As a teenager, I lived in the heart of a very politically unstable third world country. During an election year it was not safe as a foreigner or as a young woman to travel alone. At one point there had been many reports of attacks, especially in the city where we lived.
Once, I went to a friend’s house, where I intended to stay only briefly and wound up staying for several hours. When I left to return home it was dark and a friend drove me back to my house even though it was only a few hundred feet away, because we all knew it wasn’t safe. When I returned home, I noticed that the family car was gone (rare in those days because there was a gas shortage) and my brother was sitting outside (rarer still because he was always out with friends). He said ‘where have you been?’ in a way that made me suddenly realized I hadn’t told anyone where I was going, and he shook his head as if he was resigned to my beheading.
My response? — I went completely numb. I didn’t think, I didn’t feel, I didn’t panic, I just sat there and waited, which was interpreted as indifference. It wasn’t, I simply didn’t know what else to do, I had no skills to deal with a mistake this bad. I hadn’t done it on purpose or to be stubborn or inconsiderate I just wasn’t thinking the way a parent would think.
I don’t know how much time past but the next thing I remember there were tires screeching on our long gravel drive way and the family car appeared in a cloud of dust. As clutches were popped and doors were flung open, and people rushing toward me, there was a blur of questions and I sat there numb, as hands flailed about, and father hoarsely screamed about trips to police stations and missing person reports and drives to hospitals to see if I was one of the beaten bodies unclaimed that day and an entire tank of gas used up running ‘up and down the countryside’ trying to find me.
His fear for my safety erupted into anger long before it dissolved into relief that I was okay. As a parent of 3 daughters today I begin to understand what my father must have gone through as I benignly played board games at a friend’s house that day at the age of 15.
Today as an executive coach, experienced in supporting my clients productively through difficult situations, I understand that anger is often a common response to fear. So is going completely numb. Here is no desire to go numb without the presence of fear neither is there anger unless fear of some type is present. Think about the last time you got angry? What was the circumstance? What was the anger really about? Really?
Responding to fear in the form of anger is what creates ‘turfs’ in neighborhoods and keeps our inner city youth’s world too small. It’s what causes a mother to beat a child after yanking him back from a road and the path of an oncoming car. It’s what makes a man -who thought his daughter had been brutally attacked and left for dead – slap his daughter’s face upon finding her alive and well. I understand how a person who loves you can hit you because he is scared for himself and for you. I don’t condone it, I don’t support it, I wouldn’t tolerate it, I simply understand it.
My father had never slapped me before or since. And in his apology later in the evening he said he was sorry he had to slap me over ‘such a thing’. Yes you read that correctly. He felt he had to slap me. He felt he had no choice. His lashing out was the only tool he had at his disposal.
At the time I felt the only tool I had at my disposal was to go completely numb. If it had been my brother he would have spent his time planning an apology and if needed, an escape route. We all had our own way of dealing with fear, but only my brother’s way would have been productive.
I have spent many years since that time, learning about mastering the fears that keep you from showing up for your life the way you want to so you can accomplish your goals and I love supporting my clients in doing the same. And while getting angry or going numb turns out not to be very effective in moving the ball forward, sometimes a sincere apology, quick thinking and an effective exit strategy is just the thing to protect your integrity, your proverbial hide and a life lived in freedom instead of fear!
