CeeJay1981
Banned
Part of my SA involved getting scared when people got angry around me.
This used to annoy me because I used to think, "I'm a big lad, why do I feel like such a frightened little boy? Nobody else seems to get scared."
I even used to feel scared around people much smaller than me.
Even girls!
I later found out that my subconscious, emotional brain (the part that is responsible for keeping us safe) learned long ago that anger often resulted in pain because my father would sometimes get angry and hit me when I was a small boy.
In order to keep me safe, whenever I was around anger, it would trigger anxiety in me as its way of saying "Watch out! Danger!"
This was all very well but I didn't want to feel anxious everytime someone got angry when 99% of the time it has nothing to do with me anyway. And on that 1%, I knew I was big enough and smart enough to deal with the situation calmly and effectively.
Of course, anger was just one of my "triggers". I had many, many other things that would get me anxious. Just walking down the street would be enough to trigger self-consciousness and panic attacks.
So how do we get around this problem?
Even though we may know on a conscious, intellectual level that everything is OK and we are just over-reacting, our instincive, subconscious mind has very different ideas.
Our subconscious is the part of us that controls our heartbeat, digestion, circulation and breathing. It also controls our FEELINGS and, ultimately, the quality of our lives. It does a bloody good job of it too!
The trouble is, it isn't very intelligent. It can't tell the difference between a past event and this new, different event. It just sees the SIMILARITIES and sets off the alarm bells. These alarm bells can sometimes come in the form of a panic attack. And, as you know if you've had one, they ain't very nice!
So...
...I've decided
In the meantime, take it easy.
This used to annoy me because I used to think, "I'm a big lad, why do I feel like such a frightened little boy? Nobody else seems to get scared."
I even used to feel scared around people much smaller than me.
Even girls!
I later found out that my subconscious, emotional brain (the part that is responsible for keeping us safe) learned long ago that anger often resulted in pain because my father would sometimes get angry and hit me when I was a small boy.
In order to keep me safe, whenever I was around anger, it would trigger anxiety in me as its way of saying "Watch out! Danger!"
This was all very well but I didn't want to feel anxious everytime someone got angry when 99% of the time it has nothing to do with me anyway. And on that 1%, I knew I was big enough and smart enough to deal with the situation calmly and effectively.
Of course, anger was just one of my "triggers". I had many, many other things that would get me anxious. Just walking down the street would be enough to trigger self-consciousness and panic attacks.
So how do we get around this problem?
Even though we may know on a conscious, intellectual level that everything is OK and we are just over-reacting, our instincive, subconscious mind has very different ideas.
Our subconscious is the part of us that controls our heartbeat, digestion, circulation and breathing. It also controls our FEELINGS and, ultimately, the quality of our lives. It does a bloody good job of it too!
The trouble is, it isn't very intelligent. It can't tell the difference between a past event and this new, different event. It just sees the SIMILARITIES and sets off the alarm bells. These alarm bells can sometimes come in the form of a panic attack. And, as you know if you've had one, they ain't very nice!
So...
...I've decided
In the meantime, take it easy.
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