High-Functioning Fear
When my pain became a weapon and I wielded it against my own kid.
For years, I thought my strength was my ability to keep it all together. I had labels for my struggles—insomnia, anxiety, depression—but I didn’t realize they were all symptoms of one thing: a life lived in a permanent, high-functioning fear.
I found a post I wrote in March of 2015. It was a Tuesday morning, and I was driving my thirteen-year-old son to school. We were in the middle of a season of pure survival. He had been expelled from public school the year before (hanging with the wrong crowd), had a brief stay in a behavioral health center for his rage and cutting, and every morning was a battle of wills, and a silent prayer that God would protect him from harming himself. This morning was no exception and tempers flared on both sides and a fight ensued.
I am not a morning person. I need silence to breathe. My son, mirroring my own emotions, needed that same silence. But my fear (i.e. the deep-seated paranoia that “this might be the last time we see each other”) wouldn’t let me just be still without resolving the conflict.
I needed him to say “I love you” back.
I needed the resolution to be perfect so I could feel safe.
In hindsight, I can see how both of these beliefs were tied to my emotions, with no thought to his. This is what living in survival mode looks like. This is what happens when we don’t face the people we are and make a new groove to become more Christ-like.
It is heartbreaking to look back and see how often I was so consumed with my own emotional disruptions that I couldn’t look at what he was going through. And I piled on, instead of lightening his load. I heaped this harm onto each one of my children, over and over again, because I was so focused on myself and what was happening in the world around me.
When he got out of the car in sullen silence, the dam inside me burst. My fear, expressed as rage, turned into a weapon. I leaned out the door and my voice dripped with the usual sarcasm as I said through gritted teeth:
“I hope I don’t die or anything and you don’t ever get another chance to tell me that you love me.”
I went to work in tears. I felt like an utter failure. I was trying so hard to be the perfect mother who builds her children up, but my internal alarm was screaming so loud that I ended up heaping my own trauma onto his shoulders just to get a response.
This is what high-functioning fear looks like.
It looks like trying to control the people around us because we don’t feel safe in the silence. It looks like forcing a resolution because we can’t handle the tension of being unfinished. We wear the mask of Fine until the pressure becomes too much, and then we wonder why we’re exhausted.
I’m realizing now, nearly ten years and a lot of PRT therapy later, that I wasn’t a bad mom that morning. I was a scared mom. I was a woman whose nervous system was stuck in a survival loop, trying to will my way into safety.
And I have to pause here for a moment to consider:
How many generations back does this fear go?
Did my mom’s mom shape how my mom responded to the world? Did I then adopt that same fear, in turn passing it down yet another generation? I don’t question this from a place of shame or condemnation. Not anymore. I approach with gentle curiosity. I want to unlearn things that have been in our family for generations.
But I cannot unlearn what I do not recognize and acknowledge.
I don’t have to weaponize my fear anymore. I am learning that I can part ways with the people I love, even in silence, even in the messy middle. And I can still feel safe. And I can know that we can repair and find a place of peace once more. But it doesn’t have to be on my timeline.
I am learning that always bracing for impact isn’t what was keeping me alive. It was actually keeping me from truly living in the fullness God offers.
Today, I am learning to seek forgiveness and give myself grace for what I didn’t know. This is the same grace I extend to those who came before me. We do what we do based off of what we know, or our own built in survival instincts.
But it’s never too late to change how you interact with the world or those around you, especially with those you love most. And our kids are still watching us. They are still observing how we navigate life, and I want mine to move differently than I did.
I want them to heal sooner than I did.
I want them to raise a new generation of children who do not live under a constant veil of fear.
But we have to be willing to name it. We have to face all the ways we failed, and sometimes repair is necessary. It is my job as a parent who loves her child as Jesus loves to pursue, the chase down, to demonstate unconditional love in ways that my children will see beyond the mistakes I have made.
I don’t have all the answers. I made so many mistakes as a mother (and wife) while my kids were growing up, and I believe it is my responsiblity to confess, to repent, and to repair the damage that I unintentionally did. Even if it is simply acknowledging that what they experienced was real and harmed them. I don’t have to understand it. I don’t have to remember it the same. I just have to be willing to sit with my kids in their pain—especially if I caused it. Sometimes simply validating their experience is enough for them to let go of any negative emotions they have tied to whatever it was. I look at my kids and I see the ways in which my lack of healing shaped them: some deal with debiliatting anxiety. Some with anger and rage. But all of them grew into adults who as children had to survive their emotionally dysregulated mother and her frequent outbursts. And I see this impact them as adults. So I owe it to them to:
HEAL.
Enter into their pain with them (meet them right where they are, even if I don’t understand it).
Be willing to face my own imperfections, which are many.
Sit with them as they grieve what they lost because I was late to healing.
Help them find the way through to the truth I have found in Christ.
If my kids are to see Jesus in me, then it has to start with humility
Philippians 2:1-4: So if there is any encouragement in Christ, any comfort from love, any participation in the Spirit, any affection and sympathy, complete my joy by being of the same mind, having the same love, being in full accord and of one mind. Do nothing from selfish ambition or conceit, but in humility count others more significant than yourselves. Let each of you look not only to his own interests, but also to the interests of others.
So I can’t just move forward while I leave them bleeding on the side of the road from wounds that I caused. I have to have the same mind of Christ. I have to count them (and their pain) as more significant than my own. ***I want to clarify that I am speaking of my own experience and not out of judgment of how anyone else has navigated this road. It is my belief that this is how God is leading me to love my children as Jesus did.***
This is what He is teaching me:
He sacrificed.
Ephesians 5:2: And walk in love, as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us, a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God.
He was humble.
Philippians 2:8: And being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross.
He moved through pain, even as He cried out to God to take it from Him.
Luke 22:42: Saying, “Father, if you are willing, remove this cup from me. Nevertheless, not my will, but yours, be done.”
He went to the Cross, enduring the pain from wounds I caused.
Isaiah 53:5: But he was pierced for our transgressions; he was crushed for our iniquities; upon him was the punishment that brought us peace, and with his wounds we are healed.
And even though I was undeserving, He paid the price. He took the weight of my sin upon his shoulders.
Romans 5:8: But God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.
He didn’t demand perfection from me to be His child—though He does ask me to seek after Him and His ways.
Matthew 6:33: But seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be added to you.
And He does ask me to be honest before myself and others.
Ephesians 4:25: Therefore, having put away falsehood, let each one of you speak the truth with his neighbor, for we are members one of another.
James 5:16 (ESV): Therefore, confess your sins to one another and pray for one another, that you may be healed. The prayer of a righteous person has great power as it is working.
He called me to use the testimony He has given me, which includes all the difficult things I walked through. And it isn’t for my glory or my pity—it is for Him and Him alone.
Revelation 12:11: And they have conquered him by the blood of the Lamb and by the word of their testimony, for they loved not their lives even unto death.
And He asks me to shine a light in the darkness so that others can find the way through to Him.
Matthew 5:16: In the same way, let your light shine before others, so that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father who is in heaven.
And in doing so, there will always be people who do not understand. There will even be those the enemy will unwittingly use to try to distract me from what God has called me to. They will sow seeds of doubt that say, “Did God really tell you this?” or plant thoughts in my mind that cause me to second-guess what God has clearly asked of me.
But because it’s not about me, I do not need to prove that I am worthy. He calls me his Child, and His kingdom is light. Darkness cannot penetrate where His light is. So I simply have to obey, and pray that God can reveal truth where I cannot. And I also have to be humble and willing to hear and heed correction. But only if it lines up with His word and what He says about me. I’ll leave you with some final verses I am sitting with and pondering:
Psalm 51:6: Behold, you delight in truth in the inward being, and you teach me wisdom in the secret heart.
Galatians 1:10: For am I now seeking the approval of man, or of God? Or am I trying to please man? If I were still trying to please man, I would not be a servant of Christ.
1 John 1:7: But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus his Son cleanses us from all sin.
Matthew 10:37: "Whoever loves father or mother more than me is not worthy of me, and whoever loves son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me."
Luke 14:26-27: If anyone comes to me and does not hate his own father and mother and wife and children and brothers and sisters, yes, and even his own life, he cannot be my disciple. Whoever does not bear his own cross and come after me cannot be my disciple. ***I’ll add here that I am in no advocating for hating father and mother, wife, children, etc…I only use this verse to show that following God has to come before all earthly relationships. Each person should seek out what this means for them in their personal life.***
Joshua 24:15: "And if it is evil in your eyes to serve the Lord, choose this day whom you will serve... But as for me and my house, we will serve the Lord."
Proverbs 3:5–6: "Trust in the Lord with all your heart, and lean not on your own understanding; in all your ways acknowledge him, and he will make straight your paths."
1 Corinthians 6:20: "For you were bought with a price. So glorify God in your body."
Colossians 3:23: "Whatever you do, work heartily, as for the Lord and not for men."
Jamie
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