How to defuse your panic button

Fearful Foragers! Graham here.

A while ago, I got hit in the throat playing basketball.

Nothing major, a mild tap. But four months later and I still can’t really swallow properly. Then recently, a new challenge. I’ve started to lose my voice.

Hm.

Dr Google tells me ten reasons this is a Very Bad Sign, likely to lead to a life of deeply unfulfilled potential. (Thanks Doc!)

I’m deliberately writing this issue from that murky, doubt-filled space between noticing the problem, and going to see the specialist.

Why am I sharing this decidedly unfinished story, that will most likely end with ‘you’ll be fine in another month or so’? Because I think it speaks to something.

What do you do when you’re really scared about something, but there's nothing you can really do about it?

My big panic button

First, a bit of context. I have a particularly large panic button when it comes to health troubles. It doesn’t take much to press that sucker down nice and hard.

(A significant chunk of the Big Feels newsletters have been coded or not-so-coded missives about my weird health fears.)

Your big panic button may be about something else entirely. Uncertainty about your relationships. Fears about your career. You may even have more than one (you multi-tasker).

Panic buttons tend to have one thing in common. They’re always about things we really care about. So panic buttons are an infuriating mix of ‘important things needing real attention’ and outlandish, exhausting worst-case scenarios.

Perfect.

Past experiences maketh your panic button

Like most big panic buttons, my health fears aren’t totally divorced from reality. I have a history of seemingly mild health troubles turning into long-term issues that baffle medical science.

So in this particular instance, it’s not just that I’m scared about losing my voice. It’s that this whole situation pushes my big panic button. It taps into all that juicy past experience.

Behind every good panic button is a shame button

The thing about having a panic button that’s big and easy to push? Even if it only got so big because you’ve faced genuine challenges in the past, you probably still feel ashamed of how big and easily pushed it is.

It’s like your panic button is laid over the top of your shame button, and they both get pushed together. Yay!

This means I’m cagey about telling people what’s actually happening for me right now (apart from you, dear readers) in case they look at me and think, why is he so worried about a little thing like that?

So, what do you do with big, scary thoughts like these?

First order of business as a sensitive cat. Freak out!

Or more specifically, when your panic + shame button combo is firmly engaged, you dive in to your archive of stories about how completely screwed you are. You know, those spinning newspaper headlines that tell you time and again just how bad things must be.

Extra extra! All your deepest fears about yourself are true! Also we deliberately chose an unflattering pic of you to accompany this article!

Honor perfectly captures this phenomenon in No Feeling Is Final ep1:

Defusing the panic button

One thing I’m finding helpful at this point is a thing called ‘defusing’.

It’s a technique from Acceptance and Commitment Therapy. The particular version I’ve been trying comes from a most excellent book called ‘The Happiness Trap’ by Russ Harris.

Defusing has a few layers to it, but the aim is simple: to break the connection between the story (‘you’re screwed’) and the feeling (‘AHHHHHHH!!!’).

We humans have a superpower. When we think about a scary thing, we often feel just as afraid as if the scary thing was right there in front of us.

For instance, I think: 'my vocal injury won’t ever heal'. And that thought makes me just as scared as if a doctor had just told me, 'yip, that's never gonna heal.'

In ACT terms, my scary thought is ‘fused’ to the fear response that immediately follows it. The thought triggers the fear, every time.

Defusing is a technique for literally ‘de-fusing’ that connection between the thought and the fear response. It doesn’t make the scary thought go away, but it can make it less scary.

Sign me up! But… how does it actually work?

Naming your storylines

You start by simply noticing the storylines spinning around your brain when you’re afraid of something. And you give each of those storylines a name.

For me, there are two big, juicy storylines my tabloid brain has been pumping out since my deep-dive with Dr Google. Neither one is an original story, but that doesn’t stop them taking up real estate in my brain:

Storyline #1. The “no future” story.

The “no future” story is an old staple - you may have come across it in your travels.

In a nutshell it goes like this: whatever latest thing is scaring the crap out of you, this is the one that will ruin your life.

For me right now, the “no future” storyline includes such beats as, ‘my voice won’t ever properly come back’, and ‘I won’t be able to work anymore.’ It finishes with the crowd-pleasing closer, ‘once my voice is gone for good I’ll be a charmless loser and my girlfriend and dog will both leave me.’

A riveting read. Great reporting, Brain!

Storyline #2. The “unique screw-up” story.

‘Sure, most people don’t have their lives ruined by something as trivial as [insert whatever thing is worrying you], but you’re not like other people now are you?’

The "unique screw-up" story comprises all those thoughts that tell me I'm more fragile than other people. That I'm a walking worst-case scenario. It pairs very nicely with the "no future" storyline. Like a nice white wine, that whispers mean things to you.

So, what do you do with your storylines, once you’ve named and catalogued them?

“I am having the thought that…”

Acceptance and Commitment Therapy offers a few things you can try, to take the juice out of these scary stories. Here’s one that's really simple.

When the storyline comes up, I name it. ‘Ah, the “no future” story. Hello again!’

I notice the scary thoughts swirling around this particular storyline today. Then I add these six simple words at the beginning of each thought: “I am having the thought that…[insert thought here]”

So...

“I am having the thought that... my voice won’t ever properly come back.”

“I am having the thought that... the specialist won’t know what’s wrong, and won’t be able to help.”

“I am having the thought that... losing my voice will make my dog depressed because I won’t be able to tell him he’s a good boy anymore.”*

(*Genuine thought I actually had.)

Don’t judge the storylines

This bit is key. It’s not about judging the storylines. It’s not about saying ‘oh here we go again with the worst case scenario’. Because in truth, that just leads to one of two things:

You engage in yet another round of arguing with your own scary thoughts, because *is* this a worst case scenario, *really*? Or are you just in denial??
You manage to accept the scary thought isn't based in reality, but that just pushes that good ol’ shame button again, because you’re so afraid of something so unlikely.

Remarkably, just adding those six words at the beginning of my scary thoughts ('I am having the thought that…') can create enough breathing room to avoid having to judge these thoughts at all. Whether they’re true or false is secondary to their main defining characteristic: they are thoughts. Nothing more, nothing less.

Doing this repeatedly over the past few days has made my scary thoughts less scary, at least some of the time. The scary thoughts have not gone away by any stretch, but it’s like I’m holding them less tightly in my mind.

Bonus outcome: less shame (woo!)

There’s been an unexpected by-product to using this technique. It’s meant that even when my panic button still gets pushed, it doesn’t so easily trigger my shame button. I’m able to look at those internal storylines and think, ‘well no wonder I’m scared, those are some scary-looking thoughts!’

When the uncertain becomes the unexpected

So far, so good. And the book The Happiness Trap is full of other strategies for responding to scary thoughts, images, and feelings. I highly recommend it.

But...

After many years living in this brain of mine, I’ve found it’s never enough just to have a clever way of responding to big, scary thoughts. If all I have are techniques and strategies, life starts to feel a little dry. So it’s nice to have little reminders of how all this internalised uncertainty can also provide moments of unexpected joy.

A couple weeks back, when I was at my most freaked out about my voice situation, I decided to stop using my voice altogether for a couple of days, to see if that helped. In therapy terms, this would be considered a ‘control strategy’ - a doomed attempt to control the uncontrollable. But sometimes our busy little brains surprise us.

The first day I tried this ‘no talking’ thing, I had a bunch of errands to run. I was convinced I wouldn’t actually be able to complete any of these tasks without using my voice, which fed right back into Storyline #1 (“you have no future!”).

But then a delightful thing happened. Every stranger I encountered went out of their way to help me. They played elaborate games of spontaneous charades with me. Some laughed with relief when they got the message. Others were all business, not wanting to make me feel out of place.

It was incredible. A reminder of the simple generosity of spirit we’re surrounded by every day. And it cheered me up no end.

Because this is the thing about life with big feelings, I think. We can challenge the old storylines, and that can help immensely. But we also owe it to ourselves to look out for possible new storylines. Like the ‘People want to help me’ storyline.

Those new storylines can’t be installed just by positive thinking or affirmation. They’ve got to be experienced, first hand.

What I’m saying is, sometimes you’ve just gotta wave your hands around in a post office until a total stranger understands what the hell you’re saying. Y’know?

So uh, what happened to your voice though???

*TIME JUMP*

Here I am in the future people!!! Or rather, I wrote the above words a couple months ago. I’ve since seen the specialist, had a camera put down my nose (not as bad as it sounds) and…

MY VOICE IS OKAY!!!

I have some soft tissue stuff that will sort itself out, ironically made *worse* by my hyper-vigilant focus on the problem.

Doc: Stress can actually make this worse. Are you stressed about anything right now?

Me: Um, this???

Doc: That’ll do it.

So all in all, I’m feeling very relieved. And grateful to Past Me, that he didn’t just spend the *whole* month worrying. Instead, he spent the whole month worrying *and* learning new ways to relate to those worries. All things considered, I count that a win!