Anxiety part 3

Let’s start with rationalization. Rationalization is the best explanation for the evasion of responsibility: it consists of simply turning anxiety into a rational fear. One example is an over-solicitous or helicopter mom. She would be concerned about her children, regardless of whether she admits to having anxiety or even whether she interprets her anxiety as a justified fear. When she’s told that her reactions to her children are not a rational fear, but simply anxiety, this is threatening and implies that her responses are not proportionate to the existing danger. It’s too threatening to admit to personal factors as causation. Immediately, likely becoming angry, she refutes the interpretation as being related to her. Rationalizations are exhibited into “proving” that she’s right and you’re wrong. So instead of feeling helpless, or exhibiting prey to one’s emotions, or admitting to irrational elements in attitude or belief system, the individual instead feels angry and entirely rationally justified in thought, behavior and actions.

Denying the existence of anxiety is another way to escape it, which means excluding it from consciousness. Generally, all that appears are the physical concomitants of fear, and anxiety, such as shivering, sweating, accelerated heartbeat, choking sensations, frequent urge to urinate, diarrhea, vomiting, and feeling of restlessness of being crushed or paralyzed. During every trail competition, there is an array of porta potty’s with lines of people waiting their turn. I know because I have been in line many a time. In one of my AR 50 trail runs, by the time I left the porta potty, the race had already started. Then we have an example of a conscious denial of anxiety which results in a conscious attempt to overcome it. In this example, an individual might attempt to get rid of the fear by recklessly disregarding it. Typically, it might be a soldier who was driven by the impulse to overcome the fear and as result performs heroic deeds. Rationalization and denial are only two examples of defense mechanisms employed per Karen Horney. There are more.

To be continued