Reinventing Your Life: The Breakthrough Program to End Negative Behavior and Feel Great Again (30 page)

INTERPRETING YOUR
VULNERABILITY
SCORE

10-19 Very low. This lifetrap probably does
not
apply to you.

20-29 Fairly low. This lifetrap may only apply
occasionally
.

30-39 Moderate. This lifetrap is an
issue
in your life.

40-49 High. This is definitely an
important
lifetrap for you.

50-60 Very high. This is definitely one of your
core
lifetraps.

TYPES OF VULNERABILITY

1. Health and Illness
   
2. Danger
   
3. Poverty
   
4. Losing Control
   

The primary feeling associated with the Vulnerability lifetrap is
anxiety.
Catastrophe is about to strike, and you lack the resources to deal with it. This lifetrap is two-pronged: You both exaggerate the risk of danger and minimize your own capacity to cope.

What
you fear varies depending upon the type of the lifetrap. There are four types of Vulnerability. You can be more than one type.

• Health and Illness •

If you belong to the Health and Illness type of Vulnerability you may be a hypochondriac. You worry obsessively about your health. Despite the fact that physicians keep telling you nothing is seriously wrong, you are convinced you are ill, that you have AIDS, cancer, multiple sclerosis, or some other dread disease.

Most people who have panic attacks belong to this type. You constantly scan your body for signs that something is wrong. You are
sensitized
to your body. Any strange sensation, no matter how naturally caused, can trigger panic. Hot weather, cold weather, exercise, anger, excitement, caffeine, alcohol, medication, sex, heights, motion—all can cause sensations that trigger a panic attack.

ROBERT: I had a bad panic yesterday, out of the blue. I was on the train, just sitting there reading a magazine.

THERAPIST: What were you reading about?

ROBERT: Just this article. I don’t remember.

THERAPIST: What exactly were you thinking about when the attack began?

ROBERT: Actually I was thinking about Parkinson’s disease. I was noticing that my hand was trembling holding the magazine, and I was thinking, „What if I had Parkinson’s disease?“

These are the famous words of a panicker:
„What if.“

You are hypervigilant to anything in your environment that is relevant to the possibility of illness. You may read everything you can get on the subject, or you may avoid any mention of illness entirely. Similarly, you may run to the doctor continuously, or you may avoid doctors altogether because you are afraid of finding out that something is wrong. Either way, you are constantly preoccupied with thoughts of illness.

You may avoid activities that give rise to panic. Robert was avoiding all forms of exercise, including sex, when he first came to therapy. The sensations made him too anxious—they were too similar to panic. He had given up playing tennis, which he loves. By trying to Escape his Vulnerability lifetrap, Robert was putting a serious dent in his lifestyle.

It is possible that you have this lifetrap because you actually are physically frail. Perhaps you were sick a lot as a child, so now you have an exaggerated fear of sickness. Or perhaps you had a parent who was sick. However, in order to qualify for this lifetrap, your fears must be excessive and unrealistic
in the present.

• Danger •

If you fit this type, you have an exaggerated concern for your personal safety and the safety of your loved ones. You see the world as fraught with danger at every turn.

WALT: She sits home at night reading all the crime stories in the newspaper. She won’t even go out onto our own driveway at night.

HEATHER: It’s really dark on our driveway. I don’t like to go out at night.

WALT: We have this really expensive burglar alarm system, which she made me get, but she still worries about people breaking in.

HEATHER: People who know what they’re doing can get by burglar alarms. I keep telling him to put window bars on all the downstairs windows but he won’t listen to me.

WALT: It’s ridiculous! We live in a safe neighborhood. We don’t need window bars!

You have a general feeling of unsafety when you are out in the world that is out of proportion to the real level of danger. You are alert to anyone who looks suspicious or dangerous. At any moment you feel that someone might attack you.

You are also afraid of disasters such as car accidents and plane crashes. These are things beyond your control that can happen suddenly. Hence, like Heather, you may avoid traveling. You are afraid of natural catastrophes such as floods and earthquakes. Despite all reasonable odds, you believe something will happen
to you.

WALT: During the Gulf War she wouldn’t even go into the city during the day because she was afraid of a terrorist attack.

HEATHER: They said New York was a prime target!

WALT: Right. So, of all the millions of places and times, they were going to hit us.

This lifetrap is very draining. You are continually tense and vigilant. You believe that if you relax your guard, something bad will happen.

• Poverty •

This is the so-called depression mentality, named for people who were children during the Great Depression of the 1930s. You are always worried about money. You are unrealistically afraid you will go broke and end up on the street.

HEATHER: I know I worry a lot about money. It’s just that I can see us getting older and losing everything. Sometimes I worry that I’ll end up like some bag lady.

No matter how financially secure you become, it still seems like a small step from your current financial situation to utter ruin.

You often think in terms of safety cushions. You feel that you have to have a certain amount of money to be safe. This gives you the assurance that you are not going to collapse below a certain point. You are likely to save a certain amount, and to become extremely anxious if it drops below that amount.

You find it difficult to spend money and you go to extreme lengths to save even a few dollars.

HEATHER: I have to laugh at myself. The other day I went all the way out on Long Island to buy pants because I had a coupon for ten dollars off. Of course I got there and they didn’t have my size. Meanwhile, I had taken a bus and a cab to get there, costing four dollars each way.

You worry needlessly about having enough money to pay your bills (even when you have more than enough money available). You anxiously scan the news for signs of economic recession (even when the economic climate is excellent). These signs serve as evidence that you are right to feel as you do. You worry about people in your family losing their jobs (even when there is no logical reason). Perhaps you buy excessive amounts of disability and other insurance.

Controlling
money is a big issue for you. You believe that if you relax your grip you will lose control and spend everything. Your financial practices are very conservative. You do not like buying things on credit. You are unwilling to take
any
risks with money because you are afraid of losing it.

You need the money
in case something happens.
Some catastrophe might wipe out everything you have and leave you with nothing. You have to be prepared.

• Losing Control •

This type fears a catastrophe of a more psychological nature—having a nervous breakdown. You fear going crazy or losing control. It also includes many panic attacks.

ROBERT: When I get that unreal feeling, I get afraid that I’ll just keep drifting further and further away, that I’ll never come back, and I’ll turn into one of those people who talk to themselves and hear voices. It terrifies me. And I feel totally out of control. I might do anything. I might start running, screaming through the streets, or something.

Perhaps you fear losing control of your body in some way—fainting or getting sick. Whatever you fear, the mechanism is basically the same as in all panic attacks. You seize upon an internal sensation and interpret it in a catastrophic way.

Catastrophic thinking is at the core of all types of the Vulnerability lifetrap. You immediately jump to the worst possible case, and you feel as powerless to cope as a weak, helpless child.

For those of you who suffer from panic disorder, catastrophic thinking
drives
your panic attacks. A panic attack in itself should only last one or two minutes. Your catastrophic thinking makes it last much longer. „What if I am dying, going crazy, losing control
?“—anyone
who thinks that these things are happening is going to have a panic attack.

Escape is of crucial importance in reinforcing this lifetrap. Almost everyone with the Vulnerability lifetrap avoids many situations. Most likely, your avoidance robs you of many of life’s most enjoyable activities.

These are the possible origins of the lifetrap:

ORIGINS OF VULNERABILITY

1. You learned your sense of vulnerability from observing and living with parents with the same lifetrap. Your parent was phobic or frightened about specific areas of vulnerability (such as losing control, getting sick, going broke, etc.).
   
2. Your parent was overprotective of you, particularly around issues of danger or illness. Your parent continuously warned you of specific dangers. You were made to feel that you were too fragile or incompetent to handle these everyday issues. (This is usually combined with Dependence.)
   
3. Your parent did not adequately protect you. Your childhood environment did not seem safe physically, emotionally, or financially. (This is usually combined with Emotional Deprivation or with Mistrust and Abuse.)
   
4. You were sick as a child or experienced a serious traumatic event (e.g., a car crash) that led you to feel vulnerable.
   
5. One of your parents experienced a serious traumatic event and perhaps died. You came to view the world as dangerous.
   

The most common origin is having a parent with the same lifetrap. You learn through modeling.

ROBERT: My mother was a hypochondriac herself. She was always running to the doctor with this complaint or that complaint I think she had panic attacks also. There were a lot of times she wanted to leave places suddenly, and there were a lot of times she wouldn’t go. I know she didn’t like crowds. She was always warning me about everything: „It’s cold, put a sweater on, don’t go out, you’ll catch your death.“ She was always checking me, checking my temperature, looking at my throat. And she was always dragging us to the doctor.

THERAPIST: What about the „going crazy“ stuff? Did you team that from her also?

ROBERT: I guess so in the sense that she was very superstitious. She used to talk about evil eyes and that kind of stuff. I remember when I was a teenager, I was going to the planetarium. You know, to the laser light show. And she told me not to go, that she had heard about a girl who went into a hypnotic trance at the light show and never came out of it. I remember I ended up not going. She freaked me out.

This is a kind of direct transmission of the lifetrap. You learn to feel vulnerable from a parent who feels that way.

A related origin is parental overprotectiveness. Parents who have the Vulnerability lifetrap are likely to be overprotective as well. They see danger everywhere. They give the child the message that the world is a dangerous place.

ROBERT: My mother thought that the world was teeming with germs. She was always cleaning and disinfecting. She would give me dire warnings about sharing food with my friends. Once she found me and my friend Mikey about to become blood brothers. She really flipped out! You would have thought Mikey had the bubonic plague.

This message was compounded by the idea that Robert was not equipped to handle the danger. He was too fragile and he needed his mother to protect him. Without her there to guide him, he was convinced that something bad would happen. He could catch some dread disease or accidentally go into a trance from which he would never return.

Heather had a more unusual pathway to her lifetrap. Both her parents were Holocaust survivors. In their teens, they had been in a concentration camp together.

HEATHER: I grew up in a world in which the Holocaust was a possibility, you know what I mean? It could always happen again. I used to lie awake in my bed and worry that the Nazis were going to break into the house.

Almost everyone in both my parents’families was killed. They had an album of pictures, and almost everyone in it was dead. I used to look at the pictures. There were pictures in it of children just my age.

As you might imagine, Heather’s parents were very protective of her. They taught her to fear people, particularly non-Jews.

HEATHER: They would always tell me not to trust people who weren’t Jewish, even friends and neighbors. I remember when I was in sixth grade, my best friend wasn’t Jewish. My mother used to tell me not to trust her, not to get too close. She told me that when she was a girl in Germany, she saw neighbors turn against her family and suddenly become enemies.

Heather is unable to feel
safe.
The world is too dangerous, people are too dangerous. She walks through the world hypervigilant to danger.

Vulnerability can attach to a number of other lifetraps. If your parents abused you, deprived you, or abandoned you, certainly you felt vulnerable. These events were an assault on your basic sense of safety. Underneath, you are always worried about the bad thing happening again.