Explaining your Phobic Feelings

Many phobic persons have asked how to explain what they feel to their husband or wife or good friend. We feel that most of the time, relatives pass panic off as high anxiety and resist the idea of anything worse being experienced by someone close to them. This probably parallels the denial of close family and friends of conditions like cancer, alcoholism, or chronic pain. It’s hard to accept something terrible happening right before their eyes to someone one loves. For example, one husband thought his wife’s phobic moods and quirky behavior was “cute” and would indulge her changeableness as if she were a small child. All phobics know how people in their life minimize, ignore, forget, scoff, or belittle their experience of panic.

Some earnestly wish and ask to know because of the helplessness they feel and the preoccupation and worry their notice. Still, the phobic can be at a loss to explain panic, worry and overwhelming experiences he/she has had to live with for years. He or she may have prettied it up under misleading names like “jiggy”, “spacy”, “getting zinged”, “jumpiness” and so on. Where to begin?

The following suggestions may help clarify your experience to the genuinely interested partner. Of course, it is helpful to have a face to face, uninterrupted talk at a time when both of you feel relaxed. You should have a clear signal your partner has initiated and wants this feedback.

First, consider that you would feel no fear or anxiety at all if you were asked to walk a plank six inches wide if it were on the ground. You associate no danger to that. Then, consider that if that same plank were 15 feet off the ground, fear is a natural thing to feel. Then, consider that if you were sitting down looking up at the plank before you ever walked on it, then you would experience anxiety. Anxiety is anticipation of some future danger even when you are already in a safe zone. Still, you would be willing and able most of the time to climb up on the plank and walk it. If, in addition, you panicked while you were looking up at the plank and did your best to avoid goingup, that would be phobic behavior. Now you would be experiencing the three earmarks of a phobia: anxiety anticipating the situation, panicking at the thought of the situation, and avoiding it anyway you could.

Perhaps the most difficult part to explain is panic. Some have estimated that as many as half of adults have experienced panic sometime in their lives. No doubt many have tried to forget and put away these incredibly fearful experiences by surpressing these memories, others have less consciously repressed them.

Accordingly, you may ask your partner whether he/she has ever been terrified of water, or of the dark or of high places. Many people have panicked to these as children. Surprisingly, others have been panicked at bees or certain insects. In later life, many have panicked at speaking in public, such as in committees, school classes, or assemblies. If that person recognizes any of these, ask how his or her body felt, what sensations were there, and how he/she perceived things around them. If your partner remembers, then he/she can be told that what has been almost forgotten as too painful for them, is something you experience often even now.

If your explanation gets this far, it isn’t so difficult to help your partner understand that anything leading up to the situation of panic or even reminding you of it can make you extremely anxious or even panic. And, he or she can begin to understand and apply all you have learned about desensitization, practice, medication, and getting well. The key is bring your partner to his/her experience of anxiety and panic first so he/she can let go of the natural resistance to facing these painful experiences.

This article was written by Dr. Richard C. Raynard, whose latest book Panic Free is offering new hope for those suffering from overwhelming and often debilitating panic attacks. For over 30 years he has helped thousands of his patients with the latest refinements in anxiety and panic treatments.
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For more information about these and other issues of anxiety, panic and phobia, contact The Panic Doctor, Richard C. Raynard, Ph.D. at http://www.panicdoctor.com/ or call him at 505-231-8625.