Help! I'm caught in a fear-inducing feedback loop!
I'm not on an actual roller coaster, looping through space like these two children, though that is a darned good metaphor for this past year. Hopefully after the ride these the children were greeted with warm hugs from a trusted caregiver and celebrated for a successful encounter with a scary experience. That warm reception after a fright will help them switch their bodily state from hyper-activation to an alert relaxed state that builds their confidence and willingness to face future challenges. I am recovering from a recent experience of creeping chronic fear, however, and here's what I learned.
Our experience of fear can be acute, like a roller coaster ride – brief and then it’s over, or it can become chronic. Our fear response is designed to help us avoid threat, either by running or fighting, and if we can’t escape the tiger that way, then by freezing in place and hoping the tiger walks past. These physical reactions to threat are instant and involuntary. As long as we can maintain a sense of agency, i.e., control over our bodies and what happens to us in the face of threat, we can be afraid but avoid the overwhelm and helplessness that becomes trauma.
When we can’t control what we fear, however, and the experience of threat is on-going, beyond our control, and unpredictable, fear can become chronic. We can get stuck in a state of activation, either angry (fight), or avoidant (flight), or just frozen inside even though we may be going through the motions of daily life on the outside. When the external world is or appears to be threatening, and we cannot remove or respond effectively to that threat, the experience of fear becomes an internalized state. We get “stuck” in immobilized activation, like having the brake and accelerator on at the same time.
Looking back on the past six weeks or so, I realized that chronic fear had crept up on me! About a year ago, I received a diagnosis of a life-threatening illness. (I’m fine now, thankfully!) The instability in our external political, social, financial, and health situation resonated with my internal experience of that past medical diagnosis and the fear and uncertainties that followed. As the time for a follow up test approached, at the same time as the events of last year, and the outside world resonated with my previous experience of fear, uncertainty and overwhelm. I gradually became more and more frozen inside, and disorganized. I was in the grip of a resonating, reinforcing feedback loop of fear where the outside world (as perceived through the nightly news) and my internal experience amplified each other! As I thought about this experience, I wondered how many of us, in these past few months especially, have slipped under the influence of a reinforcing, resonating, fear-inducing feedback loop?
When I finally caught on that I "wasn't quite myself", it took a little longer to figure out what was happening. I put the pieces together this week.
For me, the external world that was amplifying my inner nervousness about the pending medical test was the news: challenged elections, harsh divisive rhetoric and riots tearing the fabric of this country, black lives matter (and scary, painful examples of when they randomly didn't), COVID's terrifying post-Thanksgiving surge, (not to mention terrifying forest fires that turned the sky the color of our copper roof for days and ravaged the homes of many in on the West coast). All these combined to create feelings of fear, overwhelm, and uncertainty that resonated with my personal experiences from last year. Even the humor of talk show hosts didn't blunt the creeping fear and overwhelm that was settling into my body. Without my being aware, I gradually felt less and less safe, more unsettled, and a vague fear settled into my nervous system that I couldn't really identify. Despite the hardships my husband and I have experienced this year, I am actually quite lucky and safe and very grateful for what I have. Yet I was far more anxious that my situation warranted.
Let me explain what happened to me, and happens to many of us in similar circumstances where the outside world and inside memories create a resonant, reinforcing feedback loop that only makes the experience worse.
When we encounter a situation and have a response, our unconscious mind will automatically search for memories of similar experiences or sensations to see if what we 'learned' from the previous experience is useful to us now. These memories aren't perfect or complete, more like bits and pieces of a photograph that don't quite make a full picture. These pieces "feel" similar to what we are experiencing now. Much as one plucked string on a violin will cause the nearby strings to vibrate, there is a kind of resonance in the nervous system between the past experience and what we are experiencing now. If that resonant experience is repeated (like reading the nightly news), then a "circuit" is set up in the nervous system (brain and body) that reinforces the resonant remembered experience, but without the full explanation. The resonance from the past amplifies the current experience, adding past to the present, and increasing the intensity of our response. In my case, that resonance was of mortal fear and life-changing uncertainty. This is especially challenging when the situation you are in is one you cannot do anything about. These past few months I certainly could not stop all the challenges to the election, nor ensure that no more black Americans would be shot by police, nor ensure that my loved ones would always wear a mask and avoid COVID. Each engagement with these resonant triggers made the experience of fear and overwhelm stronger until I had a low level of anxiety all the time, plus I was facing the same medical test that brought me the difficulties of last year.
When our "circuits are busy" with a background problem, we have less attention to bring to day to day living. Disorganization is a common result when past trauma is compounded by a resonant and un-re-solv-able current situation. I found myself missing appointments, confusing dates, being clumsy, not sleeping well or thinking as clearly as I usually do, and frustrated with myself.
A few days before the medical test that would tell me if I was in the clear this year (I am!), I was able to put the pieces together. Once I was able to name what I was feeling, that is, to identify the specific personal internal experience that was resonating with current circumstances, both personal (medical test) and beyond (world politics, pandemic), I was able to breathe and relax. I also decided to cut back on the news for a while. Election politics can surely carry on without me, and funny cat videos are more relaxing than sharp-witted, cynical talk show hosts.
These are challenging times. Some of you will have lost loved ones or experienced illness or threats yourself, if not from COVID, from lost income or jobs, or the stress of home-schooling and working from home. We live in uncertain and unstable times. The political climate (at least in the US) mirrors the increasing instability of our changing physical climate.
By (1) attending to and naming your feelings (for me that was fear), (2) tracing back what was specific and personal in your life (in my case previous medical history and an upcoming test) that had activated that feeling, and (3) separating your experience from external current events (crazy politics, pandemic, etc.), you can stop the resonance between your actual experience now, past memories, and larger events beyond your control. Once you do that, you interrupt the resonant, reinforcing feedback loop. It may take a while for your body to learn that it is safe (or safer) than it appeared and your clarity about what you are actually afraid of can help. I had reason to be anxious about the medical test, but not afraid and distracted as much as I was.
Should you ever find yourself in one of these loops, I hope you will find something useful from this little story to help yourself to exit the loop and get off the roller coaster.
Two great books on how to dance effectively with feelings are:
Ronald Frederick, Living Like You Mean It.
Emily & Amelia Nagoski, Burnout.
