Day 47 of 365 (Why Are We So Afraid?)

February 17, 2014 is a holiday for government workers, President’s Day.  Today celebrates both George Washington’s Birthday under the Gregorian calendar and also Abraham Lincoln’s.  Great being both and deserving of remembrance. The only reason I mention the calendar bit is that I remember in a book I read as a youth that George Washington (and others) had to decide which date they would celebrate their birthdays.  Would they use the old calendar birthdate or the new? The British Empire did not adopt the Gregorian calendar until 1752 at which time Washington was 20 years of age and he had to make a choice.

A bizarre factoid, if anything involving Alaska can be said to be weird, odd or unexpected, Alaska did not adopt the Gregorian calendar until 1867.  According to Wikipedia, “In Alaska, the change took place when Friday, 6 October 1867, was followed again the next day by a Friday, only this time it was 18 October 1867.  The shift in calendars for our northern most state only occurred after the US purchase of Alaska from Russia. The Tsar-run state still on the Julian calendar. Instead of 12 days, only 11 were skipped, and the day of the week was repeated on successive days, because the International Date Line (although not known by that name in 1867) was shifted from Alaska's eastern to western boundary along with the change to the Gregorian calendar,”

Because it is a holiday I am at home.  At home does not mean I am not working.  I puttered about the living room this morning slicing my toe open on the couch.  I started a pot of black bean soup.  I am reading cases.  At home also means I can work up a blog post.

In one of the first packets I have read I am looking at the fate of a young woman who by age 25 had lost her driving privileges.  Also due to alcohol she had been hospitalized twice.  Her first ER visit was for alcohol poisoning, i.e. passing out at a part and being unresponsive.  Her second stint in the land of wellness followed her fall down a flight of stairs. The young lady’s injuries from that required facial reconstruction.  Amazingly to my mind she did not stop using alcohol after either of these incidents.  It took a dire family event to get her to commit to immersion into recovery with support groups and monthly one on one counseling.

The Evaluation says that the Petitioner’s trigger was anxiety.  The diagnosis, in addition to alcohol dependence (and trust me her pattern indicated dependence), is that of an extreme anxiety disorder. Like so many others I see she suffers from extreme worry about health, love, money, making correct decisions, and many other things, even when there is little or no reason to worry about them.

She is not alone.  

 How any people suffer from this?  According to NIMH just under 20% of American’s 18 and older suffer from an anxiety disorder.  Of five people sitting on a bus, one is fretting without reason.  Someone is agonizing without an objective, empirical basis to do so.

Some major faiths don’t buy into the point of worrying.  Jesus wasn’t on board with it.  Matthew 6 (NIRV) says:

 “I tell you, do not worry. Don’t worry about your life and what you will eat or drink. And don’t worry about your body and what you will wear. Isn’t there more to life than eating? Aren’t there more important things for the body than clothes? “Look at the birds of the air. They don’t plant or gather crops. They don’t put away crops in storerooms. But your Father who is in heaven feeds them. Aren’t you worth much more than they are? “Can you add even one hour to your life by worrying? “And why do you worry about clothes? See how the wild flowers grow. They don’t work or make clothing. But here is what I tell you. Not even Solomon in all of his glory was dressed like one of those flowers. “If that is how God dresses the wild grass, won’t he dress you even better? After all, the grass is here only today. Tomorrow it is thrown into the fire. Your faith is so small! “So don’t worry. Don’t say, ‘What will we eat?’ Or, ‘What will we drink?’ Or, ‘What will we wear?’ People who are ungodly run after all of those things. Your Father who is in heaven knows that you need them. “But put God’s kingdom first. Do what he wants you to do. Then all of those things will also be given to you. “So don’t worry about tomorrow. Tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own.

Zen masters offer the proverb, 

““If the problem has a solution, worrying is pointless, in the end the problem will be solved. If the problem has no solution, there is no reason to worry, because it can’t be solved.” 

I worry a great deal myself but my mental health issue is not generalized anxiety.  Worry and anxiety never caused me to drink I don’t think.  At least not once I got out of high school.  In high school I clearly self-medicated but it was the 1970s and who didn’t? The drinking age was 18. But my choice to intoxicate myself on a daily basis was tied more to depression than worry.  I didn’t have fear I had a sense of exclusion and it festered.  Once I left for college that changed and my alcohol use dropped.

I am empathetic toward anxiety induced behaviors and I always hope the person is getting better. 

 Still I am always listening for the hidden clues.  Some are subtle and some are bold.  Either way these things suggest that troubling stuff is still being pushed back into dark corners only to re-emerge when there is no court or legal entity acting in oversight.  The other day I had a gentleman come in and ask for privileges.  He however had suffered a loss of someone near to him.  The death had been 18 months before and nothing in the paperwork implied he had any culpability.  

When I asked if the death had been unexpected he went into tears and we could not proceed.  Yes this kind of grief is not clinically the same as generalized anxiety.  However it is a grand demonstration of the kind of things that leave questions in my mind as to what is really going on inside of a people.  When a person tells me they can face the challenges of interpersonal contact but then draws away from their attorney and rocks back away in their chair when a question is asked of them, I have to decide is it my hearing room or is it the anxiety causing the behavior.

But this is just telling you I am aware of the widespread nature of anxiety. It doesn’t provide an answer to the question why are we so afraid.  I can kind of see the point of the Buddhist’ maxim.  Either there is a solution or there isn’t.  If there is not then what can we do?