The Fear is Worse than the Danger

It's fun to me to take a conversation and try to track the course of how the group went from point A to point B, how we got from the weather to vampires or wherever else we land.  Similarly, I enjoy dissecting whom has instigated what phrase to the rest of the family or friend group.  For example, "I feel rotund" is all me after a meal, but Andy has said it so many times that reality has blurred to some degree, there.

Whelp, we have a phrase we use in this household that I know originated with my brother Mike:  "the fear is worse than the danger."  This is a slight rephrasing of a quote from somewhere (we were trying to find where as I was contemplating this blog post, leaning toward Romance of the Three Kingdoms), and basically what it means is that often the dread leading up to an event is worse than the actual performance or participation in the event itself.  There have been times I've needed to have a tough conversation with someone, something that was hard to articulate or by expressing my pain or frustration I risked their embarrassment or possibly even a violently defensive response.  In the bulk of these, the anxiety I had prior to the actual discussion was far worse than the actual confrontation.

I definitely have shower conversations.  By which, I mean that I will replay an argument or drum up a hypothetical situation in my mind and decide exactly how I would win said argument or situation.  I practice parts of these tough conversations and work through what my words ought to be, in order to be succinct but as impactful as possible.  Not every conversation gets this treatment--sometimes moments just happen organically, only to be dissected later--but anything that I've at least tossed around as "is it worth it to bring up X?" or an interview or presentations and recordings I have made for work, all of these have a similar rehearsal element.

There's a point where these are helpful, where I can use them to discharge frustration about a situation enough to meet the emotional need. There's also a point where it becomes obsessive and unhelpful.  I have shut myself in a room to pace and talk a something out to myself more than once long and enough to where my Fitbit recognized it as a walk, funnily enough.  In one recently, that small buzz on my Fitbit was an important reminder that maybe I ought to put that conversation down for a moment and find a different means to channel that energy out.  Hence, blog post.

The fear is worse than the danger.

I use that to ground myself.  It reminds me that my feelings of dread are still valid, and simultaneously that I need to assess what the real danger is.  I have some choice in how much dread I carry in those moments.  I can deescalate part of the churning process.  It gives me an out, to keep out of the obsession territory.

Part of my anxiety stemming from my medical trauma manifests as extreme preparedness, meaning that I find some comfort as a coping mechanism to be as prepared as possible for different situations.  Sometimes, this means planning out how I would extract myself from X situation if I have an issue with my ostomy bag.  Sometimes it means ensuring that I have emergency supplies at the ready for four different hypothetical situations.  Again, there is a line between when these behaviors are helpful/generate comfort and when they become destructive.  I have planned for some weird scenarios that have happened; I have planned for many more that did not, yet was still glad to know that they would be covered if the need arose.  There is a point when I have expended more energy planning and packing than I do enjoying the ride--it's about finding that right balance.  Not enough preparedness means that I will not be able to focus on the present; too much means similarly that I cannot focus on the present.

So I ground myself as needed:  "the fear is worse than the danger."  I trust myself, that I'll be able to problem-solve in the moment.  I still give myself to tools to be successful therein.  I've gotten worlds better at assessing how much repetition and planning is actually helpful to me.  I can find peace.  I can rein components of that fear in, once I learned how to recognize what was happening.

We live in these unstated elements of fear right now, fear that's been there all along but is now more stark and real to a lot of people.  The fear of the unknown, fear of loss (of freedom, of loved ones, of security, etc) are very loud at the moment.  Is the fear itself worse than the actual danger?  It's kind of tough to say when those are the fears in question.  But we can slow the churning, calm the cycle from making them any worse than they need to be.