If you have complex-PTSD, you’re all too familiar with fear and its brainchildren: anxiety and dread. We have more than our share of problems responding to stress, and such feelings tend to aggravate them. It causes us to worry, ruminate, and panic over that which we have no control over. This is the very thing our fear-based emotions are trying to tell us. It has identified a situation and is asking us to take control of it in some way. Not in the way our anti-role models handled their control issues, but in a way that improves our present and future.
Can’t See the Forest for the Trees: How pain distracts us from seeing the core problem
The core problem developed in our childhood, when our sense of control was synonymous with feeling powerless, helpless and hopeless. This gave us our “pre-settings” on how we view challenges (that which we can control). The more our pre-settings are triggered, the more we perceive threats (that which we can’t control) instead of challenges. Self-doubt sets in and becomes the thought engine that drives our anxieties. When our anxieties see more problems than solutions, it “confirms” and re-confirms our self-doubt.
Now check out the science of what’s happening to us, not because of our emotions, but because self-doubt is acting as the thought engine. Our anxieties wake up our False Prophet (Catastrophizing Trauma Glossary 2), which often leads to a panic attack. When we get trapped in the anxiety spiral, it’s a sign of our ACG (Anterior Cingulate Gyrus, in Trauma Glossary 3, look for Control Panel in Section 1) getting stuck, which often leads to executive dysfunction (Trauma Glossary 2). Our stress hormones release and put us at risk for an amygdala (Trauma Glossary 3) hijacking. This happens because we are perceiving too much of what we can’t control. (Here is a mindfulness tool. It’s a visual aid that may help you the next time you’re in one of those spirals.)
Healthy control is key to confidence and security, which is the opposite of self-doubt. Unfortunately, we must do the work to feel secure and confident. Until we get there, fear will continue to show us situations and ask us to handle it. And until we learn how to handle it, our fear will continue to make mountains out of molehills.
Fear and the Fight or Flight Response
Unlike anger, fear is giving us options. It’s alerting us to a situation and asking us how we will handle it. To better understand this process, consider its basic function on a scale from low, middle, to high: dread, anxiety, and amygdala hijacking:
Dread: This is obligation based and it’s almost always concerned with an ongoing problem. It’s the anticipation of something in the immediate future that’s unavoidable.
Anxiety: This is the “middleman” between dread and fear (with the hijacked amygdala). It’s our radar for detecting and anticipating threats. Anxiety is far-sighted, able to see potential threats in the distant future and plan accordingly. Have you ever noticed how our minds race with a thought overload when we’re feeling anxious? That’s because anxiety is a rapid thinking emotion. It’s calling our attention to potential problems and scanning for options.
Fear and the hijacked amygdala: This is our commander in charge of emergencies. The commander’s split-second decision is based off all the reports our middleman, anxiety has been delivering. So, when there’s been a breach in our security, our commander springs to action. The commander knows every unavoidable procedure (dread) and which option to go with (anxiety) on instinct.
Dread and anxiety are future focused. They determine what is a threat and how we will respond to it. But once we understand the information they are trying to convey, we can work with them to improve our lives. Then we can reap the benefits of fear without hijacking the amygdala in the process.
Fear vs. the Hijacked Amygdala
The hijacked amygdala focuses on a single action. It’s for life-saving emergencies: act first, think later. But there’s no guarantee that it has made the best decision. Fear without the hijacked amygdala can maintain the same focus, but with reason and logic to see it through. It’s how we stay present and therefore, capable of making rational decisions without a loss of our senses.
The Benefits of our Fear-Based Emotions
Dread: Endurance for the Reward
There are some obligations we can’t get out of, such as washing the dishes or going to work. A clean home improves our quality of life and our job helps us pay the bills. Enduring dread is healthy when it’s attached to a reward.
Dread: Reconsidering Our Obligations
Home is supposed to be our sanctuary. So, when we dread going home, there’s a big, ongoing problem that our obligations have minimized. When we minimize the problem, we are invalidating ourselves. Dread is attempting to save us from the next plunge: normalizing the threat by numbing our emotions. My article addressing the 7 types of Covert Abuse can provide more information. Because the abuse cycle begins with our inability to see it for what it is.
Conversely, the dread of going to work every day is worth considering, especially when the pay isn’t a satisfactory reward. Whether it’s a toxic work environment or if the job itself is unfulfilling, naming what is wrong and why is how we establish clarity, which is the first step in problem solving.
Anxiety Redirects Obligations into Seeing Options
Anxiety sees the problem and is scanning for solutions. Its far-sightedness ensures that it weighs the pro’s and con’s of each predicted outcome. Anxiety is our processing stage before making a decision. That’s all anxiety wants, for us to make a decision on how to proceed.
Anxiety: A Sign of High Intelligence
This should come as no surprise, considering how it’s a rapid thinker capable of flooding our thoughts in a moment’s notice. Pop quiz: Which of the 4F Trauma Types are notorious thinkers and planners? Ask any Flight Type. Not only have they cornered the market on anxiety, but their minds stay full. Intelligence comes at a price.
Fear is Focused Energy
This is what happens after reviewing our options and making a decision. We are taking the information overload anxiety gave us and focusing on that one option. Fear’s high energy is supplying us with the endurance to see it through. This is how we reach our flow state, when we are in the zone, focused on that immediate goal. And once we reach our flow state, our fear drops off. Like I said, fear only wants us to take control of a situation and once we do that, it goes away.
This type of focus is activated by the most underappreciated neurotransmitter: Norepinephrine. Why do I call it underappreciated? Because it’s a converter for two major neurotransmitters you may have heard of: Cortisol and Dopamine. When it’s working for the stress hormone, cortisol, it’s focusing on rational decisions to work us through the situation. When it’s working for dopamine, it’s taking what dopamine wants and turning it into actionable behavior. I will get more into the neurotransmitters once we conclude this series on our emotions. However, for those curious or looking to get ahead on this curriculum period, all three underlined terms can be found in section 3 of Trauma Glossary 3. This visual aid may also help you along.
Fear is Fuel for Bravery
There is no such thing as courage or bravery without fear. Have you heard the saying, be brave, not foolish? Daring fearlessly leads to tragedy. Fear is a thinker and it’s warning us of outcomes for each possible action. Think about it. When someone says “I’m working up the courage” it literally means “I’m working through the fear to do what I must.” Being brave means feeling the fear and doing it anyway.
Fortify Dread
What one thing can you do today that will make tomorrow easier? It doesn’t have to involve major changes. For example, I used to dread the assorted billing dates I had to keep track of the first half of each month. Then, one day I spent over an hour setting up automatic bill payments. It was an annoying day because there were other things I preferred doing, but I improved my tomorrow because I never had to worry about remembering my bills anymore.
Setting aside one day a week working with dread will improve the daily sense of obligations. The rest of the week is the reward for enduring. Over time, we learn to weigh our value against the obligations that don’t belong in our life. When we fortify our dread, our anxiety is triggered less often and we are working through another emotion at the same time…
(Spoiler Alert)
Dread doesn’t always lead to anxiety. You know what else it breeds over time, especially when it’s left unchecked? Depression! But we will cover that next week when we talk about the benefits of sadness.
Regulate Anxiety
If we can work with anxiety, we can work through our fears and finally start living our best lives. I listed five tools for Anxiety in Master Toolbox 1. I even followed it up with see also (tools for) Dissociate, because both Grounding and Mindfulness can help, as well as (tools for) Window of Tolerance. Here are more tools and tips for you.
Brain Dump or Mind Mapping:
It’s list making. Mind mapping is simply the more creative version of brain dump. Anxiety crowds the brain. So, when our minds are overcrowded with thoughts, we need to unclutter that headspace. Get our thoughts out on paper, list what’s in our head. This process slows down anxiety’s rapid-fire thinking so that we can harness such thoughts in a way that makes more sense. It puts distance between us and the emotional and thought overload, which calms our system. In fact, it’s such a great tool, I regret that I only included it in the toolbox for working through Transference. List making has been one of my favorite self-soothing tools over the years. Even in my pre-healing years, this was one coping mechanism I actually got right!
Name One Thing You Can Do and Then Give it Your Full Attention:
There are some things we can’t control, but there’s usually at least one thing we can do. When we’re in an anxiety spiral, we are seeing all of our problems and believing “I can’t”. So, when we find one thing we can do, we are telling our system “I’m in control and I’m handling it.” Our system will respond by calming down.
Find One Activity You’re Currently Using that Makes You Feel in Control:
This incorporates mindfulness with self-care. Hobbies or recreational activities help us feel free in the moment. When we’re free, we are in control. We simply haven’t checked in with our feelings and therefore, we haven’t communicated with our system what we are doing and why. I recommend keeping it in your daily routine and remind yourself of its purpose. Believe me, doing this simple thing will lead to major growth. Mine helped me work through my social anxiety.
Slotting: A Technique Borrowed from EMDR
In my pre-healing days, I was Flight-Freeze: work myself to exhaustion and then “check out” with a computer game. If you know anything about the 4F Trauma Responses, you know that Flight and Freeze are the “escape artists” of the four types, or the two least inclined to be present.
As I healed, I got in tune with why gaming was my favorite guilty pleasure. I learned that was the only time my system felt free from obligations. It was the only time I ever gave myself permission to relax.
I had two choices: overthrow gaming and plunge myself head-first into something new or use it with mindfulness. Choosing the first option would have been a shock to my already anxious nervous system. My years of relying on game time as the only means of calming it had turned it into an emotional need. In other words, I had become hard-wired for craving it as my primary source of nourishment.
So, I worked with it to bring forth growth. Each time I completed a level, I would return a brief message to someone, or verbally acknowledge my husband’s presence. Then I would play another level and briefly get back to someone else. Over time, I went from solitude greed to actually craving other people’s company. My system needed to understand that other people were not trying to control me. My mindfulness self-care every day finally got through to it.
Change will always be scary
It doesn’t matter how much or how little trauma we have in our system. Change is scary for everyone, so fear will always be involved. Fear is future focused. It isn’t trying to hold us back, it’s asking us to take control. Make a decision and stay focused on that decision.
That’s why I’m offering one more great tool: the cognition sheet. Two weeks ago, I wrote an article on how we can use it for reframing our thoughts and correcting our core beliefs, among other uses. There’s even a free link for getting your own sheet. The cognition sheet has a whole section on control cognitions, which is the very thing fear wants. It’s so beneficial that in a lot of ways, I see my article on the cognition sheet as the “prequel” to this series on our emotions.