The Shapeless Unease: A Year of Not Sleeping

by Samantha Harvey

An article explains how fear and anxiety, often conflated, belong to different parts of the amygdala – fear arises in its central nucleus, which is responsible for sending messages to the body to prepare a short-term response – run, freeze, fight – whereas anxiety arises in the area responsible for emotions, a part which affects longer-term behavioural change. Fear is a response to a threat, anxiety a response to a perceived threat – the difference between preparing to escape a saber-tooth tiger that is here and now in front of you (because it’s always saber-tooth tigers in the examples) and preparing to escape the idea of a saber-tooth tiger in case one appears around the next bend. While fear will quickly resolve – you will run away, fight it or be eaten – anxiety has no such resolution. You will need to stand guard in case, in case. Forever in case. Standing guard will make the perceived threat seem more real, which necessitates a more vigilant standing guard. Fear ends when the threat is gone, while anxiety, operating in a hall of mirrors, self-perpetuates. As a friend once said to me: there is no grace for the imagination. You cannot be saved from an assailant that doesn’t exist.