Keep getting angry, sad, or anxious in the same way—at work and in love? Try clearing out the bric-a-brac.
I don’t mean the dusty old lamp foisted on you when great Auntie Alice passed away last winter; nor do I mean the plastic singing fish your mother slipped into a moving crate, years ago when you packed for college (that’s right—I know you have a singing fish). I’m talking about emotional bric-a-brac.
The emotional centers of the brain—the amygdala (our brain’s fight/flight center) in particular—are directly tied to memory. Maybe that's why people who struggle to feel any emotions at all tend to have such spotty memories. Without emotion, our experience lacks substance: it fades and flickers from view like an old film reel running out. Emotions flesh out our memory, adding color and depth, and for that reason, they play a crucial role in identity and intimacy. Sometimes, familiar emotions are kept alive in the background, without our knowledge, precisely because they’re the most important reminder we have of the key people in our lives--and when that happens you need to be clear about why the feelings are sticking around. If you like my posts, let me know! Let's connect on facebook and twitter. I frequently respond to comments and questions there. And feel free to check out www.drcraigmalkin.com for more tips and advice, as well as information on my book in progress.
Designing Dread: David vs Truck
David had been working with me for the past several months, trying to sort out why kept finding himself in the exact same position: inevitably, no matter how hard he tried to set limits and assert himself, he ended up feeling over-committed. In the past few weeks he’d become aware, whenever he paused to reflect on his life—sipping his morning coffee or staring blankly out the subway windows—that he often felt profoundly scared and overwhelmed. He was afraid of disappointing the two women he’d been dating. He was afraid, too, that one day he’d crumble under the mounting pressures at work, where he’d so often taken on task after task, with such little regard for his well-being, that his entire day had become an endless in-box of paperwork. He knew all this. But somehow, it kept happening anyway. Then one day, he had a dream so vividly disturbing it jarred him from sleep four hours before his alarm was set to go off.
David found himself at the base of a cliff, in a desert landscape: the horizon was wide and blue, but he couldn’t move his head freely enough to enjoy the view. At this point, he realized his head had been strapped with tape, and when he glanced down, he saw pieces of it dangling from his own pockets. He knew then that he must have placed the tape there himself. On either side, he spotted two ropes lying just at his feet, with loops at each end, just large enough for a wrist. He crouched down to pick up the ropes, looking directly ahead, where he now he saw a large, blue 16-wheeler gleaming in the sun. The truck had appeared from nowhere, but there was no mistaking what he saw: the ropes were tied to the bumper. He watched himself pick the ropes up and place them on his wrists. He heard the grind of the engine. Horrified, he watched the truck pull away and felt the rope stretching taut. He closed his eyes, feeling the same visceral dread and overwhelm he’d felt so many time before. Everything went black. David woke up, his heart hammering in his chest.
The Ties that Bind: David Untethers Himself
As David tearfully described his dream in our meeting the next day, one thought disturbed him more than any other: he had been creating the feeling of dread, he realized, through his own choices. He’d set the stage, from day to day, with his dates and with his co-workers, for a constant fear of the next moment, for the same feeling of inevitability that something bad would happen— a manufactured sense of peril. He knew what would happen if he tied his hands to the bumper. So why do it?
“Maybe the feeling is the whole point,” I said. “Sometimes, in our most important relationships, we want desperately to feel a sense of involvement, to touch and be touched, emotionally. You’ve already described your mother’s depression—your sense that she was like a ghost. Your most vivid memories are of her railing against her sense of futility: the unfairness of all the work she had to do, all the people she had to take care of. That’s when she finally came to life. That’s when you saw her. Maybe this is your way of feeling some connection to the most vital part of her: you’re joining her in dread and overwhelm because the two of you had no other place to meet.”
David looked unsettled, but he’d stopped crying. “How do I stop?”
“It’s not a road map out,” I admitted, “ but I think you and I will have help you discover that intensity some other way. You can connect with people in joy as well. Is a shared sense of peace and wellbeing any less compelling than dread? Maybe you hang onto the feeling because, with most people in your family—and especially your mother—being ‘tied’ through joy wasn’t an option. It left you stranded in a desert.”
What’s Your Keepsake?
If you’ve been plagued by a familiar feeling, no matter where you are or what you do, it’s often useful to think of the feeling as a keepsake.
When we lose people, we need to remember them. With the most important relatives, we don’t always have much choice about how to do that. More often than not, all we have is old photos, chipped china—dusty bits and pieces of another life. You might even be stuck with an ugly old vase—more of an eyesore than a treasured collectible. If that’s all you have, do you throw it out?
Chances are, you don’t—at least not right away. You tuck it away. You hide it from view, in a closet somewhere. It’s present, but never out in the open, in full view. After at time, you forget you have it. But it still takes up space.
Feelings work the same way. No matter how fraught the relationship, we need to feel some sense of connection to the important people in our lives, especially our parents. We need to remember them and keep them with us, even while they’re alive. Most of the time, choice doesn't enter the picture. We work with what we have.
If the most emotionally involved you ever felt with mom or dad, or that special grandparent, was during anger, fear, sadness, or dread, that feeling can become a keepsake: an emotional eyesore, reluctantly clutched tight, deep within your unconscious, like an ugly worn out memento. You don't keep it with you because you like it. You hold onto it because, in the end, it's all you have.
David brought his keepsake—a dreadful feeling of inevitability—out into the open. To give it up, he had to realize the value he’d assigned to the feeling, the way he chose to tie himself, emotionally, to those around him, in fear and trepidation. He ended all that by experimenting with a new kind of emotional intensity. He decided to date one of the women (he’d been seeing them both for close to a year), rather than living in fear that he’d disappoint them both. He said 'no' at work more often, leaving him freer to enjoy lunch breaks and relax with co-workers; and gradually, fitfully, his emotional landscape transformed from a bleak desert into a thriving city, teeming with people he felt close to—not because he involved them in his sense of dread, but because he could laugh and tell jokes and play video games, or do nothing at all (a freedom his mother never experienced unless she succumbed to depression).
“No more bric-a-brac!” he proudly announced one day—and excitedly told me all about the weekend where he did nothing but run and watch movies with his girlfriend.
Disclaimer: As with an advice column, these suggestions should never take the place of consulting directly and formally with a professional about any of your concerns. If you’re in a great deal of distress, always schedule an appointment with a doctor, health care provider, or mental health professional, to help determine how best to proceed.
Note: The cases described here are a composite—a blend of many people and problems to illustrate my point. All identifying information has been disguised and/or altered.