Fear as a Child

Today I realized that my fear was already there as a child, in my teens my drive to prove myself muted fear but once that drive was stilled by the responsibilities of an adult, fear came to dominate my life.

Last night one of my children experienced symptoms of a panic attack, the reason for the attack was not dangerous or valid and would be seen as unreasonable or even stupid by a person who has not experienced this kind of attack before in their life. We all experience anxiety or panic attacks but some people’s attacks are if I can use the word, “legitimate” there is a valid reason for the attack; for example, a truck losing control and driving into your lane. But there are others of us who experience this fight or flight response for reasons that are not valid. For the first time, I was on the outside looking and I could see how this kind of panic attack makes no sense at all to someone who has had no experience with this kind of panic attack, but most of all I could see how a lie can disable a person and why fear is the enemy’s favorite weapon.

Due to my own experience, I recognized it immediately and fully understood what my child was experiencing. The emotions feel so real! The logical part of the brain, the frontal lobe is saying there is absolutely no reason for what is going on here but the flight and fight part of the brain, the amygdala is going nuts, pumping all kinds of stuff into the bloodstream. Thus, the worse you can do is to tell that person that they are overreacting, ” get over it”, they already know that, and that’s why they are confused.

I am no health professional but I am convinced that panic attacks are heredity. My mother has it, I have it and now I see it in my child. I am not sure if it is genetically transferred or by our actions, I believe that if it was by our actions then all of the children in the family would be affected, or is it a combination of the two?

What I do know is that the way we deal with fear in front of our children is very important.

Again I am no health professional, just a concerned dad and it is my experience that the best way to deal with such a situation is to affirm with the child, tell them it’s is going to be ok, don’t let them think that what they are doing is wrong. Get them to breathe slowly in and out then start running through the thoughts exposing the lie and let them come to their own realization of what the frontal lobe is already telling them, this way they learn to trust the truth.

Due to this experience with my child, I remember an experience I had as a child. My uncle had a motorcycle and as a child I loved motorcycles, I would have done anything to ride on one. Then one day my uncle came visiting with his motorcycle and took all of my sisters out for a ride but I refused. My family did not understand why since I loved motorcycles so much.

Today I know that it was fear.

I did not have any thoughts of “what if we fall or what if I get hurt” none of those thoughts were present, just an unexplained presence of fear. What I do remember clearly is the regret! Once my uncle left and I remember thinking I might never again get a chance to go riding with him on his bike again and sadly that is exactly what happened.

Fear is a thief, a joy stealer, fear holds us back in life.

I did eventually buy my own motorcycle and I had wonderful times and great expereinces with many stories to tell, yet the one story I could never tell was that my first ride on a motorcycle was with my uncle. This is what fear does it steals it robs us of many joys and experiences in our lives by which we as humans grow.

I have many stories of where I allowed fear to steal great life experiences from me. Lately, I have missed many fishing opportunities with friends on the river and since the season has passed and I have to wait until next year and in these uncertain times who knows if there will be the next year.

Writing this post I have come to the realization that I should do what I did as a teenager and that is to focus on my goals and refuse to fear.