Dreadless: Support Systems

If you are new to this blog series, please start here: Dreadless: An Introduction.

On April 17th, 2015, I drove my sister to the bank. She was going from there to lunch nearby with some friends, so I dropped her off and returned home on my own. My heart was pounding as I pulled out of the bank parking lot and into traffic, as it hadn’t in weeks of practice leading up to getting my license the day before. However, today it wasn’t only anxiety I was feeling but also anticipation and genuine excitement.

For the first time in my life, I was driving on a city street with no one else in the car.

I drove somewhat badly, pulling into the middle lane of a oneway street and then realizing I needed to be in the near lane, switching, then realizing there was a car waiting to turn in the near lane, so I should have stayed in the middle lane.

It didn’t matter. Once I would have scolded myself for these mistakes, but today I was too elated. I honestly almost cried while I was driving home. The emotion I felt that day was indescribable. It wasn’t just joy or pride in my accomplishment, but also a sort of surreality, like I couldn’t quite accept the new reality of my life. Over the next few weeks, it slowly dawned on me that I could drive independently. I think the first time it really hit home was when I drove to the store and realized I could put my purse on the passenger seat, not in the back.

At the age of 32, I now had what most American adults take for granted: transportation independence. But to get to the point where the passenger’s seat was empty beside me, it had taken an amazing man to sit in that seat day after day.

If you’ve been following this blog, you know that Ace had been by my side, helping me overcome my emotional obstacles from close to the beginning. I am incredibly lucky to have had such a supportive partner, someone who believed in me and my ability to succeed. Although I’ve mostly touched on the positive points in this blog series, as you can imagine, not every day in the car was perfect. Getting to this point took a lot of patience and understanding on the part of Ace, and a lot of struggling to communicate on my part.

In the process, I learned what is necessary in a good supporter. As with coping, there are a few essential criteria:

1. Believing: From the very beginning, Ace knew the false story for what it was. In fact, he was the one who clued me into how very false it was. Your supporter might not be quite as illuminated as Ace was, but they should at least be willing to believe and support the true story. They should understand that the problem is the emotional obstacles, not something inherently wrong with you. They must believe that you can succeed in order to support you all the way to success.

2. Perspective: There were so many times that I would have a strong emotional reaction, and I would not even be aware of it until I started behaving strangely, making errors I didn’t usually make. It’s really helpful if your supporter can see when the emotions are effecting you before you start freaking out. The person who is supporting you might have this kind of sensitivity, but even if they don’t, they can help by asking “where are you on a scale of 1-10?” at key moments. This can remind you to take stock of your emotional state.

3. Calming: Your supporter should be able to help you get back to a state of equilibrium. This might be by reminding you of your healthy coping methods, or simply by reaching out with a hug or kind words. For this reason, your supporter can’t be someone who is triggered by the same circumstances you are. If Ace had been unreasonably afraid of driving, he wouldn’t have had the state of mind to help me calm down.

4. Celebrating: Remember back in the beginning of this series when we talked about how your version of success might be tiny compared to someone else? Your supporter should be ready and willing to recognize and celebrate any success, no matter how small.

5. Committed: Your supporter needs to be willing to stay with you and help you get to whatever your final vision of success is. They can’t stop early in the process and say, “well, that’s good enough.” They have to be willing to stay with you even when things get weird and difficult.

That last criteria brings me to the subject of detractors. Detractors are the opposite of supporters. They might be detractors because they have a stake in believing your false story, either because it also applies to them, or because they feel better about their own false stories if you have a similar false story, or because they have a stake in you remaining unchanged. Forgive them; they are human, and be kind; they are probably facing the same struggle as you. But don’t rely on them for support, because even though they may want to support you, they won’t be able to, because your change will force them to see something they aren’t ready to see, or change a part of their life they aren’t ready to change.

Here’s an example of what I mean: part of my identity before I learned how to drive was one of dependence. I was dependent on Ace if I wanted a ride to the store or across town to spend time with my family. In order to support me through the process of learning how to drive, Ace had to be ready to let go of my dependence on him. If he hadn’t been, he could have easily (and perhaps even subconsciously) sabotaged my driving success. Fortunately, Ace wanted things to change as much as I did, and he wasn’t attached to the status quo.

Who might you look to as a supporter in the fight against the emotional obstacles you face? Start with the people closest to you who know you the best, like significant others, friends, and family. It is essential that you trust the person who offers you support, and that it is someone you can clearly communicate with.

Having more than one supporter is even better, although you will likely find you rely on one person more than anyone else. I was fortunate to be able to turn to several family members for support during my driving saga. My sister rode with me to the DMV many times, and she and my mom both offered some relief for Ace when I needed driving practice, after I’d gotten some of the basics down. It was important, as it had been with Ace, that they knew what I was facing, that I wasn’t just learning driving skills but that I was fighting an emotional battle while I was driving. No matter who you choose to offer you support, make sure they know specifically what you are trying to do and why it is difficult for you.

If you don’t know anyone personally who fits the criteria and whom you trust enough, consider getting help from a professional. However, keep in mind that they will be coming to the table with their own methods and strategies, which may be different from what you need to do.

Years ago I saw a therapist and told her about my difficulty with driving. She directed me to the Anxiety and Phobia workbook, which did have a lot of good information and might have been helpful. However, it was huge and kind of overwhelming. I tried a couple of times to get through it, but never made it very far. In my second session with her, she asked me if I had done the first exercise in the book. I hadn’t. “I guess you’re not really ready to do this,” she wrote me off. Actually, the problem was that I didn’t have ownership of the method, and it was overwhelming me. So, if you get help from a therapist, make sure to keep ownership of your process.

Another place to look for, or rather create support is your imagination. When I was a child, afraid of the dark, I was terrified to walk to the bathroom from my bedroom at night. I created a golden-winged pegasus-unicorn in my mind to shelter me through the shadowy rooms in-between. He sat patiently on the bathroom floor, waiting to walk me back. Nothing could hurt me when I had my pegasus-unicorn protector, not even the monsters of the dark.

The exercise I discussed in the last post, using language and methods from Buck Brannaman to calm myself down, was a similar kind of imagining. I internalized the character of Buck and made him an imaginary part of myself. I think it’s possible that anyone could do the same thing. Even if you don’t have a supporter in your life, there may be a character you can internalize as a support, a public figure or a fictional person. You could even make up an entirely fictional person of your own, based on the criteria of an ideal supporter.

The final thing to remember about supporters is that they are human, just like you. You are going to go to deep, dark places together. Don’t be surprised if your supporter occasionally loses his or her patience or has a bad day and has to call it quits. It’s important to be able to distinguish a bad day for them from an overall disbelief in your ability to succeed, and keep the former in perspective. There may be times when it is necessary to stop the process and support your supporter. Remember that they may need a hug and kind words too.

Never take your supporter for granted. Always thank them for their time and for believing in you. Remind them of how important they are to your process. Don’t approach them as if they owe you support. If you can, reciprocate their support by helping them with something they have difficulty with, or simply by doing something nice for them.

In case you’re reading this, thanks for teaching me how to drive, Ace. What a guy!

I was successful in learning how to drive. But what if I hadn’t succeeded? Could I have lived with failure? Find out in the next post: Dreadless: Permission to Be.

In case you want to take something away from these posts other than just my story and some advice, here are a couple of activities you can use to apply the strategies I learned while overcoming my fear of driving. Please refer to the disclaimer in Dreadless: An Introduction.

Storytelling: One thing you’ll notice about many of the best adventure stories is that the hero always has important allies. Think about The Wizard of Oz–Dorothy’s companions are just as crucial to the plot as she herself is, their characters just as vivid. For your current work in progress, make a list of your main character’s allies and even potential allies who aren’t really active allies. Check secondary characters against the criteria above–do they believe in the main character’s goal? Offer perspective when the main character gets lost? Celebrate successes, and commit to seeing the main character through to the end? 

If any of your main character’s allies are weak, consider strengthening them, both in terms of their support of the main character and the dimension of their own character. Establish their motives for supporting the protagonist. What do they get out of your main character’s success? The stronger their own motives and personality, the clearer their support of your main character will be. And if, in this process, you uncover a detractor, that can have strong dramatic implications of its own.

Personal Growth: Perhaps you already have a supporter on board or someone in mind. Check them against the criteria listed in this post. If they are close to what you need but not fitting all of the criteria perfectly, determine what you can do to bring them more fully on board. Do you need to communicate your needs more clearly? For example, you might need to explain to them what success looks like to you at each stage. Or ask them to help you gauge your anxiety on a scale of 1-10 in certain situations.

If you don’t yet have a supporter, list the people in your life who might be willing to act as your supporter. Pick a few who you think could fit the criteria most closely and approach them. If it feels awkward, consider planning a statement of what to say to them. Remember that if someone doesn’t want to support you, it doesn’t mean you can’t do it or even that they don’t believe in you, it just means they don’t want to take on this kind of commitment. It could be that they are aware that they are a detractor, unable to face themselves enough to offer this kind of support. Move on to the next person on your list. 

Consider too that you may need several supporters to work with you in different ways. Maybe your spouse is really good at offering perspective and helping you calm down, but your mother is always celebrating your successes, no matter how tiny. That’s ok–you can knit together a full support system from several different people.

Finally, whether you have real-life support or not, consider creating imaginary supporters. You might come up with something from scratch, or you might mine your favorite fictional or public-figure characters for support. Maybe you need Mr. Rogers to talk to you until you calm down and can continue facing your challenge. Or maybe you want dragons riding on your shoulders, breathing fire at your foes and making you less afraid.