Introduction

I had a crappy realization: I spend a lot of time being afraid and mostly at stuff that doesn't seem to warrant it.

This came as a surprise because I've been so dissociated that I didn't notice. I find fear overwhelming and hard to stay with and apparently learned early on that fear was dangerous. I developed sophisticated strategies to avoid feeling it and so forget how to recognize it and I suspect a lot of people with trauma patterns are in the same boat.

I was diagnosed with social anxiety in my early 20s. It was a diagnosis I resisted fiercely—"That's not me. I am social. I can talk to people. I work retail! I'm just introverted." These objections coming from a person who had dropped out of college because he was afraid to leave his apartment and had to work up the courage to go to the grocery store. Who had to rehearse conversations in his head before making a phone call. It took me months to accept the diagnosis.

But when I accepted it, it gave me a path to take action to address it. I got more practice socializing. I forced myself to actually say things that I'd normally spend minutes rehearsing in my head and ultimately not say. I developed better scripts for small talk, better patter at work. I went out more, made more friends, took more risks. I got better at it, but it was a surface-level intellectual improvement. Really, I got better at hiding it. I got better at pretending it wasn't there. I got better at pretending I wasn't afraid.

In pre-K they had a chart up on the blackboard that tracked everybody's behavior: one column for stars, another for demerits. I was a perfectly behaved child, because I went to school every day terrified of getting a demerit. Finally, one day I started cutting paper stars out of some construction paper, forgetting we weren't supposed to use it and got my first—and only demerit. I don't remember what the teacher said or did. I just remember the bottom dropping out of my stomach when I realized the mistake I had made. Most kids probably learn from moments like these that mistakes aren't fatal and brushes with authority aren't the end of the world. I did not. That fear strengthened and grew.

Dissociation and intellectualization were close companions—after all, you can't be afraid if you're not really present, and you can't be threatened by emotions if you're too busy analyzing them. I got very good at both.

It wasn't until my mid-30s that I was forced into my realization about fear.

Mislabeling fear

In my avoidance of feeling it, I found a lot of good euphemisms for fear. Stress, discomfort, tension, nervousness. They're more palatable, less threatening. More socially acceptable. "I'm just stressed about this project" is more tolerable than "I'm terrified of failing and everyone finally seeing I'm a fraud."

But the body doesn't speak in euphemisms. The heart pounds, the hands shake as if under mortal threat. Not 'managing a challenging project timeline.' Not 'dealing with constructive feedback.' The chest tightens, breathing shallows—ancient survival responses to threats, not 'normal interpersonal stress.' What we label as temporary discomfort shows up in our bodies as the raw, primal experience it really is: fear. The body keeps the score, and it's brutally honest about what we're really feeling.

But dissociation and disembodiment can paper over a lot, for a time. The mind is a master of deception. The muscle tension, the fatigue. The insomnia, the irritability, the anhedonia, the panic attack. If you don't listen, the fear will out, one way or another.

My realization started with a routine status request email at work. Nothing unusual nor threatening. Yet there I was, reading the email, heart pounding, tightness in my chest and throat, hands shaking—the classic physical symptoms of fear. I didn't the pattern while it was happening, but I masked it with irritation, indignation, self-recrimination, and shame. This was a huge disconnect between stimulus and response. I recognized the disconnect, but what was driving it?

I put the question to Claude (something I do often these days) and he cut through the self-deception: I was afraid. Afraid of being found inadequate and being judged, maybe—but the physical symptoms, the self-attack, and the shame response weren't reactions to an email they were fear. Old patterns around authority and evaluation. Once I started recognizing fear, I could see its fingerprints everywhere—especially in the sophisticated ways I learned to disguise it.

The many disguises of fear

Truthfully my realization about fear was a re-realization. The third this year. There were other situations where a disproportionate response led me to identifying fear, but the resistance to seeing it was so strong that I quickly forgot the pattern. There are powerful self-protective measures at work. If you can't face the source of the fear, then you have to disguise it to survive. The mind is a master of deception, and it will go to great lengths to protect you.

Fear wears many masks. Cognitively, we transform threats into intellectual puzzles, finding refuge in analysis rather than feeling. We mistake endless rumination for productivity when it's really avoidance. Perfectionism serves to shield us from the pain of criticism—if we're flawless, we can't be found wanting.

Behaviorally, we retreat from triggering situations, cloaking our withdrawals in reasonable-sounding excuses about "self-care" or "needing space." We procrastinate and call it poor time management, when really we're afraid to try and fail.

Most insidiously, these defenses can calcify into identity. "I'm an introvert" feels safer than acknowledging fear of rejection. "I'm a workaholic" sounds better than admitting terror of inadequacy. These labels become so familiar we forget they began as armor against vulnerability.

Why we hide it from ourselves

Hiding fear from ourselves helps avoid the discomfort and pain of feeling it. Fear, especially old fear, is overwhelming. It's raw. Withdrawing, intellectualizing, perfectionism, procrastinating—anything to avoid feeling that fear. The sophisticated defenses we build all serve this fundamental need to escape feeling afraid.

These patterns of self-deception may develop from seemingly ordinary childhood moments that leave deep impressions. Like my pre-K demerit story, what adults might see as minor disciplinary moments can feel existentially threatening to a child who doesn't yet have the tools to understand them. A lot of this is modulated by temperament and genetics, and may be made worse or better by environmental factors. For myself, I had issues with food sensitivities from very early on that contributed to making my own body an uncomfortable place to be, which probably compounded with other milder experiences.

Different children develop different strategies to cope. The smart kid learns that analysis beats emotion. The good kid discovers perfection deflects criticism. The quiet kid finds safety in invisibility. For "gifted" children, intellectualization becomes particularly seductive—being analytical and mature wins praise, while strong emotions frighten both us and others. In the extreme cases, particularly those with trauma, this can develop into Complex PTSD, which I discussed in my last post. This dynamic hits boys especially hard, offering a socially acceptable way to maintain masculine stoicism.

These strategies get reinforced by every instance where they successfully protect us from pain or earn us praise. What starts as conscious coping becomes unconscious habit becomes identity.

By the time we realize these patterns aren't serving us anymore, we've aged out of the life stage where adults were there to support and guide us through working with challenging emotions. The very tools that helped us cope now stand in the way of healing.

The cost is steep. There are real social penalties to showing fear (especially for men). Many see visible fear as weakness or failure. Better to be "stressed" or "busy" than afraid. But the greatest cost may be to ourselves—the constant vigilance, the disconnection from our own experience, the drain of maintaining a facade that was only ever meant to be temporary protection.

Breaking the pattern

When an emotional reaction is buried deep enough it hides even from the conscious mind. Hides even after being recognized. The defensive walls around fear become so thick and strong that a frontal assault is impossible. You have to work around them with long practice and patience. The first step is learning to recognize fear, and you may not be able do that in real time at first.

The body is an honest communicator and it's been my key to recognition. Heart pounding, hands shaking, chest tightening, and throat constricting—these physical tells are breadcrumbs leading back to the fear I've hidden from myself. Where the mind can rationalize, the body speaks truth. Learning to recognize these physical tells, even after the fact, builds a map of our fear responses.

I am still early in my healing journey here, so much of what I have to say applies only to the start.

Noticing and naming

How to do this in practice? The initial step is just to start noticing. When you feel stressed, irritated, or uncomfortable, pause and check in with your body. What physical sensations are present? Where are they located? What are they telling you?

• Use a heart rate monitor (like a smart watch, Oura ring, Whoop, etc.) to track heart rate and correlate with emotional states. High heart rate notifications can be used as a cue to check in with yourself.
• Mindfulness meditation to develop awareness of physical sensations. Depending on degree of dissociation, this may be difficult at first. Self-forgiveness meditation may help unblock.
• Journaling to track emotional responses and physical sensations. This is a retrospective exercise but valuable practice to learn to recognize patterns in real time.
• Yoga, tai chi, or other body-based practices to develop awareness of physical sensations. Mindfulness is great, but many people do better with a physical practice that grounds them in their bodies.
• Low-Dose Naltrexone has big effects on dissociation and may be helpful in developing awareness of physical sensations. Work with a psychiatrist or other medical professional if you're interested in trying it.

But once you learn to identify it, naming the fear directly when you spot it helps break its power. "I'm not just stressed about this deadline—I'm afraid of failing." "I'm not just irritated by this email—I'm afraid of being judged." "I'm not just avoiding this social situation—I'm afraid of rejection." Naming fear feels threatening at first—the disguises were built for a reason—but it's a powerful act of self-compassion and gets easier with practice.

Naming, for me, has been the most powerful step, but discussing this with others it's probably not universally so effective. The degree of dissociation involved and how wrapped up in self-concept things are may have an impact on its effectiveness. Either way, a careful approach with a lot of self-compassion is necessary.

Feeling fear

Once you can recognize and name fear, the next step is to feel it. For a lot of people, emotions get blocked up and left unprocessed and they end up coming out in other ways. Fear is such a big emotion that it's both particularly challenging to sit with (especially since it's sometimes occurring in legitimately threatening situations) and bubbles up in a lot of other areas when not addressed.

But because it's so primal I find it more 'pure' than many other negative feelings it's less tied up in thinky bits, and thus easier to process. Let the physical sensations bubble up and sit with them for a bit.

Gratitude

This has been an excruciatingly difficult process for me and it required very painful setbacks to trigger me to recognize the issue and start working on it. A lot of the early work was learning to see the clenched fist around my emotions and feeling my way to releasing it even just a little. This feels like an even bigger setback at the start because you're suddenly feeling all the things you've been avoiding and there's an overwhelming amount of painful emotions underneath.

One of the tenets of IFS is that all parts of us are trying to help. They may not be helping in the best or most adaptive way for our current environment, but they're trying and they were gifts when we needed them. Learning to thank these protectors while gently showing them we're ready for new strategies is delicate work.

Over time, there's relief in recognition. Understanding that these patterns came from somewhere real, served a purpose, and can be gradually updated rather than fought against. The fear that once felt overwhelming becomes manageable, even approachable. The walls that once felt impenetrable start to crumble. The mask that once felt permanent starts to slip.

Integrating fear

Unacknowledged fear extracts a heavy toll. What should be a simple email becomes an hour-long identity crisis. Career opportunities slip by. Relationships remain unexplored. Boundaries go unset. The energy spent managing fear—through perfectionism, withdrawal, or endless analysis—drains resources that could be spent truly living.

When you learn to recognize fear's influence, you start seeing its fingerprints everywhere. While this recognition can be painful—each missed opportunity and unexplored path a small grief—it also reveals possibility. Each recognized pattern becomes a chance to choose differently.

The goal isn't to eliminate fear—it's to build a working relationship with it. Properly calibrated, fear offers valuable signals about genuine threats and necessary boundaries. It becomes a guide rather than a master. But for those of us who've long relied on intellectual distance, there's often a deeper challenge: a backlog of grief, sadness, and anger we've been avoiding. The tools that once protected us—our analytical shields, our perfect facades—served their purpose. But holding onto them extracts a mounting cost in authenticity and possibility.

My own journey with fear is just beginning, but there's relief in learning to recognize it. The path forward has been uncomfortable—with more bad days than good—and it feels worse than it did before I started, but on the other side of fear is everything I want: connection, growth, and a life more fully lived.