Hey Enigma, I don't know if you'll see this, I see this is from 2009!enigma wrote:Anxiety is a funny thing. Not the same as fear. Fear we can deal with, and as much as we don't want to admit it sometimes, it's even enjoyable and exciting. We don't go to scary movies because fear is to be avoided at all cost, we like being stimulated in that way as long as we think we can control it in duration and intensity. So what is the difference between fear that is very brief or that is enclosed in duration and intensity, and anxiety?
Anxiety is fear of fear. Anxiety is fear that the fear will not end, and it is therefore ungrounded. That is, it has no basis in an actual fearful situation, which would necessarily be limited in duration and intensity. Situations come and they go, but the fear that they will never go....will never go. As a purely imagined fear, there can be no solution. One cannot say what one is anxious about and so nothing can be done to end it or even to accept it. It remains forever an unknown that cannot be controlled, and it's this inability to control which is the source of the anxiety. Karmarider describes it as a decision, which is basically true. The 'solution' is to recognize that it is a phantom that self perpetuates. It exists only by feeding off itself.
There is the sense that the anxiety is defensive; that it protects in some way, but it's much more like stabbing oneself to allay the fear of accidentally stabbing oneself. There's the sense that if the anxiety is surrendered, that there will 'something' with which to deal beneath this anxiety, and this isn't true. There is nothing at all beneath anxiety. Seeing very clearly what is happening is the end of it.
I do NOT like horror movies at all, ever since I was little and my parents would watch the X-files, I remember being very easily scared of imaginary things, and of the dark even to this day. I find it hard to believe that people can find any entertainment at all from horror movies and such, I watched The Black Swan and it was exhausting to me, lol. I did realize though, that it is mostly the music from the movies that creates all the anticipation and fear, because if I mute a horror movie, or a suspense movie, I might not be so scared. I also remember my brother showing me this video a long time ago, designed to scare the **** out of people! It was a sort of commercial of a car going through this beautiful landscape, and once you were focused there, out of nowhere this tiny dwarf would appear very very close to the camera. This kind of pranks have made me loose control more than once, and this one time on the computer, after I was scared by a prank e-mail, I screamed so hard and run away so fast, that when I realized it was just a "joke" I was outside of the building!
Oh, this other time, I fell asleep in a chair with a group of friends (it got late, lol) and this one guy thought it'd be funny to scream in my ear to wake me up, I screamed even harder and the silence after that was really awkward! I can get really upset and angry at people for this that is how much I dislike being scared. I guess it takes me to an unknown territory and I don't like that.When I get anxiety, well my "panic attacks" I feel that I can't breathe. The first time it happened to me was the worst of all, because that time, I really did feel I was suffocating, but ever since, I know that I won't, happened countless times and my lungs are fine.
So in this sense, I don't relate to the fear of fear that you talk about, and to:
I can't even hear like tales about scary stuff, be it fictional monsters or crime stories, anything that can get into my imagination, because I am really visual. For example, if you tell me, I don't know, that you have a booger in your nose right now, I can really picture it and I'm already grossed out (well, not really, that's just an example, if I use another example, I will really be grossed out, lol).We don't go to scary movies because fear is to be avoided at all cost, we like being stimulated in that way as long as we think we can control it in duration and intensity.
I guess I am really sensitive, and emotionally easy to get anywhere, susceptible. I noticed that, sometimes, when somebody smiles on tv, I smile too
Let alone crying when somebody else does!This allows me to feel really deeply when I listen to music, and also, when I hear a loud sound, my body will respond to it quickly, I guess that's funny.
Anyhoot, just wanted to comment on your post and see what you or any other reader can share about it.
