A PANDEMIC OF FEAR: When Denial Goes Viral
Or: What I Want You to Know About Fear So We Don’t All Go Crazy
(and it’s probably not what you think it is)
I’ll give you the punch line straight off:
The fear many assert to be causing so much suffering is actually our savior. But that’s not all. The fear — the clandestine, unadmitted, truly dangerous fear — running this belief is what is actually fueling the pandemic to be the out of control wildfire it is.
Read the rest for the devil in the details. You can also watch this video I made that introduces the subject but does not elaborate as much as what’s ahead in this essay.
TEASING FEAR APART
Fear is the most prominent and maligned emotion of the coronavirus pandemic. It is vilified and demonized when it should be celebrated and honored. It is maligned for the wrong reasons and overlooked for its benefits.
I propose that our ignorance about fear — both its boons and pitfalls — is causing tremendous unnecessary suffering. Emotional intelligence and a clear perspective of fear is needed to break this knot of ignorance and spiral of denial.
Fear is both cognitive and somatic (mind and body). We cannot see fear only in black or white terms, as good or bad. We must also understand the different forms of fear. This essay is an attempt to tease fear apart and thereby help clarify how to identify the different forms of fear and how to work with them so that we all suffer less. It is also an attempt to help you understand and accept those who unreasonably, and even reasonably, have fear of fear.
I propose that an attempt to escape or deny fear, and not discern its many dimensions, leads to the same dismal end. Ignorance in working with and perceiving fear seem to cause many to speak, preach, and act in ways that we call stupid, irresponsible, and selfish. More often than not, this is probably just how we express frustration. Intertwined with fear’s machinations is the heartbreak we all feel for the state of the world today.
In this essay I present possible dynamics by which our otherwise intelligent and well-meaning friends — or to any degree, you and I — have gone off the rails. Despite the title for this essay, these are mostly my hypotheses, not facts, though I may at times present them as the latter.
This exploration is not aimed at changing the minds of those who have fallen into the grip of an impoverished relationship with fear, as much as it is to help those of us who have not gone down that rabbit hole to better understand and relate with what might be at the root of others’ (and to any degree our own) seemingly bizarre assertions and perceptions.
This essay holds the open question (to which I admittedly don’t have a good enough solution) for how to interface with those who are controlled and compromised by their fear of fear, often unawares. Ironically, those who denounce and demonize this powerful, unavoidable emotion seem to be those most gripped by it, though they assert otherwise.
So, let’s investigate fear and how it operates for the hope of aligning with it in ways that set us free rather than imprison us.
CATEGORIES OF FEAR
When we merely obey or reject all fear, we are doomed. In other words, failing to question as well as dismissing all fear both limits us and causes us harm.
There are different forms of fear and failure to discern the specific kind of fear we experience often leads to wrong action, propelling us in the opposite direction we need to go to be well. As spirals of denial, I have categorized them as we do hurricanes in increasing levels of maladaptive severity (Cat 1 is actually adaptive, so please bear with the broken aspect of this metaphor!).
There are two main categories of fear, and a third that is a subset of the second:
Category 1: helpful, adaptive, fear in response to a real, accurately perceived threat
Category 2: excessive, non-adaptive fear in response to a falsely imagined threat (which can include the fear of fear itself)
Category 3: fear of fear, discussed in the next section
Category 1 explained: Fear of a wild animal, climate crisis, or a damaging virus, is helpful Category 1 fear. This is fear that alerts us to a real threat and raises our concern. If we fear feeling and listening to this fear, we fail to receive the warning sign. We therefore become less likely to protect ourselves and others.
Category 2 explained: Fear of asking someone on a date or of giving a public talk are examples of unhelpful Category 2 fear. Our survival is not truly threatened in these cases; it just feels like it is. This is an example of how our feelings “lie” to us. Challenging this kind of fear is needed to overcome the apparent limitation posed by an unrealistic fear. Practice makes progress in this category.
FEAR OF FEAR
A third category of fear is fear of fear. As mentioned, it’s actually a form of Category 2 fear and is a severe twister.
Fear of fear is the wisdom Roosevelt championed in his famous speech of 1933 when he primarily addressed our fear of Category 2 fear. Roosevelt proclaimed:
“the only thing we have to fear is fear itself — nameless, unreasoning, unjustified terror which paralyzes needed efforts to convert retreat into advance.”
This fear of Category 2 fear shows up as unrealistic, excessive, runaway fear about things that aren’t true, such as many conspiracy theories surrounding the pandemic. We can right this unrealistic fear with clear thinking and abiding real threats.
While Roosevelt addressed the paralyzing fear of irrational fear (“unreasoning” fear) we also fear Category 1 fear, as our fear of rational, helpful fear. This is arguably the form of fear of fear wreaking the most havoc during the pandemic. It is therefore the focus of this essay.
Feeling fear will not actually hurt you — certainly not nearly as much as the real threat the fear is trying to warn you about. Fearing fear is to be afraid of paying attention to the warning system with which evolution has outfitted your amazing psyche for the purpose of saving your life.
Yet even welcoming rational fear can become unreasoned and excessive. We are best off when we can modulate this fear of the virus to a modicum, or just enough to take right action and be steadily concerned without becoming pervasively overwhelmed. For this we can seek support from trusted others to help manage our fear. We can also remember to exercise, get out to nature, and interrupt obsessive looping distressful thoughts. Deep breathing is the first most immediate remedy to help tame excessive fear. The goal is to get the message from fear and allow it to act as a motivator and helpful caution against danger.
Rejecting masks, not social distancing or sheltering at home, and not being fastidious about washing hands, are often the result of failing to respond to primal, helpful, Category 1 fear.
Folks seem to exercise such unskillful fear of fear for many reasons. One is they might be falling prey to a misguided New Age spiritual belief. The belief is that all fear is bad and to be avoided, because the opposite of fear is love, and if you fear, you are not loving. Ironically, nothing could be farther from the truth. Believing this makes one a goner. Fear, wisely worked with, serves love. And love serves fear when we help others understand the benefits of fear, for example. Ironically, fearing helpful fear is unloving because it often propels us to act carelessly.
Once we start fearing fear, we become paralyzed, combative, and polarized. This is America today. By denying healthy fear, we imprison ourselves. Yet, we cannot sustainably overcome healthy fear any more than Don Trump can overcome coronavirus by denying its existence. In other words, primal, helpful fear must be abided, not denied. Denying it doesn’t make it go away and the result of trying to do so is . . . well, the out of control spread of the virus . . . which is growing commensurately with a fear of fear.
Said another way: fear controls us to the degree we think are triumphing over (but in reality denying) it. The result is that we move in the opposite direction of what will save us from needless suffering! Crazy right?
To be fair and for the sake of thoroughness, there is also a form of fear of fear that is helpful, though less common. If I fear a helpful fear that causes me to avoid feeling that fear, a (secondary) fear of feeling that (primary) fear helps me avoid putting myself in harm’s way. For example, if I once was afraid of a lion, fearing the experience of repeating that fear will likely cause me not to act in a way that I would have to feel the fear again. Similarly, if I have felt scared being in a closed room with strangers during the pandemic, fearing feeling that fear again can be helpful if it causes me not close myself into a room of sick people. Fear of real danger, and our fear of feeling that fear again — a kind of adaptive PTSD — helps us safeguard what we love, such as our own lives and the lives of others.
THE REAL PANDEMIC OF FEAR
The pandemic of fear . . . the problematic fear, the fear so many demonize, is not Category 1 fear. Ironically, it is a fear of obeying Category 1 fear. It is therefore a form of Category 2 fear — a fear in reaction to what doesn’t truly threaten, but is used to deny what does truly threaten us!
Denying what threatens us is not a good strategy for happiness, good fortune, or staying alive.
Primary, Category 1 fear is crucial in moderation and when skillfully worked with so it doesn’t incapacitate us. For example, fearing contracting Covid-19 is appropriate and helpful, but not if the fear is so intense that it persistently overwhelms us. Secondary, non-discerning knee-jerk reactions against primary fear in the form of Category 2 fear of fear are often misplaced and dangerous. For example, acting like we have no fear of contracting Covid-19 is a good way to catch it. Look at the many who mocked mask-wearing and distancing measures only to fall ill.
Again, feeling fear won’t truly harm us. But the denial of feeling and obeying it will. Think of all the memes demonizing fear. The irony makes me nuts!
Those of us that rightly fear the virus and the suffering it brings are in alignment with helpful fear. It seems like common sense, right? This is why it’s maddening to watch people rail against ordinary, humble, adaptive fear of the virus. It seems idiotic, and I occasionally fall prey to vocalizing this harsh judgment during Covid denial debates.
It gets very frustrating sorting through all the arguments people give to justify their fear of fear. In truth, deeper forces seem to be at work, and ultimately, compassion for people’s traumatized relationship with fear, as well as their obeyance and control issues, seems the best way to more sanity.
So I gave it a go. After I realized the folly of trying to change minds with logic, I asked my favorite pandemic deniers (with whom I have a degree of trust to inquire this way):
Do you sense there are other reasons for why you choose to believe what you do?
Are you afraid of feeling afraid of the virus?
Do you think other forces are at work that prevent you from accepting the more likely severity of the pandemic?
Or more pointedly:
Are you afraid of facing the truth?
Every one of them sidestepped the question. I never got a response, much less a report from the inquiry. I imagine this is because if they had the humility and an intimacy with their emotions, they wouldn’t be in denial in the first place. They would be able to embrace their fear and wouldn’t have strayed from the wisdom of fear to begin with (save for some, discussed ahead). It’s sort of like trying to have a reasonable discussion with an unreasonable person. They have to be reasonable in the first place to understand and make sense of your points. Asking someone to be emotionally honest when it’s emotional dishonesty that arrived them where they are is folly.
Perhaps a delicate process of acknowledging and non-judging acceptance coupled with unattached and timely presenting of a different perspective over time holds some promise?
Because pandemic deniers don’t want to — or better can’t, because it’s not conscious — admit their fear of fear, they invent and gravitate to all kinds of stories to uphold their secondary fear and diminish the validity of the primary fear. This way they can be self-righteous in their denial of fear and not have to embrace fear . . . while the rest of us suffer their unsafe actions that derive from the wrong beliefs they adopt to deny their fear.
So those who say “the real pandemic is fear” denigrate what would save us and instead celebrate the denial that is killing us.
And each time their defense against facing healthy fear is challenged (by contesting their arguments with data that is more likely true) we bring them closer to their fear . . . which they fear. So they defend themselves from touching their fear by attacking. It’s the same dynamic with fear of climate crisis. Aggressive and nasty are the results, which can trigger our own anger, defensiveness, and nastiness. Thus the polarization. So, we need a different way, especially because the stakes are so high.
CONTROL ISSUES
To remind: skillfully relating with fear means we obey Category 1 fear and reject and skillfully challenge Category 2 fear. Category 3 fear is a secondary, Category 2 fear reaction that we should also challenge. In other words, we should challenge our fear of fear so that we can either abide (obey) it if it’s helpful or reject and challenge it if it’s not a true threat (so to overcome it).
Obeying primary, helpful, Category 1 fear looks like wearing a mask, socially distancing, staying home, washing hands, being mindful of not contaminating ourselves or others, and acknowledging the seriousness of the pandemic.
Rejecting and challenging Category 2 fear, for example, looks like gathering the gumption to ask someone on a date or to make a public speech — both commonly considered to be intimidating and scary. Or that we challenge and overcome our skittishness around embodying a healthy fear of the virus.
Failing to challenge a fear of fear looks like using conspiracy theories, pseudoscience, spiritual bypassing, and other poor reasoning to justify a feigned courage. In reality, and following this path, one becomes doubly bound and doubly controlled, by both primary (from failing to abide it) and secondary fear (by failing to challenge it). So, those who rail against fear are the ones unwittingly, and doubly, besieged by it. The bravado and volume needed to keep up this denial are often paired with anger, aggression, and even bullying anyone or anything that comes too close to breaking down the façade, which defense exists to protect against honestly feeling any form of fear.
Emotional honesty — admitting, feeling, and working with fear — is the antidote to fear of fear. Because emotional intelligence is uncommon and marginalized, emotions go unchecked, unacknowledged, and this way secretly run the show. Fear of fear is a shadow dance.
Our emotional shadow causes the division, fighting, and polarization. It’s not driven by primary fear, but by our secondary fear of fear, which is a failure to relate in a healthy way to, and obey, the survival message inherent in primary fear. The issue is not so much intellectual ignorance as it is lack of emotional wisdom.
The operative word here seems to be obey. “Obey” brings up power dynamics and control issues. Control by an authority figure — be it a parent, boss, abuser, law enforcement, or government official. Obeying fear in the present seems to trigger unconscious emotional reaction to having being obedient in the past, to something that had power over us . . . and importantly, that injured us. Many simply react to emotional triggers instead self-reflecting on how to unwind and mitigate them, and even heal them.
So, we react in the present to what we unconsciously perceive as control and harmful to us based on what happened in the past. This is compounded by a belief that obeying anything or anyone but ourselves is unsafe. Sounds a lot like selfishness doesn’t it? But hurt lurks behind it. Ironically, and sadly: not obeying Category 1 fear is what actually hurts us.
For the record: fearing Category 2 fear also hurts us. For when we fear the fears that we should challenge, we shrink away and diminish our power and healthy confidence.
FDR was right: our fear of fear — that which will save us (Cat 1) or diminish us (Cat 2) — is problematic. Either way, we have to become intimate with fear to discern its type, modulate its effects, and act in ways that preserve wellness (obeying Cat 1) and do not increase dysfunction (by failing to challenge Cat 2 fear).
This is why we have to be astute and self-reflective. Confusing the types of fear is bad news. And that is exactly what’s happening during the pandemic, especially among those who are waging war against the wrong kind of fear.
DYNAMICS OF DENIAL
Category 3, fear of fear, is founded on and fueled by denial. This is serious hurricane territory.
To justify avoiding fear, pandemic deniers and conspiracy theorists try to make the very real Category 1 fear of the pandemic a Category 2 fear. They do this by way of demonizing fear, spinning conspiracy theories, and otherwise downplaying the reality and severity of the pandemic any way they can. Charles Eisenstein is a prime example of all these, which you can read about here.
These people are actually afraid of fear, trying to allay helpful fear by dishonestly minimizing the threat. Trump does this when he claims that doing less testing creates fewer Covid cases. Fearing fear asserts that masks don’t help and that their mandate marks the beginnings of a police state (concerns of a police state are realistic via our president’s recent gestapo missions in Portland, not mask requirements), hugging is more important than social distancing, the death rate is lower than the flu, hospitals aren’t really full or busy with Covid patients, fear is the real pandemic and not the virus . . . on and on.
Maybe you, like I, have banged out countless comments swatting down these false arguments. But at the end of the day it’s a game of whack-a-mole. Fear of fear secretly generates the stories and intellectual dishonesty. It’s why deniers go from one conspiracy to the next and then back to the first ones in an ever-spiraling tornado in their flight from fear — fear that won’t actually hurt, but actually help!
REASONS FOR FEARING FEAR
Rejecting masks, not physically distancing, and not being fastidious about washing hands are common manifestations of fear of fear. Again, these actions help one justify denying danger; to acknowledge a real threat, of course, would mean consciously embodying fear.
There are other reasons for exercising such unskillful fear of fear. One is falling prey to a misguided New Age spiritual beliefs, such as the belief that fear is bad and to be avoided — because, allegedly, the opposite of fear is love. Ergo, if you fear, you are not loving. Ironically, nothing could be farther from the truth.
Fear and love are not opposites. Fear, wisely worked with, serves love. And love serves fear when we help others understand the benefits of fear. Ironically, fearing helpful fear is unloving because it propels us to act carelessly.
The pandemic is like a truth serum, outing spiritual bypassers who can’t embody a reasonable, modicum of fear to save themselves and promote the welfare of others. This how they end up overlapping with dangerous Q’anon conspiracy theories.
Conspiracy theories hep distance the immediacy of the pandemic, maintain it as a distant, amorphous, and speculative event. This helps deniers distance themselves from the prospect of a deadly virus staring them in the face via the vectors of real-in-the-flesh people like you and me (figuratively speaking).
Others ignore helpful fear to avoid feeling restrained, inconvenienced, and admitting to disturbing changes in daily life. If there’s no real threat, there’s no need to be inconvenienced by precautions or to be bothered.
Other fear of helpful, primal fear might stem from egoic, selfish entitlement and a need to feel special and valuable. Feeling valuable is a worthy pursuit, when done with integrity. The results of not doing so are damaging. Sharing conspiracy theories on social media is an easy way to gain quick favor with non-discriminating others, to feel special, and to belong to a tribe of ardent rebels (not to be confused with BLM or climate crisis protests which are fights for true freedom). Such rebellion, however, may simply be from old wounding against obeyance, as discussed earlier, which is especially more egregious because it creates more suffering.
Another reason for fearing fear could be an attempt to regain control of what feels out of control. After all, it’s relatively easier and seemingly empowering to flex one’s “muscles” and choose not to wear a mask than it is to acknowledge and halt the chaos of a pandemic. Guys may have a particularly hard time donning such a delicate garment on their face. A fixation on debating the mask issue can also be a defense mechanism by which arguments focus on a small, tangible issue that provides a sense of control in their own lives — to avoid facing the larger, scarier picture over which they have little control.
Yet another contributor to fearing fear is desperation. Many, especially poor and marginalized people of color, live with real Category 1 fear day in and day out. There is only so much fear one can tolerate, so denying any amount of fear can be adaptive for sanity and survival, even if it’s not ultimately sustainable. This is tragic fear of fear by necessity, not entitlement. Compassion and support are appropriate responses for those who have to live with so much uncontrollable and unfair fear.
Some of our fear of helpful fear can also be rooted in old wounds from having been invaded and/or over-controlled by others. This fear may in turn be rooted in an inability to feel, embrace, and wrestle with the pain and the vulnerability of feeling controlled. But just because we feel controlled doesn’t mean we are being controlled. By examining our reactions and being honest with ourselves — intellectually and especially emotionally — we can use being triggered by a crisis to heal through old wounds, which can help us become more free to care in the present (by releasing the anger and hurt from being controlled, allowing us not to have to knee-jerk against prudent restraints in the present).
In the absence of self-honesty and working with fear, many seem to double down on their wounds in self-righteous conviction of their “rights.” This is not surprising because these people began their tour de lies with a lack of honesty. They are therefore unlikely to all of a sudden become honest, except in rare instances. They require more ammunition to defend against having their secret fears (Category 1 and Category 3) revealed. Failing to abide helpful fear causes suffering. Being sick in bed, hospitalized, or dying is not freedom.
By understanding the pitfalls of fearing fear and the benefits of appreciating fear, we can begin to shift our perception of fear and improve our relationship with it. This can lead to a change in actions and ultimately our care for ourselves and others.
MY CONSPIRACY THEORY
So this is my conspiracy theory: getting wise to the hidden workings of fear and its ramifications can help nip denial and its conspiracy theories in the bud to restore the roots of sanity.
Honesty, vulnerability, courage, resilience, and humility are prerequisites for wholeheartedly embodying and wisely abiding fear. Since these five virtues are usually hard-won — especially in egoic, entitled, dumbed-down, me-first America — it usually takes some level of catastrophe to distill these qualities from the sludge of fear and delusion.
So here we are in massive, pervasive social catastrophe, the perfect incubator for something better, or worse. The question is how to effect enough transformation instead of too much decimation.
I hope this writing has shined a helpful light on fear and made clear why we can’t talk about fear in general terms, why we can’t lump all fear into one category, why we can’t merely accept or reject fear, and why we must relate uniquely and creatively with the many different manifestations of fear.
Emotional intelligence with fear is crucial for right action. Full spectrum head and heart are needed. Without them, fear rules us, especially when we think it doesn’t, simply because it seems we can reject it and magically make it go away.
I’ll leave it to you to determine if this is more a true, helpful orientation against the madness of our world today, or merely another conspiracy theory. Indeed, I have no choice. :)
Trust in good science. Embrace helpful, reasonable fear. Challenge the fear of feeling inappropriately afraid. Tell me what you think of these ideas and anything you want to add. Than you and peace out.
