My New Chimerical Kit

The series called [Master Your Fears] will follow my progress through dealing with my fears and (hopefully) ultimately kicking the habit of being irrationally afraid of things.  As my guide I’m using a combined approach of therapy and studying texts that will offer methods to overcoming fear.

The first text that I will be using is Master Your Fears:  How to triumph over your worries and get on with your life by Linda Sapadin, PhD.

Please read my entries in the series:

Reasons Fear Happens

Sapadin starts of Chapter 3 with some reason why fear occurs in the first place. Keep in mind here, we’re not talking about being afraid of things rationally; we’re talking about irrational fear, fear that just seems to come from no where and grip you.

I honestly had to read this chapter twice before I really bought any of it. I think the reason why I had to do that was because I really didn’t identify with any of her clinical examples that she presented.

Sapadin’s Extreme Reader’s Digest Version of Why Fear Happens

Mainly here we’re describing childhood things that cause latent fearful tendencies. Of course, there are things in our adult lives that can cause fearful lifestyles as well, but sometimes those are easier to identify because we are more aware of things that go on. Children perceive the world differently and thus sometimes insignificant events can lead to a pattern of behavior that is designed to protect the psyche.

• Loss and trauma can be either physical or emotional. This can be manifested through the death of a loved one (for children it can be either a peaceful death or a traumatic one), it could be the necessity of the assumption of a premature adult role, it could be moving away from family & friends or vice-versa, or it could be a large scale traumatic world event that might be unrelated to the child’s life.
• Subtle trauma that is best described as childhood trauma that occurs when here are no words to explain what has happened. This is less obvious, and often can be a result of the information being baffling to the child, dishonesty, evasive answers, or just being totally confused by the events.
• Temperament / genetics contrary to popular belief, Sapadin says that babies aren’t blank slates. (Note:I’m not entirely sure that I understand this concept as it seems to imply that there is some factor that can lead to a fearful lifestyle that we have no control over, which is discouraging to someone who is aiming at changing that pattern of behavior.)
• Parental Extremes – Over/Underprotectiveness both of which can lead to fear by their own right. Both methods of parenting don’t produce adequate role models for developing minds.
  • Overprotectiveness can lead to the child’s inability to assess risks, participate in challenging situations, develop coping skills, and develop confidence
  • Underprotectiveness can foster distrust in the world in general, lead to dangerous situations that the child isn’t ready to tackle, anxiety about their ability to perform at an adequate level
• Parental expectations that are either too high or too low can cause anxiety because either there are expectations that are impossible to meet or because there is little guidance.
• The Family “Atmos-Fear” which is Sapadin’s play on words, but she is truly trying to illustrate that kids are perceptive and can pick up on family dynamics. Fighting and tense adult relationships can be perceived by children and if they are not dealt with appropriately can leave lasting scars.
• Parental Response to World Events depending on parents reaction to large scale world events (like 9/11, for example), children may begin to develop unnecessary fear. Parents need to be careful neither to overplay or underplay the gravity of events, but rather to be open, truthful and explain things in an age-appropriate manner for kids

Determining where my fear comes from

First, I have to say that I hate the idea that I’m possibly just built this way. That I’m just nervous or anxious by my very nature. I suppose that this could be true, but it doesn’t comfort me to think that I’m inherently this way. I also have to be honest when I say that I don’t like to blame someone else for my fears. Saying that my parents were overprotective or underprotective or failed to explain things to me in a way that was age-appropriate for my little mind is like saying that none of this is my fault. And where does that leave me? I also don’t want to say that my parents were bad parents, because I don’t feel like they were. In fact, I don’t think that any of these things that Sapadin describes are really anyone’s fault. I think that they’re just stuff that happens. And maybe the crux of all of it isn’t whose fault it is, but rather how we deal with it in the end.

So, after I read through Sapadin’s descriptions of where fear can come from I sat down and thought about it for a little while. And then I thought about it some more. And then I got angry about it and just about quit reading the book. I just thought that her whole explanation was blurry and didn’t apply to me. But before I got all rash and decided that she hasn’t a clue what makes me tick I put it all away and came back to it later.

I read it one more time, and then all of a sudden, it hit me. And here are the series of events that happened:

• Between 1990-1993 I moved four times; for a girl who is just about a teenager, I think that’s pretty trumatic.
• Mom and I went to live with my grandparents in Arkansas in the winter of 1991 because my dad had been transferred to Virginia. This happened for two reasons:
  1. My parents didn’t want to uproot me from too many schools especially where we would be settling, and
  2. My mother said she didn’t want to stay in the apartment we were living in without my father for an indefinite period of time. Apparently there was at least one Peeping Tom. (Note: I was not told about this reason until I was an adult.)
• While living in Arkansas with my grandparents two things happened:
  1. There were bomb threats at the middle school I attended. I clearly remember being very afraid, and not understanding why that was happening
  2. Billy Ponder was stabbed to death.

Billy Ponder’s Death

That last bullet point may seem totally out of left field. But I think that it’s really the crux of the whole thing, or rather the straw that broke the camel’s back. So let me explain a little bit about Billy Ponder.

Billy Ponder was a nice guy that lived in the same town as my parents’ families. His family was close with my dad’s family. He was well liked, was a Sunday school teacher, and owned a florist shop. On April 28, 1992, in the middle of the day, on a busy street that people pass by all the time, Billy Ponder was stabbed to death (18 times) in his store. His wife found him hours later after he didn’t come home for dinner. The town was shocked. Everyone was confused. There were no leads, no one to point fingers at, and the case went completely cold.

I clearly remember that I was terrified. Suddenly, I wasn’t afraid of the weird Papier-mâché heads that were in my uncle’s old bedroom, I was afraid that there was a murderer hiding in the closet ready to jump out and kill me. I was terrified every night I went to bed, carefully checking all the closets, locking the door when I went to sleep, and staying away from the windows. I was afraid to go to school. I was afraid to walk to Giles Pharmacy after class let out because someone might grab me and kill me. And I was sure that if they killed that nice man, Billy Ponder, that they might just want to kill me or my family because we were friends with him. The fact that they didn’t find his killer made everything more scary because there was a murderer on the loose.

The Billy Ponder Case Today

When I realized all of this I was thrilled! I felt like I had made a huge break through and I just couldn’t wait to tell my therapist. But I wanted to bring proof. Proof that this horrific thing that had happened to Billy Ponder had happened to this regular old guy who didn’t deserve to die like that (not that anyone does, but people who lead riskier life styles can draw unwanted negative attention, I’m thinking drug dealer here). So I did a bit of Googling.

As it turns out, Billy Ponder’s killer was found just last year. And he was extradited, tried, and convicted in April of this year; SEVENTEEN YEARS after this horrific murder. And apparently, Billy Ponder wasn’t completely innocent. Granted, he wasn’t a drug dealer or part of a gang, but he was definitely engaging in some activities that were not something that an eleven-year-old girl was doing.

And what I think I needed to know was that he wasn’t a random act of violence. But Billy Ponder had a secret that no one knew about. Billy Ponder was a closet homosexual. And while that’s not something that should condemn a man to die a horrific death, he was hiding it from his family, from his friends, and from his community. And he was engaging in illicit sex acts that he paid men money for. (Here’s a list of all the news articles from ArkansasOnline.com pertaining to the case.)

Why did this affect me so dramatically?

Clearly, Billy Ponder’s murder kind of falls into that category of “subtle trauma” mixed with “world events trauma” mixed with “family atmos-fear.”

I think that it was really confusing for me as a kid to separate myself from Mr. Ponder’s death because I made the only connection that I knew how to — he was a nice guy and he was a friend of my family. If someone wanted to hurt him I figured that they would want to hurt me too. Unfortunately, there weren’t any answers for my parents to give me, they didn’t exist until March of this year! It wasn’t their fault that they couldn’t explain why I was different from him or why someone wouldn’t want to hurt me. They tried, I clearly remember that. But without something to separate me from him I didn’t feel comforted. Smash all that together with the fact that my mother and I were living with my grandparents without my dad around and you get a scared little kid who just wants her family back together to protect her.

BINGO. Fearful lifestyle.

I’m sure that there were things that happened later that helped to solidify my fearful tendencies, but now that I’ve figured this out I feel like a huge weight has been lifted from my shoulders. I’m ready to get down to business and kick this nasty habit once and for all!

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