed genuinely concerned at Dudley's peculiar behavior. Indeed, from the tone of his voice when he next spoke, Harry was quite sure that Mr. Weasley thought Dudley was quite as mad as the Dursleys thought he was, except that Mr. Weasley felt sympathy rather than fear. — J.K. Rowling

An overwhelming, possessive instinct flashed through him. With dread, he realized he wanted to mark her. Mark her as his. He wanted that special scent all over her so no other male would come near her. So that they would know whom she belonged to. So that they would fear the repercussions of wanting to possess her for themselves. Except — J.R. Ward

Tony's concern disintegrated. He could not understand C.J.'s determination to court death on a daily basis. Or maybe he did understand, and this was what caused his frustration. So many found the same solution his brother had. Selling death to their own people. The money was a difficult lure to resist. Additionally, the fear elicited from their hard core posturing proved nearly as addictive. They demanded to be heard, even though it didn't seem they had much to say. Perhaps the futility and smallness that characterized their lives was too overwhelming to articulate in any manner other than a primitive, incoherent scream. Maybe it was inevitable that those who felt they had no stake in society would opt to destroy it. — Roy L. Pickering Jr.

Our ancient sources of wisdom call on human beings to rise to their highest capacity and behave in extraordinarily open and generous ways to one another, under difficult circumstances to transcend differences and create understanding across all barriers of convention and fear. This wisdom is fragile as our environment is fragile, threatened by an overwhelming material culture. I believe in a spiritual ecology. In today's world, Judaism and Tibetan Buddhism and other wisdom traditions are endangered species. — Rodger Kamenetz

This overwhelming desire to be close to you directly conflicts with my intense fear of people. — Joseph Gordon-Levitt

More than anything I am afraid of fear itself overwhelming me. One must use any bit of folly to control it. — Gabriel Chevallier

The reactor had gone on Aten Base, his partner and supervisor had both panicked, and Havelock remembered the overwhelming fear in his own gut. When the riots had started on Ceres after the ice hauler Canterbury had been destroyed, his partner had been more weary than fearful, and Havelock had faced the situation with the same grim resignation. When the Ebisu had been quarantined for nipahvirus, his boss had been energized - almost elated - running the ship like a puzzle that had to be solved, and Havelock had been caught up in the pleasure of doing an important thing well. — James S.A. Corey

He'd never encountered beauty of such magnitude and intensity. It was not allure, but grace, like the sight of land to a shipwrecked man. And he, who hadn't been on a capsized vessel since he was six - and that had only been an overturned canoe - suddenly felt as if he'd been adrift in the open ocean his entire life.
Someone spoke to him. He couldn't make out a single word.
There was something elemental to her beauty, like a mile-high thunderhead, a gathering avalanche, or a Bengal tiger prowling the darkness of the jungle. A phenomenon of inherent danger and overwhelming perfection.
He felt a sharp, sweet ache in his chest: His life would never again be complete without her. But he felt no fear, only excitement, wonder, and desire.
Christian's thoughts upon seeing Venetia for the first time (Beguiling the Beauty, Fitzhugh Trilogy 1, by Sherry Thomas) — Sherry Thomas

It is easy to be swept away by some overwhelming feeling, so it's helpful to remember that any stressful feeling is like a compassionate alarm clock that says, "You're caught in the dream." Depression, pain, and fear are gifts that say, "Sweetheart, take a look at your thinking right now. You're living in a story that isn't true for you. — Byron Katie

It was odd
unsettling, actually
how love magnified everything. Small joy was turned into overwhelming happiness; worry became heart-stopping fear. It was as if love became a magnifying glass turned on the heart, taking whatever was there and making it appear many times its normal size. — Michael Thomas Ford

Freedom from fear's consuming control over us hinges upon our honestly dealing with what our overwhelming fears are specifically about and then coming to terms with those tedious, often emotionally driven details. — Connie Kerbs

When I stand on the edge of a cliff or right at the edge of a building or something, it's one of the few things that gives me kind of a deep, overwhelming, irrational fear where it affects my physiology. — Chris Hadfield

A lot of people fear death because they think that so overwhelming an experience has to be painful, but I've seen quite a few deaths, and, with one exception, I've never known anyone to undergo anything like agony. That's amazing when you think about it. I mean, how complicated the mechanism is that's being taken apart. — Lewis Thomas

My theory is that humans aren't really bad; we all do bad things, but being bad is not our natural state. You're acting out of fear, lack of understanding, compassion, but essentially communication. Human beings are made of love, an overwhelming desire to love. When we communicate, we exist in our natural state. — Seal

Say anything you want against The Seventh Seal. My fear of death - this infantile fixation of mine - was, at that moment, overwhelming. I felt myself in contact with death day and night, and my fear was tremendous. When I finished the picture, my fear went away. I have the feeling simply of having painted a canvas in an enormous hurry - with enormous pretension but without any arrogance. I said, 'Here is a painting; take it, please. — Ingmar Bergman

While some select sobering situations may be unlaughable, there are few circumstances that humor, subtle or candid, can't improve. Afterall, remembering not to take ourselves or others too seriously can put a lot of things into perspective. Laughter is healing. Laughter creates bonds and forges enduring friendships. A healthy sense of humor can quell almost any overwhelming anxiety, and can quench the fires of fury and fear unlike anything else when appropriate. Even more so when not.
Connie Kerbs — Connie Kerbs

Surrounding the two of them was the love they shared but also an overwhelming feeling of fear
fear of a future filled with the emptiness which would consume them if they remained apart. A fear of a future of being separated forever, and it gripped both of their hearts, demanding preventative action. — Madison Thorne Grey

The elementary self system in the brain stem and limbic system is massively activated when people are faced with the threat of annihilation, which results in an overwhelming sense of fear and terror accompanied by intense physiological arousal. To people who are reliving a trauma, nothing makes sense; they are trapped in a life-or-death situation, a state of paralyzing fear or blind rage. Mind and body are constantly aroused, as if they are in imminent danger. — Bessel A. Van Der Kolk

It's terrible to have to fear that your powers will activate at any given moment. Especially when you draw close to people ... and find that your only choice is to pull away. It's overwhelming when you find a time, a person, with which there's nothing to fear. — Zechariah Barrett

I wanted so badly to believe, but the fear felt as great and overwhelming as the desire. — Rachel Cohn

It's not respect but fear that motivates a man; that's how empires are built and revolutions begin. It is the secret of great men. When a man is afraid you will crush him, utterly destroy him, his respect will always follow. Base fear is intoxicating, overwhelming, liberating. Always stronger than respect. Always. — Michael Dobbs

I've done plenty of daredeviling - from white-water rafting to bungee jumping. But I think the most fearless was hosting the Emmy Awards. It was overwhelming, and I definitely had to leave fear at the door. — Neil Patrick Harris

What is much harder to handle is the sense that you have to live up to the mark someone else has set for you. The grades become too important, the competition too frantic, the fear of disappointing those who believe in you turns into an overwhelming nightmare. And it is desperately unfair to the boy. He cannot live his parents' life over again for them. He cannot make up for their own lacks, their own unfulfillments. He cannot carry their torch
only his own. — Sydney J. Harris

Augustine's feeling of fragmentation has its modern corollary in the way many contemporary young people are plague by a frantic fear of missing out. The world has provided them with a superabundance of neat things to do. Naturally, they hunger to size every opportunity and taste every experience. They want to grab all the goodies in front of them. They want to say yes to every product in the grocery store. They are terrified of missing out on anything that looks exciting. But by not renouncing any of them they spread themselves thin. What's worse, they turn themselves into goodie seekers, greedy for every experience and exclusively focused on self. If you live in this way, you turn into a shrewd tactician, making a series of cautious semicommitments without really surrendering to some larger purpose. You lose the ability to sau a hundred noes for the sake of one overwhelming and fulfilling yes. — David Brooks

Yeah. I guess we were both willing to do that, Gavin. I was ready to take that plunge and never look back. Never. I was ready to risk everything for you, to push away the overwhelming fear I had because I knew you and I are worth it. We fell in love in a second. I was barely able to blink, and you had my entire world upside-down. I was scared you weren't ... real. I was scared no one could be as magnetic as you are to me. It still scares me. You still scare me." Pausing, Emily shook her head.
"Then I saw Gina, and all my fears came back. My heart wanted to believe you, but my head wouldn't allow it after I'd already taken that risk on us. I'm so sorry, Gavin. I don't know what else to say other than I love you and need you with everything inside me — Gail McHugh

Do you know that some women actually refuse to be treated for fear of losing their hair? In the words of my friend India Arie: "Hey, I am not my hair. I am not this skin. I am a soul that lives within." I wanted to make a statement that I wasn't ashamed to have cancer or be bald. I was absolutely stunned by the reaction to my video diary. The outpouring of support was overwhelming. — Robin Roberts

One of my obsessions in life is that we have the tools to manufacture moments and real things, but it's overwhelming and there's a lot of fear and you think maybe you'll be rejected or embarrassed or somehow hurt emotionally. So we don't do the things we know we can do, but we can make people feel better and make people happier with compliments or just being positive and that sort of thing and sending it their way. — Pete Holmes

I hope through The L Word to become an honorary member of the gay tribe. I cherish the thought that some young girl or woman somewhere may one night turn on the television and for the first time ever see her life represented
not as an isolated incident but as a multiplicity. Her overwhelming fear may have been that she might never find her tribe, she might never find love and now she knows that they are both out there waiting for her. — Jennifer Beals

Courage is not the absence of fear or despair; it is the capacity to continue on despite them, no matter how great or overwhelming they become. — Robert Fanney

Relief, fear, and humiliation. Her parents paid for a pricey prep school education in D.C. She graduated magna cum laude from Georgetown with a degree in political science. She breezed through law school and finished with honors. A dozen megafirms offered her jobs after a federal court clerkship. The first twenty-nine years of her life had seen overwhelming success and little failure. To be discharged in such a manner was crushing. To be escorted out of the building was degrading. This was not just a minor bump in a long, rewarding career. — John Grisham

How attracted to one another we had been; how light she felt on my lap; how exciting it always was; how, even though we weren't having "full sex," all the elements of it--the lust, the tenderness, the candour, the trust--were there anyway. And how part of me hadn't minded not "going the whole way"...This acceptance of less than others had was also due to fear, of course: fear of pregnancy, fear of saying or doing the wrong thing, fear of an overwhelming closeness I couldn't handle. — Julian Barnes

I am continuously struck by how frequently the various thought processes of the inner critic trigger overwhelming emotional flashbacks. This is because the PTSD-derived inner critic weds shame and self-hate about imperfection to fear of abandonment, and mercilessly drive the psyche with the entwined serpents of perfectionism and endangerment. Recovering individuals must learn to recognize, confront and disidentify from the many inner critic processes that tumble them back in emotional time to the awful feelings of overwhelming fear, self-hate, hopelessness and self-disgust that were part and parcel of their original childhood abandonment. — Pete Walker

What draws me to the type of snowboarding that I'm doing now is, I go through every emotion in life when I'm climbing these mountains. The fear. The anticipation before that. Getting to the top and the joy of standing on top, and then the adrenaline on going down, and then the kind of overwhelming emotions that I get at the bottom. That whole process is really addicting, and makes me feel alive. — Jeremy Jones

The bold code of the transhumanist will rise. That's an inevitable, undeniable fact. It's embedded in the undemocratic nature of technology and our own teleological evolutionary advancment. It is the future. We are the future like it or not. And it needs to molded, guided, and handled correctly by the strength and wisdom of transhumanist scientists with their nations and resources standing behind them, facilitating them. It needs to be supported in a way that we can make a successful transition into it, and not sacrifice ourselves - either by its overwhelming power or by a fear of harnessing that power. You need to put your resources into the technology. Into our education system. Into our universities, industries, and ideas. Into the strongest of our society. Into the brightest of our society. Into the best of our society So that we can attain the future. — Zoltan Istvan

When I look at this world I feel a deep pain.
A burden in my soul.
This overwhelming sadness threatens to engulf me, to crush me with waves of despair.

Who can I trust but you?

Our Western civilization has fallen foul to false idols.
Community is replaced by screen's of various sizes.
Friendship is reduced to a virtual status.

Yet in You I find community.
In you I find friendship.
The wife you provided, the baby on the way.

The love of this world is enmity with you.
The world's love blows hot and cold.
A politics of hate, a muffled church, neighbourhoods of fear and pain -
Broken, All Broken!
But, Your light still shines.
Pockets of hope, sparkles in the night.
The Sunrise is coming! — David Holdsworth

As I was walking in the fields, the thought came over me with almost overwhelming power, that every one of my flock must soon be in heaven or hell. Oh how I wished that I had a tongue like thunder, that I might make all hear; or that I had a frame like iron, that I might visit every one and say, Escape for thy life! Ah sinner! You little know how I fear that you will lay the blame of your damnation at my door. — Robert Murray M'Cheyne

The potential, for anything, was overwhelming to a degree that bothered him. It wasn't, he thought, the idea of power. It certainly wasn't that nervous feeling T.C. would get in the pit of his stomach when he knew he had an incredible opportunity in front of him, that amazing brief pause before an act of creation. This was something else. Something to fear and respect. — Adam P. Knave

Face the thing that seems overwhelming and you will be surprised how your fear will melt away. — Dale Carnegie

I'm completely in love with the world but also terrified of it. It creates some overwhelming feelings. Wanting to battle out that joy and fear is part of my music. — Florence Welch

It never ceases to amaze me when God wants to take someone to the next level in their life and they let fear of the unknown rob them of tremendous blessings. I think there are two common problems with Christians- They are scared to death of being truly free and of God's overwhelming love. — R. Alan Woods

It was time for Cork to return to the bed in the guest room. But he lingered beside this son who trusted him lay awake knowing there were monsters in the wind outside, that his son's fear was not unjustified, and that Stevie would have to face them alone someday. There were people out there so cruel they would wound him for the pleasure of it, dreadful circumstances no man in his worst imaginings could conjure, disappointments so overwhelming they could crush his dreams like eggshells. For a child like Stevie, a child of special graces, there would be such pain that Cork nearly wept in anticipation of it. Against those monsters, a father was powerless. But again the simple terrors of the night, he would do his best. — William Kent Krueger

This is not about how hot you are. That doesn't make someone any more or any less desirable. I believe there is a soul mate for everyone because I found mine. Attraction is only the smallest part of when it happens to you. It may be the initiating factor, but it isn't what seals you to them. There is a deep, sad part of you that opens showing what you are all about inside and out. First, you are afraid. Then, that fear and sadness gets pushed out by an overwhelming urge to give everything of yourself. Yet, you still hold back. At some point, you come to reality and it hits you who you're with. It's the one you've been waiting for. The one who can break you into a thousand pieces with one look. One word. One action. Cas can destroy me if he really wanted to. — Cyndi Goodgame

I felt sick. I couldn't breathe. The idea of it totally freaked me out and I was paralyzed with anxiety. This overwhelming fear just kicked in out of nowhere, bringing with it a shitstorm of self-doubt — Zayn Malik

I saw it in his eyes, first - the beginning of the end, the beginning of things to come. The blackest night, they cut into me, paralyzing my trembling body. Not even the gods could sense my fear now, for the celebration of the monsters who'd claimed me drowned out all perception of pain. It was all-powerful, all-knowing, the definition of infinite, an overwhelming possession that consumed every inch of my being. — Rachael Wade

I choose you," he said very softly, "Max."
Then his hard, rough hand tenderly cuppoed my chin, and suddenly his mouth was on mine, and every synapse in my brain shorted out.
We had kissed a couple of times before, but this was different. This time, I squelched my immediate, overwhelming desire to run away screaming. I closed my eyes and put my arms around him despite my fear. Then somehow we slid sideways so we were lying in the cool sand. I was holding him fiercely, and he was kissing me fiercely, and it was ... just so, so intensely good. Once I got past my usual, gut-wrenching terror, there was a long, sweet slide into mindlessness, when all I felt was Fang, and all I heard was his breathing, and all I could think was "Oh, God, I want to do this all the time. — James Patterson

You'll face overwhelming odds; you'll be incredibly outnumbered. Fear would be your natural inclination. But keep in mind, God is with you. — James MacDonald

What you imagine as overwhelming or terrifying while at leisure becomes something you can cope with when you must-there is no time for fear. — Rebecca Solnit

When I lived in New York and went to Chinatown, I learned that these flavors and their meanings were actually a foundation of ancient Chinese medicine.
Salty translated to fear and the frantic energy that tries to compensate for or hide it.
Sweet was the first flavor we recognized from our mother's milk, and to which we turned when we were worried and unsure or depressed.
Sour usually meant anger and frustration.
Bitter signified matters of the heart, from simply feeling unloved to the almost overwhelming loss of a great love. Most spices, along with coffee and chocolate, had some bitterness in their flavor profile. Even sugar, when it cooked too long, turned bitter. But to me, spice was for grief, because it lingered longest. — Judith Fertig

asking small questions to dispel fear and inspire creativity thinking small thoughts to develop new skills and habits - without moving a muscle taking small actions that guarantee success solving small problems, even when you're faced with an overwhelming crisis bestowing small rewards to yourself or others to produce the best results recognizing the small but crucial moments that everyone else ignores — Robert Maurer