Anxiety in the Age of Terrorism
By Judith E. Pearson, Ph.D.
The Age of Terrorism…The Age of Violence…The Age of Brutality…
What will future historians call this time in which we are living? Every day, national and international headlines tell us about acts of terrorism and atrocity that lead to unimaginable human suffering and the death of thousands across the globe. Suicide bombers are killing thousands and injuring countless more. Terrorist activities result in a loss of human life that is staggering. Additionally, there is famine and hunger, genocide, widespread disease, human enslavement, and children abused, orphaned, left without medical care, or pressed into hard labor and combat. How do you cope with it?
As I write this piece, the radio broadcasts daily news about the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, the tensions between Pakistan and India, Israel and Palestine, the genocide in Darfore, and famine in Niger. Did you know that there are over 50 armed conflicts going on around the world? How do you cope with it?
I realize the world has always been like this. Wars have always existed, bringing death and trauma to millions. What makes our age different is the media coverage. In the past 50 years, war and human slaughter is something we watch from our sofas in the evening. We read about it over the morning coffee. We hear about it on the radio on our morning commute. Despite technological advances, we are as helpless as our forebears to stem the tide of death and suffering on a massive scale. How do you cope with it?
On New Year’s Eve, 1999, the world celebrated the new Millennium. Like naïve children, we thought that putting a different number in front of the years would somehow usher in a golden age of enlightenment—The Age of Aquarius. September 11, 2001 dashed our hopes.
I’m not a politician, or a diplomat, or a policy-maker. I am a mental health counselor, working with people who want to make sense of their lives. From where I sit, anxiety is running rampant in our population. Every week I talk with clients gripped by irrational, inexplicable fears—afraid to leave the house, afraid to go to sleep at night, afraid to drive to work. Anxiety and panic disorder are becoming epidemic. The symptoms are sudden and frequent onsets of rapid heartbeat, difficulty breathing, dizziness, tension—all signs of intense fear—yet, the symptoms occur in the absence of any real danger. Huge numbers of people seek relief through self-medication with illegal drugs, cigarettes, alcohol, and food. They use these self-destructive habits just to “make it through the day.” The appalling rate of obesity in this country is ample evidence that food is the addiction of choice.
Strangely, no one seems to be making a connection between this epidemic of anxiety and the daily witnessing of global violence, atrocity, and human suffering. Doesn’t anyone think these two things might be related?
In 2002 I published in interview in Anchor Point magazine with Ed and Maryanne Reese, two psychotherapists in Florida who have been at the forefront of research on Post- Traumatic Stress Disorder, in partnership with Dr. Charles Figley of the Psycho-Social Stress Research Program at Florida State University. They theorize that the publicity surrounding acts of terrorism and violence over the past decade is re-igniting trauma-related emotions in people who, sometime in their lives, have been traumatized in one way or another.
This group of people could include Viet Nam and Gulf War veterans, crime victims, and survivors of abuse, auto accidents, and traumatic injury. An article by Mary Sykes Wylie in the July-August 1996 issue of the Family Therapy Network magazine states that “An estimated one-half to three-quarters of the general population in the United States has been exposed to an event that’s severe enough to result in diagnosable Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder.” This could mean that a large percentage of people, exposed to violence via the media, are re-experiencing their own residual fears and anxiety from their personal past. However, they don’t understand the origin of these emotions, so they associate the emotions with everyday, innocuous activities such as getting up in the morning, driving to work, and going to sleep at night!
To complicate matters, most people, including physicians, simply do not realize that post-trauma psychotherapy can be brief, effective and reliable. So instead of recommending therapy, physicians prescribe mood-altering drugs. We are the most over-medicated nation on earth, and we are spending billions on anti-depressants, anti-anxiety drugs, and sleeping pills, just to function “normally!” How it this normal? Drugs help to stabilize the worst symptoms, but they don’t teach people how to cope, how to think, and how to manage their own emotions!
I don’t claim to have the answers to the world’s woes, but I can tell you this. Among my clients whose lives are wracked with anxiety and panic, I have observed one of three deficits. These deficits are People, Purpose, and Peace. I have come to believe that these three factors are the essence of resilience and the ability to maintain equanimity in the Age of Terrorism.
People: I believe it is essential for each of us to develop and maintain a safety net of loving, caring relationships with friends and family. To do so requires emotional intelligence and a strong sense of self-esteem.
Purpose: Without a sense of purpose, life seems directionless. An overriding sense of purpose gives meaning to life and will sustain you in the face of loss. Purpose gives people the strength to go on living and planning for tomorrow.
Peace: I believe it is necessary for everyone to have a spiritual practice and a system of faith that allows inner peace and provides an emotional refuge in the face of chaos.
These three elements, People, Purpose, and Peace can provide the foundation for the values and decisions that guide our daily actions in these times.
This is all I can offer and it is a humble palliative, I know. Modern life poses a dilemma. How do we detach from the reports of violence and mayhem enough that we can get on with our daily lives, yet stay engaged enough to have opinions—to feel outrage, instead of apathy; to call for action, instead of looking the other way. We must continue to condemn violence, brutality and terrorism. The democratic nations of the world can no longer respond with passivity. The U.S. and its allies are the only hope for millions who live in fear and suffering.
In the meantime, please take care of yourselves. I ask everyone who reads this article to cultivate and maintain loving relationships based on dignity, equality, mutual respect and responsibility, find a clear sense of purpose and pursue it daily, and discover a source of inner peace in your lives. How do you cope with it? That’s how.
Judith E. Pearson, Ph.D. is a Licensed
Professional Counselor with a practice in Springfield,
Virginia, specializing in solution-oriented counseling
and coaching using Neuro-Linguistic Programming
and Hypnotherapy. Visit her web site at www.engagethepower.com.