No, not FOMO: Fear of Missing Out. Quite different in fact.
For me, FOBO is “Fear of Being Overwhelmed,”
and it’s a very real thing I’ve carried with me since I entered into a time
approaching burnout in 2005.
Fear of being overwhelmed in many ways is
contrastable with the fear we might have in the possibility of a panic attack.
I’ve had panic attacks, but not for such a long time that I recognise that
they’re circumstantial for me. Nonetheless, the fear of being overwhelmed, even
to approach that feeling, can send me into an emotional paroxysm that I’ve largely
learned to cope with, but that clearly can take me into a land that feels like
acute spiritual attack.
The fear of being overwhelmed in some ways is
good in that it’s my body and mind that discern when my heart senses a clear
and imminent danger. But often it can work in overdrive — I can sense it too
acutely and overreact. People who know me well will detect they have
experienced these times with me. To some degree it’s the triggering of what my
body establishes as a re-traumatisation event. And it’s peculiar what might set
me off. It’s not always what I would have come to expect.
The fear of being overwhelmed is a very real
thing in many of us. In some ways, spiritual people may see it as the sin of
unbelief — that there’s a lack of trust in the moment. That may be the case,
but as far as I’m aware this kind of reaction has become a hardwired protection
mechanism (a good thing most of the time), where God literally pulled me out of
that pit of burnout and taught me to be more assertive overnight.
There’s nothing like being rendered incapable
of doing something you otherwise would; and when I’m overwhelmed my mind
literally freezes. This is a very common experience for many victims of abuse.
And though I am a survivor of abuse — more than one season, life phase,
variety, and situation of it — the response I speak of here was set up out of
the experience of burnout.
If you too suffer from the fear of being
overwhelmed, you’re not alone. So many people you know quietly suffer the same
phenomenon. And now you know I do. I see it as a grace that God gives to help
us cope with what renders us powerless; and everyone has those vulnerabilities
whether they know it or not. It’s a good thing to know our vulnerabilities.
Personally, I would rather validate someone who
has the fear of being overwhelmed than try to ‘fix’ them. There are therapies,
but I think if there’s a spiritual wisdom behind it; that it ought not to be
overthrown in the flesh, unless the fear of being overwhelmed is bad enough
intervention is warranted. I’ve learned over the past 14 years to accept it and
live with it, and work within my incapacities.
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