Fear disappears when you're not looking...

The emotion that weighed me down for years after I came within touching distance of dying from an aggressive infection that nobody could explain.

Finally here’s the post I planned to put up a couple of weeks ago when I got distracted and instead went down a TV game show rabbit hole! I’ve been told that the book I laboured over is classified a ‘misery memoir’. It’s anything but ‘misery’. How can it be when (SPOILER ALERT) I survived to tell my story?! And though this post relates to what happened to me - the short version is that I battled and beat flesh-eating bacteria and sepsis, though it was a very close call - it’s most definitely not a ‘misery’ post. Actually it has a happy - in fact a very happy - ending…

And don’t forget that you can listen to this post if you prefer. I’ve recorded my own voiceover so if you want to hit ‘play’ and enjoy my dulcet (not) tones!

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It didn’t arrive immediately. Well, not for me.

When I went to the hospital I don’t remember feeling any fear. I was too busy feeling sick. I had no idea that I could die within hours.

There again I must have understood that dying was a possibility. I joked with Kim that he would get loads of money from the life insurance that came with my job if I popped my clogs.

When I say that he didn’t find the joke funny that would be understatement of the century.

As the story started to unfold, piece by piece like tracking down the killer in a crime novel, the fear grew, but it was shouldered by others. Not me.

It was only later. After I woke from the coma. After I was moved out of intensive care (ICU). As I waited to be taken down for yet another operation. That the fear started to creep into my head.

I couldn’t think straight. I had no real idea of what was happening. Or where I was. BUT the fear was all consuming.

I was terrified, utterly and inexplicably terrified, of having to back to ICU. The fear overwhelmed me that I wouldn’t be well enough to go anywhere other than backwards after that operation.

The worst didn’t happen. I didn’t go back to ICU. The operation though didn’t go exactly to plan. My heart stopped as I lay on the operating table. I almost didn’t go backwards or forwards.

Afterwards in my new ‘room’ the delusions and hallucinations kicked in.

I was certain that I wasn’t in a room. I was lying in a corridor. Walls made of plywood not plaster and paint. Swing doors right behind my bed. Sure that I’d be pushed aside as I was in everyones way - any minute now.

And the visions. Nightmarish visions. Wallpaper replaced plain walls - figures and scenes came alive. Giant carved wooden monkey heads expanded out of the walls. Jungle scenes. Kids screaming. I got no peace. The fear swelled in my head.

Eyes open. Eyes closed. Sleep. Not sleep. It didn’t stop.

Finally, my grip on reality started to solidify. After what felt like forever the hallucinations began to dissipate. But a new fear reared it’s head. I’d be stuck in hospital forever. A dread that I’d never ‘escape’. A physical imperative to get myself out of that building any way I could.

Knit one, pearl one. Lose one, gain one. The fear never went away.

Out of hospital the fear morphed, changing form as my anxiety spiked, triggered as I was thrown into a world that had kept on spinning without me. In the mirror I saw a face and a body I no longer recognized.

The fear seeped into the cracks. Expanding. Filling every available inch of space in my mind. Pushing everything else out.

I treated my surgery wounds with the utmost care. I couldn’t look at them. Not because they looked like Freddy Kruger, or some other slasher, had had a field day. But because I was terrified that I’d see that the infection was starting again. More fear.

Even when, months later, my wounds finally healed it didn’t stop.

There was still the BIG one. The fear that would remain for the longest time. The fear that it would all happen again. I was teetering on the edge of a precipice. The fear that at any minute I might slip and fall, right back to where this had all started.

Nobody had any idea how those potentially lethal flesh-eating bacteria got into my body. Nobody could offer any explanation as to why my immune system didn’t do its job. Yet everybody wanted to tell me that the likelihood of it happening again was incredibly low. The fear won. I didn’t believe them.

I couldn’t beat the fear alone. It was too strong. Too all encompassing. It pulled me down. Suffocating me. Taking over every waking thought. I needed help. I wanted help. I had to dig myself out of the darkness. I went to therapy.

With each session the fear would rear it’s ugly head again and then afterwards deflate slowly, like a punctured beach ball. Then something would happen, an ambulance with sirens blaring would rush by, and it would all come roaring back. The fear inflated again.

Over the months and years the beach ball gradually got smaller. Bit by bit. The deflations slowly out ran the inflations.

But the fear was still there. Still nagging at the back of my mind. Still not loosening its grip on me.

Until I stopped looking for it. Stopped running from it. Stopped trying to escape it. Stopped trying to change it. Stopped holding on to it so tight. I let it be.

And then just over a month ago. Three and a half years since I got sick. 1,278 days. I realized something…

I looked for the fear for the first time in a while. I hunted around in my head. I dug deep. I looked in every dusty corner.

But I couldn’t find it.

It wasn’t there.

I don’t know exactly when it disappeared.

I know it can’t have been long ago.

I don’t know where it went.

I know it was still there when I last looked.

When was that?

I don’t remember.

Now it’s gone.

Truly gone.

In it’s place there’s a sense of peace. My mind is quiet. It’s calm. And there’s plenty of space for joy.

I’m simply happy…

My luscious summer garden from one of my (open) office windows. Location: Islev (on the outskirts of Copenhagen), Denmark. 21st July 2026

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Thank you for reading or listening along. If you liked this post then I’d love it if you would click on the heart and add a comment about what resonated for you – it means a lot to me to hear from each and every one of you.

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In case you missed it, I published my book about my battle with flesh-eating bacteria - Hold My Hand: A Journey Back to Life - for FREE here on Substack last year. If you’d like to read it then you can find every chapter by clicking HERE and you’ll go directly to the webpage dedicated to the book. Or you can just click on the link to the opening chapter below.

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