Fear is a choice

[LettingsBe]

Last night on I'm A Celebrity James Haskell said, "fear is a choice", which I believe might come from a quote by someone else.

However, aibu to say fear ISN'T a choice? I have an abusive ex partner who I have a fear of seeing, I also have a fear of various other things due to things that happened in my childhood.

So do we really think fear is a choice?

The fuller quote I believe is “The only place that fear can exist is in our thoughts of the future. It is a product of our imagination, causing us to fear things that do not at present and may not ever exist. That is near insanity. Do not misunderstand me danger is very real but fear is a choice.”

Fear in itself can be managed and dispelled through changing your responses when you feel it, and through improving your well-being, empowering yourself, and overcoming challenges. It isn’t intended to mean that fear is a stupid feeling which makes you weak and silly because you should just get over it.

Fear is a GIFT! Listen to it!

Loads of people would agree with the sentiment that fear shouldn't control your life though right?

How so? If your entire family have moved abroad and you are too afraid of flying to be able to go and visit them, your fear is not a “gift”, is it?

I think this is what he meant.

Fear is a response and how we respond can be taught so therefore becomes a choice

Sports psychologists use these methods all the time

@FallopianTubeTrain 😂 You are totally right, I'm not very good with picking celebrities out of a line up anyway, least of all the I'm A Celeb ones. Thanks for the correction.

It’s an emotion, so no not a choice.
Its also there to serve a purpose and protect it.
If a puppy was placed on a high platform it would be fearful and want to get away.
If a baby were placed in the same situation it would laugh until it fell off.
Perhaps it is a sign of maturity

I wouldn't say that feeling fear is a choice, but one can choose how to respond to it. Even then circumstances can limit the available choices.

It's the way you train your brain to reframe a situation. Then on e you have done that the sense of achievement is immense. Imagine visiting your family? You know your fear is irrational. Embrace that and take positive action

It's good to get so many perspectives on this.

I think it might be within my capability to overcome my fears with enough psychotherapy, however that too seems like a luxury as it's damn expensive.

I think the truth is fear controls various areas of my life and I wish it didn't, hence my reaction to his statement.

The problem with what he said is that it suggests that fear is a weakness. It is not.

Irrational fear which is unhelpful to your life can addressed and it can be good to seek to address that. Similarly with sport.

but the notion that fear itself is weakness is just a toxic and unhelpful approach to masculinity that creates a lot of problems.

If more men respected and Listened to their fear instead of trying to overcome it there would be a lot less violence and war.

Fear is not voluntary or chosen. Fear is the body's response to anything perceived as a threat. It is your body trying to protect itself through initiating a fight, flight or freeze response. Awesome when our threats were wild animals or hostile tribes, less useful when our threats are money worries, work stress, relationship breakdown. Anxiety is fear in overdrive and the idea that you could just choose not to feel it is patronising and ridiculous.

It isn't a choice. It doesn't come from the rational part of the brain, it comes from the automatic 'lizard brain' which even reptiles have. Yes, you can choose therapy, read self help books, do hypnosis or yoga or cold water swims. It may help, or it may not. There is no definitive 'fix' and most people don't want to take addictive tranquillisers. It seems unkind and quite finger-pointing to tell other people that if they're afraid, it's their own stupid fault.

I don’t think that makes the fear itself a gift, though. Having the opportunity to experience your own strength and resilience in challenging it may be a bounty; but for people who never overcome a fear of something which limits their life or ambitions, I very much doubt they see their fear as a gift to be listened to or savoured.

It also doesn’t recognise that fear is a biological reaction.

people with disordered fear due to their experiences can’t just make a choice to not feel like that. They can choose to do lots of different things that might remove or at least reduce the fear response- but it’s ridiculous to suggest you just need to choose and it is somehow psychological weakness not to.

it totally fails to understand the physiological impact of trauma on the fear response

The problem with ptsd, as outlined by a previous poster, is that it exists in the body, not so much the thoughts. A freeze reaction can happen entirely outside of conscious control. Sometimes the triggers aren't even consciously discernible.

For people suffering from ptsd, the terrible thing has already happened. Being told that the fear is "all in their mind" or being gaslit that they are "insane" can be the opposite of helpful. In fact, if you are a woman experiencing ptsd from an encounter with a sexually violent male, this dismissive attitude can mirror the dehumanising nature of the attack itself. Add to that the fact we live in a society where these crimes are so poorly prosecuted as to be virtually legal.

Never heard the fuller quote. It’s quite good actually.

I can’t help but channel Obi Wan or Dune when I get scared ( terrified of heights). Fear definitely has macho connections.

I don’t know who James Haskell is but he’s clearly not familiar with the fight or flight chemical reaction.

What a silly saying. So if you're waiting at a train station on the platform late at night, it's dark and cold and some large guy is lurking around and starts staring at you and making unpleasant comments you're not meant to be afraid? I have had dodgy encounters at train stations and I was afraid. Sometimes fear is there for a good reason, otherwise we would not react to situations at all and would be walking around naive and getting into dangerous situations, just chatting with anyone, walking anywhere, doing anything.

Also, if someone wasn't afraid of anything I'd actually question their mental health. There are a few people I know who would fall into this category and they are actually quite dangerous people.

Thank you so much for so eloquently articulating what I wanted to say but couldn't find the words! 😊

Disagree, I have CPTSD, OCD, GAD, and have spent 99% of my life since age 5 living in fear . It's very, very much not a gift - I've spent the last 12 hours in a panic knowing I have to leave the house in 2 hours time . I spend most of the day in a low-moderate level of fear, and then get peaks/attacks where I am absolutely terrified to the point I think I'm going to die on the spot . Several times I've got myself in such a state I've landed in A&E . And I get flashbacks, and dissociative attacks where my brain has had absolutely enough and quite randomly 'shuts off' meaning I'll be in a coffee shop and suddenly forget where I am, or on the phone and suddenly realise I've no clue who I'm talking to or why . I've spent fifteen years in and out of therapy and haven't gone more than 4 weeks without seeing a doctor since I was 15 years old .

How is that a gift? It's a living hell . If I listened to it, listened to what my fears telling me - that I am going to die - I'd do nothing at all .

I think the point is that you cannot control every situation, but you can attempt to control how you react to it.

For example, you can't stop someone saying cruel and entirely invented things to you, but they can't make you feel bad; you are letting them make you feel bad if you're upset. By retraining your response, you can take the power back and choose to not feel upset because the person saying those things is not someone whose opinion you respect and you know the things are untrue anyway.

It's not easy though, and I suspect impossible to do in an extreme situation, or one where the the negative emotion is rational and proportionate.

Fear of getting burned when there is a raging fire next to you? That's a rational response, and a proportionate one. For the most part, fight or flight is instinctive and protects us. I think there's a baseline level of healthy fear that we cannot and should not attempt to control.

When it comes to an abusive ex, with therapy, I imagine you could get over a large part of your fear when confronted with the ex in a safe situation (e.g. in public, where there are other people present to physically stop him from hurting you). However, I don't think therapy could or should stop you from fearful when alone with your ex, because the fear in that situation is rational and proportionate based on past experience.

I do however beleive that whether to challenge and push yourself to overcome such fears, or not to, is a choice

My fear of heights is at least partly rational- it's just a bit over-egged sometimes, like when I get vertigo on a down escalator or a set of stairs. Obviously I overcome it in that moment - I've never had to be rescued from stairs! I can go up tall buildings in glass lifts and so on and look over edges - there is no or very little risk of falling.

I've still managed to do things like paragliding and go up mountains though - but it's a managed risk. Paragliding was tandem - there is a risk but you just hope the other guy knows what he's doing and doesn't want to die! And I've only been on the easiest routes up and down mountains. I'd never go on a narrow ridge or do anything where there was a real risk of falling off. And I'd never do Go Ape or IACGMOOH as I just wouldn't enjoy it at all. But there is no real risk for the celebs - apart from looking a right tit on national TV.