fight or fright? (halloween edition...)

My fears are extremely irrational.

Riana's fears (in order of severity):

• Bees
• Balloons
• Needles (I would love for the alliteration to continue through the series, but it's more than just blood drawing - it's ALL needles)

Bees - although more rational (I am highly allergic to them) - bring out the utter worst in me.  As if every bee on Earth is concerned with stinging ME, and therefore losing their life, I run zig-zagged across playgrounds, across streets, and scarily enough, out of a car when it's moving.  (The worst experience was when I was driving and the bee was in the car - I was headed towards the freeway entrance, approaching a major intersection, and I was ducking and dodging this bee to the point where I could no longer see over the dashboard.  Hmmm, my life or a bee sting?

Balloons? Fahgetaboutit.  The most irrational fear ever (next to clowns for me - I just don't get it! But then again, mine is grouped with this circus silliness.)  For whatever reason (and I HAVE tried to recall this "initial trauma" that, paired alongside my reaction, has conditioned me for eternity), I am pudding around these inflated latex contraptions meant for happiness.  Perhaps it was my grandmother popping them in front of my face, or the startling noise that reminds me of inner-city violence, but whatever it is, it leaves me, well, without air.

In reference to the needles, I am slowly getting over such apprehension.  Long ago were the days when it took 6 doctors and nurses to restrain me (I was 6 years old).  But I still feel the physiological responses - tension, increased sweat, quickened breathing, etc. I always tell my medical practitioner that I am afraid, and that act alone may very well trigger my fear, as discovered through the articles.

These articles really helped me to look at my own anxiety while exploring what the authors suggested were the etiologies of the spectrum of anxiety disorders.  I especially enjoyed Mineka and Zinbarg's piece, which very thoroughly broke down the general reasons for anxiety as well as each individual disorder.  The examples were especially helpful and salient, because I don't believe most people can really grasp what anxiety disorders are unless spelled out.  Further, differentiating between anxiety provoking situations and those that produce anxiety for extended periods of time was of great benefit.  Particularly, Emily and Marian's tales of dog trauma were continued throughout the text, and gave me the opportunity to postulate why one developed such pathology over the other, throughout each of their Learning Theories (biological, environmental, physiological, etc.).  This allowed me to introspect on my own fears to see where such conditioning occurred.

I also developed questions related to my own research from the article.  In particular, I posit, "Does anxiety have a color?"  Of course we can argue that certain environmental and cultural factors would affect coping, vulnerability, and exposure, but even taking those factors into account, are we finding similar percentages between ethnic populations?

Additionally, do we see the same traumatic experience resulting in internalization (anxiety) for one person and externalization (say, irresponsible sexual behaviors) in another?  This is most interesting to me, because if the previous question regarding a color of anxiety suggests that there are differences between ethnicities, then perhaps the explanation rests in how groups handle such trauma.  As described before in both class and previous blogs, I believe that PTSD, as expressed in inner-city youth, tends to get overlooked.  But if these children are more resilient to pathologies with respect to a given level of trauma than other groups, is it that we aren't adequately measuring the psychological effects of externalizing behaviors in school, gangs, and the community? ("Such research suggests that children reared with a stronger sense of mastery over their environments should be more invulnerable to developing phobias following traumatic experiences" pg. 13)  Sure, they may not flinch every time a gun is drawn, but this habituation resulted from trauma, so perhaps conjunctions need to be created between those who look at internal reactions and those who focus on external.  In that vein, since Jessica is our anxiety expert, I would love to hear feedback from her, and would further suggest that, as explored earlier, our research really can work in tandem to create positive results in communities everywhere.