07-20-2017, 06:09 AM
(This post was last modified: 07-20-2017, 06:10 AM by APeacefulWarrior.)
Ugh. That's a really bad situation. For one thing, my own experience is that those who crave fear are rarely -if ever- truly satiated. Some sort of banishing ritual might be of use, but only if the person in question was onboard with the idea and believed it would be useful as well.
Honestly, I find this sort of thing almost always comes down to the individual. Fear and paranoia can easily become self-reinforcing cycles which are incredibly difficult for someone to break out of. They can even start to have an additive quality, since fear releases adrenaline and various other brain chemicals\hormones that the brain then becomes accustomed to having high levels of. If someone is trapped in such a cycle AND has no particular desire to break out of it, then trying to "get through to them" becomes incredibly difficult.
In the meantime, they become a magnet for anyone or anything looking to exploit them.
There's really no easy answer for this one. Plenty of love and compassion from their friends\family would be a prerequisite (since isolation is to fear like oxygen is to fire) but beyond that... possible remedies could range from professional psychiatric treatment, to some sort of intervention cutting them off from the sources of their fear, to maybe even experiments with trying to give them Ecstasy or other feel-good drugs. These are all things I've heard of helping but, again, it's going to be very personalized. Meditation, of course, would be another option - but one which would be difficult for them to utilize without being somewhat stabilized first.
I hate being a downer on this one, but there really isn't a one-size-fits-all or easy solution to someone who's gotten drawn too far into that black hole.
Honestly, I find this sort of thing almost always comes down to the individual. Fear and paranoia can easily become self-reinforcing cycles which are incredibly difficult for someone to break out of. They can even start to have an additive quality, since fear releases adrenaline and various other brain chemicals\hormones that the brain then becomes accustomed to having high levels of. If someone is trapped in such a cycle AND has no particular desire to break out of it, then trying to "get through to them" becomes incredibly difficult.
In the meantime, they become a magnet for anyone or anything looking to exploit them.
There's really no easy answer for this one. Plenty of love and compassion from their friends\family would be a prerequisite (since isolation is to fear like oxygen is to fire) but beyond that... possible remedies could range from professional psychiatric treatment, to some sort of intervention cutting them off from the sources of their fear, to maybe even experiments with trying to give them Ecstasy or other feel-good drugs. These are all things I've heard of helping but, again, it's going to be very personalized. Meditation, of course, would be another option - but one which would be difficult for them to utilize without being somewhat stabilized first.
I hate being a downer on this one, but there really isn't a one-size-fits-all or easy solution to someone who's gotten drawn too far into that black hole.