Fear Memories Leave Deep Footprints — Why Panic is So Hard to Forget
Extreme Negative Experiences Cut Deep
Extreme negative experiences — being physically attacked by an axe-wielding psychopath, getting pulled underwater by a strong current, being chased by angry wild turkeys (which I swear has never happened to me), or… like a spontaneous panic attack — cut deeply into our psyche and leave heavy footprints across our memory.
That’s how fear works. It leaves its mark so that it will be remembered, so that next time, we will recognize this danger, and maybe, just maybe… we will live to tell the tale.
The problem with this internal alert system is this — the mechanisms in our brain that record and categorize possible threats are, well… they’re not really that smart.
Certainly, they are not sophisticated and selective.
And they tend toward an over-abundance of caution — for good reason. (At one time in our distant past, some of those details might have saved us.)
Unless the source of our fear is extremely clear (“that car almost hit me!”), our brain takes a snapshot of the whole…
