Anxiety - Entering the Darkness

In my previous blog we discovered that we understand our world and feelings with “Is Like” statements. Let us recap.

“Is like” statements.

The smell of this flower is like the smell of red roses. (We classify the type of smell. Now we know how this flower more or less smells).

This thing looks like a table, its place is not in the cupboard but in the sitting room. (We assign a “place” for objects where it belongs to its “is like” statement).

Or: This is a table (meaning – this thing looks like a table when compared to other tables, therefor it needs to be placed in the sitting room).

When you can’t describe something’s “is like” properties, you can’t understand this thing.  You cannot understand its meaning, its place in your life or how this thing benefits you (or threats you...)

When a patient tries to describe his anxiety, it becomes extremely difficult for the patient to tell you what his feelings of anxiety “is like”. It’s as if they don’t have enough or sufficient words to describe what their anxiety is like. 

Look at these real-life examples taken from a YouTube video:

“I have the worst panic attacks at night, they just appear, wake me up with absolutely no reason and leave me horrified. I even fainted and vomited from my panic attacks without any particular reason. 

Yea I think most anxiety is detached from a certain object.

I don't know what triggers me I'm always anxious. I don't know what I fear and what should I face.”

Look at this infographic describing what anxiety feels like.

On the other hand, persons coping with their fears and anxieties tend to have a storeroom full of “is like” statements. 

These “is like” statements we call “metaphors” and “stories”.

Look at this example of a person who started to come to grips with his feelings of anxiety and panic using the metaphor of driving a bus:

“The metaphor that has worked for me is to tell myself to “drive the bus,” meaning “keep going, don’t stop (literally) driving the car... Using the “drive the bus” metaphor, I don’t “grip the wheel” (fight the sensation) and “turn the music up loud” (distract myself) to avoid the “screaming passengers” (my scary thoughts that arise when the symptom comes) in the back. Continuing with that metaphor, I also don’t stand up and yell or scream at the passengers — meaning, I don’t struggle or engage with the scary thoughts. In this metaphor, the bus is your life and the passengers would be the noise and tumult of your anxiety disorder. Sometimes the passengers are exceptionally loud and other times not, but either way you drive the bus; you live your life.”

The emergence of the “Thing”

When you can’t assign meaning and sense to something, it becomes a “Thing”. It “is like” entering a dark room, not knowing what the object is you see in the dark. What is that Thing? Is it a burglar? Is it a monster? What are the “meaning” of all these things I notice in the dark?

Something becomes a “Thing” when I cannot assign a meaning and place for it. Such a Thing causes apprehension, at least, when I can’t understand it, and may quickly evolve to full blown fear for “it”.

The Anxiety Metaphor: Entering a dark room.

In our previous blog we discovered that the Anxiety Cycle tends to dump you into feelings of anxiety BEFORE anything happens to you. It’s like standing at the door of an apartment, ready to enter a dark room.

•         There’s Something in there – I think that incomprehensible Thing is going to hurt me – my breathing and my heartbeat runs away with me, my stomach contracts into a painful knob - let me rather flee to a place where there is Nothing to hurt me.
•         Fleeing into the Nothingness is the most basic Root and cause of Anxiety. Inside the Nothingness there is no meaning or comprehension. It truly feels like the Hell of Darkness when you flee into the Nothingness to escape the Fear for the Thing.
•         You flee into the Darkness of the Nothingness when you withdraw from others who are most dear to you, literally withdrawing yourself into the solitude of your room or a toilet, or any other private space where no-one can reach you. Or you flee into the Darkness of the Nothingness when you cannot speak in front of others because of your fear of rejection, should you fail in their eyes.
•         When you have fled into the Nothingness, you experience that there is no sense to this place. You don’t understand what is going on. You can’t describe the (feeling of) utter Nothingness. You are completely and desperately alone, and no-one can understand you and your feelings. You are unreachable. You become detached from your world and even yourself.
•        However, fleeing into the Nothingness causes so much stress and anxiety to you that you want to flee with every ounce of will-power out of the Nothingness. It is then when you flee from the podium where you had to deliver your speech.  You climb into your car and just take the road to nowhere. And now the spiral effect starts to take hold of you – when you experience anxiety and panic, you flee to a safe place, but in the safe place you are completely overrun with feelings of anxiety, to such an extend you just want to get out of this feeling and place with everything you have.
•         “My anxiety has anxieties”. 
  

I become so anxious that I start to experience symptoms feeling as if I am having a heart attack. The spiral effect let me enter into a full-blown anxiety attack.

How can one overcome this feeling of crippling anxiety?

Lighting the Candle

Well, you light a candle.

•          Lightening the Candle = to find the COURAGE to enter the room.
•          Lightening the Candle = to comprehend, to see truthfully, what this Thing “Is Like”.
•         Lightening the Candle = to rename, give new meaning, truly understanding what is going on.

And the anxiety subsides.

In my next blog I will discuss the first part of lighting the Candle.