I grew up in the role of compulsive fixer, tending to the moods of my family of origin. Many empaths do this; caring with a socially attuned brain. It is no wonder that I became a therapist. No fault to anyone involved. Like osmosis, the sensitive brains among us: observe, lean it, and try…try…try…to help?!
Compulsive fixer anxiety: to help everything and anyone (perhaps to avoid the source of the problem).
Problem: Anxiety, a deeply planted germ that replicates and mutates into a belief system w/ coordinating emotions of dread and worry and pressures to serve, serve, serve like some whispered-water-torture tune, “I’m okay, if everyone else is okay…but there are too many people in the world, and I never figured out how to feel okay for myself, alone…so, I’ll never be okay…gotta work harder, harder, harder…”
And I’m freakin’ exhausted.
“I’m okay, if everyone else is okay…but there are too many people in the world, and I never figured out how to feel okay for myself, alone…so, I’ll never be okay…gotta work harder, harder, harder…”
And I’m freakin’ exhausted.
Sound familiar?
If so, read on.
I knew I met my life partner – a golfer by trade yet therapeutic as anyone, when he told me, “Stop taking yourself so seriously. You can’t fix everything.”
I questioned his concern for humanity, his fight for fellow human. At that moment I was driving home – hopeless, winding along the streets of Storrow Drive in Boston, leaving another difficult day triaging mental health inside city emergency shelters. I remember when he told me this over the phone. I remember saying, “You’re a jerk.” I remember thinking, What a relief!
Because, these Terry Real coined WHOOSH ways of being that we discussed last article on OUCH! When Anxiety Hurts – these WHOOSH, often unconscious or automatic protectors to situations, people, places, or things and their related thoughts (“I am okay if everyone else is okay…”), feelings (chronic worry), and sensations (racing heart, sweaty palms, and tight chest)—we think they are working for us, serving us, serving others, protecting us even.1 Yet, they merely protect the psyche from facing true fears.1
My now golfer spouse sometimes speaks for both our mindsets, “you’re kind of intense.” They’re so sweet, so gentle, adding the kind of…don’t you think?
Anyhoo. Look up several contemporary theories on trauma or the weight we carry from roles imprinted long ago, we develop and form what ends up looking like protector parts or bandaids over deeper, true fears.2
True fear: I am vulnerable, and so is everything and everyone else, and there is only so much we can do to influence that.
Truer fear: I have yet to figure out how to accept myself and feel safe-enough, no matter what.
True-est fear: I am terrified of uncertainty. I live in fear…almost all the time. If I pause long enough, the deepest fear says: What if something horrible happens to a loved one? What if I could have done more? What if someone or something horribly hurts me?
True and truer and true-est fears—left unattended, ignored, or WHOOSH compensated for in FIGHT, FLIGHT, FREEZE, FAWN, or FIXER modes,1 turn into a vigilant way of being in the least and a destruction whole health attack in the long term.
Got autoimmune issues? Likely a mind-body link there.
Got migraines? Probably underlying, unaddressed stressors.
Got severe PMS or back pain? Probably need to talk to someone.
By no means am I saying there isn’t a biological basis or tipping point, and however – there is substantial research that persistent emotional distress impacts our health significantly.3 Remember the last time your kid had a stomach ache? Sometimes it’s not always food. And it’s not always as obvious as chest pains.
In the previous article, I asked that you start to get familiar with your unique spark plug. A spark plug, I consider, tends to be the ignition to your unique way that thoughts, feelings, and sensations communicate with you at a lower grade of distress signaling. To become aware that an anxious moment is happening, sometimes the situation’s obvious to us and sometimes it’s the thoughts, feelings, and physical sensations that cue us that we are anxious. Stress or reminders of stressors become a source for either in the moment, discrete, or chronic anxious flares when we either don’t realize what is happening and/or we ignore the low grade communicators that turn into a daily grind of WHOOSH.
Not all anxious cues are insidious. Treading slowly into new social situations or job roles is wise. Yet, we don’t have to completely avoid those situations if it’s productive to move through related low grade to moderate anxiety. If highly arousing anxiety persists, well – it is likely not the right situation or you may be dealing with some long term WHOOSH side effects.
For instance, you can take me – the fixer – out of my family of origin and I’ve still be known to try to solve everyone else’s problems, advocating for every point of view, at the expense of my own professional or personal peace of mind.
If you are starting to feel like you’re living a life la-vida-WHOOSHO or any one thought, feeling, sensation, situation, person, place, or thing is distressing enough that it weighs you down on the regular…probably time you at least talk to a loved one for alternate perspectives and maybe a professional (starting with primary care is a decent way to start the conversation or explore providers in mental health by zip code at Psychology Today).
PRACTICE:
List ways that you may experience WHOOSH and if you trend towardFIGHT, FLIGHT, FREEZE, FAWN, or FIXATE?
Continue to get to know the situations, people, places, and things as well as thoughts, feelings, and sensations that you connect with an anxious moment. Eventually, we will begin to ask questions along the lines of: is it productive to move forward with anxious discomfort in this situation? Or, how might I scale this anxiety to understand when and how long to stay in the moment w/ uncomfortable thoughts, feelings, and sensations versus getting the bleep out of dodge. Ah, NUANCE – the confident spice of life.
1 Real, T. Fierce Intimacy. Sounds True. 2018.
2 Schwartz, R. Evolution of Internal Family Systems Model. IFS Institute. Retrieved: September 13, 2023 from website: IFS-institute.com
3 Stress effects on the body. Released by the American Psychological Association. Posted then updated: March 2023. Retrieved: Sept 13, 2023.
ANXIETY ANSWERS 