Fable

The Characteristics Of A Fury

Where It Comes From, Where It Goes.

Furies interrupt good moments. They distort reactions. They evoke painful flashbacks - from microseconds to minutes to nights of rumination. If we want our normal state to reflect qualities of contentedness and well-being and joyful engagement, then Furies are a category of significant threat to this state.

There’s but three
Furies found in spacious hell
But in a great man’s breast
Three thousand dwell

- John Webster, The White Devil¹

We hide pain to go about our normal lives. Furies embody the neglected pain. Part of us dismisses the Fury to feel normal. Another part is preoccupied by it, waiting to heal.

Characteristics of a Fury:

1. A colorful term
2. An emotional wound
3. A trauma object - ▼
4. An ache in the breast
5. A dreaded memory
6. An unintegrated trauma experience
7. A consequence of avoidance
8. Attachment sensitivies
9. Social position sensitivities
10. A trigger of an inappropriate emotional reaction (indicating hyper- or hypo- arousal)
11. A intrusive flashback, however short
12. The pain side of a split experience
13. A maladaptive reflex, somatic marker, script, belief or schema
14. A dramatic force in a story of personal suffering
15. An aspect of helplessness
16. The fear of annihilation

We hide pain to go about our normal lives. This behavior is adaptive.

Furies embody this neglected pain. We are resilient to our Furies.

Some events are so stressful, our brain does not immediately integrate the emotional turmoil with the antiseptic account. We note account, stifle the emotion, move on.

For example, you are giving a presentation, stressful enough. Your coworker makes an insulting aside. You note the insult, stifle the rage and continue the presentation.

Later when safe, you reconstitute the event (He said what?!?), relieve the experience (He was such a jerk!) and integrate the story (Just what I expected. Everybody ignores him.). We process.

For the most part, process is automatic and sufficient. We heal rather than suffer trauma (however mild).

With higher stress events, we might need more safety, social support or time to complete the integration process. (“Let me tell you about the jerk at work...”).

This delay-stress-until-later behavior becomes maladaptive if the integration process remains incomplete. The event remains in pieces the Fury and the antiseptic account. These pieces are likely associated with different systems and domains in the brain.

We are defended against the Fury. Part of us dismisses it to feel normal. Another part is preoccupied, waiting to heal.

Because the painful event is broken apart, we cannot integrate it into the autobiography. Our autobiography becomes increasing about our apparently normal self, the part unafflicted by the wounds, fears or humiliations.

By hiding away our woundedness - our collection of Furies - we are additionally threatened. We are hurt by our wounds, anxious about our fears, shamed by our humiliations.

Furies interrupt good moments. They distort reactions. They evoke painful flashbacks - from microseconds to minutes to nights of rumination.

If we want our normal state to reflect qualities of contentedness and well-being and joyful engagement, then Furies are a category of significant threat to this state. These unintegrated crises from our past seek resolution when they detect we are well enough.

Our relationships to the self are less secure when our orientations and experiences become divided between dismissive and preoccupied. We defend this separateness through distorted somatic markers, emotions, beliefs, scripts and personal schema.

Our defensive splits are both adaptive and fundamental to survival. Often we must cut off pain (from a current or past threat) to pursue self-regulation and needed resources (homeostasis²). Other times, we look past pain to maintain normal appearances to others or to ourself.

Our bodies, brains and minds have the innate capacity to integrate isolated trauma experiences, particularly in the presence of others. We can develop our natural abilities to re-pair the matched qualities of dismissal and preoccupation. We can be mindful of the split, contemplate the wound and break down the triggered defenses.

We become resilient.

Resolution of a traumatic experience improves self-regulation, reduces threats to our state of well being and improve the sense of perspective, ownership and agency.

In other words...

You are engaged in one of your passions - writing, running, a morning discussion over coffee. Your natural flow experience is interrupted by a flash of disturbing imagery. You quickly drive the imagery out of your mind and return to what you where doing. That flash is a Fury.

She won’t let me talk. I feel invisible...

You are stewing from a recent argument. Suddenly, you recall and old argument with your mother. That memory is a Fury.

Let me tell you about how my mother controlled my life and made me feel such shame...

You missed a doctor’s appointment - again. You spend $150 on new calendars and time management software then spend two days setting up a new system of detailed reminders. A Fury put you to work.

I have this great system so I never miss appointments or break promises...

You buy a fancy outfit before going to a holiday party. The more dazzling you look, the less people will see your Furies, particularly you!

I can’t let people know I cannot afford Christmas. I must to appear joyful and look good.

“It wasn’t so bad, the car crash,” you say as you show your new Volvo to a friend. “I hit my head on the the windshield. It cracked.”

“You head?”

“The windshield.” You push the skin on you forehead together. “The doc says I’ll be pushing shards of glass our for a month. But you know, all’s well that ends well.”

Wherever the pain and the terror lie lives a rather large Fury.

I have a Volvo. Maybe I should have gotten a Hummer. Then I might be able to drive by the crash site.

Your girlfriend says you are always on your computer. Your boyfriend says you always dismiss his efforts to help you with problems. A Flock of Furies triggers panic...

I’ll be alone. When I go to the hospital, no one will come and visit.