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Anxious woman
You’ve heard the term “afterglow,” which defines how a light source, like a bulb, continues to emit a dimming radiance even after it’s turned off. Sometimes the same term applies to the emotional and physical warmth following loving physical intimacy.
Well, there is also something called “aftershock,” and I’m not referring to the tectonic variety. When someone endures an emotionally wounding experience, the abrasive impact on their psyche can remain for some time, only slowing diminishing.
Recall a time when you were deeply frightened, when dread occupied your consciousness and could not be dispelled. Maybe it was great mortal danger, like a serious accident, or the terror of something unknown, like waiting to hear if you or a loved one had some dreaded disease.
Lingering Impact
Whatever the source of your trepidation, it’s possible that, upon coming out intact or hearing that all would be well, your sense of relief had an oddly unexpected quality to it. Even though your thinking mind knew the danger had passed, something in your feeling brain still shook with the lingering impact of that existential dread.
That’s because an emotional aftershock is not just about the precipitating situation. Rather, it arouses more deep-seated fears, making one feel powerless and vulnerable in a generalized way. This underlying foreboding is what persists after the “all clear” has been sounded in relation to the immediate threat.
Alan experienced this. Staring down the gun barrel of a potential diagnosis of a virulent cancer and wondering if it was loaded or not, he lived in abject fear and panic for several days.
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“I felt like this big bell, and it gets rung with the possibility of cancer, of death, and so it just vibrates like crazy. And that’s how the fear felt. Like an intense vibration inside my body that I couldn’t stop,” he explained.
Surge of Relief
When the good news arrived, Alan felt an uplifting surge of relief that lasted for several hours. But then he began experiencing an amorphous but palpable sort of anxiety, not nearly as intense as before, but definitely unnerving.
After Alan’s emotional “bell” stopped its violent shaking, the lingering ripples spread throughout his person, in his case for weeks. In him, that initial invasion of terror awakened some of his innermost dread, and it remained, hovering about his psyche and soul.
“Don’t get me wrong. I was elated not to have cancer, but I couldn’t get rid of this low-level shakiness,” he told me.
If these aftershocks persist or become more intense, they may represent a more serious issue, which is PTSD, a mental health condition resulting from significant emotional trauma. But if this form of dread doesn’t rise to that level, it can often be gradually quieted by soothing environments and practices — nature immersion, music, healing touch, yoga, time with pets, meditation, tai chi, another person’s empathic listening, and such.
Calm Our Fears
Nature, in particular, is proven to calm our fears and reconnect us with a sense of order and beauty. On my suggestion, that proved a healing resource for Alan.
“When I left here last time, that bell was still ringing, so to speak, but then over the next week I hiked in some parks and state forests. It quieted me down,” he told me.
Clearly, after deliverance from danger, if we experience an unexpected period of dread or foreboding, we’re having an entirely normal response. But when a painful or unnerving life event creates powerful emotional aftershocks and time and self-care fail to restore calm, that’s a message to reach out for help.
Like structures enduring an earthquake, we all have a breaking point. Don’t let it go that far.
For more, visit philipchard.com.
