Horror In My Head. Neurotic Fears: What Is Behind Them

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Video: Horror In My Head. Neurotic Fears: What Is Behind Them

Video: Horror In My Head. Neurotic Fears: What Is Behind Them
Video: Children's Anxiety: 3 Ways to Help Your Anxious Child 2024, March
Horror In My Head. Neurotic Fears: What Is Behind Them
Horror In My Head. Neurotic Fears: What Is Behind Them
Anonim

It gets hot, crushes in the chest, and goosebumps all over the body. At the very thought of what might happen, my head is spinning. I am scared, I understand that it is very scary - to endure this life, to take the next steps, to meet new, frightening and unknown …

Fear is one of the regulators of human behavior, as well as a feeling that allows us to take care of our safety. And this is a good and necessary feeling when it fulfills its regulatory function - that is, we do not cross the road at a red light and do not eat anything that is inedible and harmful.

When fear is more an enemy than a protector

But often fear is more than just regulation of behavior, it is a certain panic state, or a state of severe anxiety, which fetters hands and feet and rather interferes with life. We face it when we make choices in favor of something new.

Neurotic fear is always in the future, it is in our fantasy

The key point regarding neurotic fear is that it is always directed towards the future, it is always some model of reality in our head. What if I die? Or will I get sick? Will they not help me? Will I be alone? These questions emerge in the mind and are turned into a reality that does not yet exist, which has not yet arrived.

Fear is meant to prevent something.

And this something may have already happened to us. Once upon a time, in the past. If you ask yourself what I am afraid of, then I am not afraid of the present, I am afraid of something in the future - or rather, a repetition of a situation that was in the past (or a part of it, an element). It is this state, this pain that I have experienced in the past, that I am afraid to experience again.

I cannot be afraid of what I have never seen or knew. It just isn't there in my experience. I can only be afraid of what I have already experienced.

But what about fantasies about serious illness and death - you ask? After all, we have not experienced this before!

Yes, absolutely. But we are not afraid of death itself. We are afraid of dying, we are afraid of the torment that we might get into. We are afraid, in fact, of experiencing pain.

And once we already fell into torment. Perhaps it was such torment that could be compared with the torment of a dying man. Once upon a time, in childhood, in the most vulnerable childhood, where we could do very little for ourselves and relied on the protection of adults.

It was then that we could feel the real, genuine fear and horror of the impending end and incessant torment. The kind that last forever. Because it's unclear when mom will come and stop them. It is completely unknown what will happen next, will they hear, will they help, will they support, will they calm my pain?..

We could be afraid of those torments that no one knows when will end. The worst thing is not knowing when the pain will stop

Then we could be in total powerlessness. Perhaps they were tied in diapers, or perhaps left in the hospital. Alone, with unknown doctors who climb into the body, who are not interested in how we are all this, is it scary …

And the worst thing is when mom is not there. Or the one who is "for us". The one who stands behind our back, and always makes sure that nothing wrong is done to us. And he asks us, is interested in us, notices.

And when there is no obvious strong danger for us at the moment, and we are faced with the experience of wild fear and horror in adulthood, this is always about the past. It's always about that little girl or that little boy. It is always about powerlessness and fear of the inevitable. It's always about a lack of protection and support. Self-defense and self-support. It is often about empowering the environment and the people around you with strong power over yourself and your life. This is about the fact that your own will is not enough, your own power over yourself is not enough. It's always about a request: notice, support, calm down, help …

Neurotic fear: how to deal with it

In fact, everything described above is a neurotic fear, that is, one for which there are no obvious specific reasons in the here and now (a house does not fall, a comet does not fly, weapons are not fired, etc.). Neurotic fear is a fantasy. And usually, what do we do with them? We can freeze and think, fantasize. And then switch to something else, from the intolerance of being alone with a frightening fantasy.

In fact, we ourselves do not develop our fantasy, we do not detail it. For example, fear of getting cancer. We can imagine some terrible image, a picture, perhaps even blurry and indistinct, and already very much frightened, run to do the analysis, or, conversely, hide somewhere under the covers.

But we only need to detail our fantasy … How will it all be, how will we do the research, how will we know that we are sick, what kind of tumor we will have? Where it will be located and how. In detail, we can notice that our overwhelming fear changes a little, perhaps some other experiences are manifested. After all, we begin to understand that everything that we think may not be so, and even in the fact that we fantasize, we can live and there are many options for the development of events. Fear begins to acquire some observable forms, becomes not blurred and limitless, but, on the contrary, targeted, understandable. Ideas and ways of how to protect yourself, what measures to take are beginning to emerge.

On the other hand, it is important to think about what exactly leads to this fantasy?

For example, there are no objective reasons for getting cancer. No diagnosis, no real disease. But in the head - it is, as it were, already there. Where does it come from? Why exactly - cancer, not AIDS, for example …

And here you can explore those "roots" from which fears grow. It is always some kind of past experience that we have. What is he? Someone got sick and died in their arms? And then we can be “in merging” with this person and for some reason now “must” also suffer.

And, perhaps, something similar has already happened to you? Have you already experienced some element of a kind of "cancer" disease?.. For example, you could have removed, cut out something, you could have lost some organ.

And also - this kind of fears, diseases, some kind of evil directed at oneself - this is a very auto-aggressive action. That is, in my fantasy I realize a lot of aggression and anger (and, perhaps, hatred) directed at myself. That is, for some reason I want to torture myself, kill, mock myself. What is it about in my life?

Why should my organs be burdened with malignant tumor. Why can't they be healthy?

And if these organs are responsible for some area of our life - for example, the reproductive system - for the sphere of sexuality, childbirth, respiratory organs - for the sphere of breathing as a manifestation of life, the right to life in this world, the ability to breathe this air, to have your place, claim it. The digestive system - on the ability to use us, "absorb", digest what we need and get rid of, reject the unnecessary.

Isn't such an aggressive fantasy about illness - a manifestation of self-denial, self-loathing or a particular organ or system that for some reason should not live?.. Why should my lungs not live? Why shouldn't I breathe?.. Is there a place for me in this world?.. Do I give myself the right to this life? Why shouldn't my reproductive system live, do I allow myself to be sexual, to realize my arousal? Do I allow myself to become pregnant and have children?..

Can I absorb what is in this world - food, information, care, relax, use it all, appropriate something for myself? Digest, reject? And something completely - throw it away? Perhaps I have no right to do this? Or did I not deserve, I did not do enough to "eat"? Or maybe I swallowed something and I can no longer refuse, can not spit it out? How much and what will I owe for being “fed”?..

To start dealing with neurotic fear, to start dealing with it - it is important to "unpack" it. Those of its "layers" that the psyche hides from us, giving out only a vague and terrible image of "something", one or two pictures.

Neurotic fear deprives us of the freedom to contact needs. Indeed, behind this horror there can be many difficult experiences - for example, guilt or shame, pain, humiliation, from which you want to fence yourself off.

But if they already exist, if somewhere they are “sitting”, stopped and “packed”, then they will make themselves felt all the time - with such horror and such fantasies and phobias.

In psychotherapy, during individual and group work, there is an opportunity to get in touch with what one cannot see and touch on one's own. There is an opportunity, next to another, or a group of others, to “feel” your fear and horror and what lies behind it, to consider all the “layers of the pie”, to investigate their nature, their roots, where, how and when they originated.

And in the end to make fear more real, which means - focused, targeted, conscious. Make it your resource and real protection.

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