AnxietyClinics.com

Your Anxiety/Panic Reactions Make Perfect Sense

James O. Henman, Ph.D.

This article builds on “Who’s REALLY Driving Your Emotional Bus During Anxiety Attacks?” posted on www.AnxietyClinics.com. The previous article explored the role of “Perceptual Filters” in feeding your anxiety and panic reactions. As strange as this may seem, once you begin to appreciate who is actually driving your emotional bus during times of stress, it does make perfect sense. The natural blocking of painful feelings and overwhelming experiences is what creates Adult Child characteristics, dynamically like the frozen scenes that continue to break through for trauma survivors when certain triggers are activated – Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder. This blocking causes part of your “self-perception” to be stuck in a timeless state, as if in Tupperware and hidden away, frozen in the original scenes. Current situations can activate these wounded parts in the present.

We have learned a great deal about Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder from work with combat soldiers and survivors of traumatic events. Blocking an emotionally charged experience can cause the memory/experience mechanism in the brain to freeze that moment with the emotions fully charged. The memory leaves the limbic portion of the brain experiencing the fullness of the original emotions for the remembered scene, locked in the “on” position emotionally. When the memory is activated, even subliminally, the emotions come flooding back into consciousness, so that you perceive yourself back in the original experience. This emotional triggering is what causes regression.

Our wounds grow out of our decisions, perceptions of who we believe ourselves to be at our core, how we perceive the outside world, and how we choose to survive. The impact of your wounds can vary greatly depending on whether regression is taking place at the moment. Do you notice any significant fluctuations in your perceptions of self and others? Adult Children are like the Wizard of Oz. Their outer facade may seem powerful and competent, but inside it is as if a little child is pulling the strings and driving their emotional bus.

Does this feel familiar to you? Do you often feel like a “fake” when relating to important people in your life? Do you often see yourself as a “phony” going through life in fear of being “discovered?” Does life feel like one unending drama of trying to survive to the next scene, trying to avoid the inevitable disappointments and rejections that you just know are coming? Do you often have significant difficulties in your personal relationships? Do you often ask, “Why Me?”

Adult Children were often forced to become “adults” as children, and often function as “little children” in aspects of their adult lives. Others never grew up because of the lack of safety and healthy models. They had a lack of support to risk becoming an adult with healthy self-esteem. They learned to survive by blocking out painful experiences and adapting to the demands of their environment.

There are six qualities that seem to be present in most Adult Children prior to entering recovery. How many of these qualities do you recognize in yourself?

1. Reacting to life with a “survival” mentality.

2. Feeling that we are different from “normal” people and spending a lifetime trying to “pretend” that we are normal.

3. Looking at life through a “Black” or “White” filter.

4. Going through life judging very harshly. This judgment may be directed at ourselves, at others, or both.

5. Constantly looking for approval and validation from outside of ourselves.

6. Having great difficulty with intimate relationships.

It does not require “war stories” to create wounds in your character. Rejecting and hating yourself, trying to block painful feelings, and hating someone else can all create a frozen scene. This frozen scene can develop into a wounded part of self, forming its unique perceptions and sense of self. Wounded parts interact in the Adult Child Character. I am not talking about the pathological condition of Dissociative Identity Disorder, formerly Multiple Personality Disorder. I am talking about the sometimes subtle filtering of your perceptions without you realizing it is happening – feeding your anxiety.

You need to be living consciously, in the present, to recognize most of your regressions. It is important to notice rather than judge what you see. What you may notice first is your old, survival feelings beginning to seep or flood into your current experience. Increasing feelings of anxiety without an objective reason in the current situation are a good sign of regression going on. A Second-Order feeling (see previous article) reacting to these feelings compounds the intensity and complexity of your feelings in the present. Feel good about noticing where you are starting at this moment. This cuts off the flood of Second-Order feelings that normally come with judging.

Are you feeling guilty because you come from a normal family with no particular problems, feeling you have no right to be an Adult Child? The truth is that we all grew up in fallible families that came from fallible families, etc. We all learned who we are and what the world is going to be like in our childhood. This is not about blaming; it is about being accurate. Notice what you decided from these early experiences. Take several deep breaths and notice the reactions you have to this “Nugget.” Share your reactions with me in your journal.

Normal life produces wounds! This concept of wounding is not about blame, it is about change! Who's REALLY Driving Your Bus? is an opportunity for you and me to discuss and reflect on your “Old Program” filters that support your current problems with anxiety and panic. Appreciating this Adult Child concept is central in the change process! The way I explain it to my clients is that I believe most people have some degree of Adult Child qualities. I believe that this is a normal part of being human.

I have been sharing Therapeutic Coaching clients for over 30 years, and I will coach you in learning how to “parent” the wounded parts of yourself that are involved in the dysfunctional patterns in your life today. It is important to realize that the rejected parts of yourself retain their original perceptual filters, developmental resources, and the cognitive/thinking styles that were present at the time of disconnection. Current reactions to current problems begin to make sense when you add this Adult Child perspective. Imagine trying to handle adult situations as a much younger child. Therapeutic Coaching is the process of learning to build your own inner coach, to “parent” your wounded parts that are feeding your anxiety/panic. There is much more free information on www.CAIRforYou.com.