Can You Conquer A Fear Of The Unknown?

[ifonly]

Being in therapy and trying a millions kinds of meds leaves you feeling like you have even less control.
...if I just keep trying and making an honest effort then eventually I have to stop fearing things so much.
...I functioned the best when I did not give my weaknesses any power.
I think we feel hopeless so often because we LET ourselves feel hopeless by the way we THINK. We focus on it and then we loose control. But, if we have the constant mind-set that we are in control and everything will be fine, as well as being aware of your thoughts ridding of negative thoughts and refocusing no matter how mentally exhausting it is, then it must become automatic right?

Hi lost - your post resonates so much.

Kerching yes - sometimes I feel like a failure when I realise I've been in & out of therapy for 30yrs. That knowledge kinda sits uncomfortably, as tho there *must* be something wrong with me b/c if there wasn't, surely I'd be able to manage my life/feelings/thoughts better (be GONE inner critic! be gone!).

Yes on the honest effort too b/c I guess an honest effort is a 'conscious' effort you kno? It's like choosing to associate & be present rather than choosing to dissociate. I used to think I couldn't choose, that dissociating was automatic but in the last few months I've become very aware of my goofing off triggers. To stop myself goofing off, I try to sit with the uncomfortable feelings. It's hard sometimes, b/c my dissociative was my default safe place. But I am learning that being present & sitting with discomfort has its own special rewards. Not always, but often it does. I give myself a little gold star in my mind each time I can sit still and just hang in there :)

Re giving weaknesses power - yup, for me it's the fear of not knowing what's coming next. I find that extremely difficult to face or sit with.

And yes - on your last point too :) I believe negative thinking is habit forming, as is doomsday predicting. Your story of the autistic girl & the doors was lovely b/c after she faced her fears & went thru the process she was rewarded by her own actions. Perhaps it was the habitual exposure to the doors having a desensitising effect? Hmm.

A block for me is in facing one fear and working thru it, I tend to put 10 others in its place. I've realised thru posting this thread that conquering my fears actually makes me feel vulnerable, not powerful or in control. It puts me out there in world, open to judgement & criticism. I feel small compared to everyone else on earth. As tho everyone else knows the rules, but I don't.

So I am allowing my fears to keep me down b/c at least it's safe in my hidey hole. Hmm. Ponderous. I didn't realise the extent to which I lacked self confidence!

Is it ridiculous to suggest I hate the day time? I really do. It's too bright, it sheds light on me & I it just feels unbearable. I tend to sleep all day & stay awake all night b/c that's my time. It's a known space, dark & warm. Hidden from prying eyes, questions and bright lights.

Does anyone else feel the same about the daytime?

 

[ifonly]

...REBT (Rational Emotive Behavior Therapy)...cranio sacral therapy...faith based recovery...I am med free except for an allergy pill and vitamins and probiotics

Thanx heaps, Albatross - I love your medfree-ness! That's where I'd like to be one day too and your journey is so inspirational. Congratulations on attending AA and going thru it. Wow, you must feel like a different person these days, no?

In my local area no one does REBT or CST but I've heard positive things about cranio sacral therapy particularly. I'm so glad the combination has helped you so much and perhaps your faith has also contributed? I believe in a higher spiritual 'something' but I don't really know what it is. I'm a huge believer in people bringing into their lives belief systems/influences which help them be healthier and help them to lead meaningful lives in whatever form that 'something' takes. :)

 

[ifonly]

For me its all about avoidance along with the fear, but for me its more avoidance because i feel overwlelmed and lacking confidence in facing up to things of what might be...The mind is a powerful thing ah, i still have a long way to go on the fight or flight fear front.

Yep, Sazza. For me it's 'out of sight, out of mind' ... if I can't see it, it's not there. And if it's not there, well it just doesn't exist. As crippling as my avoidance issues are I have to say that by avoiding so many things, I feel as tho I have more time. More space, room to move.

Re fight or flight ... this is where I'm practicising sitting with uncomfortable feelings. I used to be very black or white & in a grey world, black or white doesn't always work for me. For me, black or white meant either fighting against those feelings & not acknowledging their existence or fleeing them. The grey space means ... ugh, sitting with them for as long as I can bear it and neither fighting or fleeing. It's difficult to do, very stressful - but I'm trying to train my brain not to keep deferring to its default settings. Doing that requires me to be consciously present which can be ... oh you know ... 'challenging' :p

 

[ifonly]

Tearing into those is like tearing out your soul and leaving you without one for a while, and in my experience they are slow, exhausting and feature a lot of, at times, fairly heated arguing with my T and stubborn desperate resistance from me, so they're never going to be popular or pretty therapies, but I do think they work if you can hang in there.
I so deeply relate to this fear of the unknown. In fact, if I had to identify the most dabilitating feature of my world right now, this would be it. More later maybe, it's hard to think about this stuff this morning.

Hey Maddog,
Ain't that the truth re the mornings! Yeh, it is debilitating - that's totally the right word for it. Crippling too. Sigh :( Even tho you resisted your T, do you feel like your work in therapy benefit you?? Sometimes I just feel like a ball of string all unwound in therapy. It can be very hard to roll all the string back together again in to some order.

 

[maddog]

God, I love the unwound ball of string analogy, sums it up beautifully. I guess I have real crises of faith and belief in asking myself those most fundamental questions... is therapy benefiting me? I feel the way you describe every time i am there thesedays, and for a long time afterwards. It makes me feel as though the fraying broken threads that hold back the turmoil are ripped away and I'm floundering, falling, blown apart and increasingly unabel to roll up that ball of string when it's time for me to leave. Honestly, it's getting harder and harder to calm and compose myself enough to leave, or then to schedule or plan to do anything in the aftermath of therapy, because I'm just not able to function afterwards. On the surface of it this makes me ask what the hell I'm doing if it only seems to be getting worse and worse...

Except that almost anyone will tell you it gets worse before it gets better. And somehow, it "feels" right to be doing this, like a deep muscle massage that leaves you writhing in pain and physically exhausted for a while afterwards, yet somehow heals the damage in a way that takes a while to make itself known.

I don't know. I don't feel conviction in anything much thesedays it seems, which is sad.

Maddog

 

[Tinyflame]

I wonder if fear of the unknown is more accurately expressed as fear of the worst-case scenario, or fear of what came before?

 

[Srain]

Is it ridiculous to suggest I hate the day time? I really do. It's too bright, it sheds light on me & I it just feels unbearable. I tend to sleep all day & stay awake all night b/c that's my time. It's a known space, dark & warm. Hidden from prying eyes, questions and bright lights.

I have come to realize that I've become overly sensitive to light now, so sunglasses are must most of the time. The early morning light doesn't bother me at all nor the early evening but broad daylight is very "painful". I've read where this is not so unusual. I think that for me I can let it play into my agoraphobia but I believe it actually has some validity when it comes to being a physical issue as far as sensitivity.

Good point Junebug.
peace,
Rain

 

[kimberley dawn]

I was afraid of fear itself before, it struck me hard. Like you my mail was just hidden away, I took down my name tag on my mail box and door, didn't go to meetings at work so I eventually lost my shares in the buisness. That pleased me as I no longer had to fear of loosing them... another catch 22.

There was no way I could stay like that. I just wouldn't survive on the outside world, and I sure as hell wasn't gonna get locked away! That really freacked me out! And then I got a T. And she was based 110 kilometers from where I lived. Had to get there and back......

I sat on the train with a knife up my sleave! Told the whats-he's-called that checked the tickets to make sure I got off in Oslo. Told him not to touch me though.... I was a walking potential disaster! I'm sooooo glad I didn't hurt anyone with that knife!! Then I got scared of myself. Me and my knife. Then I got the best present ever from one of my ex's; He gave me a ridgeback puppy with a book that told me what they were like.

I read about that breed like it was a life-line, and in a way it was. For me. Taking the puppy with me on the train made me feel safer!! Gosh, are we scrued up at times or what?! Safe with a puppy! (6 years later that wonderful dog got between me and 2 slugs. They backed off. I would have been in hell that night if he wasn't there.)

So for me I guess you can say I gave him my fear. I just kept the bad temper ;-) And I truely believe we all have a key to unlock out misery, one lock at a time. Gotta believe it. Been fidling with them locks for quite some time and I get to open them now and then. Sure hope you find your "keyes" soon!

 

[lost4awhile]

Ifonly- I agree the inner critic is way too constant and loud! When I went into therapy my main question was, "what is wrong with me" and after lots of work with my T and reading about ptsd I know why I am super sensitive and what to do when that happens. Everytime I do feel something that I know is not normal I tell myself that its okay, what happened to me does not happen to most people and I will always have myself. You may of heard of Pete Walker, he has some pretty good online info about what to do when you are in any of the 4 f modes.
Making an effort- Conscious effort is so the right word!:) Thank you:) Yeah, it is nice to comfortably zone out/dissociate mildly. It is difficult to sit with the thoughts, but it's a good way to find errors in your thinking and build confidence by telling yourself positive things. You start to believe them after awhile and then you don't need to drift off to that dark, comforting corner of the mind:) It is so tempthing to visit though, the ultimate retreat from anything and everything:)

About negative thinking- I never knew how habit forming negative thinking really was, it's awful! I have been so miserable and scared of everything that I was frightened to even get out of bed! The negative thinking actually had me believing awful things about myself that were so deeply engrained I didn't even know that I thought so poorly of myself. I try to accomplish things that I need to and when I am feeling unhappy or am having "doomsday thinking" I sit down where I know I will not be interrupted and I listen to all my wrong thoughts. Then I tell myself the opposite, until the unhealthy thinking stops and eventually I go back to life, enjoying it for once and unmedicated! I cannot believe how difficult, yet rewarding it has really been.
You mentioned how you feel vulnerable when you conquer your fears. I believe the extent that we have suffered leaves us with more fears and extreme reactions to what we fear. We know that it can take a turn for the worst at any time, since it has before. Feeling small is something I have just accepted, I know I will always feel like a child. Like you said everyone knows the rules and you don't... it does feel like everyone is judging and we are always in trouble. I try so hard to believe that I am in charge and I deserve acceptance just as much as anyone else, but I still meet everyone questioning if they are putting me down in their mind or will end up saying cruel words to me. Always on the defense.

About the daytime- I thought I was the only one to feel that way about the day. Yes! I love the night! There is less noise and people, it feel like the only time I really get a break from anything that bothers me or cope with my thoughts so nobody will know what I am going through.

 

[lost4awhile]

And I truely believe we all have a key to unlock out misery, one lock at a time. Gotta believe it. Been fidling with them locks for quite some time and I get to open them now and then. Sure hope you find your "keyes" soon!
I really like your analogy of the locks! It is so true! We are the ones that hold the keys and when we are really doing awful we forget that we hold the key. I am still finding them, even without my T and it is so rewarding.Thank you for posting that we have the key to unlock our own misery. I will keep it handy for when I find myself forgetting:)​

 

[lost4awhile]

"And I truely believe we all have a key to unlock out misery, one lock at a time. Gotta believe it. Been fidling with them locks for quite some time and I get to open them now and then. Sure hope you find your "keyes" soon!"​

Thank you for this analogy that we all have hold the key to unlock and get out of our own misery. It is so true. I will keep this handy in my mind for when I am forgetting I have the key:)

 

[ifonly]

I read about that breed like it was a life-line, and in a way it was. For me. Taking the puppy with me on the train made me feel safer!!
And I truely believe we all have a key to unlock out misery, one lock at a time. Gotta believe it. Been fidling with them locks for quite some time and I get to open them now and then. Sure hope you find your "keyes" soon!

Hi kimberley dawn

I am *soo* glad you were able to stop travelling with your knife and took your puppy instead! Ridgebacks are extraordinary dogs. What is his name??

The value of animals and pets to people can never, ever be underestimated. Everyday my little dog continues to love me no matter what and continues to glue little bits of my heart back together :) He is part of my key. That is a beautiful analogy.