Is there a name for a phobia of praise? Other than anxiety, I mean.

My fear of praise interlocks with a need of recognition. This hunger for acknowledgment – a sediment layer: a strata of residuum deep and old – weights me down. Yet… I am nothing – not even ephemeral – if not acknowledged by another. I can hear Hegel snickering. Would I never had read him.

Oh, praise… I ride the high it gives me – recognized, acknowledged, alive – for I know the crash comes.

They expect things from me now. The anticipation of failure settles: seeping, seizing.

Just like that. I’m gone.