Handling Fear

A friend of mine noted that anxiety (fear) is often a human's greatest problem. Reasonable fears don't last long. Unreasonable fears can be cured with CBT. While there are a number of techniques, CBT usually tells us we're fixating and blowing things out of proportion. A good cure is to practice facing whatever we fear.

And then there's PTSD, where a trigger, such as a sound or a jolt, triggers the fear that triggers the thoughts that reinforce the fear and thoughts in a vicious cycle. Again, the cure is to experience the trigger, perhaps beginning with a mild version but for a long time, like 5 minutes to an hour.

Just sit with it and watch the emotions and thoughts rise. We can't keep an intense reaction going for very long, so it'll pretty quickly lessen and we'll learn that we can tolerate the trigger. Pretty soon, it'll no longer take us over.

But the common approach is not to use CBT, but to displace it with a calm environment, or hope or anger.

This feels great, freeing us from the emotion, but only temporarily. It leaves us vulnerable to react the same way to the next trigger.

Fear is not the problem, it's the symptom. The thoughts that fuel it are the cause that need to be handled. Or with PTSD, the sound or sensation that fuel it is the cause to be handled.

My friend is looking at politics, how Trump and his sycophants are inciting fear into Republicans, fear of immigrants, fear of non-whites being the majority, fear of Moslems, fear of liberals "destroying America". fear of election fraud. Plus the fear of being targeted by government, which he uses as cover for his crimes.

Trump has no plans to improve anything. While he said his wall is great, it covers about a quarter of the border. Almost all of that was previously protected by fencing and wire. Only 3% of the border had no barrier before and now has a wall. Plus his wall has proven to be easily penetrated.

Still, his technique of inciting fear and then turning that fear into anger has been successful.