A month ago I’ve been seeing more news of people getting kidnapped here in my country (Philippines). As you would expect, it triggered my paranoia believing that I would be kidnapped if I stepped out of my house. 

I also did some precautionary measures to ‘reduce’ the likelihood of me being kidnapped such as turning off my cctv cams around the house, switching off all lights, and some data/location privacy shit on my phone and laptop. 

But deep inside, I knew I couldn’t live like this. So, I did what seemed to be impossible to me - stepping out of the house; to prove to myself that it’s in fact, not true.

It started out small, like 2 mins, then it progressed to around 10 mins, until it reached a point where I tried to walk around my neighborhood, alone. It took weeks, and my sister’s help, to overcome that fear but now I can proudly say that I’m no longer afraid (touchwood) to leave my house.