Stopping Unstoppable Fear

Have you ever had an on-going fear that just seemed to render you dysfunctional? I don’t mean those momentary frights that shock our system into an instant state of paralysis like stepping on a snake or suddenly realizing someone is near you when you thought you were in the house alone, but rather those recurring fears that seem to override logic and consume the brain space needed for the most basic processing as they arise time and time again.

My earliest experience with such fear was at about seven years old. My dad had left the military, and my parents bought a mobile home (apparently, it’s now inappropriate to say “trailer”) in a trailer park, er… mobile home park, next to a drive-in theatre near the college where they were both enrolled. On Saturday nights, they would routinely gather around the kitchen table with another couple and unwind from working full-time jobs, raising a son, and taking college classes, with hours of playing a card game called Canasta. Left to entertain myself, one night, I quietly slipped out the back door, stealthily crossed the neighbor’s yard, found an opening between their azaleas where I could see the giant drive-in screen, and began watching the most talked about movie of the year – The Exorcist. That’s right, the classic horror film with Linda Blair playing a demon-possessed twelve-year-old girl complete with spinning head and the purging of pea soup. Let me be clear. I do not recommend this movie for your children. I was traumatized. From that night forward, for at least a couple of years, I was terrified of being alone in my room, or anywhere else in the dark. My on-going fear was neither logical nor rational, but it was real. My parents would tuck me into bed, and as long as I could hear them moving around our well-lit single-wide, I was calm, only anticipating the fear. But as soon as they started flipping switches and moving toward their end of the hall, I was terrified - every night.

I think most people who knew my dad back then, would say he had above-average intelligence, and he responded to my fears the way most people with above-average intelligence respond to problems. He used logic. We’d replay the same process night after night. My parents would start to bed. I’d start crying. They would ignore. I’d cry louder. Dad would come into the room, turn on the lights, and show me that there were no demon-possessed girls in my closet, under the bed, behind the curtains, or in the drawers. Then he’d turn the lights out for a few seconds, flip them back on, and show me that there were still no demon-possessed girls in my closet, under the bed, behind the curtains, or in the drawers. How often do you think that worked? Not once. Why not? Because logic does not dispel that kind of fear any more than it relieves the fear of heights, enclosed spaces, spiders, shots…

Yet clearly something worked. I didn’t go two years without sleep. No, my parents did not lock me in the room until I collapsed from exhaustion. So, what did they do? Ultimately, there were two options. My dad could lie in my bed with me until I fell asleep, or he could let me in their bed with him. Either way, I would go to sleep. Yes, I admired my dad. He was ex-military, about 27, and in remarkable physical shape. But let’s be honest. If a head-spinning, levitating, demon-possessed preteen girl came into the bedroom, how much protection would my dad have provided?

Logic did not remove my fear. Presence did. I did not understand it. I didn’t need to. I just needed to be near those who loved me. I didn’t sleep with my parents through middle school or even through my elementary years. It did take a while, but eventually that consistent intentional awareness of presence rebuilt my confidence and diminished my fear. Presence healed and restored me.

So often we torture ourselves trying to find logical and rational solutions to illogical and irrational fears. We get frustrated and that frustration spills over those we’re trying to help or over our loved ones trying to help us.

Trauma is the result of one’s brain saying to itself, “I never want to experience that again” so repetitively that the amygdala (the most primitive survival-oriented part of the brain) is hyper-sensitized. In this hyper-sensitized or traumatic state, the amygdala begins to create warning signs which it associates with the source of the trauma and uses those warning signs to trigger freeze, flight, or fight survival responses as it also begins shutting down bodily processes it considers non-vital uses of energy while under attack.

In other words, the least logical, most primitive part of the brain is given control during these onsets of seemingly unstoppable and immobilizing fear. So higher thinking is out the window as a viable solution. That means we must find a more primitive or foundational approach.

At our most foundational or primitive level, we were created to connect. We were created to love and be loved. That’s why my parents’ presence restored me. I needed to feel loved. Yes, I already felt loved. But as my brain intensely focused on my fear, I needed a counter that was just as intense. I needed that physical presence. Trauma hyper-sensitized the most primitive part of my brain, and I needed the kind of foundational response that could gently desensitize it, because anything beyond a simple response would farther frustrate the part of my brain better equipped to survive direct assaults than process logic and problem solve.

That was decades ago. I no longer think about demon-possessed little girls when the lights go out. Yet fear still has a way of leaping out of the abyss and trying to strangle me. It hit me like a Mack truck when a team of doctors told me that my own twelve-year-old daughter might never return home from the hospital. I felt it rip something from deep inside me when my wife’s cancer surgeon said, “I’m so sorry.” It stole my voice while outside an ER with one of my best friend’s awaiting news of his son’s condition. And every single time I climb onto the roof of our two-story house to remove the pine straw, I’m reminded of my life-long fear of heights.

I don’t climb into my parents’ bed anymore. I couldn’t even if I wanted to. They are spending their retirement years traveling the country in search of rare birds and butterflies.

But each day, I sit with men in my office, lips quivering, voices cracking, hands shaking, and tears flowing. They are afraid. They may fear they’ll never forget what happened to them. They may fear that their wives will not forgive them, their children will not respect them, their bodies or brains will not sustain them, their marriages, businesses, or reputations will not survive. They may fear living life alone. They may fear death. They may fear a fate they consider worse than death. They are often crippled by real fears. And it’s always tempting to start where my dad started, with the details of their circumstances and the logical next steps. Sometimes, that’s what they think they want. But if that survival instinct has initiated, putting the amygdala in the driver’s seat, logical solutions won’t help. They need presence.

I’ve heard that the most common command in Scripture is “Fear not.” But I’ve looked at all 365 times in Scripture where these words or a similar phrase appears, and I sense something wholly different. I don’t see “fear not” as a command, but rather as an encouragement. I mean it would take a pretty disconnected person or God to look upon anyone in the grips of real fear and command them to stop being afraid. God wired the human brain. He created the amygdala. He knows what it is capable of processing and what is well beyond its grasp. That same loving God is not going to look upon one of his children in the bondage of trauma and say, “Suck it up buttercup,” or “stopped being such a baby.” I believe that God is telling us 365 times through Scripture, one time for each day of the year, that we need not fear. Rather than ordering us to get over it, he’s assuring us that he loves us and that he is near.

God continually reminds us of his presence. Isaiah told us that Jesus himself would be known as Immanuel which means God with us. In the last verse of the Gospel of Matthew, Jesus told his followers, “I will be with you always, to the end of the age.” If you’re thinking I must sound like a typical, disconnected, pie-eyed pastor who has no idea what to say beyond Scripture to these guys who have just described the stranglehold their fears have on them, you’re right. I sound exactly like that to some of these guys. While they seldom say it, that sentiment is etched into many of their facial expressions as soon as I start talking about God. At that point, I could easily accept defeat and send them away no better off than when they arrived.

Or I could simply plant the seed, and then ask questions and listen, confident, that the repetitive telling of their stories will desensitize their amygdales, gradually giving them more capacity to grasp and embrace how who God is, what he has done, and what he promises can free them from fear. Unlike many other challenges, our capacity to process trauma by embracing God’s presence is seldom grown within the trauma while the amygdala is hyper-sensitized, but before and after the trauma. The amygdala will not be desensitized by anything abstract. So, if God’s love and/or presence is abstract in one’s life going into a trauma, the news of God’s love and presence will not have the calming effect during the trauma. That’s where we believers come in. We are the body of Christ. We are his physical hands, feet, eyes, and ears in this world. We have the capacity to provide the physical presence of God to those in trauma. We are given the opportunity and responsibility to transform God’s love and presence from the abstract to the physical. But we must stop trying to fix traumatized people and their problems. We must remember that the most primitive parts of their brains are in charge and stop offering solutions beyond their current capacity to process. Logic may be true, but it will not compute.

We simply need to sit with the hurting. We need to give them our full attention. We need to embrace their very real need to keep sharing the same story over and over, desensitizing the amygdala with each telling. We must stop looking bored. We must stop communicating that we’ve heard this before. We must release ourselves from the pressure to solve or fix and recognize the enormous long-term healing effect of the consistent gift of presence. It’s God’s gift offered to and through us. The question is whether we will receive God’s tangible love and presence and offer it to those in need. It may not bring us the status of leading youth or worship or serving as a deacon, but stopping unstoppable fear by offering traumatized people our full undivided attention could easily be the most significant, needed, and freeing ministry we ever do.