Anxiety Part 4

Alcohol, smoking, drugs, droning oneself with long hours and being compulsive about work; the inordinate need for sleep; and engaging in sexual activities might serve as a safety valve through which anxiety can be released. Unfortunately, these provide only short-term fixes and do not address the underlying psychodynamic issues. Performing rituals is another escape mechanism, as evidenced when watching a professional baseball player at-bat. When the hitter steps out of the batter’s box, he loosens or unties and then re-fastens his batting glove numerous times before getting back into the batter’s box. This behavior is done over and over again and operates automatically.

Another common way to escape anxiety consists of avoiding all situations thoughts or feelings, which might arouse anxiety. If one is conscious about the fear of driving in the mountains, then one can avoid it. Sometimes one is not aware of the anxiety. In this case, one attempts to avoid it by procrastinating and experiencing difficulty in making decisions. Sometimes this avoidance operates automatically and the phenomena of inhibition arises. In addition, inhibition is the inability to do, feel or think certain things without dysfunction. It’s an attempt to avoid anxiety which would arise if the individual attempted to do, feel or think these things.

We’re certainly living in the age of anxiety. It’s a definite problem of our times. With the multitude of external threats and unresolved psychodynamic underlying issues, there are numerous individuals with poor mental, physical health; addictive disorders; economic inequities; and homicidal and suicidal behavior and deaths. Further, as evidenced by the bitterness, verbal aggression and hate expressed on social media, radio and TV, suggests that we have an epidemic of anxiety in our culture. Furthermore, there’s talk “they are going to take away my guns; changing the Second Amendment; I have to protect my family” which is like adding fuel to burning embers. Those rationalizations do not mitigate or solve the underlying issues. Having a gun, or guns does not remove insecurity. Owning a gun does not resolve the real issue. Not only that, providing more weapons to anxious individuals is dangerous and counterproductive.

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

 Anxiety part 2

 

About 6 to 9 months later, when mother leaves the room or becomes out of sight, we experience that tension, anxiety, fear, loss of “love” or helplessness that our needs are not going to be met because of her separation. This is called separation anxiety. We also began to experience anxiety when we are punished, as we now are afraid of the loss of mother’s love. Receiving punishment compared to receiving “love” are diametrically opposed. In other words, as infants, the basis or the blueprint of helplessness and anxiety have been established. The dynamics of separation anxiety, and loss of love are re-experienced throughout one’s lifetime over and over again.

Psychologically, our job is to deal with all the emotional storms of a lifetime of stress; overcoming obstacles; by employing a variety of strategies or substitute gratifications to master the unpleasantness of anxiety. More often than not, we are unable to identify the root causes of our anxiety. As a result, we distort the real, or underlying reasons for it.

Because it’s difficult, for many, to identify the signs of anxiety, the following physiological symptoms may help per DSM. Dyspnea or difficulty with breathing; palpitations; chest pain or discomfort; choking or smothering sensations; dizziness, vertigo or unsteady feelings; feelings of unreality ;parenthesis or tingling in hands or feet; hot and cold flashes; sweating; faintness; trembling or shaking; fear of dying, going crazy and doing something  uncontrolled during an attack are just a few indicators. Additional psychological components or signs of anxiety include excessive brooding, worry, preoccupation, rumination, anticipation of misfortune to self or others, difficulty in concentrating, and insomnia. This list is far from exhaustive.

With the assistance of our ego, we consciously or unconsciously [not knowing it] experience a threat internally; detect some great external danger; or predict that some calamity is about to happen. Helplessness, then occurs, and with the help of our ego, we spring into action to confront this unbearable or unpleasant situation. In our culture, there are numerous ways of escaping this terrible feeling of anxiety. According to Hans Selye, It could be flight, fight or freeze. Typically with fight, different aspects of aggression, contempt, resentment, or scapegoating follow. On the other hand, we can also rationalize it; deny it; narcotize it; or avoid thoughts, feelings, impulses and situations which might arouse it.

To be continued

Anxiety

While writing the Hon. Brett Kavanaugh post, I thought more about how anxiety impacts our lives. For instance, allow me to provide a few rationalizations like having a graduate degree from the University Michigan, being a former college football player, the author of Bo’s Warriors – Bo Schembechler and the Transformation of Michigan Football, and being a featured guest on Coach Jim Harbaugh’s radio show, in order to identify with the University of Michigan’s football program. Whether I attend a game at the big house or watch on TV, I am in a state of tension, anxiety, or worry especially when the score is close. I am powerless to affect any score change in the game. I can only reduce, but not eliminate my inner uncomfortableness, or helplessness by engaging in rituals like yelling, cheering, booing, clapping, standing, shaking my fists, doing the wave, etc. Unfortunately or fortunately, I continue to put myself in this state every football season. This post briefly addresses anxiety and a few of the ways in which we deal with it. I shall take the liberty and use the terms tension, anxiety, worry, nervous, agitated, scared, obsessing, detox, pressured, concerned, panic, stress, distress and uncomfortableness interchangeably.

Anxiety, consciously or unconsciously plays a significant motivational role in the lives of all of us. Anxiety is experienced as being uncomfortable and we Homo sapiens psychologically attempt to discharge it. Anxiety disrupts the state of homeostasis. With an unbalanced equilibrium, there’s a drive to bring it back to balance, or to a homeostasis state.

We begin life as an infant with physiological drives for food, water, and warmth etc., but we are helpless and dependent in our ability to meet or satisfy the drive. Behaviorally, all we can do is cry and exhibit some form of restlessness. Then, we have a mother or caretaker that satisfies that uncomfortableness and helplessness, let’s say with feeding, to bring us back to a homeostasis state. Over time, hopefully with mother regularity, our drives are satisfied or fulfilled. As a result of introjection and identification mechanisms, we learn to anticipate and associate the fulfillment of our drives with that mother figure. One might speculate that when that consistently happens, we learn and develop a sense of basic trust, or the beginnings of “love” for our mother.

To be continued

Hon. Brett Kavanaugh Part 3

When we have an important emotional belief and are verbally or physically confronted with a dissonant view, we consciously or unconsciously experience anxiety, which is a reaction to danger to our ego or self. Because of identification dynamics, a perceived attack on judge Kavanaugh becomes personalized as an attack on us, which we therefore defend.  Anxiety is unpleasant and although we may or not be aware, psychically. we attempt to defuse it, avoid it or to eliminate it. So when one member of the tribe, hears that the judge sexually assaulted Dr. Ford, they rationalize and refute the accusation and put their energy into proving the statement wrong like “it happened 35 years ago.” Or employ denial, “How could she remember that it was him?”
Another member, of the tribe inserted the idea of him being a sexual predator. He added something to the effect that there were no current charges of sexual assault and therefore the Hon. Kavanaugh cannot be a sexual predator because he doesn’t fit the profile. That’s an example of rationalization by misusing, creating and employing a distortion of the facts with pseudo- logic.
Being human, it’s not surprising that the Hon. Brett Kavanaugh was anxious during the second hearing. He could not escape the feeling of helplessness, nor the anxiety associated with it. This anxiety becomes almost unbearable for a person mainly in control of most situations .The greater the anxiety results in aggressiveness or hostility as a defense against experiencing it.  The Hon. Kavanaugh felt danger and threat as if he was attacked. The anxiety surfaced and anger and hostility followed by him becoming more entrenched in his view of being right and perfect. As a result, his fighting back behavior exemplified partisanship, an anxiety reaction with episodes of anger; exposing character during his job interview.
The existentialists are correct in that man has strong irrational forces within him, and he cannot be comforted by political or other illusions. It doesn’t take much for man to express his biases based on his perceptions and defense mechanisms as a consequence of living in our society as conflict is inevitable.

Hon. Brett Kavanaugh Part 2

After Dr. Ford finished testifying, the Hon. Brett Kavanaugh again testified before this same committee. This time, his demeanor was noticeably different. Employing Dr. Paul Ekman’s model of measuring nonverbal expression or facial expression and its accompanying emotional component, the Hon. Brett Kavanaugh clearly displayed wrath or anger numerous times by the expressions on his face. His verbal tone, pitch correlated as well. A heart monitor reading would have told the same story as in an anxiety reaction. When Senator Klobuchar asked him about his drinking behavior, the Hon. Kavanaugh, defensively shot back and asked her about her drinking habits. For example, when she asked him whether he ever got so drunk that he could not remember what happened the night before, he gave an exaggerated response, “you’re asking about a blackout, I don’t know, have you?”

The Hon. Brett Kavanaugh also heatedly accused - projected, as if a conspiracy, the Democratic senators of trying to derail his nomination with false sexual allegations as revenge for Hillary Clinton losing the White House.  At the hearing’s end, Hon. Brett Kavanaugh said he believed in God, and that he had not sexually assaulted anyone.

There have been other reports of two women, in college, that claimed the Hon. Brett Kavanaugh, when drunk, acted sexually inappropriately. Other Yale males said that Kavanaugh drank a lot and was aggressive during these episodes. Judge Kavanaugh admitted to drinking beer and liking beer. He denied ever blacking out, but admitted to falling asleep.

To Be Continued

Hon. Brett Kavanaugh

The media is engrossed with the Republican Supreme Court nomination of Judge Brett Kavanaugh. The public is not surprisingly divided as to support or nonsupport of this current judge. This situation provided an excellent example of how conflict or psychic conditions are addressed by Homo sapiens. Psychological components such as introjection, identification, identity, emotions, anxiety, defenses, perception come in to play and exposed our biases, and/or differences.

We learned very early in life about the political beliefs of our parents as a result of the mechanisms of introjection and identification. This early learning was not in depth. Cognitive learning or the establishment of formal operations or abstract reasoning, logic, rational evaluation of facts per Piaget or secondary process has yet to be developed. Our parent’s attitudes and their perceived omnipotent knowledge influences the early likelihood of becoming primarily a conservative, liberal, Republican or Democrat. My father was a many times union president and I was named after FDR. My political orientation was clearly established. This political identification becomes part of an identity, as well as a public persona. I might add that this significance has a long-standing emotional component embedded in the limbic system of the brain, notably the hippocampus and the amygdala.

The Hon. Brett Kavanaugh recently testified before a congressional Senate committee made up of Republicans and Democrats regarding his confirmation for the position of an appointment to the Supreme Court. Last week, Dr. Christine Blasey Ford testified and claimed that she was sexually assaulted some 35 years ago while both she and Kavanaugh were attending high school. She told the judiciary committee that she’s hundred percent positive that Kavanaugh attempted to rape her while he was intoxicated during a house party. The Hon. Brett Kavanaugh denied watching her testimony because he was preparing. Maybe he was rehearsing and likely didn’t not want to confront regrettable past memories by witnessing her testimony.

To Be Continued