What If.......?

What If…….? The value of fear and imagination working harmoniously together is that we are able to learn from situations and respond appropriately if they occur again in the future. This goes all the way back to our primitive origins as a species. We learned that certain animals, places and people were dangerous and had to be approached cautiously and in the right way; some were simply best avoided completely. If experience has shown us that a hostile tribe lives in the valley over the ridge, then that valley is best avoided. This brings us to what psychologists have identified as two particular types of learning; approach and avoidance. The two are very different and for very good reason. Think of living in a hostile world. Think, too, of the saying that fools rush in where angels fear to tread. If you rush into a new situation, you may not survive it. Better to approach slowly and cautiously. If you are in any doubt, back off and review the situation before venturing further. Little by little you reassure yourself that it is safe to go into the situation. Is there a bear sleeping in the cave? Just in case, do nothing that might awaken it. Evident danger on the other hand demands a rapid response. Get out quickly - and stay out. Looking at that the other way round. If you have encountered something scary the instant response is to avoid it in future. No second or third tries. It’s dangerous; stay away. It takes a long time to learn that in fact your experience was a one off and it is actually OK to return to that place or activity. They say that if you fall off a horse the best thing is to get back on as quickly as possible to recover your confidence. Easier said than done. We have been talking so far of actual situations which arise and how the responses that we have learned have survival value. That is what our brains have evolved to deal with, real, actual, imminent threats to our survival. Unfortunately, it is the only mechanism that we have. If the threat is only hypothetical, we still react as if it were real. This is where the combination of fear and imagination becomes toxic. Our mind and body come to a state of arousal in order to deal with something which is not happening - but which might. The result is anxiety which can be very mild, will the bus be late, for instance, or can be extreme; if I try to fly to somewhere the plane might crash. Or the lift might get stuck between floors and I’ll be trapped. Combine that strong anxiety with avoidance learning and thus are born panics and phobias. An example may be helpful. A person is standing at the bus stop one morning on the way to work when suddenly they feel dizzy and light headed, they are shaky and breathless. Somehow they manage to get onto the bus, go to work and do whatever they have to; the feeling has passed. But that is not the end of it. The following morning as they prepare to leave the house, the thought hits them, “I hope I don’t get that feeling again today.” Immediately they feel a little pang of anxiety, which prompts them to think, “Actually I don’t feel too good now.” On the way to the bus stop the anxiety builds, and by the time the bus arrives they struggle to get on it. The day after is worse, as is the day after that. They have taken the first steps to becoming agoraphobic. What caused the original experience? They ate out with friends the previous evening and unknowingly ate a dodgy prawn which showed itself the following morning at the bus stop. They didn’t eat any more dodgy prawns, but since they hadn’t made that connection, it didn’t matter. The seed was sown, and the rest followed. When there is a real, identifiable threat we focus on that. We either fight and overcome it or we run from it, and that is an end to it. One way or another we deal with it and then our system returns to normal. If we get the feelings, but can’t identify the cause there is nothing to deal with and so the state persists and itself frightens us. Unconsciously, we cast around for a cause and that leads us inevitably into asking a fateful question, “What if……..?” Acute anxiety may be described as having a sense of deep foreboding in certain situations. We fear that in such a situation something awful and overpowering will happen to us. And we build a self-fulfilling prophecy. Fear serves a useful purpose; anxiety never does. Well, I hope I have showed how anxiety develops; it is a learned response. Fortunately, if we can learn to react in a particular way, we can also learn how not to react that way.