Anxiety is Fear!

I’ve had a bit of an epiphany recently. 

This is going to sound very obvious to many of you, maybe even silly, but hear me out. 

Anxiety is fear. 

I had no idea, in a way. I mean, I guess logically I understood that anxiety is a type of fear, but I never understood that I feel afraid on a regular basis. Sure, sometimes I get nervous or I worry, but I don’t feel afraid. 

I associate the word fear with times when there is imminent physical danger or if someone is yelling at me. My heart races, I sweat more, my body is on high alert. I don’t experience those sensations when I am diligently organizing my family’s departure for a trip, or when I am mapping out to the minute a busy week of work and parenting. I don’t even label that set of behaviors and feelings as anxiety. They are so normal to me, so much the wallpaper of my existence that I think of them simply as “competence” and “efficiency.” I am rarely aware of the roots of the compulsions to get everything done. 

The story I tell myself about being meticulously on top of all details, prepared for every possibility, thinking through everyone’s needs is that there are just many things that need to be done and they need to be done now, and correctly! It is just me trying to make my busy life (and the life of anyone who crosses my path) more efficient, prepared, well organized and satisfying. One vigilant, well prepared, very-much-in-control task at a time. 

Turns out, there is FEAR under all that!

I really had no idea. What I am coming to understand is that under that ‘competence’ is the worry, the anxiety, the fear that if I don’t get it all organized and prepared just so, things will fall apart… For me, as a young child of divorce, things did feel like they fell apart, and could fall apart more. My coping strategy for feeling in control of my life, my surroundings was to be prepared. Moreover, my approach to trying to keep my parents happy (or less stressed) was to have no needs, and to help take other things off their plates. 

This year, our family had several crises – a death, some cancer... I was left solo parenting for many weeks and there were more balls to juggle than I was capable of diligently organizing… or even organizing at all. I noticed sensations of panic showing up in my body on my drive to work, or when a small challenge or inconvenience arose - times when nothing really hard or bad was happening, especially compared to the actual huge difficulties that were had been happening. I slowly began to understand that the racing in my chest was fear, that the fear was connected to control (or lack thereof) and a feeling of imminent disaster. But having been through some true crises, I was more in tune with different sensations of overwhelm and fear. In the car, during a moment of peace, I could tell that the panic feelings were unwarranted. My plate was overflowing, balls were being dropped, life was very hard, but there was no physical danger or actual risk to my safety at stake. 

It was “just” fear. My fight/flight response was in overdrive, stuck in the on position.

Thankfully, I have a practice of releasing distressing emotions, with the attention of a listening partner. So when I noticed these mismatched panic feelings, I used my listening time to scream and cry and act as afraid as I felt, all while they knew - and I knew - that there was no real risk present. I was experiencing fear from another time, maybe fear from being a child of divorce bouncing between houses, maybe generation’s old fear passed down from my ancestors running from pogroms and The Holocaust, maybe from the last week when my daughter was crying about being scared of her new school and I had to be strong and confident. I was feeling the fear and letting the fear move through me as though it were real in that moment so that when I was done with that listening session I could put my anxiety into perspective and keep putting one imperfect foot in front of the other. I was not reliving the fear or re-telling or re-traumatizing myself. I was moving the feelings - the sensations that were already inside me - out. I was able to do this because I had enough perspective (and company) to be able to differentiate between the sensations in my body and the lack of danger in the present moment.

This new understanding of anxiety has stuck with me. I became able to observe feelings of panic and gauge if I was feeling overwhelmed or if there was truly a crisis. I can assess a situation more accurately now, thus leaving me to just face big feelings that are not connected to imminent danger, or even a true problem that needs solving. I still have to do something with the fear - a listening session, a workout, colorfully venting with a friend. But the relief and regaining of control over where to put my mind and my attention has been empowering. Anxiety is fear. And fear is sometimes not about the present situation. And I can decide how to move through both the feelings and the perceived or actual challenge/crisis. 

*Notebene:  this is not meant to be therapeutic advice, just sharing my own experience and point of view.