Fear Factor

Posted by fxckfeelings on July 29, 2010

Fear isn’t all bad (e.g., fearing snakes goes a long way towards keeping you from poison venom). On the other hand, fear itself is stressful and painful, so our first instinct is to avoid it, no matter what…which is, of course, when things start getting really frightening. No matter how much we want to protect ourselves or those we love, it’s not gonna happen, so we have to accept the unavoidable scariness of life (and anacondas). It won’t necessarily calm you down, but it will give you the strength to do what matters, fear or no.
–Dr. Lastname

My wife and I liked to party when we first met (nothing too crazy, we just went out a lot), but we just had our first kid, so we now spend a lot more time at home. My wife used to be a fun, bubbly person, and she still sort of is, but ever since the baby was born she’s been really stressed out, worrying that something bad will happen and the baby will die. Not stuff she could possibly prevent, just a random act that would kill our child, and the stress is so bad she is haunted by visions of our son in a casket. I think she’s dealing with this stress by drinking a bunch of wine with dinner and getting a little more than tipsy. I’ve told her to relax about stuff she can’t prevent, but she says she can’t help it, and I don’t like that she’s drinking too much, and where that’s going to go. I want to see my wife get some treatment that will relieve her stress so she can stop drinking too much.

You might wonder how wanting to help someone could be bad, and it’s because, as goals go, it’s often one you can’t reach. If you don’t accept that fact before making your plans, you’ll make things worse.

Here, for instance, there’s a good chance she’s too busy drinking and/or avoiding her problem to heed your good advice and, at least at first, she may not be able to stop herself (and if she could stop herself, you probably wouldn’t be writing me in the first place).

If you sound frustrated, frightened or critical when you talk to her, it will make her worse. Your goal is to see if you can help her, not force her into help. You can bring a wife away from wine, but you can’t force her not to (fret and) drink.

Once people get into the habit of using alcohol to treat anxiety, they often can’t stop, particularly if they’re waiting to feel better before stopping. All the while, alcohol makes anxiety worse (as well as depression, mania…the only things it doesn’t worsen are weddings and sporting events).

So, your goal for her drinking isn’t to reduce her anxiety so she won’t feel like drinking, but to provide her with reasons for stopping drinking, now, regardless of whether it makes her anxiety worse, (which it will), while she also searches for tools to feel better. You can’t make any of that fear go away, but you can give her good reasons to find ways to ignore it and focus more calmly on your baby’s bottle than her own.

Sure, remind her about the availability of treatments; but don’t be surprised if she just wants you to leave her alone because treatment makes her think about her fears, and she’d rather not/would rather open another bottle of red.

Don’t tell her that going to treatment will be enough to make you happy, because treatment is not always effective and it’s useful only if she undertakes it for her own reasons, rather than to get you off her back. Don’t tell her treatment will definitely make her happy, either, because if it doesn’t, you’re a liar and the fault is still yours.

Encourage her to consider her options, including cognitive therapies with ideas and mental exercises to counteract negative thoughts, behavioral therapies with physical exercises to reduce anxiety, and medical treatments that might ease both anxiety and the intensity of her visions.

Her biggest danger is not the pain of anxiety, but that her fear will drive her to give up doing what matters and stop her from being a good mother and wife. The fear scares her, but it’s her fear of that fear that drives her to drink, and that’s where you need to start.

STATEMENT:
Prepare a statement that gives her positives alternative and encourages choice, not compliance. “You’re a strong woman and great mother, and I’m sorry that you’re tortured by fearful thoughts, but I’m more worried about the way your efforts to avoid those thoughts are interfering with your life. Instead of figuring out whether there’s a treatment worth trying, you’re panicking and using alcohol for relief. I know for a fact that alcohol makes anxiety symptoms worse, while it also undermines your ability to make tough decisions about treatment. You’re good at decisions. Don’t let fear make them for you.”

My daughter likes to bring her young son to our house on weekends (she’s a single mom) so he can see his grandparents and she can relax. Of course, my wife and I love to see him, but he’s getting to the age where he can walk and likes to grab everything he can get his hands on, and she doesn’t seem to notice. He’s knocked books off of shelves, broken some plates, and I recently wrenched my bottle of Lipitor out of his hands just as he was getting the lid off. I’ve told my daughter that she needs to watch him more closely, and she assures me she has a mother’s intuition and always stops him before he does anything wrong. She’s wrong, and my wife and I are too old to keep up with him. My goal is to get through to her, and protect our grandson, without getting her pissed off.

Forgive me for saying so, but I’m guessing your daughter’s obliviousness isn’t new. That and a lack of condoms is probably one of the main reasons she’s become a single mother.

If you’ve been wrestling with her obliviousness for years, now is the time to stop. She’s been your daughter a long time, and if you (and having a kid!) haven’t gotten through to her by now, it’s time to raise the white flag.

It’s sad and scary to admit that her obliviousness is not going to go away and will always force you to bear an extra burden of parental worry, but if you don’t accept this fact, you’ll clash, drive her away, and reduce your chance to make things safer and hang out with your grandchildren, even after they can control their limbs.

Your goal then isn’t to get through to her, but to do what you can to improve your grandson’s safety. Do what you can afford, be it toddler-proofing your house or hiring a teen babysitter/child-chaser who can walk around for hours bent over at 90 degrees.

For your sake, hide your worry and resentment. If your negative feelings show, she’ll feel you don’t trust her (which you don’t) and then avoid you. With luck, however (and given her track record), she’ll be too oblivious to notice how you feel.

Expect problems and look for dangers, while at the same time conveying pleasure and confidence. Behind closed doors, you can share your fear and resentment with your wife, but in front of your daughter, keep a poker face.

In the long run, maybe you can teach your grandson to watch out for himself, but resist the urge to follow him with nanny cams. The hardest thing you need to do, after you’ve done what’s reasonable, is let it be. Enjoy being grandparents and lock up your Lipitor.

STATEMENT:
Here’s a statement to keep your fears in check. “We did a reasonable job teaching our daughter about safety and responsibility (as did others), but she just doesn’t get it. Now we watch out for her and our grandson, when we get a chance. Our biggest achievement, however, is not solving the problem, because we can’t. It’s bearing our worries, keeping quiet about them, and not letting them spoil our relationship with her or our ability to get on with life.”