The Choice

acknowledged that she wanted to feel safe, that she wanted to be able
to protect herself. She had learned about a women’s self-defense class
beginning soon at the nearby community center. But she delayed
registering. She feared she might not be up to the challenge of ĕghting
off an attack, that a physical confrontation, even in the safe and
empowering environment of a self-defense class, might trigger a panic
attack. She came up with all kinds of reasons not to pursue what she
wanted, in an effort to manage her fear—the class might be too
expensive, or it might already be full, or it might not have enough
participants and might be canceled. With me, she began to work
through the fears underlying her resistance to pursuing what she
wanted. I asked her two questions: What’s the worst that can happen?
and Can you survive it? e worst scenario she could imagine was
experiencing a panic attack in class, in a room full of strangers. We
conĕrmed that the medical release form she would be asked to ĕll out
when she registered for the class would give the staff the information
they needed to support her in the event of an attack. And we
discussed the fact that she had experienced a panic attack before. If it
happened again, she might not be able to stop it or control it, but at
least she would know what was going on. And she already knew from
experience that a panic attack, though frightening and unpleasant,
wasn’t deadly. She could survive it. So Beatrice registered for the class.
But once she was there in the room, in her sweatpants and
sneakers, surrounded by the other women, she lost her nerve. She felt
too self-conscious to participate. She was afraid of making mistakes,
afraid of calling attention to herself. But she couldn’t bring herself to
leave aer getting so close to her goal. She leaned against the wall and
watched the class. She returned for each session aer that, dressed to
participate, but still too afraid. One day the instructor noticed her
watching from the sidelines and offered to coach her one-on-one aer
class. Aerward, she came to see me, her face triumphant. “I could