Fear

Passages

Every passage tagged with this emotion in the Vela corpus. Search the body text, narrow by source or register, click through to a book’s profile to see how the passage sits with the rest of the work.

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• From Waking the Tiger: Healing Trauma (1997)

  The felt sense blends together most of the information that forms your experience. Even when you are not consciously aware of it, the felt sense is telling you where you are and how you feel at any given moment. It is relaying the overall experience of the organism, rather than interpreting what is happening from the standpoint of the individual parts. Perhaps the best way to describe the felt sense is to say that it is the experience of being in a living body that understands the nuances of its environment by way of its responses to that environment. In many ways, the felt sense is like a stream moving through an ever-changing landscape. It alters its character in resonance with its surroundings. When the land is rugged and steep, the stream moves with vigor and energy, swirling and bubbling as it crashes over rocks and debris. Out on the plains, the stream meanders so slowly that one might wonder whether it is moving at all. Rains and spring thaw can rapidly increase its volume, possibly even flood nearby land. In the same way, once the setting has been interpreted and defined by the felt sense, we will blend into whatever conditions we find ourselves. This amazing sense encompasses both the content and climate of our internal and external environments. Like the stream, it shapes itself to fit those environments. The physical (external) senses of sight, sound, smell, touch, and taste are elements that contribute only a portion of the information that builds the foundation for the felt sense. Other important data are derived from our body’s internal awareness (the positions it takes, the tensions it has, the movements it makes, temperature, etc.). The felt sense can be influence d- even changed by our thought s- yet it’s not a thought, it’s something we feel. Emotions contribute to the felt sense, but they play a less important role than most people believe. “Categorical” emotions such as sorrow, anger, fear, disgust, and joy are intense and direct. There is a limited variety of these types of feelings and they are easily recognized and named. This is not so with the felt sense.

• From History of the Christian Church: The Complete Set of Eight Volumes (1858)

  Gibbon: Chrs. XIII., XIV. and XVI. Jak. Burckhardt: Die Zeit Constantins des Gr. Basel, 1853, p. 325. Th. Keim: Der Uebertritt Constantins des Gr. zum Christenthum. Zürich 1852. The same: Die römischen Toleranzedicte für das Christenthum (311–313), in the "Tüb. Theol. Jahrb." 1852. (His. Rom und das Christenthum only comes down to A.D. 192.) Alb. Vogel: Der Kaiser Diocletian. Gotha 1857. Bernhardt: Diokletian in s. Verhältnisse zu den Christen. Bonn, 1862. Hunziker: Regierung und Christenverfolgung des Kaisers Diocletianus und seiner Nachfolger. Leipz. 1868. Theod. Preuss: Kaiser Diocletian und seine Zeit. Leipz. 1869. A. J. Mason: The Persecution of Diocletian. Cambridge, 1876. Pages 370. (Comp. a review by Ad. Harnack in the "Theol. Literaturzeitung" for 1877. No. 7. f. 169.) Theod. Zahn: Constantin der Grosse und die Kirche. Hannover, 1876. Brieger.: Constantin der Gr. als Religionspolitiker. Gotha, 1880. Comp. the Lit. on Constantine, in vol. III., 10, 11. The forty years’ repose was followed by, the last and most violent persecution, a struggle for life and death. "The accession of the Emperor Diocletian is the era from which the Coptic Churches of Egypt and Abyssinia still date, under the name of the ’Era of Martyrs.’ All former persecutions of the faith were forgotten in the horror with which men looked back upon the last and greatest: the tenth wave (as men delighted to count it) of that great storm obliterated all the traces that had been left by others. The fiendish cruelty of Nero, the jealous fears of Domitian, the unimpassioned dislike of Marcus, the sweeping purpose of Decius, the clever devices of Valerian, fell into obscurity when compared with the concentrated terrors of that final grapple, which resulted in the destruction of the old Roman Empire and the establishment of the Cross as the symbol of the world’s hope."44 Diocletian (284–305) was one of the most judicious and able emperors who, in a trying period, preserved the sinking state from dissolution. He was the son of a slave or of obscure parentage, and worked himself up to supreme power. He converted the Roman republican empire into an Oriental despotism, and prepared the way for Constantine and Constantinople. He associated with himself three subordinate co-regents, Maximian (who committed suicide, 310), Galerius (d. 311), and Constantius Chlorus (d. 306, the father of Constantine the Great), and divided with them the government of the immense empire; thereby quadrupling the personality of the sovereign, and imparting vigor to provincial administration, but also sowing the seed of discord and civil war45. Gibbon calls him a second Augustus, the founder of a new empire, rather than the restorer of the old. He also compares him to Charles V., whom he somewhat resembled in his talents, temporary success and ultimate failure, and voluntary retirement from the cares of government. In the first twenty years of his reign Diocletian respected the toleration edict of Gallienus.

• From Waking the Tiger: Healing Trauma (1997)

  In the example above, an adolescent or an adult cannot only tolerate the cold and isolation more easily, they can also complain, look for a thermostat, try to leave the room, put on a sweater, or just rub their arms. In varying degrees these options are not available to a younger child or infant. Because of this fact, traumatic reactions often track back to early childhood. It is important to remember that a traumatic reaction is valid regardless of how the event that induced it appears to anyone else. The individual’s experienced sense of his or her capacity to meet danger. Some people experience themselves as completely capable of defending themselves against danger while others don’t. This experienced sense of self-confidence is significant, and is not completely determined by our available resources for dealing with threatening situations. These resources can be either internal or external. External resources. What the environment provides in the way of potential safety (e.g., a tall sturdy tree, rocks, a narrow crevice, a good hiding place, a weapon, a helpful friend) contributes to our inner sense of resourcefulness, if our developmental level is such that we can take advantage of it. For a child, an external resource could be an adult who meets the child with respect rather than abuse, or it could be a place of safety where abuse does not occur. A resource (especially for children) can come in many form s — an animal, a tree, a stuffed toy, or even an angel. Internal resources. Internally, a person’s experienced sense of self is affected by a complex array of resources. These resources include psychological attitudes and experience, but even more important are the instinctual responses known as innate action plans that are deeply embedded in the organism. All animals, including humans, use these instinctive solutions to improve their chances of survival. They are like the preset programs that govern all of our basic biological responses (e.g., eating, resting, reproducing, and defending). In a healthy person, the nervous system brings these innate defense action plans to the fore whenever a threat is perceived. For example: your arm suddenly raises to protect you from a (consciously) unnoticed ball thrown in your direction; or, when you duck a fraction of a second before you walk into a low-hanging branch. Innate action plans also involve the fight and flight reactions. In a more complex example, I was told the following story by a woman: she is walking home in the dark when she sees two men coming toward her on the opposite side of the street. Something about their demeanor doesn’t feel right, and the woman becomes immediately alert. As they come closer, the two men split up, one angles toward her across the street, the other circles around behind her. What was suspicion before is now confirme d — she is in danger.

• From Waking the Tiger: Healing Trauma (1997)

  Often, any stimulus will activate the frozen (trauma) response rather than the appropriate orienting response (i.e., upon hearing a car backfire, a traumatized vet may collapse in fear). Orienting responses are the primary means through which the animal tunes into its environment. These responses are constantly merging into one another and adapting to allow for a range of reactions and choices. The process of determining where it is, what it is, and whether it is dangerous or desirable happens first in the subconscious. A friend recently told me a story that vividly illustrates this animal instinct in action. On a trip through Africa, Anita, her husband, and their three- year-old son went on a safari in Kenya. They were traveling through the Masai Mara desert in a van and had stopped to rest. She and her husband sat opposite one another in the car; their three-year-old son sat in her husband’s lap next to an open window. They were talking about some of the animals they had seen when my friend suddenly found her body hurling across the van to slam the window shut for no apparent reason. Then she sa w - that is, became consciously aware of the snake rising out of the grass outside the van, a few feet from her son’s face. The mother’s response preceded her conscious awareness of the snake. A delay could have had deadly consequences. The instinctive brain will often orient, organize, and respond to the stimuli well before we are consciously aware of them. Flee, Figh t... or Freeze As Grant watched, a single forearm reached up very slowly to part the ferns beside the animals face. The limb, Grant saw, was strongly muscled. The hand had three grasping fingers, each ending in curved claws. The hand gently, slowly, pushed aside the ferns. Grant felt a chill and thought, He’s hunting us. For a mammal like man, there is something indescribably alien about the way reptiles hunted their prey. No wonder men hated reptiles. The stillness, the coolness, the pace was all wrong. To be among alligators or the larger reptiles was to be remind- ed of a different kind of life, a different kind of worl d ... — Michael Crichton, Jurassic Park Certain species have developed mechanisms that are especially well suited to keeping them safe. To avoid detection and attack the zebra uses camouflage; the turtle hides; moles burrow; dogs, wolves, and coyotes roll over in a submissive posture. The behaviors of fighting, fleeing, and freezing are so primitive that they predate even the reptilian brain. These survival tools are found in all species, from spiders and cockroaches to primates and human beings. Universal and primitive defensive behaviors are called the “fight or flight” strategies. If the situation calls for aggression, a threatened creature will fight. If the threatened animal is likely to lose the fight, it will run if it can.

• From Waking the Tiger: Healing Trauma (1997)

  Sammy has been spending the weekend with his grandmother and step-grandfather, where I am their guest. Sammy is being an impossible tyrant, aggressively and relentlessly trying to control his new environment. Nothing pleases him; he is in a foul temper every waking moment. When he is asleep, he tosses and turns as if wrestling with his bedclothes. This is not behavior entirely unexpected from a two-and-a-half-year-old whose parents have gone away for the weeken d- children with separation anxiety often act it out. Sammy, however, has always enjoyed visiting his grandparents and this behavior seems extreme to them. His grandparents stated that six months earlier, Sammy fell off his high chair and split his chin open. Bleeding profusely, he was taken to the local emergency room. When the nurse came to take his temperature and blood pressure, he was so frightened that she was unable to record his vital signs. The two-year-old-child was subsequently strapped down in a “pediatric papoose” (a board with flaps and Velcro straps), with his torso and legs immobilized. The only part of his body he could move was his head and nec k which, naturally, he did, as energetically as he could. The doctors responded by tightening the restraint in order to suture his chin. After this upsetting experience, Mom and Dad took Sammy out for a hamburger and then to the playground. His mother was very attentive and carefully validated his experience of being scared and hurt, and all seemed forgotten. However, the boy’s tyrannical attitude began shortly after this event. Could Sammy’s over-controlling behavior be related to his perceived helplessness from this trauma? I discovered that Sammy had been to the emergency room several times with various injuries, though he had never exhibited this degree of terror and panic. When the parents returned, we agreed to explore whether there might be a traumatic charge still associated with this recent experience. We all assembled in the cabin where I was staying. Sammy wouldn’t have anything to do with talking about the fall or the hospital experience. With parents, grandparents, and Sammy watching, I precariously placed his stuffed Pooh Bear on a chair, where it fell off and had to be taken to the hospital. Sammy shrieked, bolted for the door, and ran across a foot bridge and down a narrow path to the creek. Our suspicions were confirmed. His most recent visit to the hospital was neither benign nor forgotten. Sammy’s behavior indicated that this game was potentially overwhelming for him.

• From Apprenticed to Venus: My Secret Life with Anaïs Nin (2017)

  I’d expected that Anaïs would show me how to die gracefully, with acceptance and wisdom, as she had shown me how to live. Instead, she seemed to be disintegrating like Dorian Gray from an ever-youthful beauty into a terrifying specter. Her ghastly physical decay was accompanied by a psychological deterioration that made me think Freud had been right about Oedipal guilt. What else could her hallucination of her father’s wedding ring mean other than guilt for replacing her mother in his bed? What could her delusion of wearing her father’s ring and reaching, like Faust in the end, for the sacraments mean except that she believed her demon father had come to claim her, as Beelzebub had come for Faust? I was hyperventilating with fear of being swept into the vortex of her damnation. Stop it! I admonished myself. I was doing what I always did, interpreting my experience through some literary reference instead of knowing it directly. I was exaggerating and distancing my feelings as Anaïs had said I did in my diary. I no longer wanted to know myself secondhand. I wanted to know myself directly from my immediate experience and from within. So I asked myself one of the questions I’d been writing in my diary: What is the reality of this present moment? The reality was that Anaïs’s body and mind were being consumed by cancer and that there was nothing that she or I or anyone could do about it and that in itself was terrifying. She wasn’t Dorian Gray, or Faust, or Oedipus. She was Anaïs, frightened and dying (though perhaps not as quickly as I’d imagined), and she needed my comfort as her friend. When Rupert finally returned and brought me again to her bedside, he positioned a chair for me next to her. In addition to having been cleaned up, her sunken cheeks had been rouged. Fortunately, she seemed to have forgotten my woeful faux pas of mentioning Extreme Unction, as well as her delusion of wearing her father’s ring. “Oh, Tristine! I have to tell you!” she chirped. “Last night I dreamt that Rupert and I were making love in the pool, and this morning I told him my dream. You know, before we met Rupert couldn’t recall his dreams, but now we tell them to each other every morning. When I told him the lovemaking dream, he said, ‘Oh, but Anaïs, that was no dream!’” I smiled as if this were a new, delightful story—even though I’d heard it from both Anaïs and Rupert several times before. Nonetheless, it was the confirmation of the credo she wanted to leave me with: Life sets traps for you, and it is your job to escape, even if only by way of the dream.

• From The Decameron (1353)

  But they had scarcely set foot inside the bedroom before Zeppa returned home, and as soon as the woman heard him coming, she pretended to be frightened out of her senses and, having persuaded Spinelloccio to take cover in the chest to which her husband had referred, she locked him inside it and left the room. Zeppa came upstairs and asked her whether it was time for breakfast, and on being told that it was, he said: ‘Spinelloccio is taking breakfast with a friend of his this morning, and he’s left his wife all alone in the house. Go and call out to her from the window, and tell her to come and have breakfast with us.’ Still feeling apprehensive on her own account, the woman was only too ready to obey him, and promptly did as she was told. And so, after a good deal of coaxing, Spinelloccio’s wife, hearing that her husband would not be returning home for breakfast, was persuaded by Zeppa’s wife to come and join them. As soon as she set foot inside the house, Zeppa made a great fuss of her and took her tenderly by the hand. Then, having ordered his wife, in a low whisper, to go along to the kitchen, he led the other woman off into the bedroom, and no sooner had they crossed the threshold than he turned round and locked the door on the inside. When she saw him locking the door, the woman said: ‘Come now, Zeppa, what is the meaning of this? Was this, then, your reason for inviting me here? I thought you loved Spinelloccio as a brother, I thought you were his loyal friend.’ Holding her firmly round the waist, Zeppa guided her closer to the chest in which her husband was confined, and said to her: ‘Before you go complaining, my dear, listen to what I have to say to you. I loved Spinelloccio as a brother, and I still do, but yesterday I discovered, without his knowing it, that my trust in him had come to this, that he makes love just as freely to my wife as he does to you. Now, because I love him, the only revenge I propose to take is one that exactly matches the offence. He has possessed my wife, and I intend to possess you.

• From Waking the Tiger: Healing Trauma (1997)

  Extreme imbalance will be reflected in changed patterns of sleep, activity, aggression, eating, and sexuality. Laboratory experiments show that some animals become completely immobile, or alternatively, excessively hyperactive. They may over-or undereat to the point of death, or they will not voluntarily drink water. They may become so obsessed with sex that they are unable to attend to their other needs, or the opposite, so disinterested in sex that they will not mate and reproduce. The changes that occur are so grossly maladaptive that the animal cannot survive under ordinary conditions. These kinds of maladaptions can also be produced by electrically stimulating primitive portions of the brain. They are produced as well (though not necessarily to the same degree) by post-traumatic stress. Regarding trauma, pathology can be thought of as the maladaptive use of any activity (physiological, behavioral, emotional, or mental) designed to help the nervous system regulate its activated energy. Pathology (i.e., symptoms) becomes, in a sense, the organism’s safety valve. This valve lets off just enough pressure to keep the system running. In addition to its survival function and pain-killing effect, the immobility response is also a key part of the nervous system’s circuit breaker. Without it, a human might not survive the intense activation of a serious inescapable situation without risking energetic overload. Indeed, even the symptoms that develop out of the freezing response can be viewed with a sense of appreciation and even gratitude if you consider what might happen if the system did not have this safety valve. In pathology, the organism will enlist the felt sense to experience any thought, feeling, or behavior that it can use in its effort to contain the undischarged energy mobilized for survival. The functions (such as eating, sleeping, sex, and general activity) regulated by the reptilian brain make a broad and fertile place for symptoms to take root. Anorexia, insomnia, promiscuity, and manic hyperactivity are only a few of the symptoms that can ensue when the organism’s natural functions become maladaptive. ... energy is pure delight. — William Blake 9. How Pathology Becomes Biology: Thawing The volcanic energy of trauma discussed in Chapter Eight is bound in the coupling of fear and immobility. The key to moving through trauma is in uncoupling the immobility (which is normally time-limited) from the fear associated with it. When a frightened animal comes out of immobility, it does so with an intense readiness for counter-attack, or in a frantic, non-directed attempt to escape. For the sake of survival, all the energy that was being utilized in desperate fight or flight (before it collapsed or froze) re-emerges explosively as the animal comes out of immobility.

• From Waking the Tiger: Healing Trauma (1997)

  Internal resources. Internally, a person’s experienced sense of self is affected by a complex array of resources. These resources include psychological attitudes and experience, but even more important are the instinctual responses known as innate action plans that are deeply embedded in the organism. All animals, including humans, use these instinctive solutions to improve their chances of survival. They are like the preset programs that govern all of our basic biological responses (e.g., eating, resting, reproducing, and defending). In a healthy person, the nervous system brings these innate defense action plans to the fore whenever a threat is perceived. For example: your arm suddenly raises to protect you from a (consciously) unnoticed ball thrown in your direction; or, when you duck a fraction of a second before you walk into a low-hanging branch. Innate action plans also involve the fight and flight reactions. In a more complex example, I was told the following story by a woman: she is walking home in the dark when she sees two men coming toward her on the opposite side of the street. Something about their demeanor doesn’t feel right, and the woman becomes immediately alert. As they come closer, the two men split up, one angles toward her across the street, the other circles around behind her. What was suspicion before is now confirme d— she is in danger. Her heart rate increases, she feels suddenly more alert, and her mind searches wildly for an optimal response. Should she scream? Should she run? Where should she run to? What should she scream? Choices tumble through her mind at a frenetic rate. She has too many options to choose from and not enough time to consider them. Dramatically, instinct takes over. Without consciously deciding what to do, she suddenly finds herself moving with firm, quick steps straight toward the man angling across the street. Visibly startled by her boldness, the man veers off in another direction. The man behind her melts into the shadows as the man in front of her loses his strategic position. They are confused. She is safe. Thanks to her ability to trust her instinctual flow, this woman was not traumatized. Despite her initial confusion about what to do, she followed one of her innate defense action plans and successfully avoided the attack. A similar behavior was reported of Misha, a two-year-old Siberian Husky described in Elizabeth Thomas’ delightful book, The Hidden Life of Dogs. On one of his evening jaunts, Misha encountered a large, fierce Saint Bernard and was trapped between it and the highway: “…for a few seconds things looked bad for Misha, but then he solved the problem brilliantly. Head up, tail loosely high like a banner of self-confidence, he broke into a canter and bounded straight for the Saint Bernard.” For both the woman on the dark street and for Misha, successful resolutions to their problems emerged from instinctual action plans.

• From The Well of Loneliness (1928)

  But small Colonel Antrim, who was not always kind, would retort if he heard them: ‘Damn it, no, it’s the riding. The girl rides, that’s the point; as for some of you others—’ And then he would let loose a flood of foul language. ‘If some bloody fools that I know rode like Stephen, we’d have bloody well less to pay to the farmers,’ and much more he would say to the same effect, with rich oaths interlarding his every sentence—the foulest-mouthed master in the whole British Isles he was said to be, this small Colonel Antrim. Oh, but he dearly loved a fine rider, and he cursed and he swore his appreciation. Even in the presence of a sporting bishop one day, he had failed to control his language; indeed, he had sworn in the face of the bishop with enthusiasm, as he pointed to Stephen. An ineffectual and hen-pecked little fellow—in his home he was hardly allowed to say ‘damn.’ He was never permitted to smoke a cigar outside of his dark, inhospitable study. He must not breed Norwich canaries, which he loved, because they brought mice, declared Mrs. Antrim; he must not keep a pet dog in the house, and the ‘Pink ’Un’ was anathema because of Violet. His taste in art was heavily censored, even on the walls of his own water-closet, where nothing might hang but a family group taken sixteen odd years ago with the children. On Sundays he sat in an uncomfortable pew while his wife chanted psalms in the voice of a peacock. ‘Oh come, let us sing unto the Lord,’ she would chant, as she heartily rejoiced in the strength of her salvation. All this and a great deal more he endured, indeed most of his life was passed in endurance—had it not been for those red-letter days out hunting, he might well have become melancholic from boredom. But those days, when he actually found himself master, went far to restore his anæmic manhood, and on them he would speak the good English language as some deep-seated complex knew it ought to be spoken—ruddily, roundly, explosively spoken, with elation, at times with total abandon—especially if he should chance to remember Mrs. Antrim would he speak it with total abandon. But his oaths could not save Stephen now from her neighbours, nothing could do that since the going of Martin—for quite unknown to themselves they feared her; it was fear that aroused their antagonism. In her they instinctively sensed an outlaw, and theirs was the task of policing nature.

• From The Well of Loneliness (1928)

  From the house they made their way to the stables, and still grave, Stephen told her friend about Raftery. Angela listened, assuming an interest she was very far from feeling—she was timid of horses, but she liked to hear the girl’s rather gruff voice, such an earnest young voice, it intrigued her. She was thoroughly frightened when Raftery sniffed her and then blew through his nostrils as though disapproving, and she started back with a sharp exclamation, so that Stephen slapped him on his glossy grey shoulder: ‘Stop it, Raftery, come up!’ And Raftery, disgusted, went and blew on his oats to express his hurt feelings. They left him and wandered away through the gardens, and quite soon poor Raftery was almost forgotten, for the gardens smelt softly of night-scented stock and of other pale flowers that smell sweetest at evening, and Stephen was thinking that Angela Crossby resembled such flowers—very fragrant and pale she was, so Stephen said to her gently: ‘You seem to belong to Morton.’ Angela smiled a slow, questioning smile: ‘You think so, Stephen?’ And Stephen answered: ‘I do, because Morton and I are one,’ and she scarcely understood the portent of her words, but Angela, understanding, spoke quickly: ‘Oh, I belong nowhere—you forget I’m the stranger.’ ‘I know that you’re you,’ said Stephen. They walked on in silence while the light changed and deepened, growing always more golden and yet more elusive. And the birds, who loved that strange light, sang singly and then all together: ‘We’re happy, Stephen!’ And turning to Angela, Stephen answered the birds: ‘Your being here makes me so happy.’ ‘If that’s true, then why are you so shy of my name?’ ‘Angela—’ mumbled Stephen. Then Angela said: ‘It’s just over three weeks since we met—how quickly our friendship’s happened. I suppose it was meant, I believe in Kismet. You were awfully scared that first day at The Grange; why were you so scared?’ Stephen answered slowly: ‘I’m frightened now—I’m frightened of you.’ ‘Yet you’re stronger than I am—’ ‘Yes, that’s why I’m so frightened, you make me feel strong—do you want to do that?’ ‘Well—perhaps—you’re so very unusual, Stephen.’ ‘Am I?’ ‘Of course, don’t you know that you are? Why, you’re altogether different from other people.’ Stephen trembled a little: ‘Do you mind?’ she faltered. ‘I know that you’re you,’ teased Angela, smiling again, but she reached out and took Stephen’s hand. Something in the queer, vital strength of that hand stirred her deeply, so that she tightened her fingers: ‘What in the Lord’s name are you?’ she murmured. ‘I don’t know. Go on holding like that to my hand—hold it tighter—I like the feel of your fingers.’ ‘Stephen, don’t be absurd!’ ‘Go on holding my hand, I like the feel of your fingers.’ ‘Stephen, you’re hurting, you’re crushing my rings!’

• From Apprenticed to Venus: My Secret Life with Anaïs Nin (2017)

  Pushing herself up on her bleeding palm, she tightened her bathrobe and trudged up the narrow sidewalk of the dimly lit street. On either side were cottages and run-down apartment buildings with window grates that cast threatening shadows onto the small yards. The street was unfamiliar now, but in her bathrobe she could hardly ask directions to the motel. She heard her own crazy laugh. She was inside her own horror film. Sabina would have swept her cape around her, glad to be rid of Rupert’s homespun earnestness. But where was Sabina’s bravado now when she needed it? Lost to her, disappeared, leaving a helpless, terrified child. Trying to control her rising panic, Anaïs ran up the rest of the street and saw the motel. She would phone Hugo; she needed to speak to Hugo. When she discovered that the motel had no phone, she dressed hastily, found a phone booth on Sunset Boulevard, and dialed Hugo. The unanswered ring intensified to a shriek. Hugo should have been there at that hour. The last two times they had spoken, he’d cut the phone call short, and she’d heard the anger in his voice. He must have learned that she had lied to him about the trip. Hugo was done with her too. She remembered the sleeping pills in her suitcase. She had brought them to help her fall asleep while on the road, but lovemaking with Rupert had made them unnecessary. In the motel room, her hand trembling, she emptied the bottle onto the scarred desk. She counted twenty-seven capsules. Enough to silence the piercing shriek cutting through her veins, bleeding into her muscles and nerves. She’d believed she would not relapse with Rupert because he was younger, because he was not the father image. But she had fallen in love with him, and he had walked out on her. It was enough to set off the cruel mechanism. She found a chipped drinking glass and filled it from the bathroom faucet. She felt a cold detachment because she had enough pills to end the shriek and the door banging, banging. She could barely hear the gentle voice beneath the cacophony. Take three pills, Anaïs. Just three. Try to rest until morning. Wait until daylight. She recognized the voice as that of Djuna. She followed its wise instruction like a child who has cried herself into a daze, though she tossed and turned and her blood howled all night. She gave up hoping for sleep at 6 a.m., showered, and carefully made up her stricken face, on which fine lines had spun overnight. Whatever happens, whatever Rupert says, she promised herself, I will not lose control again.

• From The Decameron (1353)

  Andreuccio, hearing this, raised his eyes and saw at the window one who, by what little he could make out, himseemed should be a very masterful fellow, with a bushy black beard on his face, and who yawned and rubbed his eyes, as he had arisen from bed or deep sleep; whereupon, not without fear, he answered, 'I am a brother of the lady of the house.' The other waited not for him to make an end of his reply, but said, more fiercely than before, 'I know not what hindereth me from coming down and cudgelling thee what while I see thee stir, for a pestilent drunken ass as thou must be, who will not let us sleep this night.' Then, drawing back into the house, he shut the window; whereupon certain of the neighbours, who were better acquainted with the fellow's quality, said softly to Andreuccio, 'For God's sake, good man, begone in peace and abide not there to-night to be slain; get thee gone for thine own good.' Andreuccio, terrified at the fellow's voice and aspect and moved by the exhortations of the neighbours, who seemed to him to speak out of charity, set out to return to his inn, in the direction of the quarter whence he had followed the maid, without knowing whither to go, despairing of his money and woebegone as ever man was. Being loathsome to himself, for the stench that came from him, and thinking to repair to the sea to wash himself, he turned to the left and followed a street called Ruga Catalana,[101] that led towards the upper part of the city. Presently, he espied two men coming towards him with a lantern and fearing they might be officers of the watch or other ill-disposed folk, he stealthily took refuge, to avoid them, in a hovel, that he saw hard by. But they, as of malice aforethought, made straight for the same place and entering in, began to examine certain irons which one of them laid from off his shoulder, discoursing various things thereof the while. [Footnote 101: _i.e._ Catalan Street.]

• From Waking the Tiger: Healing Trauma (1997)

  If, in contrast, the body/mind succeeds in locating the source of its distress (as in the example of Nancy in Chapter Two), the primitive need to identify some source of danger is satisfied. A natural, successful defensive response will then arise to complete the experience. For many of us, this is a giant step toward healing trauma. Typically, however, we use our cognitive abilities to push the matter further – to figure it out and give it a name (or remember it). In so doing we separate ourselves even further from the experience. In that separateness, the seeds of trauma have fertile ground in which to root and grow. The animal that is unable to locate a source of arousal will freeze rather than flee. When the freezing response begins to override Mrs. Thayer’s extreme im-pulse to flee, she rationalizes (using her neo-cortex) that she will die if she tries to escape the house. She is not only without explanation for her extreme physiological arousal, but she also sets up her own dilemma by convincing herself that if she escapes she will die. Mrs. Thayer then enters into a tight, self- made web of fear-induced immobility. Like the Chowchilla children (Chapter Two), Mrs. Thayer is more afraid to escape than to remain trapped. Her neo-cortex tries in vain to explain, while her reptilian brain compels her to act. In the clutch of her terror and self-defeating confusion, Mrs. Thayer will finally focus on her frantic breathing to the exclusion of all else. When she finally suspends her need to understand, she allows her reptilian brain to complete its course of actio n — that of discharging the extraordinary level of energy that has built up inside of her. We are not told why the energy is there. Perhaps even Mrs Thayer does not consciously know. Fortunately for her (and for us), it does not matter. By focusing on the felt sense of her own breath, Mrs Thayer discharges the energy that was the source of her panic attack. Can’t Synthesize New Informatio n/ Can’t Learn An inherent quality of hypervigilance is the absence of the normal orienting responses (Chapter Seven). This has serious ramifications for traumatized people. Primarily, it will impair our overall ability to function effectively in any situation, not just those that require active defense. Part of the function of the orienting response is to identify new information as we become aware of it. If this function is impaired, any amount of new information leads to confusion and overload. Instead of being assimilated and available for future use, new information tends to stack up. It becomes disorganized and unusable. Important pieces of data are misplaced or forgotten. The mind then becomes unable to organize details in a way that makes sense. Rather than retain information that does not make sense, the mind “forgets” it.

• From Waking the Tiger: Healing Trauma (1997)

  Unfortunately, humans often do not completely discharge the vast energies mobilized to protect themselves. Thus, when they enter the second phase, they are reviewing the event, but remain in a highly aroused state. This heightened energy level will not allow the “playful” reviewing to occur. Instead, they may experience often terrifying and compulsive flashbacks that are akin to reliving the event. In Chapter Sixteen, Scenario of Healing from an Accident, the most common response to incomplete discharge is addressed. A majority of people attempt to control their undischarged survival energy by internalizing it. Although this approach is more socially acceptable, it is no less violent than “acting out.” It is also no more effective in dealing with the highly charged activation. It is important for us to understand that the strategy of internalizing instinctive defensive procedures is a form of re-enactmen t- perhaps- it could be called “acting in.” To commit violence on oneself is the method preferred by our culture for several reasons. Obviously, it is easier to maintain a social structure that appears to be in control of itself. However, I think there is another, more compelling reaso n- by internalizing our natural propensity to resolve life-threatening events, we are denying that the need even exist s- it remains hidden. One of the positive aspects in the recent escalation of violent “acting out” is that it is forcing us to face the fact that post traumatic stress, whether it manifests as “acting in” or “acting out,” is a major health issue. Let’s look at an “acted out” scenario: While driving, you see a car coming directly toward you. Your body tenses instantly, then freezes as you feel panic. You brace yourself, feeling resigned to the unavoidable impact. You feel that you have lost control…then, at the last micro-second, you fight off the panic, and swerve out of the path of the oncoming car. As you pass by, you notice that the car is a Mercury Cougar. You pull over to the curb, and stop the car. Your heart is pounding wildly, and you are gasping for breath. As you try to regain control, you have a fleeting moment of “adrenaline rush,” followed by the intense sensation of high arousal. You are frightened by this energy, and feel yourself becoming angry. The anger helps. You focus your rage on the idiot that almost got you killed. Heart and mind still racing, you notice your ice-cold hands are still glued to the steering wheel. You imagine strangling the idiot with all your might. Still wound up, images of the event begin to flash before your eyes. (the second phase begins, but you are still highly charged). The panicky feeling returns, and your heart beats rapidly. You are losing control, and you feel the anger return. Anger has become your frien d- it helps you maintain some semblance of control.

• From The Decameron (1353)

  To the cure of these maladies nor counsel[5] of physician nor virtue of any medicine appeared to avail or profit aught; on the contrary,--whether it was that the nature of the infection suffered it not or that the ignorance of the physicians (of whom, over and above the men of art, the number, both men and women, who had never had any teaching of medicine, was become exceeding great,) availed not to know whence it arose and consequently took not due measures thereagainst,--not only did few recover thereof, but well nigh all died within the third day from the appearance of the aforesaid signs, this sooner and that later, and for the most part without fever or other accident.[6] And this pestilence was the more virulent for that, by communication with those who were sick thereof, it gat hold upon the sound, no otherwise than fire upon things dry or greasy, whenas they are brought very near thereunto. Nay, the mischief was yet greater; for that not only did converse and consortion with the sick give to the sound infection of cause of common death, but the mere touching of the clothes or of whatsoever other thing had been touched or used of the sick appeared of itself to communicate the malady to the toucher. A marvellous thing to hear is that which I have to tell and one which, had it not been seen of many men's eyes and of mine own, I had scarce dared credit, much less set down in writing, though I had heard it from one worthy of belief. I say, then, that of such efficience was the nature of the pestilence in question in communicating itself from one to another, that, not only did it pass from man to man, but this, which is much more, it many times visibly did;--to wit, a thing which had pertained to a man sick or dead of the aforesaid sickness, being touched by an animal foreign to the human species, not only infected this latter with the plague, but in a very brief space of time killed it. Of this mine own eyes (as hath a little before been said) had one day, among others, experience on this wise; to wit, that the rags of a poor man, who had died of the plague, being cast out into the public way, two hogs came up to them and having first, after their wont, rooted amain among them with their snouts, took them in their mouths and tossed them about their jaws; then, in a little while, after turning round and round, they both, as if they had taken poison, fell down dead upon the rags with which they had in an ill hour intermeddled. [Footnote 5: Syn. help, remedy.] [Footnote 6: _Accidente_, what a modern physician would call "complication." "Symptom" does not express the whole meaning of the Italian word.]

• From Waking the Tiger: Healing Trauma (1997)

  Some injustices may have occurred due to the misunderstanding of the biological drama that was perhaps being played out. It is possible that a number of these women may have been acting upon the profound (and delayed) self-protective responses of rage and counter-attack that they experienced coming out of agitated immobility. These reprisals may be biologically motivated, and not necessarily by premeditated revenge. Some of these killings could have been prevented by effective treatment of post-traumatic shock. In post-traumatic anxiety, immobility is maintained primarily from within. The impulse towards intense aggression is so frightening that the traumatized person often turns it inward on themselves rather than allow it external expression. This imploded anger takes the form of anxious depression and the varied symptoms of post-traumatic stress. Like the pigeon that tries frantically to escape, but is recaptured and held prisoner once more, trauma victims beginning to exit immobility are often trapped by their own fear of abrupt activation and their potential for violence. They remain in a vicious cycle of terror, rage, and immobility. They are primed for full-out escape or raging counter-attack, but remain inhibited because of fear of violence to themselves and others. Like Death Itself In Chapter Seven, we discussed the biological advantage of the immobility response for prey animals. Deceiving a predator into believing its quarry is already dead often works. However, the predator is not the only actor on the stage who responds to immobility as though its prey were dead. The physiology of the immobilized animal acts as though it were dead. Animals can actually die from “immobility response overdose.” The reptilian brain has ultimate control over life and death. If it receives repeated messages that the animal is dead, it may comply. In most cases, however, the reptilian brain does not constantly register that the animal is dead; therefore, there are no serious consequences. The animal remains in the immobility state for a period of time and then moves out of it through trembling discharge. The incident is completed. Due to our highly developed brains, the process of leaving the immobility state becomes more complicated for humans. The fear of experiencing terror, rage, and violence toward oneself or others, or of being overwhelmed by the energy discharged in the mobilization process, keeps the human immobility response in place. These are not the only components that keep the freezing response from completion. The fear of death is another. Our neo- cortex informs us that immobility feels like death. Death is an experience that humans vehemently avoid. Animals have no such prohibitive awareness; for them life and death are parts of one system, a purely biological matter. Humans understand what death means and we fear it.

• From Apprenticed to Venus: My Secret Life with Anaïs Nin (2017)

  Having recently faced death anyway, she thought, what did it matter? At least she was making one person happy, and Rupert, with his right hand now cupping her breast, a gold wedding band glinting on his left, was truly, innocently happy. He whistled a Bach sonata, his member rising for her in his good pair of slacks. [image file=image_rsrc3R3.jpg] Their honeymoon consisted of Rupert taking her hiking in the immolated mountains above their cabin. They tramped past trees with gnarled arms like blackened grape vines and basins of mud hardened into the shape of waves. She gasped when she saw their destination, a valley carpeted with poppies bright as a Buddhist monk’s robes. “It’s nature’s cycle for the chaparral to burn every century or so.” Rupert swept an arm dramatically. “Only after that huge conflagration, Anaïs, do certain rare fire flowers grow.” He bent to pluck a speck of white nestled in the spread of poppies and purple lupine. “This one! I remember seeing a sketch of it in an old book on fire flowers. A few of these might appear next spring, but after that, not for a hundred years or so.” She took the delicate white stem from him and when she held it up, the wind blew it in a frenetic dance. She thought it the perfect metaphor for her own regeneration after her scorching illness. Like this flower born out of ash, she had emerged from her near death as a new bride in white again. Like this rare bloom, hers would be a crazy dance that could not last. [image file=image_rsrc3R3.jpg] Anaïs had followed her heart leading to an illegal act that, at all costs, she had to keep secret. Any mistake, any slip of the tongue or lapse of attention, would cost her everything. She would lose both Rupert and Hugo, and she knew she would not survive it. She had chosen not to choose, and in so doing she had entered the land of neither and both, the land of the absurd where no ordinary laws applied. Other women dreamt of having more than one love, of combining the qualities of two men into one perfect husband. But only she had dared to live that dream. At first, her fear of being found out and arrested by the authorities scared her day and night. But in time, being married to two men felt no different from the years she’d spent traveling between husband and lover. Over the next ten years, her swings between New York and Los Angeles became as regular as a pendulum.

• From Apprenticed to Venus: My Secret Life with Anaïs Nin (2017)

  “I don’t believe Hugo is capable of an open marriage.” “But he’s capable of having an affair!” Bogner seemed to nod, or was she just catching a stitch in her knitting? The analyst then raised her face and looked directly at Anaïs with her functioning eye. “Can you ask Hugo for a divorce now?” “So he can marry his mistress without me in the way? Absolutely not!” “Are you prepared to divorce Rupert?” “No, I need Rupert more than ever now that Hugo has a mistress!” The solution of an open marriage that could release Anaïs from her abiding guilt and terror of discovery had appeared like a strip of film through Hugo’s editing machine window and then flown out with a zip. She had no choice but to continue on the trapeze. [image file=image_rsrc3R3.jpg] Anaïs was alone in the apartment, and Hugo was out late again, probably dancing with his young mistress. The phone rang. A nurse at New York Hospital said, “Mrs. Guiler, I’m sorry to tell you your husband has been in an accident.” No! Please God, not Hugo! Not after Peter’s death. “He’s going to be alright, Mrs. Guiler. Given he’s in traction.” It took her a while to sort out that Hugo had fallen from kicking too high in class and had fractured a leg. The next morning, Anaïs arrived at Hugo’s hospital room and spent the day with him, waiting to face down the mistress who never showed. A week later, when Hugo and a traction apparatus were delivered to the apartment, there had still been no sign of the young woman who likely was gyrating with someone else now. Once Hugo and his pain pills and bedpan were hers to deal with, Anaïs almost wished the mistress would claim him. Millie had gone, inconveniently, on her Christmas leave, and Anaïs found herself having to feed and nurse him day and night. There was nothing to do but turn Hugo’s helplessness into an opportunity. She rented a nurse’s cap and mini-skirted white uniform from a costume store and wore it with high heels to attend to him. After several weeks of her flirtatious ministrations, their marriage settled into an affectionate, unspoken understanding that she would continue her periodic trips to Los Angeles and he would hold onto her by remaining in denial. Anaïs resolved that from then on she would be not just a liar, but the best liar; not just desirable, but unforgettable; not just a bigamist, but the most wonderful wife any two men could imagine, so that neither would ever wander from her again. That was, unfortunately, when Rupert phoned at 1:20 a.m. Anaïs, who had been sleeping on the daybed in Hugo’s office, picked up the receiver. She could hear Hugo pick up the other line from his hospital bed in the master bedroom. She knew he could hear Rupert’s drunken rant. “Tell me the truth, Anaïs! Are you still living with Hugo?”

• From The Decameron (1353)

  By a stroke of ill-luck, the ship in which the wretched, destitute Landolfo was travelling was driven by the force of the gale on to the coast of the island of Cephalonia, where she ran aground with a tremendous crash, split wide open, and like a piece of glass being flung against a wall, was smashed to smithereens. As is usually the case when this happens, the sea was rapidly littered with an assortment of floating planks, chests and merchandise. And although it was pitch dark and there was a heavy swell, the poor wretches who had survived the wreck, or those of them who could swim, began to cling to whatever object happened to float across their path. One of their number was poor Landolfo, who had in fact been calling out all day for death to come and take him, for he felt he would rather die than return home poverty-stricken. But now that he was staring death in the face, he was frightened by the prospect, and like the others he too clung to the first spar that came within his reach, in the hope that by remaining afloat for a little longer, God might somehow come to his rescue. Settling himself astride the spar as best he could, he clung on till daybreak, meanwhile being tossed hither and thither by sea and wind. When dawn came, he cast his eyes around him, but all he could see was clouds and water, and a chest floating on the sea’s surface. To his great consternation, this chest floated every so often into his vicinity, causing him to fear lest it should collide into him and do him an injury. So whenever it came too near, he summoned up the meagre strength he still possessed, and pushed it away as best he could with his hands. But as luck would have it, the sea was struck by a sudden squall, which sent the chest hurtling into Landolfo’s spar, upending it and inevitably causing Landolfo to lose his grip and go under. When he re-surfaced, he found that he was some distance away from the spar, and was afraid that he would never reach it, for he was exhausted and only his panic was keeping him afloat. He therefore made for the chest, which was quite close at hand, and dragging himself up on its lid, he sprawled across it and held it steady with his arms. And in this fashion, buffeted this way and that by the sea, with nothing to eat and far more to drink than he would have wished, not knowing where he was and seeing nothing but water, he survived for the whole of that day and the following night. By the next day, Landolfo had almost turned into a sponge when, either through the will of God or the power of the wind, he arrived off the coast of the island of Corfu.