Another F-word

It goes without saying that this time – the Covid Time – is a time of great anxiety and fear. Most of us are on high alert most of the time, and our bodies, which have an automatic safety mechanism to keep us safe and protect us from harm, are too. It doesn’t matter if the threat is real or imagined, immediate or distant, our instinctive reaction when we are confronted by something scary, is to fight, flee from or freeze in the face of danger.

At first, in the early days of the spread of the pandemic and the collective responses to it, many of us froze in the face of the sheer enormity of what we were (and are) dealing with.  We were immobilised by fear and anxiety, unable to think clearly, speak clearly or act clearly or effectively. We found ourselves frozen in a state of suspended animation; waiting for things to go back to ‘normal’ so that we could resume normal programming.

It isn’t feasible to stay frozen forever and so, after some time, most of us thawed out and took a different approach.

The ambient anger that surrounds us is an obvious manifestation of the fight response. Some people are angry with everyone and everything; lockdown, not being able to travel, not being allowed to buy alcohol and cigarettes, having to wear a mask, other people not wearing masks….The rage that is being unleashed on big and small, important and insignificant targets is, I believe, a displacement of the fury we feel about a situation that is so frightening in its strangeness, so unsettling in its unpredictability and so frustrating in the fact that we have so little control over it. Our anger has no impact on this cruel and callous virus, but it is easy to take out our fear and frustration on people and policies in our immediate vicinity.

When fighting isn’t getting us anywhere, we may turn to flight. This is evident in all the many ways we may try to escape from the harsh reality of the situation we find ourselves in. Binge-watching series, baking banana bread, learning to read hieroglyphics, sleeping more than usual, drinking too much (if we have access to alcohol, that is), pretending to be fine when we are anything but, and whatever else works to remove us from the cold, hard truth of what is going on in and around us right now.

And when we haven’t been fighting, fleeing or frozen, those of us who are adult children have been fixing whatever we can – rolling up our sleeves and getting on with things. We have tried to continue as we usually do; being our resilient, resourceful, reliable, creative, problem-solving selves. We have tried to make everything better by helping, saving, advising and supporting others – an exhausting habit at the best of times, but particularly so in the biggest global crisis in over a century. In the face of so much that is out of our comprehension and control, it is our commitment to fix what we can that is holding us together.

Whichever state you find yourself in at any given moment – fight, flight, freeze or fix – know that it is a natural, healthy and appropriate response to an abnormal and frightening situation. Give yourself the time and space to make sense of your feelings so that you can proceed as mindfully and with as much self-compassion as possible.

Some days you may feel like a frightened rabbit, stunned by the lights of the car that that is bearing down on you. Other days you may feel like going into battle with everyone about every little and large irritation and disappointment. You may need to retreat into your metaphorical cave where you can lay low, lick your wounds and build up the courage to venture back into the world. And, on good days, you will probably find yourself getting on with things and trying to do whatever you can, where you can, with what you have.

And that’s OK.

If you are or think you may be an adult child and would like to work on deepening your understanding of yourself and your responses to the world around you, set up a FREE Discovery Session so we can talk about how I can help you to reach your full potential.

Tags: adult child | adult children | others-centred.