I was homeschooled, mostly, so that doesn’t rattle me.

Every day of my childhood, we were preparing for “the end”, so that’s nothing new.

I grew up with very little and know how to survive with a bag of beans and a sack of flour.

I was built for this. So why do I feel so unsettled?

It was always conceptual, something that was coming in the future, something that if we practiced and prepared for, we would survive. When I abandoned my upbringing and walked away from the prophecies and the doomsday predictions, I also walked away from the idea of the apocalypse. I’ve spent years and countless therapy hours moving away from the panic and fear that ruled my childhood.

But now, that panic and fear is all around me. Uncertainty is sweeping the globe and it is bringing out both the best and the worst in people. And I don’t know what to feel. I’m surprised by how calm I feel, possibly because I was trained for this very scenario. I also feel the panic, that old urge to be prepared for every and any situation, the very thing that I’ve been working so hard to move past, knocking at my door demanding an audience.

I don’t want to open the door.

My kids are oscillating between downplaying the whole situation to anger and frustration to buried fear. There are an unbelievable number of opinions at their fingertips and if it is draining and disturbing for me, I cannot imagine what it’s like for them. As a parent, I have tried to give them stability, predictability, love, empathy, compassion—a childhood that I hope will launch them into a fulfilling and productive adult life. I have tried to manage, perhaps too much, any experience that could leave them scarred and confused and unbalanced. But this, this is way beyond my ability as a parent. This experience will be seared in their formative memories. This experience, this trauma, will help to write their stories. I can’t protect them from it. I can only bolster their resilience.

My therapist often talks about being present in your adult self. I love that image, especially in this situation. It means simply, being grounded, acting from the logical brain and not the flight or fight brain. In the past I have been able to do this ridiculously well, the problem being that switching to logic for me was not actually being grounded, it was survival. So while I went through the motions of a crisis, I was completely consumed by panic and terror underneath the grounded exterior. Which means I wasn’t present and not actually grounded at all. So as I am engulfed, as everyone else is, by this crisis I want to practice being present, so I am actually grounded and solid and not just stepping into a persona that I know so well.

This has been the challenge for me. Now more than ever I need to step into my adult self and model for my children how to find your way through something that you have no control over. Doing so is a monumental feat as it is so much easier to fall back into the patterns I’ve known for so long, that place I go where I become more of a robot than a person just to get through.

I think that it is likely that there are a lot of other people falling into those same patterns, judging by the insane panic shopping and hoarding. I’m sharing my own journey through this just in case there is someone else out there who is struggling to stay present and steer clear of old patterns. Many of us have experienced traumas that have formed us and the way we approach challenges in our lives. We don’t have to let this be another one.

I’ve learned through years of being a very fearful person, that often it’s not actually the thing itself that is terrifying, it’s the fear of the thing. Fear is debilitating, it’s irrational, it’s all-consuming. It serves a purpose—hardwired into us to keep us safe, but when it has total control, it can hijack the rational brain and keep us from making solid decisions. We are all vulnerable. The nature of being human is vulnerability. We can harness that feeling that is so unnerving to tap into our humanity. It is the only way we will get through this.

I’m not an expert. I’m not a healthcare provider. But I can offer words of support, compassion and empathy. If you find yourself in need of these, feel free to contact me at: askme@angelakehler.com.