When we are struggling and find ourselves in a challenging situation, we are often engaged in a slew of thinking all designed to answer one basic question:
“How will I get out of this?”
Understandable. Nobody wants to be afraid or uncomfortable so we spend our time looking for ways and making plans all designed to get us away from that feeling and back to “safety” (whatever that might mean in any given context). Let’s look at someone with panic disorder that finds themselves in the middle of what feels like an overwhelming situation where a meltdown is bubbling and feels imminent. This person will likely look for exits, calculate the amount of time before they can run out of the situation, and find all the ways they can be rescued when the situation gets out of hand and the “too much” line is crossed. You might relate to this because you’ve done it, or are still doing it.
Now let’s look that same person 10 months into their recovery. They’ve been working at it, having the usual ups and downs, and much progress has been made. That same situation that once felt overwhelming and triggering doesn’t really feel that way any more … mostly. As is normal in recovery where things are never in a straight line or black and white, our recovering friend is willing to go into that situation now but isn’t yet totally confident in their recovery. This being the case, there are still moments where scary thoughts and those pesky bodily expressions of fear pop up. What is this person doing now? Well, likely looking at exits, calculating time, and thinking about what might happen if things boil over and actual panic makes an appearance.
Right now you may be wondering what on Earth I’m talking about because the non-recovered and mostly recovered version of our friend are both doing the same thing! But …they are not.
Ten months down the road, our friend is no longer asking how they can escape and be saved. They have made enough progress that multiple parts of their brain are all weighing in now. It’s no longer the amygdala show. Now the higher parts of her brain are active and participating in the decision making process. Let’s break it down, shall we?
When our mostly recovered friend is looking for exits, she’s no longer focused on escape. She’s giving herself reasonable options that she might use to temporarily back away, compose herself, then continue. This is not escape any more. This is regrouping.
When our hard working comrade is doing time calculations in her head, she’s not counting the seconds before she can run out of the situation and back to safety. Now she’s reminding herself that she’s had lots of experience with being uncomfortable for extended periods of time and that she’s been able to handle that. There’s a huge difference between “Just 5 minutes and I can get out of here!” and “I can do 5 more minutes of this, then re-evaluate and go from there.”
When this person is creating contingency plans for what happens if she does experience full panic, those plans no longer include ambulances, hospitals, safe people taking her home, or extended mental horror movies about making a spectacle or losing control. Now she plans for panic, but in a measured and more rational way. “If I panic, I can stop for a few minutes, maybe go outside and get some air, and I know it will blow over. It might be disruptive, but that’s OK. I know how this ends now.”
Now can you see the change?
At some point in your recovery you start asking a different question.
You stop asking “How can I escape this?”
You start asking, “How shall I handle this?”
Sometimes people hit this important milestone but can’t see it, and wonder if they are really making progress. They chide themselves for still looking for exits even when the way they’d use that exit is totally different than it used to be. On a surface level it might seem like nothing has changed, but the immediate targets have totally changed and therefore the question that drives that “anxiety plan” is based on competence and growing confidence rather than fear.
How often have you heard me tell you that recovery is realizing that you don’t have fear your own body and mind? When you start to have this realization you no longer have to build mental escape models. You start to build mental navigation models. Both models might use the same parts, but they are used in very different ways. It’s subtle, but it really matters.
Today you might still be asking how you can escape. But at some point you will start to ask how you will handle, because you’ll know that you can and you’ll just need to decide how to do that.
Hey it’s Monday and that means that today at 2 PM Eastern I’ll do my “Recovery Monday” livestream on YouTube, Facebook, and Twitch. Come join in!
211. When You Start Asking Different Questions