WHAT TO DO WHEN TERROR STRIKES
TERROR IN THE DEEP
A PERSONAL ESSAY
His dilated, menacing eyes gazed into my shocked and frozen stare. With mouth agape in a jaw wider than his brow, he made no waves as he stalked me that day in silence.
A tete-a-tete with a monster on a hot and languid summer afternoon was not what I expected when I donned my yellow two-piece bathing suit for a cooling dip in the lake.
I lay prostrate on the raft as gentle waves from a passing boat rocked the platform slowly back and forth.
Dreaming of pirates on open seas and treasures of undiscovered shipwrecks on ocean floors, I pondered the possibility of fortunes submerged in the mud at the bottom of the pond beneath me.
I often thought it would be such great fun to grow up to be a pirate. In my bedroom, the wallpaper displayed bawdy buccaneers, sunken ships, and half-open treasure chests spilling their gold and gemstones into my dreams at night.
The notion that there might be more than a few broken shells, rocks, and weeds at the bottom of the lake beckoned me to leave the safety of my cedar log float in search of the unknown beneath the surface of the water.
On land, my fast-growing adolescent body felt awkward and clumsy.
Still, here in this maritime world separate from humanity and its demands, I moved without stumbling, without fear of tripping and making a fool of myself. Dare I say I swam with grace? (Photo by Carolina-Garcia on Unsplash)
No longer restricted to horizontal motion, I could plummet downward, swirl backward or float upwards as easily as a bird in the air.
Wrapped in sacred silence, I no longer heard voices of criticism and judgment that nagged me in the earth world above.
My reddening eyes peered through the ghostly water half-light, searching for hidden treasure, unmindful that I was not alone in this underwater paradise.
I kicked my flippered feet hard, propelling myself along the lake’s bottom, as slimy grass wrapped itself around my legs.
Soon my need for air pressured me to return to the surface.
I suddenly realized that I had swum beneath the log raft and no longer had a straight path upward to freedom – and air.
It was then I saw him. His lips were so close to my face I drew back, frantically wanting to swim in reverse, muscles frozen in terror.
How long had he been watching me? He opened his mouth wide and then relaxed into a leering grin. Thorny projections from his chin quivered slightly as his bulbous eyes penetrated my soul through the murky darkness.
The water, previously warm from the summer sun, suddenly turned icy as I began to tremble. Trapped beneath the float and paralyzed with fear, clock-time morphed into an eternal moment measured only by the pounding of my heart. Then, without blinking, the shiny black horn-pout catfish turned, flipped his tail fin twice, and swam off into the underworld from whence he came.
(Photo by Milos-Prelevic on Unsplash)
THE NATURE OF FEAR
This story is a sliver of my thirteen-year-old life confronting fear for the first time as a visceral reaction to a perceived threat. By visceral, I mean that fear is not a way of thinking and something we can change like an opinion or an attitude.
Fear is as physical as a broken leg but garners a lot less sympathy. There is no plaster cast on which caring friends can autograph good wishes. There is no vaccine to prevent its recurrence.
Today when I read a news a story about someone having a public tantrum, I know that fear has found a host in them the same way a parasite might.
We don’t judge a person who has contracted malaria, although I would take reasonable precautions not to get ill myself.
Whenever someone near us is sick we have two concerns.
- “What can I do to help?”
- “How do I keep from catching what they have?
WHEN FEAR BELONGS TO ANOTHER
The same concerns surround someone with a severe attack of fear.
When we don’t recognize that they have suffered a physical response to a situation, we fall to judgment.
“Oh, get a grip! Do you have to cause such a scene?” And most of us pull back, avoiding being contaminated by their outburst, whether that is tears, anger, or apathy.
When the chemicals of fear are discharged in our brain, we have what doctors call a ‘reptilian response.’
It is not a response of choice. We freeze, fight, or run away.
And the truth is, very often, people around us catch our fear as surely as if it were a virus. (Photo by Adam-Berkecz on Unsplash)
But they will deny that.
After all, they are the steady, sane, and secure ones who will say they don’t feel threatened by whatever event just occurred. Perhaps there is no catfish in their face right at this moment. THERE WILL BE!
WHAT OPTIONS DO WE HAVE?
So what are our options when trapped and looking a terrifying unknown in the face? We might realize that the subject of our terror is probably more petrified of us than we are of him.
Ah, but you say, “I can’t ‘realize’ anything when frightened. My brain has shifted channels, and thinking has stopped.”
Because fear is a physical response to a perceived threat, our response will be ‘reptilian.’
That is, it comes from a place in the brain (the amygdala) that we do not control.
We freeze, fight or run (or swim). The best option for someone experiencing terror is to find a way to breathe.
I try to remember that when I meet someone who is coming unglued, it is not their rational mind in control.
Because I do not feel terror at that moment, I AM able to think.
I hope the next time I bump into this situation to remember that my words are as useless as talking to a snapping turtle.
That’s when I pray for the grace to move on, out of range of his jaws, and try to release all judgment that he (or she) should ‘know better.’
Author John Green says, “True terror isn’t being scared, it’s not having a choice on the matter.”
John Green is right. As I see it, the kindest option we have when we meet someone in the depths of terror is to
- recognize they need to swim to the surface of their fear in order to breathe.
- give them space.
- breathe with them. (Photo by Jude-Beck on Unsplash)
