What Scares You And How Do You Deal With It?

[Lionheart]

Some of the things that scare me are;

Riding in a car (accidents)
Tornado weather
being out in public (being social)
the threat of a fire (especailly in the winter)
the threat of possible violence

I don't deal too well with these kinds of things and even sleep in my clothes so that I am ready for an emergency. :confused: My psychiatrist is not the kind to prescribe anxiety medications and I need ways to deal with anxiety/panic. I would like to hear about the things you do to fight anxiety and panic, including any medications that you take.

 

[Crl1983]

-Drunk people or people on drugs
-Driving in unfamiliar places,in heavy traffic, in the rain, on narrow roads,and on bridges
-Being home alone at night or being the only adult around at night, anywhere we may be
-Sleep paralysis (which I unfortunately get all the time)
-Crowds
-Most men
-Guns
-Threats of violence
- my dad,even though he passed on I still feel him around me sometimes
- The house where he killed my sister, the house we grew up in where so much happened..I'm actually even afraid of the town we grew up in
- dark or murky water
- "bumps in the night"
- the curtains being open at night or looking out the window at night
- talking to most people

I don't take any medications because I don't like the way they make me feel. I usually just try to do anything i can to try and calm down..ya know,all the recommended things like soothing music, breathing deeply, exercising, punching bag, writing, drawing,etc..but I usually just end up smoking too many cigarettes and dissociating no matter what I do. Occasionally when it's really bad I cut. For the sleep paralysis and nightmares(which always go together) I have special things I do, It takes awhile to fully come out of it so as soon as I am able to I walk around with my phone and usually a knife in hand and I check everything,all the rooms and doors and windows and touch things throughout the house to let me know I'm awake. Then I sit down and have a drink (non-alcoholic) and a cigarette. I have to do these things because If I go to sleep immediately afterwards it starts all over again.

 

[Mercy]

Anxiety and panic are so real in the PTSD world. We are all on emergency standby.

My prescribing Psychiatrist and I talked about meds. She felt that therapy would proceed more easily and more deeply if I had anxiety meds. I think she was right. As I calmed down, I was more able to think things through. My days were much less exhausting. I slept better. I know some Drs. fear that we will become dependant on the medicines. For me, the benefits out weighed the risks. I don't have an addictive personality. I take clonazepam.

 

[221177]

- That I don't exist (I am no body)
- Abandonment
- Failure
- Being caught in a negative mind spiral for the rest of my life

I ask myself how many of the above things can I change and how many must I think about accepting. Fear of failure & being caught in a negative spiral for the rest of my life is actually a saving grace because it finally makes me try different things to move forward.

 

[Kintsugi]

Parking lots!

I bring my dog everywhere with me, and she sits in the car and watches me go in and out. She would bark her little hound head off if anything went awry, and at the very least, it comforts me to think that this may scare and assailant, so I try going out sometimes to the grocery store past dark with her in the car.

 

[Reclusive]

I'm scared of leaving my house, of having people over. The telephone scares the bejeesus out of me. Authority figures of any type - real or perceived (so, my psych and my t). I'm worried about home invasions, that people come into my yard at night. I can hear my gate banging in the wind and sometimes it sounds like someone's coming through it. Only bad thing about my office.

Children playing scare me. Their laughter and shouts sound like screaming to me. Sirens scare me, the garbage truck scares me, any loud noise, really. It's really hard when we watch movies because we have a really good surround system and my fiance likes the volume up. Normally takes me half a movie to get used to it. Sudden loud noises are even worse.

Spiders. Spiders scare me a lot. Other bugs I'm pretty okay with, but not spiders.

I'm on a lot of anti-anxiety meds I take daily and then I have one that's 'as needed'. They do help a lot. My anxiety used to be so bad I was OCD about a lot of things. I was pulling my hair out or I'd rip off my cuticles because they didn't look right and really bad migraines. Now it's just cluster headaches. Other than that, I swear a lot when I get scared. If the noises from outside are bad enough, I put music on to drown them out, but then I'm scared there's a noise I need to hear that I won't because of the music, so..... I dunno. It's hard.

 

[Lionheart]

Fear of failure & being caught in a negative spiral for the rest of my life is actually a saving grace because it finally makes me try different things to move forward.

I can totally relate to that fear of being in a downward spiral forever. I know that when I was working through my trauma issues in therapy, it was intense and I wanted more than anything to give up, but I had come to the realization that I was literally fighting for my life and that kept me going. Some fear is a good thing, it is when we become paralyzed with fear that we are in the most danger of remaining stuck in our misery. Keep trying different things till you find what works for you. I think you are on a good healing path and I appreciate you for sharing.

 

[221177]

I think so many of our fears are actually fear of the unknown. I find doing little things that scare me helps build up my confidence bit by bit - although mostly it's showing other people the shadow side of me, which is scary intimacy in itself.

I try to do little stuff before the mind comes into play (to question what I'm doing & linking all the fears associated with it), but when it does, I ask myself what's the worst that can happen? Abandonment? Rejection? Been there, done it.. go for it.. maybe it will be different this time, even if it's not at least I tried. Accepting that worst, focus on calm and then do it. Pat myself on the back no matter what the outcome :)

Even with panic and anxiety, the more I run away from it the scarier it is - when I actually sink into it, often it's not half as bad as I thought. It's all in these crazy beautiful minds of ours :) x

 

[Crl1983]

Oh I am also afraid when I am out in the store or another public place and someone is walking behind me or standing behind me, this is much worse if the person happens to be a man. I get scared too when I am out somewhere and someone is looking at me too much, I was in the store the other day to get some milk and there was a man who was just staring at me, I felt like a deer in the headlights and I started panicking so I hauled *** out of the store as soon as I paid, and then there was a car behind me most of the way home and I was freaked out because I thought someone was following me. Makes me feel like I am losing it.

 

[Rydia]

I felt a little ashamed to share my list, but everyone's bravery here made me feel strong enough to do so.

-Driving
-Walking where there's lots of open space
-Walking outside and a car drives past me with their windows down and the music BOOMING. Or they shout something at me. I'm almost always imagining walking over to get the mail in my apartment complex and being brutally shot by a driver.
-Anything being thrown around unless it's a giant beach ball (or something that seems harmless). But nerf guns or people just randomly throwing stuff scares me, I'm afraid it will be thrown right at my face and it always makes me flinch and want to hide.
-Styrofoam!
-Guns, especially the sound of guns in videogames/movies
-Big crowds of noisy people
-My boyfriend being intimate with me :(
-Abandonment
-Failure
-General loss of control
-Sometimes just having a body scares me.

Oh, I entirely forgot about the second part of your question *edit*
How do I deal? I either hide from whatever is scaring me, like physically leave the scary situation, or I try to make a forceful attempt to endure whatever is scaring me (like driving somewhere anyway). With styrofoam (such a stupid phobia I have!!), I like to be able to hold the awful thing in my hands and be able to dispose of it myself, rather than be subjected to the sound and having it be totally out of my control.
With guns, I've found that I can play some videogames--like Bioshock, where the gun sounds aren't scary to me--where having things in my control is a LOT better.
Similarly, if I'm playing catch with someone, this is perfectly fine. But I would rather carefully throw the ball or whatever to someone, and they would carefully throw back. It doesn't make me feel out of control at all.
The rest, I'm trying to work out.

 

[Reclusive]

-Walking outside and a car drives past me with their windows down and the music BOOMING. Or they shout something at me. I'm almost always imagining walking over to get the mail in my apartment complex and being brutally shot by a driver.

This one! Both my fiance and I have this exact same fear! But it's any car driving by, but windows down and music up makes it worse. It doesn't help that people have yelled at us and thrown stuff at us out of moving cars before, either. But we're both convinced we're going to be shot and I don't know where we got that idea.

 

[bittersweet]

- Driving in the same area where the trauma occurred or unfamiliar places
- Being alone with men
- Falling asleep alone without my husband (I feel vulnerable otherwise. He is my protector)
- Crowds
- Walking alone at night
- Being caught in a negative mind spiral for the rest of my life (borrowed this from another poster)
- Loud noises
- Sounds of women struggling/screaming

I don't take any meds at the moments but my T and I attempted cognitive behavioral therapy. Unfortunately I'm too broken for it to have been effective on it's own. I will be looking into possible meds with my new Dr.