I have a general anxiety disorder so I take medication. Sometimes I run into a problem when driving. Rather than taking a pill, the alternative that normally works is to focus on my destination, not my driving.

Jeanette Isabelle

I guess I can only speak to my own area here, but for what it's worth, here's my take fom a military POV.

For a short term event,

Training, training and more training. Sounds silly but I can attest to the whole muscle memory theory from personal experience. My situation is not unique. I know there are plenty of LEOs, Military, Paramedics etc on here.
When a drill gets hammered into your brain through enough repetion(whether it be reloading a weapon under stress or Running into a town where everyone else is running out) your brain goes into auto pilot. Something bad happens and you set into motion. You see your body doing things as if from a dream, and things are in slow motion. When things calm down you will not even recall what happened at first. You won't remember it. You will simply....shut off, tune out. I guess it's hard to explain. You are not feeling anxiety because you are somewhere else. The training is what beats the fight or flight response. It is one of the hardest things in the world to try and explain, but its all due to that muscle memory.


Over a long term situation fear and anxiety eventually seeps into even the best trained people. You need to keep active and keep from sitting idle. When you do, you will think, and when you think to much you get the "what if's". This is where I believe the whole positive reinforcement concept works. Push negative thoughts out of your head as soon as they pop in and assess the situation for what it is. It is not good, nor bad. It simply IS and you must deal with it. When you feel the anx rise then you breath deeply (in 2,3,4 out 2,3,4) till the heart stops pounding and you carry on. You have to emotionally detach your self from what you see and complete the job at hand. Trust me, you will have ample opportunity to beat yourself up mentally after your brain switches the autopilot back to manual mode and you brain begins to process stuff again. Sound hard? You bet your a** it is. 16 years in the service and I am still learning how to deal with this stuff.

The first time I came under heavy fire was 2006. It happened so fast I only recall bits and pieces but I remember it being 30 minutes or more before I knew that I actually had p*ss*d myself. A lot of stuffed happened in that time and I don't recall "thinking" about anything. I didn't feel fear. I didn't feel anxiety. I really didn't feel anything. I was scared before the event(waiting for contact) and I was really scared afterwards when I thought about what just happened. But during the event....Nothing. After my second and third time and so on the fear got replaced by a feeling of ??? Hard to explain really. I wish I was better spoken. Calm is the best way to put it. You accept the situation you are in and deal with it as it changes.

I know a lot of my thoughts appear one sided. I view life through the eyes of a soldier so things appear different to me. I have been doing this since the age of 17 and it's all I know. I have been in a rough patch or two and can say that in all honesty it's my training that pulled me up. I can only assume the same would hold true if I were a firefighter, policeman or just a civilian caught it a bad situation. Training and experience. I would imagine that even with all the training a firfighter must enter a burning building or two before he/she really knows how the mind will react.

Confidence dispels fear, Training builds confidence, and experience breeds knowledge.

The greatest anxiety I've faced has come when dealing with some significant health issues my kids experienced. As I imagine would be the case in a larger scale disaster, there comes a time when you need to accept there are things you simply cannot control.

I found that the spiritual component of my life is what gave me peace and helped me not worry when things were rough and uncertain. But that's probably a discussion for a different venue .