DISORDERS MAY BE DIFFERENT, BUT EXPLOSIONS ARE THE SAME. Peo-
ple are accustomed to thinking of explosions into anxiety, depression, and
anger as different entities, falling into different diagnostic categories and
requiring different responses. The closer you look, however, the more illu-
sory the differences become. Perhaps the most significant difference is our
reaction. We want to help people who are frightened or sad; angry people
make us want to fight or run away.
All explosions, regardless of which emotion is being expressed, are
caused by rapidly escalating physiological arousal. The arousal is the prob-
lem, not the content. There are times when it is beneficial to listen to what
people have to say about what they’re feeling and why, but the middle of
an explosion is not one of them.
Our first goal is to calm people down. There will be time for talking
things through later.
EXPLOSIONS ARE FAST. They happen so quickly that there is little time
to analyze what’s going on and think about what to do in response. The
speed leads to the illusion that emotional explosions just appear out of the
blue and are totally unpredictable. Not so; it feelsthat way, but your feel-
ings are reactions, and as such are seldom the best indicators of what is
actually going on. Understanding requires calm, and the ability to slow
your perception of events enough to see the chain of causes and effects
more clearly. This feat does not require an altered state of consciousness,
it’s actually a side effect of how your brain operates. The more familiar
you are with what you’re seeing or hearing, the more slowly it appears to
move. Foreign languages, for instance, always sound faster than the one
you speak.
Consider this book a primer in the language of emotion, which will
help you understand and communicate with people who are having a dif-
ficult time understanding and communicating with themselves.
EXPLOSIONS ARE COMPLEX. They are composed of a number of events
occurring simultaneously, at many different levels of experience, both for
the person exploding and for you. Emotional explosions are made of
words, thoughts, feelings, hormones, neurotransmitters, and electrical
impulses. To deal with explosions effectively, you must consider what is
The Blast Zone ❧ 5