Swimming in Angst

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Image: Aleksei Morozov - Getty Images

Angst illustration

Feeling out of sorts but can’t put your finger on why? Trying, usually without success, to brush away a nagging sense of disquiet that seeps in, seemingly out of nowhere? Lugging around a nameless dread that permeates your awareness whenever your mind isn’t occupied elsewhere? Well, perhaps you and Carolyn are in the same psychological boat.

“My life is pretty good, but I’m not,” she told me, baffled. “How can that be?”

For this middle aged professional and mom, the “I’m not” part consists of persistent unease, a nagging feeling of uncertainty and apprehension, and the inability to trust and go with the flow. She finds herself hypervigilant without knowing exactly what she is wary about.

“Not that long ago, I wasn’t like this. Sure, like any parent, I worried about my kids and family sometimes, but now I wake up in the middle of the night feeling uneasy and ruminating. We live in a safe neighborhood with good schools. We’re healthy and doing well. What gives?” she pondered.

“When you go swimming, do you expect to get wet?” I asked rhetorically.

“Of course. What’s your point?”

“We can’t immerse ourselves in the larger social environment without being affected by it. And, right now, we’re all swimming in some messed up stuff,” I suggested.

Traditionally, folks come to psychotherapy with what we mental health types call a “ticket,” some sort of specific personal concern, or several. One’s ticket can be almost anything, but it is usually personal. I own it. It’s mine. However, in recent years, particularly since the onset of COVID, many of these tickets have expanded beyond concerns directly tied to the individual, couple or family. Increasingly, they are collective, more about we and ours, so to speak, rather than just me and mine. And that’s what brought Carolyn to my door.

She isn’t bedeviled by an issue confined to the sphere of her own life. Any dispassionate assessment of her circumstances would give her an A, if not an A+. Rather, she is feeling the angst generated by the larger cultural, political, economic and ecological milieu. Like the rest of us, she is swimming in the disturbing soup of ominous happenings that populate the news and, increasingly, reach in to disrupt our consciousness and rattle our existential sense of security. Pick your poison — the climate crisis, political acrimony, gun violence, a dysfunctional healthcare system, wars, pandemics, child poverty, economic distress, AGI risks and the rest. 

Fight, Flight, Freeze

When we absorb enough of these ominous happenings, the classic fight-flight-freeze response gets triggered, sometimes at a low-grade level that escapes our awareness, as it did with Carolyn. Nonetheless, when the so-called stress response becomes chronically activated, the cumulative impact starts taking a toll, often in the guise of a nameless dread.

What to do? First and foremost, as often advised, lower our news consumption. There are folks who plant themselves in front of their favorite in-your-face news program for hours on end, as well as others who absorb continuous “breaking news” feeds on their electronic devices. This is equivalent to having one’s stress “hot button” repeatedly pushed, with little or no time in between to relax or become absorbed in enjoyable activities.

Secondly, we need to re-establish some sense of order and predictability in our own lives. Healthy routines like exercise, meditation, play, reading (not the news), socializing (with the right folks) and hobbies, reassure us that “all is well” in our immediate environment. What’s more, they instill a sense of control and personal power, which is precisely what too much exposure to the mad-mad-mad world takes away.

When I first entered the mental health field, my wary father, a salt of the Earth farmer type, asked, “Can you catch it (mental illness) from others?” I reassured him I could not. Given our collective angst, now, I’m not so sure.

For more, visit philipchard.com.