Terror, Fear, Anxiety, and Paranoia: The Differences
Just like my distinctions between shame, guilt, and remorse, these distinctions of "scared" levels are based on common usage, but possibly nuanced differently in my head than yours.
Yesterday I claimed that I refuse to live my life in fear, but today I admitted to a good friend that I am scared. Most regular readers know that I suffer from anxiety. So what do I actually mean when I use any of those words? Even my PhD committee has seen me talk about anxiety and heard me say "You can't scare me" in the same half hour. Am I just being inconsistent?
Well, yes. Probably.
Like Monk, I have an ordered list of things that frighten me deeply, and some that merely worry me. When I'm facing something truly terrifying, the merely worrying pales by comparison.
The words:
Terror has a level of the physiological. My stress increases, and so do all the symptoms that accompany it. I panic, and call for help. Terror is a reaction to some immediate danger, or some danger that is perceived as immediate and for which I have no plan of defense. Money problems, un-ignorable health problems, and my life collapsing around me will all cause Terror. I also experience terror when Anxiety combines with some form of illness (malnutrition, lack of sleep, etc.).
Fear is a wariness that will keep me from doing things. It makes me cautious when I should be confident, and timid and defensive when I should be bold. Fear also abandons me inopportunely, so I barge where I should tread more lightly. But as I have previously written, I don't want to be the person who keeps silent when she should speak - so I speak. I refuse to live my life in fear. And that has its drawbacks.
Anxiety is purely physiological. It's a brain mode where my thoughts repeat endlessly in some fresh hell from my immediate past. When I experience something that frightens me, or heightens my Terror, it bumps my turntable and I agonize. It's really awful. I curl up into this ball of anxiety and just wait it out. But it makes me lose sleep, and that's when it can easily become terror.
Paranoia I simply refuse to indulge in. It's what I call all the little things that people tell me I'm supposed to be afraid of that I am just not. I'm not afraid of cancer, cholesterol, processed sugars, facial hair, loss of privacy to a snooping government, foreign terrorism, yellow teeth, or the gay/liberal agenda. It's just absolutely ridiculous in my head to accept more fear when I'm already overloaded, and none of it benefits me in any way. I am not opposed to activism, just fear-mongering. From anybody, including friends, roommates, and television personalities.
So when you see me roll my eyes at your horrified expression, understand that your fear tactics are not working because what's in my head is so much scarier. I live in Halloweentown, and you're trying to frighten me with Disneyland. I am perfectly capable of navigating around the creepy character suits. Why don't you join me here, where everybody's head is removable, and the entrails educational? It's very distracting.
Yesterday I claimed that I refuse to live my life in fear, but today I admitted to a good friend that I am scared. Most regular readers know that I suffer from anxiety. So what do I actually mean when I use any of those words? Even my PhD committee has seen me talk about anxiety and heard me say "You can't scare me" in the same half hour. Am I just being inconsistent?
Well, yes. Probably.
Like Monk, I have an ordered list of things that frighten me deeply, and some that merely worry me. When I'm facing something truly terrifying, the merely worrying pales by comparison.
The words:
Terror has a level of the physiological. My stress increases, and so do all the symptoms that accompany it. I panic, and call for help. Terror is a reaction to some immediate danger, or some danger that is perceived as immediate and for which I have no plan of defense. Money problems, un-ignorable health problems, and my life collapsing around me will all cause Terror. I also experience terror when Anxiety combines with some form of illness (malnutrition, lack of sleep, etc.).
Fear is a wariness that will keep me from doing things. It makes me cautious when I should be confident, and timid and defensive when I should be bold. Fear also abandons me inopportunely, so I barge where I should tread more lightly. But as I have previously written, I don't want to be the person who keeps silent when she should speak - so I speak. I refuse to live my life in fear. And that has its drawbacks.
Anxiety is purely physiological. It's a brain mode where my thoughts repeat endlessly in some fresh hell from my immediate past. When I experience something that frightens me, or heightens my Terror, it bumps my turntable and I agonize. It's really awful. I curl up into this ball of anxiety and just wait it out. But it makes me lose sleep, and that's when it can easily become terror.
Paranoia I simply refuse to indulge in. It's what I call all the little things that people tell me I'm supposed to be afraid of that I am just not. I'm not afraid of cancer, cholesterol, processed sugars, facial hair, loss of privacy to a snooping government, foreign terrorism, yellow teeth, or the gay/liberal agenda. It's just absolutely ridiculous in my head to accept more fear when I'm already overloaded, and none of it benefits me in any way. I am not opposed to activism, just fear-mongering. From anybody, including friends, roommates, and television personalities.
So when you see me roll my eyes at your horrified expression, understand that your fear tactics are not working because what's in my head is so much scarier. I live in Halloweentown, and you're trying to frighten me with Disneyland. I am perfectly capable of navigating around the creepy character suits. Why don't you join me here, where everybody's head is removable, and the entrails educational? It's very distracting.
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