He wore his fears

Johann Walter, Birch Forest, ca 1903-1904

From Jason Mott's Hell of a Book.  The narrator reflects on his father:

    I think it was always running, my old man's fear. Perpetual and widespread.

   Fear of being a bad father. Fear of being a bad husband. Fear of being arrested. Fear of being called skinny like when he was a kid. Fear of being poorer tomorrow than he was today. Fear of giving too much of his life to swing shift and not enough to his son. Fear of cops. Fear of lawyers. Fear of getting injured. Fear of dying, fear of living. Fear of a past that he couldn't change. Fear of a present that was always out to get him. Fear of a future that might turn out

to be nothing more chan the present with more gray hair. Same failures. Same struggles. All of it with fewer chances to get it right.

  Every day he wore his fears just like he wore those Dickies of his.

I'm thinking about this as a description of someone, literally wearing fear.  Fear being the modus operandi.