Sticking with yesterday’s theme, I wanted to touch more on panic. I tend to panic as my standard go to. We laugh, okay fine my family laughs and I try not sulk, at my gasping in a car when Arran drive and I think an accident is happening. My looking for something for 1.2 seconds before claiming it’s lost. My immediate worst case scenario building mind for anything that even hints at going ‘wrong’ (wrong simply means the way we didn’t want it to go by the way). A psychologist explained this was due to my growing up with a younger disabled brother where his life was continuously on the line. A coping mechanism. Maybe. But I also know a TONNE of people who do the same and didn’t have disabilities in their family, however it definitely seems to link to uncertainty as kids.
I share this as so many students of ours, who previously thought they were amazing with uncertainty, have discovered with COVID that in fact they are not. That the game was a house of cards, and that in the face of true uncertainty they are a blithering mess. That the control they stiffly kept hold of before simply kept the panic in check, and now without control the panic is a blizzard.
If we can see this as an amazing learning opportunity, it’s easier to be more gentle with ourselves. Every moment of panic is a moment of learning about our triggers. About how hard we might have held on before. Not everyone panics (I have literally never, ever seen Arran panic, and living with me would be enough to induce some level of panic I promise hehehe), so it’s possible that we can learn to work with it. Not control it. Work with it.
Written with compassion for all the fellow panickers. If you don’t panic, and read this and think ‘wow’, instead just feel compassion for all the uncertain panicky people in your life and give them a lot of love.
Jac x