We can understand our fears

“When I think about the future, anxiety covers me: I’m afraid to get sick, grow old in poverty, I’m afraid that my husband may one day leave the family … I have two sons, and, probably, I could think about what lies ahead for me, with great enthusiasm – but it’s not! Because I worry even more about them: that at the disco someone will offer them drugs and they will become drug addicts, that they will be drafted into the army, and they may die. And I’m still not sure that children will be able to live happily in our country, with all this economic instability, terrorist attacks, intolerance…”

For many of us, like 43-year-old Ekaterina, at the thought of our own future, our hearts involuntarily shrink. “We are always afraid of what we do not know for sure, and the unknown spurs the imagination,” explains psychoanalyst Svetlana Fedorova. – Reflections on oneself and the future are unconsciously connected with the “great unknown” – death, about which it is impossible to know either when or how we will face it. Therefore, the fear of the future is universal, archaic and concerns each of us.”

But at the same time, we live in a society where there are many reasons for a wide variety of fears, and this reality enhances personal experiences. The increase in diseases associated with constant stress, and the increase in the consumption of tranquilizers and antidepressants, without which it is increasingly difficult for residents of megacities to do, confirm this trend. The reason is the conflict between the desire for success and the failure of the values ​​that should help us move along this path.

“These are our ideas about what is important and significant in life, what goals we would like to achieve,” explains sociologist Vladimir Magun. – It depends on them whether we like our life, relationships with people, society. It is these basic preferences that determine the attitude to the private aspects of life and influence actions.

Life values ​​are those points of support that the “senior” in the broadest sense of the word (fathers of families, politicians, teachers) embody with their lives, work and pass on to us. Today these broadcast values ​​are money, power, a loving and sexually fulfilling life. We feel a deep sense of insecurity, because nothing is guaranteed today, none of our choices are backed by any authority.

Many people know this feeling – we cannot control life, which means we cannot make plans.

Therefore, every time we find ourselves face to face with something that is beyond our control, we feel unconscious anxiety. This “something” is the future, more precisely, the future, which consists of the well-being of children, our own health, the state of the environment … There are so many components, thinking about which we increasingly feel responsibility and even guilt. Since it is impossible to rely on the spiritual and moral values ​​of society, each of us must develop our own guidelines in life.

“Fear is always greater from afar, it decreases as you approach,” wrote the French philosopher Alain. So, if you learn to see and understand the underlying causes of fears, then you can stop being afraid. Gestalt therapist Nifont Dolgopolov also speaks in this spirit: “In order to stop being afraid, we first need to figure out what we are most afraid of, realize why it is so difficult for us to trust ourselves when something scares us, and, finally, take responsibility for change.”

We are afraid of losing loved ones

This fear lives in us, even if we have never lost anyone. “After all, with part of our soul we “grow” into another person, we perceive him as a part of ourselves, we associate plans and dreams with him,” says family psychotherapist Inna Khamitova. At the same time, we understand that parents will die sooner or later, children will grow up and leave us, and a partner can find happiness with another person. “Loss, be it death, disappearance or divorce, destroys the whole world that we have built in our imagination,” explains Inna Khamitova. “Afraid of this loss, we are, in fact, afraid that we will have to build our world from scratch, refill it with meaning, people, events, look for guidelines and supports. There are huge mental costs associated with this – they scare us. ”

In addition, this fear is reinforced by the realities of modern Russia. “Our state does not protect the individual,” says Nifont Dolgopolov. “Therefore, we rely more on the family, relatives. Relatives become the main support of a person in Russia, especially in times of war and instability.”

We are afraid that our children will not be happy.

“Most of us take care of and control children much more than common sense requires,” says Inna Khamitova. “And we do this because we perceive the world around us as hostile, we do not trust it, and we strive to delay contact with it for our children as long as possible.” Anxiety for them haunts parents even when children become adults – 70% of participants in a Psychologies survey over 60 say this.

In addition, society insistently inspires us that it is important to take good care of children. The pressure of this stereotype is reinforced by the fact that the birth of a child under the conditions of public contraception and the increasing use of IVF largely depends on the desire: “he will be born if we want, and when we want.” This explains the growing sense of responsibility towards children that makes us forget that another person’s happiness is beyond our control.

“In fact, when adults say that they are afraid for the future of their children, they only express concern for their own future,” says Nifont Dolgopolov. – It is not easy for someone to agree with this idea, but it is true. The experience of perestroika has proved that families where the elders could rely on the younger ones experienced even the biggest losses more easily.

“This fear is largely narcissistic,” agrees Svetlana Fedorova. – All that they themselves did not have time or could not realize in life, many parents expect from their children. And their failure is perceived as their own defeat. Moreover, it is worth, for example, a teenager to doubt that he wants to enter the university that his parents have talked about more than once, and adults instantly feel strong anxiety.

We are afraid to get into an extreme situation

Wars and repressions touched every Russian family, but it is not customary for us to talk about the experiences in detail. “When traumatic events are not discussed, an unconscious fear appears, a horror that something extraordinary may happen,” explains Svetlana Fedorova. “It is stored in the collective unconscious and passed down from generation to generation. Therefore, even those who did not survive the war are afraid of catastrophes and armed conflicts. This is said by 53% of young people aged 18–24.”

“The Russian proverb “don’t renounce money and prison” reflects our historical distrust of the state, which has shaped the so-called “siege mentality” among compatriots,” says Inna Khamitova, “the constant worry that something catastrophic could happen at any moment” . We are aware that we will not be able to cope on our own. In the event of a catastrophe, life will never be the same – with a secure life, familiar, comfortable. And, of course, it scares us.

“In addition, objects, events, and elements beyond our control (we call them “total objects”) always frighten us,” says Nifont Dolgopolov. “This is our huge planet, and international terrorism, and natural disasters, and man-made disasters.”

We are afraid to get sick

One of the most powerful fears is the fear of illness, it is inherent in all people and at all times. “We are afraid of illness because we are afraid of death,” says doctor and psychotherapist Thierry Jansen, author of the book “Trial by Illness.” But the peculiarity of modern Western culture is “the tendency to hedonism, the desire to avoid suffering, the desire to relieve pain, the search for means to forget and forget about one’s vulnerability … Under these conditions, the disease seems to be an even more terrible scourge.”

Like all major fears, this fear among Russians is exacerbated by the impossibility of relying on the state, in particular on state medicine. “None of us is sure that in the event of a serious illness he will be able to pay for treatment,” says Nifont Dolgopolov. “And in the mind, the disease takes on the proportions of a small catastrophe.”

Svetlana Fedorova believes that this fear also has deeper psycho-emotional roots. “We are afraid of getting sick, because we are afraid of becoming helpless, passive, incapable of realizing fate, desires,” the psychoanalyst explains. “After all, when we are born, it seems to us that we are the whole world, and we have absolute power over it. But soon we discover the illusory nature of our omnipotence, we feel abandoned, lonely, helpless. The fear of facing one of the most powerful disappointments in life accompanies us, although we do not realize it. Getting sick means being on the verge of non-existence again.

We are afraid to make the wrong decision

“This is partly a manifestation of our common heritage – we grew up in a state that did not encourage the independence and responsibility of citizens,” says sociologist Lev Gudkov. – In addition, the majority of the population, living very poor, today does not have many opportunities to choose. In this case, one has to rely entirely on the social support of the authorities.” “This fear also testifies to infantilism,” comments Svetlana Fedorova, “since I am afraid to make the wrong decision, it means that in my mind there is someone who knows how to do the right thing.”

“It is typical that in order to facilitate the choice, a Westerner, brought up in democratic traditions, considers it useful to have an opponent, while we prefer a like-minded person,” Nifont Dolgopolov develops the theme. – In fact, both options can be good, and the task is to choose the one that is closer to us. The choice is a subjective responsibility, not a victory of “objective advantages”.

We are afraid … and therefore alive

“From birth, two opposite drives coexist in us – to life and to death,” says Svetlana Fedorova. – The attraction to life is expressed in the need for love, in creation. The death drive is in aggressive feelings, destructive desires and actions. Freud argued that they cannot exist without each other and that the struggle between them gives rise to all the diversity of the phenomena of human life. Without a desire for death, we cannot appreciate life.”

So, suppressing anger, aggression, we simultaneously suppress the ability to love. Therefore, fear for parents and children feeds love and affection for them, fear of catastrophes and wars makes us value peace and prosperity, fear of getting sick makes it possible to live every day allotted to us more fully and brighter. Depriving us of carelessness, fears are still useful, because they make us more humane.