“Well I saw the thing comin’ out of the sky,
It had the one long horn, and one big eye,
I commenced to shakin’ and I said ‘Ooh-eee’
It looks like a purple people eater to me
It was a one-eyed, one-horned, flyin’ purple people eater…”
This 1950s #1 hit song by Sheb Wooley defines the Halloween season to me. When I was a kid, my elementary Art Class teacher would play a 12-song, kid-friendly “spooky mix” CD while we all worked on our visual art projects, which included “Monster Mash”, the “Addams Family Theme” song, and other hits. But, I always looked forward to “Purple People Eater” the most because of its sheer silliness. It made me giggle how the singer could make something relatively scary like a people-eating monster feel completely harmless and goofy.
Unfortunately for all of us living life day-in and day-out, the scary things we have to deal with are not all harmless and goofy. There are a lot of things to be reasonably afraid of, and many of us feel this fear quite severely each day.
Some of us fear the great unknown. Some of us fear what results the doctor may deliver to us tomorrow. Some of us fear whether or not the secret we’ve been keeping for too long will crush our spouse. Some of us fear never finding a spouse at all and spending the rest of our adulthood alone. Some of us fear our kids or loved ones getting hurt or sick. Some of us fear what our boss will think of our new idea. Some of us fear what will happen to us or to our community depending on who is elected in this or that leadership role. Some of us fear our abuser may walk free without consequences. Some of us fear our favorite team may never be winning again. We all have fears, perhaps too many to count.
Fear plays an integral role in what it means to be a living creature. We share the feeling of fear with our counterparts in the animal kingdom; it is an ancient feeling meant to help protect us from danger or to generally just keep us alive. When we feel afraid, the amygdala and hippocampus structures in our brain trigger the well-known “Fight-Flight-Freeze” response in our bodies. You know the feeling: racing heartbeat; tightened muscles in the hands, neck, and jaw; shortness of breath; shakiness and nausea; cold sweats. It’s uncomfortable, to say the least.
This response is our brain trying to protect us. However, when many of the fears we experience each day are somewhat out of our control, we spend more time in this “survival mode” than is healthy for us. The neurotransmitters responsible for these uncomfortable feelings are adrenaline and cortisol, the stress hormones. When we cannot reasonably “escape” or end the fear-inducing event or problem, or if we simply don’t address it, that adrenaline and cortisol is never used up all the way. It just sits in our body and becomes toxic, eventually leading to negative mental health symptoms like depression and anxiety, and even increasing our long-term risks of heart disease and cancer incidence.
It’s okay to feel fear sometimes, in fact, it’s normal. However, we have to cope with these fears in healthier ways. One of the best ways to learn healthier coping strategies is through counseling. If you need someone professional to talk to about your fears, please call The Willow Center at 317-852-3690. We can help!
Written by Chase Cotten, Community Director
