When Anxiety Spells Doom: How Harold Camping Makes Us Doubt Ourselves

Tomorrow is Judgment Day, according to the followers of Harold Camping. Believers say they will be taken up to Heaven, while the rest of us anxiously await the apocalypse, come October 21 2011.

I have to ask:

• If the end of the world is tomorrow, why don't more of us believe it?

Anxiety and ego strength

The answer says a lot about the way people deal with self-doubt, anxiety. And this is just one example of catastrophic, prepare-thyselves thinking.

Of course the anxiety that sees people give up their jobs, hand over their life savings, for the likes of David Koresh, or Harold Camping, is enormous.

How does belief influence anxiety?

Belief is central to overcoming anxiety. But the mind is perfectly capable of believing a great many things without proof, or of acknowledging only that which suits an already held belief system/desire.

When confronted by sufficient anxiety, the mind takes whatever turns necessary to cope, even reducing the world to black and white: "on this day, the world will end."

For some people, the flood of panic induced by the thought that they might not be saved, or that they are evil beyond measure because they aren't made of 100% faith/special sauce, is overwhelming.

Anxiety: Apocalypse now

The thought of the end of the world is one so alien, most of us dismiss it. But when someone you trust dictates that it is so, and happening, now, one does not have time to frame a response: In a split second all the terror we feel at the idea of total self-annihilation can come flooding in.

That's a dangerous moment. Especially if you don't have enough support, away from that trusted source, to balance things out.

Most people have family, or friends, or an already well-developed anxiety disorder to depend on, thanks very much. They also have a whole lot of internal things working to counter that anxiety, too: boundary-making skills, the ability to rationalize, etc.

The consequences of anxiety and isolation

Emotional isolation bolsters the belief that one man could predict that which has escaped the rest of humanity for as long as people have been looking forward;

It's about avoidance, and the desire to be spared all future, imagined pain. Which is a powerful desire once it kicks in alongside panic, denial, emotional suppression, and perfectionism.

In the end, whether I believe the end of the world is tomorrow, or 5 billion years away, the fundamental dilemma of how I respond to that remains the same.

The belief systems we use to navigate the world, and guide our decision-making processes, are based, in large part, on that which causes our anxiety. They are designed to protect us but can be used against us because belief is a personal thing: an ego thing.

By threatening someone at the level that they believe it's up to them not only to save themselves come May 21 but to save everyone, you're going to overburden their ego -their primary sense of self- with anxiety. You're going to make demands that induce a sense of powerlessness because any doubt invokes self-reinforcing helplessness, shame, humiliation -not to mention anxiety about exclusion from the communities that love and accept them.

That's a terrible power for anyone to bear.

(Yes, this is armchair psychology. And yes, I'm aware a lot of people believe things like this for many other reasons but in amongst that, and the tin-foil hat brigade, are more than a few who don't have the ego strength/flexibility to deal with double-binds like these.)