The themes of anxiety and helplessness in the relational narratives of children of survivors manifest themselves not only through the parents' actual or perceived responses to situations [Responses of Others (RO)] but also through the narrators' own reactions [Responses of Self (RS)]. We have already described the children's perceptions of the parents' vulnerability and suffering that led to the sons' and daughters' need to protect their parents as part of the central relational dynamics of mutual overprotection (Chapter 4). In this chapter, we focus on the narratives that we identify as exemplifying how the parents' anxiety and/or feelings of helplessness are etched in the narrators' emotional memories of their parents and of themselves.

ANXIETY/FEAR

Fear is considered to be a primary emotional experience that is innate and evolutionarily adaptive. Experiencing fear (or any emotion, for that matter) is an extremely complicated process consisting of perception, neurobiological responses, expressive behaviors, and cognitive appraisals. Although most people experience fear relatively infrequently, it is thought to be the emotion that many people dread the most (Izard, 1991). The felt or perceived threat to the individual's security or safety motivates efforts to alleviate the threat and escape from harm. An intense experience of fear is usually vividly remembered for a long time, including the scene associated with the fear experience (Izard, 1991).