Fear and the False Self

Most of us have spent a lot more time isolated in the past six months than we ever have before. Being in lockdown or socially distancing because of COVID has created physical isolation that has a direct impact on health and wellbeing.

Connections have been tested and many of us have a new perspective on relationships and the value of community in our lives.

I want to bring up something that those of us living with trauma have to navigate. I talk a lot about the stress response, and what happens when the body goes into flight, flight, freeze, or fawn mode.

Trauma happens when the body's systems are overwhelmed and get stuck digesting the traumatic experience, so the impact of it stays in the system rather than being processed and discharged. This can be experienced many ways, particularly as fear, which is often described in self-help programs as "false evidence appearing real."

We can track the physical impacts of traumatic experiences in the body and the brain, but also in how we pattern our emotions and what we chose to bond to. Until trauma is resolved, it shows up in our choices, our reactions, and our relationships, usually for the worse.

This stuckness gets in the way of us living our lives and of feeling good. But the body is a brilliant natural system that self-heals, so when something is stuck, just like a splinter, the body will try to resolve it and push it out.

The last time I got a splinter, it was the tiny end of an acacia thorn and in so deep I didn't notice it until the puncture wound had closed up. My body created an inflammation response to dissolve it and, at the same time, push the thorn out but my skin was blocking the effort.

All it took was a small tear from sharp tweezers to move my skin out of the way, the pressure from the swelling pushed the thorn out by itself. I didn't have to do anything but literally get myself out of the way.

Because trauma is stuck energy in the system, our bodies naturally move towards healing. But we aren't taught to trust our body's natural ability to heal and know what is good for us. If you grew up in unhealthy family systems like I did, you may have been told to muzzle your needs and feelings, and to hide what was going on at home to keep up appearances.

In my family of origin, I had this explicitly explained to me, but it is often more subtle than that, a tacit expectation that you are betraying the family unit by sharing what is truly going on with anyone " outside."

This is extra bad, because we’re taught to ignore and devalue our own needs. Trying to convince someone, who cares enough to ask, that we don’t need help is self-sabotaging.

We are turning away support that we need for our health and wellbeing, because we feel like we have to and we tell ourselves a story that they would abandon us if they knew the truth. The thing is, by not taking a chance, we never find out.

The need to pretend things are fine when they're not runs deep. It is part of the freeze or fawn stress response, the maladapted ones where you can't remove yourself from the stressor and need a different survival strategy.

Over time, we create a false self that is disconnected from how we really think and feel. The other thing about a false self is that keeps you in the same stressful, traumatic place, increasing its impact on your health, your wellbeing, and your future.

As you probably know from personal experience, pretending things are okay when they are not creates a unique kind of loneliness and self-blame. We want to reach out and connect with others, but when we’re in the false self, we don't give them anything real to connect with.

The false self closes us off to connection, especially with the people we care about. COVID has made things worse, because it's not always easy for people to guess if something is going on, especially at a digital distance. Admitting that we're having a hard time takes courage, because it’s not always clear who or when to trust.

Vulnerability is the antidote to fear and the false self. It creates authenticity and a place for potential connection between us and another. Humans and all animals can sense authenticity.

But trauma disrupts this sense of knowing, and we are left feeling unsure we can trust at all. Our habitual responses to trauma tend to play on repeat, making us feel impotent and hopeless, like there's no way out.

Trauma is, by definition, overwhelming. The endless looping is exhausting, which is why so many of us with trauma tend to pull away and avoid reaching out to others when we're in it. We don’t want to share, because we feel others might pull away if they saw our needs.

We're so used to telling other people that we're fine that to share what's really going on feels impossible. We fear rejection, so we put up with superficial exchanges that don't go deep enough to nourish our needs, but we don’t ask for more.

Connection helps to break the cycle of trauma, because real connection comes from a place of authenticity. Reaching out and daring to be vulnerable is a courageous part of healing.

When we give people enough surface area in our souls to connect with, we can explore and better discern where we want to go in the relationship.

A lot of us have reconnected with old friends over COVID, or reconciled relationships. Many of us have realized that some relationships need realigning.  All this time inside has given us new ways to see and meet ourselves, and to discern what is good for us.

Shedding the false self doesn't mean we're no longer afraid, just that the old way of pretending doesn't suit us anymore. We learn to ask more from our relationships and give ourselves the chance to create connections that deeply matter.

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