How My Overwhelming Fear of Losing Control Has Its Roots in Past Trauma

Understanding where I am coming from is helping me take my power back one step at a time

Control issues

Some time ago, I became friends with someone I had met online. We got along like a house on fire through our Snapchat conversations and once even had coffee together. We would talk about everything under the sun with one important difference — he knew me only as Yana and my disinclination to share any further details became a point of contention between us.

He would ask me why I wouldn’t share my real name or social media, as people are wont to, with him. At one point he even called me selfish and disrespectful for being so secretive.

I knew he was hurt by my actions so I decided to end the friendship rather than satisfy his curiosity.

What people may take away from this, is I am toying with people or wasting their time. That is not true. The reason is I have serious trust issues that stem from past trauma which makes it hard to form friendships especially when I feel I can’t control the outcome.

For example, I knew my friend, whom I mentioned above, was becoming romantically interested while I only saw him in a nonromantic light despite my telling him several times. Keeping him at arm’s length was the only way I felt like I could control the situation to be able to avoid a potentially messy outcome.

But being called selfish made me delve further into why I had this immense fear of giving control away to people who might use it, at least in my paranoid mind, to hurt me in some way.

I made several revelations through my research which have made me understand not only where my overwhelming need for control originated from and why it is, in essence, a protective measure.

Control as a trauma response

For someone who attempted to take her own life, my second chance at life is something I take seriously.

My mantra, something I fiercely uphold, is simple and it is I will never be in a position of helplessness or powerlessness again. Even if that meant trying to control minute details of my life and interpersonal relationships.

The major difference is I was not born like this but rather it became a coping mechanism stemming from trauma as psychologist Jamie Cannon explains: “One of the most crucial effects of experiencing chronic powerlessness is an overwhelming urge to exert control at every turn. In some ways, this is a self-protective measure to avoid being further traumatized — burn the bridge yourself so at least you can see it coming, so to speak.”

Can you relate?

I recall being diagnosed with flat affect as a young woman. Flat affect is a condition where the person suffering from it has a lack of emotional expression such as smiling or frowning. It is probably the result of having been sucked dry by whatever it is they are facing in life and can only look on, powerless to do anything to stop the ongoing trauma.

In my case, there came a point where I nearly lost the battle against the will to live. Perhaps it was not my time to go, however, that day marked a major turning point because that was when I chose to fight back by taking control of my life and power back.

It has been several years now and yes, I am happy to report tremendous progress but the fact remains that healing is not linear and there are always aspects to your trauma that you have not yet fully uncovered in order to be able to do the necessary healing work.

According to Jamie Cannon, recognizing the hallmark signs of control that resulted from chronic trauma and how they impact our responses to situations is essential to the healing process as well as in developing resilience.

3 ways chronic trauma has resulted in my overwhelming fear of losing control

Don’t come any closer

I am an extremely private person who shies away from social media in general and group photos in particular. I share so little about who I am in my personal life that I can count the people who really know me by the fingers on one hand. It is not because I am a recluse or misanthrope but on account of serious trust issues. When you have lived a life where there was no concept of privacy, with your phone conversations taped and the mileage on your car checked, you don’t come out of such a situation without damage.

In other words, I find it very difficult to trust someone out of fear of finding myself in a position of vulnerability as this excerpt explains: “They seem avoidant of intimate relationships. It is often hard to get to know them, which, for them, is a safeguard against being hurt again…Their fear of information being used to take advantage of them in some way usually overrides their desire to open up to others.”

Burning bridges without a second thought

Pride does not factor in any way when I say I am the queen of burning bridges without a second thought. I have so many boundaries in place that even a perceived crossing of a line can result in drastic actions such as blocking, unfriending, and ghosting.

A little extreme, I know but that used to be the only way I could see myself staying in control of a situation that is showing signs of getting away from me.

This state of hypervigilance is quite common, unfortunately, among those who have suffered chronic trauma as this excerpt explains: “Trauma survivors live with the imprint of trauma on their nervous systems. They learned early on to stay prepared for danger at all times. They may learn to check out and feel numb or nothing at all to cope with overwhelming emotions.”

Rigid standards mean less room for uncertainty

I have routines that I adhere to and which give me a sense of predictability and safety. However, the moment something unexpected happens, or I don’t have all the information I need down to the last detail, my stress levels shoot up along with anxiety and the tendency to get upset.

Not cool, I know but thus is the life of a person with control issues as this excerpt explains: “Most people feel scared or anxious when they think about all the things that are out of their control — and all the things that can go wrong, the bad things that can happen to themselves or their loved ones…so you may overcompensate by tightly controlling your own behavior or appearance…”

As in the case of my former friend that I mentioned in the beginning, my need for control has negatively impacted both my personal and professional relationships resulting in hurt feelings and wrong assumptions as to why I am the way I am.

What can help

Psychotherapist Sharon Martin suggests three steps to stop being so controlling:

• Being aware of controlling behaviors
• Delving deeper into the underlying causes
• Challenge fear-based thinking and replace them with calmer, more grounded thoughts.

I am currently working on the third one and am happy to report a modicum of success as a result of these helpful tips. When someone I was supposed to meet this weekend informed me at the last minute that we would have to push back the date I had been looking forward to, I surprised myself by reasoning that even if it did throw a wrench in my plans, a delay didn’t necessarily mean the date was a dud.

And it wasn’t. We did go out, albeit a little later than planned, and it surprisingly turned out to be a most memorable evening.

In addition to the above, I am also working on breathing exercises to calm myself down when I feel like things are starting to unravel and if nothing works I try reciting the serenity prayer: “God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change; courage to change the things I can; and wisdom to know the difference.”

Related reading by Yana BG: