2024 Author: Harry Day | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 15:43
I think that calling fears “irrational” sounds like it’s something so silly. It's easy to feel like some kind of abnormal or a fool if your fear is IRRATIONAL. And nobody wants to seem like a fool, so it is understandable when shame and a desire to hide these fears appears. And this shame seasoning ultimately reinforces avoidant behavior and symptom retention.
As I understand it, when I say "irrational fear" I mean that the fear response is disproportionate to the actual threat that the frightening object can cause, and that this fact is obvious and understandable.
But it is understandable only by the mind.
Even if a frightening object does not carry a "real", actual threat to life, on an emotional, physical level, it causes an intense reaction in the body, as if there was a threat to life. And this reaction is completely real. That is, all those physiological processes take place in the body that occur in life-threatening situations, when “fight or flight”. That is why no "rational" arguments, such as "well, pet this dog, it is muzzled and will not bite) do not help, all instincts sound the alarm. This reaction is triggered by the autonomic nervous system, the one that regulates the work of internal organs, so trying to stop this reaction by volitional effort is like trying to use your mind to slow your heartbeat or tell your stomach to stop digesting food. Misunderstanding that we are dealing with a real reaction of the body and give rise to all this shame and complexes.
The fact that the reaction is disproportionate to the situation does not make fear irrational and irrelevant. In general, from the point of view of the psyche, there are no irrational fears - the main instinct is survival. If you sensed the horror of impending death and survived, your brain will associate the situation with a direct threat to life. He will not figure out the next time if there is a threat, but will immediately turn on the "fight or flight" mode and will encourage avoiding a situation that has been assimilated as dangerous.
The problem is that the formation of such a connection does not require a “real” threat to life - it is enough to perceive the situation as such. That is, if you actually could not die when the dog attacked you, but you experienced the experience that you will die now, a connection will be formed and you will begin to avoid dogs. Because for your psyche, a dog is equal to death. Thus, this fear has a protective function.
There is nothing shameful about having an instinct for self-preservation. If you have a reaction that is disproportionate to the situation, this does not mean that you are some kind of irrational fool, it means that you once faced the horror of impending death. Psychotrauma darkens life, you hardly want to say "thank you" to your psyche for taking care of survival through the fear of airplanes. Fortunately, most of these traumas respond well to psychotherapy, and fears can be overcome.
The first step to this is to stop shaming yourself for what happened to you - you did not choose that reaction. No one voluntarily decides to start being afraid of elevators, cars, and so on. If you are ashamed of your fears, think about what emotions people who have experienced traumatic events evoke in you - most likely it is compassion and sympathy, there may be admiration and respect, but you certainly hardly think that a person who has survived a serious car accident is afraid to sit down for the steering wheel is a fool and that his fear is stupid and unfounded, or that this fear does not complicate his life. You do not deserve condemnation for something terrible happened to you.
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