The Fear Factor in Humans

In my last blog, I discussed the disconnection between my brain and my body that occurred after my severe traumatic event – my accident.

It was a constant argument between my brain and my leg and sometimes my leg just said “no”.

Besides the disconnect between my brain and my body, and what that entailed, there was something far more sinister underneath it all…

The Fear Factor!

I’ve seen this in horses and I’ve worked with lots of horses to get through these fears. But even though I understood this idea from experiences and research, I never realized how this “Fear Memory” is so instinctual and automatic.

Plus there are two kinds of fear at work here:

One is a memory fear that is emotional, like when a horse remembers being beaten or abused by a certain person or instrument.
The other is a “muscle” memory fear that is physical, like being injured when a cart the horse is pulling rolls over.

But first, let me tell you how this has shown itself in my life after my accident:

Emotionally I remember the extreme pain and how quickly I went from fine to not fine. This created the first kind of fear in me, a memory fear. It has taken a toll on me and has lingering effects.

I started having panic attacks and nightmares.
I have PTSD and a severe fear of falling which has stopped me from doing things.
I have bad depression that stops me from getting out of bed some days.
Anxiety shows up at random times during the day and causes physical reactions.
My fear tells my mind that I won’t be able to get much better than where I am now and it cycles back into the above issues.
And more…

The muscle memory fear is the hardest for me to work through. My mind can tell me that it’s ok to do something, but my body doesn’t always listen or do what my mind tells it to. There have been a few times that my leg just decides, for whatever reason, that it doesn’t want to move and it doesn’t.

For example:

One day I was standing up with my walker and I grabbed my sweatpants to get myself dressed. I thought, “Hey I can do this standing up as long as I am holding on to my walker”. That’s what I thought anyway, even though I usually sit down when I get myself dressed.

So I bent over and picked my bad leg up, about 6” is all I can do. I then threw my pants leg over that foot and pulled them up. Ok, halfway done.

Then all I had to do was stand on my bad leg and pick up my good leg to finish getting dressed. No big deal! Or so I thought. My good leg said, “No”. I could not pick up my good leg, not even a slight budge. I tried several times to talk myself through it, but my leg still refused to move.

This was strange because I was able to pick it up while I was standing straight up or moving forward on the walker. But while I was bent over, my good leg wouldn’t budge. My brain kept telling me to lift my leg and that it was safe because I had a hold of my walker for balance. But my body was not listening to my brain.

When I explained this to my physical therapist the next day she explained the behavior. She said it was my muscle memory fear. My body knew that my bad leg couldn’t balance itself while I was bent over. So it refused to lift my good leg knowing it would fall over if I had. My brain thought I could do it. But I’m glad my body refused to do it due to the consequences it would have created.

Fear isn’t always bad.

The muscle memory fear stopped my body from doing something that it instinctually knew I wasn’t ready to do, even though my mind thought I could. So this second fear saved me from another fall where I could have done more damage.

Because of this story, my physical therapist asked me to do a new exercise. I had been practicing stepping up (one step) with my good leg and stepping down with my bad leg. But now she wanted me to step down with my good leg. Again, my brain said, “Oh this is easy, you can do this”.

Nope! It didn’t work. While trying this new exercise I fell right over! Luckily my physical therapist was right there to catch me. This taught us both a lesson.

It showed her that my inner and outer thigh muscles on my bad leg were still very weak, if not working at all, and that my bad leg was not able to balance myself. I already knew that my lower leg muscles on that leg were not working right yet because of how the bottom of my leg goes out to the left when it should be straight.

It showed me that I shouldn’t always trust what my mind thinks I can do and that I should start listening to my body more.

So, how do you get through these kinds of fears?

Well, the first kind of fear – emotional memory – I am getting through by working with a Mental Health Therapist. We have weekly sessions and she has shown me a few ways to cope and start to process these fears in a healthy way. This is going to take a while, but I can already see some progress.

There is also a lot of self-talk going on every day in my mind to help me get through each situation that flares up. And it is every day that something comes up and I have to work through and calm myself down.

It’s crazy to me that I am still having such issues with this kind of fear because it’s been six months since my accident. But I do understand now that this does take a long time to get over and I have to be more patient with myself.

The second fear – muscle memory – I think will take a lot longer to get through.

Luckily, I have a really good physical therapist who understands this fear and is working with me to get through each occurrence. She is giving me physical exercises that take my body through the fear very slowly and safely. Each time we learn what my body can and can’t do right now.

I will say that when it first happened, I was shocked that my body wasn’t listening to or responding to my mind. It took me a long time to figure out what was going on and why my brain and body were disconnected.

It was my body’s way of protecting me.

These experiences have taught me a few personal lessons as well:

I am appreciating my body’s innate and natural wisdom.
I am listening to my body more than my brain right now.
I am trusting my body’s instincts again.
I am relaxing into the healing process.
I am allowing my body to recover the way it needs to and at whatever time it needs.

Things are starting to feel a bit better and I’m a bit stronger than I was one month ago, emotionally, mentally, and physically. I still have at least another year of healing and recovery, but I’m willing to work at it.

These fear experiences have been vital lessons for me. They have helped me understand the connection between our bodies and our minds and how everything is truly connected. When one thing is out of whack, it affects every other part of us – mind/body/spirit.

It’s one thing to know this or to understand this from a researcher’s perspective. But to experience this disconnect and having to work through recovery is something totally different. It has been an eye-opener!

I can honestly say that I am grateful for what I have experienced and learned so far during my recovery process.

Thank you all for your emails, your kind support, and for following along with my journey and having patience with me. Until next time, have a great time with your horse and enjoy each other’s company. It is truly a blessing!

And the next blog will be about the Fear Factor in Horses.

Happy Horses!