Do you struggle with FOBO?

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.

Photo by Kunj Parekh on Unsplash