Sick of Being Scared
Posted by fxckfeelings on May 3, 2009
To most, freedom from fear seems like a reasonable goal; after all, ridding yourself of all anxiety would reduce your blood pressure, whiten your teeth, get rid of your gut, etc. Never mind that the possibility of a fear-free existence is sold to us by everyone from alarm companies to boutique medical practices. The problem is that fear, like happiness or anger, is, you guessed it, out of our control. Here are a couple cases where wanting to control fear clouds the real goal at hand; living in the face of ever present danger.
–Dr. Lastname
I didn’t used to be an anxious person, but I haven’t felt right since I got mugged a few months ago (I was jumped, robbed, and beaten pretty bad, and yes, amazingly, they caught the guys). I’m afraid to go out after dark and I wake up with nightmares, which is bad, but somewhat manageable and at least makes sense. What I’m really having trouble with are the less-than-occasional anxiety attacks with dizziness, shortness of breath, nausea, the works, and they’re completely incapacitating. It’s not just unhealthy, it’s making my life impossible. I should be able to stop them if I can get to the bottom of this trauma, right? I’ve lost my peace of mind and I want to get it back.
You don’t recover from trauma by recovering your peace of mind because, first, it’s often impossible and, second, it may be undesirable, at least if you define peace of mind as the absence of fear and anxiety. Simply put, life is dangerous. While you might not see your brain’s fearful reaction to your trauma as positive, it’s just adjusting by putting you on permanent alert for the next attack.
In doing so, it’s preserving you and passing on your genes to the next generation, which is more likely to have the same guard-against-attack thermostat. So don’t feel it’s wrong to be post-traumatically anxious; the anxiety may tire you out, but it’s also there to make you hyper-alert to the next threat, whether it comes by day or night.
