Atelophobia – Mandy Ellis
Mandy had a terrible habit of gnawing at her fingernails after she delivered whatever package she needed too in order to get the green light as she continued to analyse every single piece of information that she had and tried to analyse what she did not have. The fear of failure bore down on her shoulders heavily and she knew why, she had been able to figure it out the first time she had even submitted a package to be green lit, and that was because of the high stakes that she placed on and in front of the men who were the best of the best, the elite Seals that the Navy had. But the truth was even the best, even the most elite, could become fallen eagles, and that hurt more than she would ever admit. It left a permanent mark that would never be erased and would never diminish. It could be crippling, the weight that was placed on her and even when the men returned unhurt and the weight lifted, it never went away entirely because she knew that they carried it with them, that it left scars mentally and emotionally if there were no physical ones.
The fear of failure never really subsided for Mandy and she had learned to live with it but that did not mean that there were not times when it threatened to overwhelm her, when it threatened to tear the carefully constructed and well reinforced walls down that she had spent years building.
Maybe, just maybe, the fear of failure had always been present deep inside of Mandy. It had bloomed when she was a young girl and feared failing a test, feared disappointing her parents, feared failing in so many ways that she could not list them all. The fear of failure had resided inside of her for as long as she could remember but she had learned to live with it, had learned how to turn that fear she felt into something positive, into making sure that she did her absolute damn best so that the fear of failure never turned into anything more, never again became 'I have failed'.
The stakes were too high, had been raised ever since she had begun to work with Bravo and the fear of failing had become her driving force, her guiding light even when it should not have, and pushed her to do her best. She needed to do her upmost to make sure that the men, the Seals, would come back alive because not only did she need them but they needed each other and their families needed them to come back home to them each and every time.
The fear of failure never left Mandy instead it was her constant companion and she learned to live with it even when it became almost unbearable because she knew the pain that came with losing one of the men that she had sent out on a mission and she would do everything she could to make sure that never happened again if she could help it, for herself, for the men of Bravo, and for the families that were left waiting at home. She embraced it even when it left her worn down and full of bitter resentment because it made her better, it made her want to be better, and it made her who she was.