Facing your Fears

How does someone face their fears? Not so much the external fears like spiders or darkness....but internal fears? Maybe its emotions that you have buried deep that seem dangerous to express or look at? Maybe its thoughts or feelings that you have about yourself that you are afraid to examine/face?

I used to think that it was best to let sleeping dogs lie... That we have built up these elaborate defense mechanisms for a reason. But for me these fears... have led to anxiety... have caused problems in relationships with others... have used countless hours of wasted energy to keep them at bay...

So you decide to face them.... you find a great T and you start to work through them ... but now you find your subconscious is conspiring against you... your defenses are on high alert, you dissociate when things get hard, you push your T away when things get too close...

one T says you have to move towards the mess... push towards the pain...

So for those of you who have faced a fear....talked about feelings about yourself or something that happened to you..(not necessarily feel like you are healed but got through one issue)... How did you do it? 20 seconds of courage comes to mind but that is just to blurt out a feeling... to tell of an incident... how do you work through it with T... if anyone wants to share something it would really help me... just looking for understanding of ways to push past your fears of facing yourself... facing feelings you've buried for a very long time...how did you know you were at a place that you had worked through it?

Hi Readytostop,

What a thoughtful post, I understand what you mean. You sound like you are trying your best at a comfortable pace. Let's hope your T continues to help you through it all.

What I do is bring a stuff animal with soft fur and sympathetic eyes, so I can hug it when I get scared of the topic. Also, I take little actions to propel myself closer to facing the fear: writing a little bit in my journal, or just daring myself to imagine how it's like to be free of the fear, etc.

Also, getting to know others who have the same fears, to feel not alone.

Sending you good wishes!

Readytostop- when i first went into therapy i couldnt imagine ever being able to talk about my most hidden emotions and feelings (namely shame and anger-the anger one i am still working on), but my T encouraged me to find a way that felt safe to express those emotions.
Sometimes i used art, or a sandtray...but mainly i wrote. At the beginning, i would write and write and write between sessions, give them to my T to read, but never discuss what i had written. Over time (when i felt i could trust my T i guess), i began to find my voice.
Using my voice had always been scary to me, so i went through a LOT of turmoil in the act of talking about my emotions-but i also desperately wanted to deal with my issues and lead a full and happy life.

I managed to talk about the shame, and funnily enough i have no problem talking about it with my T now, and i have started working on the anger. I find that a LOT more difficult! but i am getting there

If you cant actually SAY the words, can you express them another way?

Ready, I originally couldn't talk about anger at all. Now it is shame that I still struggle with talking about. Anger was originally so difficult to talk about that it's kind of a running joke with T that when something is really hard, I will say, "hey, I know, let's talk about anger." It was a sign that whatever we were talking about was so difficult for me that even talking about anger was preferable to the discussion we were having.

The first time we discussed anger, I had absolutely no recollection of the conversation within minutes of leaving the office. The next time, I remembered bits and pieces of it. Now, I can stay present for the whole conversation. The thing that I noticed is that as I addressed my anger, and the fears that surround it for me (loss of control, etc), the fears greatly lessened, and so did the anger itself. I think part of it is just in sitting down and looking at the fear in a safe environment and getting it out there in the light so you can look at the fear and see it isn't so huge, and maybe not realistic at all.

You admit to them. But that's not saying its all a conscious process, because its not. I recently admitted to feeling sadness. I never realised sadness for me was once so huge that it got tangled up with fear.

One morning I stood still, realised the monkeys in my head were beating me up in their attempt to avoid having to feel it. Once I said 'I feel sad', it was like pushing something huge out. Once it passed the fear just went. The sadness stopped being so unmanable.

With my anxieties (why I was in therapy) I had to first become acquainted with what they were. I started paying attention to when I was avoiding and I'd put a mental "marker" there to look at later, in bed before going to sleep, for example :-) Find THAT you avoid "interesting" and be curious about it, what is going on. That helps get a kind of detective persona looking at things that isn't so emotionally involved. "Hmm, why'd I do that?" goes a long way.

Changing my perspective from being "inside" with the fear to looking at it more objectively and experimenting with it; finding its exact boundaries, what sets it off, when it is easier/harder for me, with whom, etc. and sharing that with T, made the fear more a "thing" a specific object I could manipulate and learn about and get to know and do something about.

The "General Anxiety" is bad because it does not feel like it has borders and it feels like one is afraid of everything. Start with something literal (I was afraid to stop and get gas at "strange" gas stations, I was afraid to ride City buses (what if they didn't let me off when I rang the bell? What if they argued with me? What if they got angry because I rang the bell?), afraid of telephones (answering or calling, either one), for example) and play with it (I took a day off work at an old job to learn to ride the bus to my new job) and gradually learn to state the underlying anxiety; it wasn't buses I was afraid of, for example, it was the putting my neck out and ringing the bell, wanting something for myself that someone else might not want me to have, might object to my having, might think was "wrong". You just start noticing patterns and playing with them like puzzle pieces. My stepmother was very controlling and things had to be done her way and I was "taught" this so, not only did I have to do things my stepmother's way but I was taught there was only one "right" way to do things (her way :-) and it made me anxious and angry if things were done some other way.

It took time to learn that the world was not created by my stepmother and her rules were her insecurities/anxieties and not mine or true.

Like others, I wrote. And like MKAC, I had difficulty remembering sessions because I was so dissociated. I tended to feel very sick physically during many sessions: faint, nauseated, stomach pains. My T was very comforting to me at those times. He was patient, he would get me a cold cloth, a glass of water, talk softly, try to help me relax.
I always thought that my reaction was a way of not facing what needed to come out, and it annoyed me. But I've wondered if it wasn't a way of testing my T with my vulnerability; that every time he treated me gently and patiently, it built a reservoir of trust that later allowed me to reveal more to him and to myself.

The process of revealing was always in fits and starts. I would easily become overwhelmed and dissociate. One of the most important things for me was my T's voice. I'm very attuned to voices. He has a beautiful tone to his voice, and he would modulate his voice to my emotion. That ability to be vocally attuned seemed to get under the radar of my defenses, and to create a space for me to voice thoughts I didn't think I could speak.

this question is so beautifully asked and worded ready, i hope you find the answers you are looking for or at least a direction to move toward. i have no experiences to share but look forward to reading others

I wrote ... and wrote. Then I read what I wrote, to myself, then out loud. I recorded it and played it back--listened closely. I'd go back and rewrite ... repeat the whole process. Often it would turn into a monologue. Sometimes I'd dissociate and in the end I'd have a play with several characters.

I'd take this to my T and he'd work with me to try to help me dig out the deepest fear that I hadn't been able to objectify. This wasn't often successful, and we return to it sometimes. At least we know the areas where triggers are.

I also write to help me with things. For me, it is not so clear what the underlying thing might be labelled so I have to try a lot of them to see.

One of the things I did was to externalize my most painful emotions by collecting some figurines and giving them names like Fear, Shame, Anger, etc.

I got the figurines at a toy store and they kinda look like medieval soldiers.

I also got a figurine that represented Core Self - a very beautiful figurine that really encapsulated in its image what I hoped my core self would look like.

And another beautiful figurine who was the mediator between the painful emotions and the core self.

I put figurines on table and I began to "hear" them speak. The mediator would ask questions of the 'emotions' and would facilitate communication between those 'emotions' and the 'core self'.

I would write down these 'conversations' in my journal and read them to T when I had session. She was wowed by what occurred when I did the exercise.

It was magical how, by externalizing the feelings in figurines, I came to some real understanding of my feelings and was able to work with them in a productive and healthy way.

It was only one of the ways I approached my fears but it was also one of the most dramatic in its effectiveness.

Desensitization has been something that has really helped me. You can look it up on the web if you're not familiar with that term. It essentially involves taking more and more successive steps towards doing (or not doing) the thing you need to do-- to say something specific, for example. I think shrinks first developed it as a way of dealing with specific phobias. If you are afraid of biscuits, for example, but you want to make them for your son who loves them, you would start by thinking about the ingredients you would need to make them and/or by searching for recipes. Then you might print out and choose one recipe, or collect your ingredients in a box. Then you might measure the ingredients out into a bowl. Then you might mix the dry ingredients together, cut in the butter, add the buttermilk, mix the dough, all at separate times . . . I'm sure you get the idea by now. You can have as much time as you need between steps-- days, weeks, months, whatever, there are no rules. For some people, just listing out the steps between where you are now and what you want to be is a great place to begin. And you can break the steps down to be as small as you need to be, like measuring out one cup (out of 4) flour at a time.

So it has really helped me to to be able take one step at a time. I needed to do something for my physical therapy and I needed to purchase something. I talked about purchasing the thing one week in T, I had looked it up online, the next week T asked me if I wanted to buy it right now, so I got out my phone and ordered it off the web. Then I left the box, unopened, in his office for a couple of weeks. Then I opened the box one week and unwrapped the stuff in his office, left the box in his office. The next week I looked at the bag for a couple of minutes, then left it again. The following week I took it home, and left it in the back of one of my dresser drawers. For weeks. I couldn't touch it, so T suggested I bring it back. I did, and I put the different pieces that locked and unlocked together. Left it in his office. The next week, I took it out of the bag and just held it for awhile. Took it back home, and was able to use it several weeks later. I think it was about 6 months from start to finish. The last step, I realized that the only thing in between where I'd stopped (being able to hold the thing, but not use it) and where I wanted to be, was just that I had to do it. I had to take that last step and just do it, and that is always the last piece of facing the fear.

So it seems to me like figuring out the steps and then taking closer and closer steps to just doing it has a lot of practical value. I think when I get near the end, and this applies particularly to discussing things that feel really traumatic to me, the fact that I have already been able to say I wanted to talk about it, to have talked about talking about it in terms of why I want to talk about it, how I want to talk about it, what I need from T in order to talk about it, what I hope to get out of talking about it (usually at different times, they are different "steps"), there's a kind of momentum that comes from already having accomplished so many steps. Then taking the last one is more an evolution that feels natural and not nearly as scary.

Talking about talking. I say that a lot, but it really helps. I use "20 seconds" to blurt out "I want to talk about something, but I need your help getting there". The response is always "how can I help?" and my response "draw it out of me".

I am a stuttering, dissociating, non-talker...but this got me thru a few things.

Your posts have all been helpful... for me there is this overshadowing fear... over the past... there is so much I don't remember prior to age 12... but I have this sense of how I felt... when I went to xT I didn't have the vocabulary for it... didn't know how to talk about emotions...defenses were too high... and I was having this back and forth trust thing going on and I just couldn't get past it...

so I quit xT and see current T... she has taught me lots of skills... I do know how I'm feeling in the current day... I have allowed myself to see the impact it has on today... but she's not the type of T who delves into the past... in the 8 months I've been seeing her I haven't shared about the past other than in very general terms... I don't think I could with her.

xT knows the past... I've told him most of it...in reporter fashion...but I wasn't able to talk about it with my feelings attached... I sort of feel I'm ready to do that and I made an appt with xT but I don't know if I can push past fear if I were to start seeing xT again.

I think the first step is acknowledging they are there and not fighting them. Then giving it time... I suggest journaling as a coping skill

I think i use something like Wiki. which is talking about something that is similar but doesn't bring up the intense emotions then we work slowly towards the main idea, i suppose its like verbal EMDR. usually I'll draw things, my T will look at them give his interpretation and I'll correct as neccessary. Only because I have such difficulties identifying emotions.

yeah, writing helps me organize my thoughts, because i have a hard time understanding my feelings. a recent technique i've tried was dialoging between my left and right hand. i would ask my dominant hand a question, and answer it with my other hand. Let me say that i am VERY skeptical of anything out of the "norm." But since it was just me and my journal, i decided to try it and keep an open mind. It actually has brought up interesting things, and i let the conversation go wherever it wants, which is usually not what i thought it would be like.

You and me both...! Argh.

I try to remember sometime during the session to use my 20 seconds of courage. Sometimes 19 of it is already used up just getting through the door...I am working on staying present so I can remember what we talked about.

I thought a lot about this last night while I was laying in bed... and then came to some conclusions while driving into work...

that I really need to actually start by talking about fear itself... The definition is a distressing emotion aroused by impending danger, evil, pain, etc., whether the threat is real or imagined; I have a lot of fear... I really need to understand what the perceived danger, evil, pain, etc is that I feel is going to happen... I say perceived because its most likely not real... but it feels very real... I need to understand the source of it because its leaving me frozen, stuck...unable to do things I once could do when I had all of my defense mechanisms functioning at full force...

Rts
do you have ptsd? This can cause us to be fearful of everything, overly vigilant and afraid to do things that we once routinely did.
I can understand the feeling of being stuck and unable to do things because we are frozen in fear. Do you know what sparked these feelings and when they became so powerful?

Neither of my t's have been big on diagnosis... but my xT told me that some of the reactions that I've had to things was ptsd. I don't know what sparked them but I used to think I didn't need anybody for anything and that I could do anything by myself... after starting T and bringing up the past and letting go of those defense mechanisms... the fear has crept in.... I have had a few incidents where I would definitely say I was having a feeling flashback...total ptsd reaction but those aren't everyday... its just hard to explain...

Could you explore this further with your t? I mean feelings like this don't just happen, something has to bring them out