We’ve all felt fear at some point in our lives.
It’s one of our most primal emotions; one of the original line-up.
Like Gary Barlow of Take That.
Fear is what has kept the human race alive for so long. It’s an emotion that, however unpleasant, we owe our lives to.
These days, the frequency with which we encounter fear is far less than our ancestors. While our Neanderthal relatives had at least three run-ins with mortal peril before breakfast, today it’s a much rarer occurrence.
The human race - so clever, so destructive - has sanitised the world of danger.
We are, by and large, safe.
Modern-day fear is diluted; a drop of juice in an ocean of water. We might feel it now and again - when a cat runs in front of our car, or when we see our toddlers fall. That crackle of energy that runs to your fingertips and back.
This contemporary fear might also stalk us from afar - the worry of a missed payment, or the fear of illness. It’s a slow burning fire, a shadow that waits in our otherwise safe, well-lit homes.
Yes, fear is still a part of our lives, but it’s been caught and caged.
Unless, that is, you’ve ever suffered with high anxiety.
Anxiety and Fear
Have you ever heard someone describe a panic attack?
Or perhaps you’ve read a description of one?
In and amongst the accounts of tight chests, sweaty hands and feelings of unreality, you’ll notice sufferers mention that they felt as though they were dying, or going completely mad. Often, they’ll describe being gripped by the conviction that something truly awful was about to happen.
Something world-ending.
That, my friends, is fear - undiluted, triple distilled, rectified fear.
You see, while we may think we have tamed the lion - maybe even driven it to extinction - fear still resides within us. It prowls the walls of our limbic system, waiting for the cage door to be left ajar, waiting to pounce.
Human fear, in its most purest sense, is still as wildly powerful as ever - something that those living with high anxiety can attest to.
A Shot of Triple Distilled Fear, Please
Until I started having panic attacks, I thought I knew what fear was.
Fear was jumping at a scary film or a blaring car horn. Fear was big black spiders on cold September nights, or a turbulent flight. Fear was a novelty; a token emotion wheeled out for Halloween.
And then, of course, I encountered fear - real fear. And I began to feel a bit sorry for our ancestors.
For many with anxiety, the fear they experience is often labelled as ‘dread’ - a description I’d agree with.
In many ways, dread is far worse than fear. Fear, at least, is clear cut and explicit - we understand its cause. Did someone just jump out at you? That’s fear. Did a letter from the Tax Man land on your doorstep? Fear, again.
Dread, however, is murky.
Dread is opaque and swamp-like, thick and inpenetrable. Dread has all the markings of fear, but without the clarity. You know something terrible is amiss, but you aren’t sure what.
If fear is a shark, dread is a blob fish - undefined and spongey, disturbing and cold.
For me, this flavour of fear tends only to appear in moments of real panic and it’s often the precursor to an all-out panic attack.
What Does it Feel Like?
I’ll try my best to articulate what this emotion feels like, as it’s so very different to feeling a bit nervous.
It begins in the pit of your stomach - dark and heavy. Like a solar eclipse, a wave of darkness will begin to roll in; all light in the world quickly snuffed out. A sense of utter doom will soon follow - a blanket of suffocating unease laid over you.
This feeling, this undiluted fear, feels like a Dementor - a wraithlike ghoul that drains all joy or light from your life, leaving behind nothing but fear and shadows.
The sound of the TV, or the kids playing outside, feels jarring and off-key. It’s as though you’ve just glanced up at the sky to see a fiery, angry meteorite hurtling towards earth, but nobody else has noticed.
This fear, this dread, feels final.
As I write this, I realise this description might seem like hyperbole; a fluffed up, dramatised description for feeling a bit scared.
But this is what fear truly feels like - potent, powerful, clarified fear.
This is the fear that has kept the human race alive for so long, the fear that makes us fight for our lives, scramble to safety, scream for help.
And it’s this version of fear that people with high anxiety so often feel. An emotion that makes them believe, whole heartedly, that they’re dying. That life as they know it is over.
Fear isn’t ghosts and ghouls, dark graveyards or creepy crawlies. Fear feels like an ending - the ending.
Where to Place this Fear
So, what do we do with this primal emotion? How do we move through life with such darkness looming?
For many, the answer is to simply lock fear away again. To wrestle it back into its cage and double lock the doors.
Fear has no place in our modern world. It’s uncomfortable and challenging, it undermines our congenial lifestyles and TV dinners. Fear feels archaic and unfamiliar; distressing and alien.
In a society of hustle and growth, optimism and progress, fear is the estranged relative we try to keep at arm’s length.
For a long time, I also shared this sentiment. When those moments of distilled doom came, I’d freak out. I’d look around at my warm, thickly carpeted house - at my pretty garden and my purring cat - and sound the alarm.
‘Something’, I’d think, ‘must be wrong, very wrong’.
It’s then that the panic would set in.
Fear is Useful
However, and over time, I’ve begun to see fear in a different light - with a sympathetic sort of glow.
Firstly, I now know that fear is normal. Sure, experiencing it can feel like waking up inside a Stephen King movie, but it’s normal. Furthermore, and if we consider that this seismic emotion is the product of just two chemicals - cortisol and adrenaline - we have to admit that it’s quite impressive.
Out of all the emotions, fear is by far the most talented. It’s Oscar worthy, in fact - the Meryl Streep of feelings. It can capture our attention with just one line and convince us of death with a single glance. Forget excitement or sadness, fear is academy-award winning.
However, we must not always mistake this power - this dark talent - for something inherently sinister. Although fear feels heavy, it’s usually here to tell us something (even if we don’t want to listen).
During prehistoric times, fear was probably easier to decipher. Olden Days fear meant a prowling tiger or gathering storm clouds.
Today, and without these frames of reference, fear is harder to read.
You see, fear has tried, although not entirely successfully, to adapt itself to modern day life. It’s tried to interpret danger in a wholly new context; to understand that death is no longer just physical, but financial, social and cultural, too.
Fear has had to re-engineer itself, from Fear 1.0, to Fear Lite. A prehistoric caveman lumbering down our streets, clutching a mobile phone and a Flat White.
As such, those intense flashes of fear we experience can feel inappropriate, disproportionate and a little off.
Yet, if we look past the unpolished exterior, we can perhaps see that this fear is trying to tell us something. Sure, its methods are a little heavy handed, and it’s grunting at us rather than talking, but it’s trying to help - to flag to us that something requires our attention.
Feeling fear is therefore our opportunity to delve deeper, to look inwards and to identify those challenges or problems threatening our health and wellbeing.
In this respect, fear is not an ending, but a start - the opportunity to start pulling that thread of discomfort, to see what needs fixing or repairing.
A Splash of Cold Water
Secondly, I believe that we all need a little fear in our lives - a splash of cold water every now and then.
I was recently reading an article on the efficacy of cold showers in alleviating depression. The reasoning behind this was fascinating. In short, the researchers posited that our comfortable, plush lives lack certain physiological stressors - stressors regularly experienced by our ancestors.
These stressors, including exposure to the cold, submitted our brains to ‘thermal exercise’, i.e our minds had to routinely work hard to regulate our body temperature and keep our organs functioning.
Today, however, and given the fact our lives are double quilted and bubble wrapped, there’s little opportunity for such exercise. Instead, this brain function has become redundant and bored. Lazy and languid.
The result? A brain that isn’t getting to do its job. It’s an un-walked dog, a fattened calf.
Researchers therefore suggest that by having cold showers - exposing our bodies to cooler temperatures - we’re reigniting this important brain function. As a result, our sympathetic nervous systems are activated and electric impulses flood our brains, creating an energetic, anti-depressive effect.
We are, in short, coming alive.
A Sky Full of Stars
Just like cold water, I believe fear plays a similar role in refocusing our brains.
Of course, nobody wants to live in constant fear. For very obvious reasons, we crave safety and warmth - the promise of security and survival. This what the human race has, and will always, seek.
Yet, a life without fear is like a brain without the cold.
Without it, we lack the contrasting colours that keep life rich and authentic. A life filled only with comfort would mean never striving for anything - never trying to improve or grow, heal or overcome.
It would mean inertia and atrophy, a brain that isn’t fulfilling its many functions.
A gilded cage.
Fear, an emotion that has become so unfamiliar to us, so uncomfortable, is incredibly important. Just like cold water, tolerating its more challenging temperatures can prove incredibly beneficial.
Nobody wants to spend their life floating in a hot bathtub; a life spent growing increasingly wrinkly and flaccid.
A splash of cold is important.
Yes, living with fear is hard - dread is distressing. But we can learn from these emotions.
Amongst its cloak of darkness is a host of stars. We just need to follow them, to see where they’re leading us.
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Having had, and witnessed, panic attacks I can totally understand the use of the word 'dread'. Modern life, in the west, is relatively cosseted. For a large number but not all. For those outside that level of privilege, fear and dread have practical+ tangible bases. That does not negate the hyperventilating disconnection and conviction that the end is upon us when we feel fear and dread. And just as disability/ anxiety is not a competitive sport ("mine is worse than yours", "theirs is worse than mine") so in the lived moment our fears are no less real or dreadful for being part of a life lacking many of the tiger-chase panic ancestors may have tackled.
Ultimately, like your earlier shout out "come on do your worst!", recognising that fear/dread is a reasonable part of life is important.
As ever, thank you for your open, reflective, thought-provoking writing ❤️👏