What is The Dread?
The Dread. That sounds rather odd doesn’t it? It makes dread personal. Like a living thing that comes in and out of my life as it pleases. Well, that’s exactly what it feels like. In author, Stephanie Foo’s excellent book about recovery from CPTSD, What My Bones Know, she coins the phrase, “The Dread.” It struck a chord in me. I can’t think of a better name for this life altering, nagging suffering than, “The Dread.”
Is it anxiety? Is it fear? Is it stress? Is it threat? I would answer that it is all of those things and more. The Dread is the anticipation of anxiety, fear, stress or threat. It comes to me unbidden. A job change? Conflict? Frustration? Technology? The future? Money? Performance? Medical appointments? These things and many more alert The Dread that it is time to show up. And show up it does.
It hangs over everything seeking to destroy anything good or any enjoyment I might have out of life. It makes me afraid of everything; afraid to try, afraid to live. How do I explain this phenomenon? Where does it come from? Why are survivors of early childhood trauma plagued by The Dread?
The Dread is directly connected to the nightmare that was my childhood. As soon as I am old enough to have memory, my mind and emotions have already acclimated to constant threat, terror, and boundary crossing. As a child,The Dread helped me anticipate abuse. It told me to be careful. “Now is the time to go hide until the threat has passed.” I learned to expect dread and it came to live within my heart, even when there was calm. Nothing belonged to me, not even my own body. All I had were my inner thoughts and my abusers even tried to control those. When abuse is unremitting, dread moves in to stay. Even after I grew up and left my abusive family, I continued to live with The Dread.
Our nervous system is hardwired for threat. The Dread’s original purpose was as an alert to danger. It existed for our survival and protection. Eric Gentry, author of Forward Facing Freedom, says that “The Dread (my term) is an automatic response to perceived danger that exists entirely within our own bodies and minds. It is the sympathetic nervous system alerting the fight or flight response.” Because it is so deeply hardwired into our brain, The Dread is a difficult monster to banish.
A survivor friend once shared with me that she just couldn’t get up enough courage to move toward healing. Courage is not the problem. I suspect it is The Dread doing its deadly work in her life again. The Dread becomes a fifty foot wall every time we approach healing. Why? Because in order to dismantle The Dread, you have to stop trying to avoid it. And that feels worse than The Dread does. We blame ourselves for The Dread, or for responding to The Dread. In the words of my favorite therapist, “You are not flawed. You have a wound.” In other words, it is not your fault, and you haven’t caused this.
This blog series about The Dread will run in four parts. 1. What is it? 2. The Lies of The Dread. 3. The Narcissist and The Dread. 4. How to banish The Dread. I hope you’ll stick with me and send your comments and insights via email or the question box on the front page of my website. My next series of podcasts will also be about The Dread. Click and subscribe and leave a comment on Youtube. Defy Trauma, Embrace Joy…let’s banish The Dread forever!
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Rebekah Brown, a native of the south, now resides in the Great American West. Surviving a complicated and abusive family system makes her unique writing style insightful as well as uplifting. Rebekah is the proud mother of two and grandmother of four.
Thanks so much, Rebeka, for putting a name on that monster. I look forward to reading more!
Is there a way to find the rest of the blog series? This has helped me understand why I am having such a hard time reincorporating coping techniques that used to help me so much- it feels like my body and mind put up such a resistance to something that will make me feel better I just couldn’t understand it. Lately, even falling asleep feels scary and unsafe.