{"id":62,"date":"2018-04-02T20:20:54","date_gmt":"2018-04-02T20:20:54","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/ageofanxiety\/?p=62"},"modified":"2018-04-02T20:21:36","modified_gmt":"2018-04-02T20:21:36","slug":"predator-vs-prey-anxiety-turns-violent","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/ageofanxiety\/2018\/04\/predator-vs-prey-anxiety-turns-violent.html","title":{"rendered":"Predator vs. Prey: When anxiety turns violent"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignleft size-medium wp-image-58\" src=\"https:\/\/wp-media.beliefnet.com\/sites\/408\/2018\/04\/owl-eyes-1386933-300x172.jpg\" alt=\"owl-eyes by Kristof Degreef\" width=\"300\" height=\"172\" \/>\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Luna* was worried. about her teenage son, Riley*.\u00a0 The frequent school shootings and ongoing media coverage were stirring up everyone and she wanted to stay connected with him. She knew the teenage brain is a bit like Bertie Bott\u2019s Every Flavour Beans in that you never know what you are going to get.\u00a0 Nonetheless, when Riley revealed that he wondered what the shooter was thinking and how he felt, Luna\u2019s mouth fell open but nothing came out. \u00a0She waited for him to talk about the victims or their families but he was stuck on the shooter. In Luna\u2019s mind, a dark fear took form. Why is Riley so interested in the shooter? Is there something wrong with him?<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>There is nothing wrong with Riley. He is a typical though somewhat impulsive teenager who tends to speak first and think later. He has friends and does well at school but his emotional immaturity has gotten him in more than his fair share of trouble. Before he got to high school and found his niche, he experienced plenty of\u00a0 bullying.\u00a0 Those days are behind him but shaky self-esteem and mild anxiety persist.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>When somebody starts shooting unarmed people, he becomes a predator and everyone else is the prey. This victimizer, whether he\/she is a shooter, a sexual predator or bully often started out as a victim.\u00a0<sup>1<\/sup> Fear is the main component of post-traumatic stress syndrome and being a victim is traumatizing. Since research suggests one of the ways to recover from trauma is to empower yourself,\u00a0 it makes sense that prey\u00a0could see becoming a predator as a way to elevate themselves out of fear.\u00a0<sup>2\u00a0<\/sup>\u00a0In one horrible minute, goodbye anxiety, hello empowerment.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>If Riley is focused on how he would rather be a predator than the prey, he will identify with the shooter even though he lacks violent tendencies.\u00a0 This may also explain why no matter how many children are killed, there is a vocal contingency who decry any attempts to restrict access to guns. They are terrified of anything that could potentially move them towards prey. Forget Prozac, exercise or mindfulness meditation and let me keep my guns.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>Thankfully, Luna did not yell, \u201cwhat\u2019s wrong with you?\u201d at Riley.\u00a0 Once she got over her knee jerk reactions, she recognized his response as the symptom of anxiety that it is. Unfortunately, when it comes to gun violence, we are yelling, \u201cwhat\u2019s wrong with you?\u201d at each other rather than addressing the underlying anxiety that keeps us identifying as either predators and prey.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>Remember, anxiety is just one area we are trying to navigate in this dream we call life.\u00a0 One symptom that looks like it has a hundred facets but underneath there is only one cause, separation. Unhappiness in all its forms is what happens when we feel separated from ourselves and others.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>1 <a href=\"https:\/\/www.cambridge.org\/core\/journals\/the-british-journal-of-psychiatry\/article\/cycle-of-child-sexual-abuse-links-between-being-a-victim-and-becoming-a-perpetrator\/A98434C25DB8619FB8F1E8654B651A88\">https:\/\/www.cambridge.org\/core\/journals\/the-british-journal-of-psychiatry\/article\/cycle-of-child-sexual-abuse-links-between-being-a-victim-and-becoming-a-perpetrator\/A98434C25DB8619FB8F1E8654B651A88<\/a><\/p>\n<p>2 http:\/\/journals.sagepub.com\/doi\/abs\/10.3109\/00048670903270407?journalCode=anpa<\/p>\n<p>*Not their real names.<\/p>\n<p>Post #11<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Luna* was worried. about her teenage son, Riley*.\u00a0 The frequent school shootings and ongoing media coverage were stirring up everyone and she wanted to stay connected with him. She knew the teenage brain is a bit like Bertie Bott\u2019s Every Flavour Beans in that you never know what you are going to get.\u00a0 Nonetheless,&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":619,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-62","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v23.9 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Predator vs. Prey: When anxiety turns violent - Serenity in an Age of Anxiety<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Unaddressed anxiety can flip into violence. We need a third choice beyond being predator or prey.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"noindex, nofollow\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Predator vs. Prey: When anxiety turns violent - Serenity in an Age of Anxiety\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Unaddressed anxiety can flip into violence. 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In addition to her work as a clinical nutritionist, she leads workshops on resolving relationship conflicts and anxiety using principles of wholeheartedness. Kelly also directed an intuition training program for doctors and medical professionals for ten years and co-founded a non-profit to support families of children with developmental delays. After decades of clinical practice using targeted nutrition therapy to tackle complex medical problems, she wanted to focus on problems created by the mind beyond biochemistry. She noticed the mind seems to create endless obstacles to happiness and peace of mind no matter how committed a person is to these goals. Anger, fear, anxiety and loneliness are symptoms the mind needs help as well as opportunities to remember who we really are and why we are here. Kelly is writing a second book tentatively titled, Love in an Age of Anxiety.","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/ageofanxiety\/author\/kdorfman"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/ageofanxiety\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/62","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/ageofanxiety\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/ageofanxiety\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/ageofanxiety\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/619"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/ageofanxiety\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=62"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/ageofanxiety\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/62\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":64,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/ageofanxiety\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/62\/revisions\/64"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/ageofanxiety\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=62"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/ageofanxiety\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=62"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/ageofanxiety\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=62"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}