Anxiety drives me crazy. Seriously…
The funny thing about it is that I love horror, love all things gothic… the whole spooky, creepy, “Let’s all spend the night in a haunted house!” vibe. But I still get anxious over RIDICULOUS things. And the scariest things are the constant cycle of negative thoughts bouncing around in my own head. (You wouldn’t believe the craziness I’m capable of concocting deep in my own subconscious. Natural disasters specifically flown in for the purpose of sucking up my loved ones are not beyond the imagination!)
I'm trying to just imagine that it's like a monster on Scooby Doo. Remember Scooby Doo? Did you watch that show?
You know, everyone would be running in fear of these ghosts, monsters, and phantoms...terrified that whatever it was would hurt them. And all along, no matter how scary the thing looked it was always some loser in a mask. Usually not even a good mask. Just some minor character with a stupid motive, in a crappy mask.
My fear is just like those phantoms. Not real.
And at the end of every show, they'd unmask the dude and he'd say the same stupid thing every bad guy would say. "I would've gotten away with it too, if it weren't for you meddling kids!"
We gotta be the meddling kids. We have to unmask that loser. Instead of running scared from the Toy Factory Ghost, or the Phantom of the Lake or whatever the hell it is we're scared of, we need to turn around and unmask it. We need to say, "YOU ARE NOT REAL! YOU ARE A MINOR CHARACTER WITH A STUPID MOTIVE AND A CRAPPY MASK!"
If we know the monsters aren’t real – the things we’re afraid of aren’t true, then why do we still believe it?
Why do the kids of Mystery, Inc run from the monsters? Why does the audience keep watching?
Obviously, they clearly aren’t learning from the first time.
But they are, because after running scared for a while, they capture and unmask the monster. But why do they run scared at first?
Yes, yes, I know…because it’s a monster.
Exactly. Because it's the monster's role to chase, and their role to run.
More importantly, because it's in the script!
And we watch over and over because it amuses us and entertains us, even though it's the same damn ending over and over. We're suckers.
When I was working in daycare, we'd often take the kids out to the playground to play and more often than not, one of the little girls would come up to me and say "Charlie (or some other boy!) is chasing us."
I'd ask, "Why are they chasing you?"
They never understood why.
So then I'd ask, "Why do you run away?"
And they'd say "I don't want him to catch me."
Why? What's the goofball kid gonna do if he catches you?
I'd tell them to stop running. Better yet, turn around and chase the boys.
Let them chase you for 10 minutes, then trade places, then trade back.
The point is, we're constantly running, even as adults from the stuff that scares us. Maybe we need to ask, what's the worst that is gonna happen? What's the worst that'll happen if Charlie catches the girls? He'll say, “Caught you!” and run away.
Isn’t it funny how we are still afraid of those monsters?
What's the worst that'll happen if I admit I'm afraid of losing my love?
He'll hug me and tell me I'm silly.
When I treat kids with trauma we spend a lot of time talking about monsters. We draw the monsters that frighten them, create them in clay.
Sometimes, we draw them on Shrinky Dink plastic, and then shrink them in the oven to show how little they really are, how little power they really have.
I like the power to transform monsters too.
The kids all have scary monsters that they're afraid of, but nobody's afraid of the Cookie Monster. Or Grover. Or Oscar the Grouch. imagine turning that scary monster into Cookie, or Grover, or Oscar. Kinda takes the sting out of it, right?
So maybe what it takes to deal with anxiety, or even the real thing – fear…fear of the very real things that can hurt us…maybe all it takes is knowing that we have the power to transform those monsters into anything we want them to.
We can transform with a little creativity – with art and music and all the creative things that make us shine, glow, and bubble over with joy.