How to Deal with a Fear of Being Murdered

Breaking Free of Fear

Take steps to ensure your physical safety. Regardless of your fear, you should always ensure the safety of yourself and those around you. There are things you can do to help control the safety of your surroundings. Lock exterior doors and windows. Leave lights on at night, or use night lights. Keep a cell phone with you. Install an alarm system in your home.

Be prepared if you live in a dangerous neighborhood. It is a reality that some areas are prone to violence. You must be diligent about creating a sense of safety for yourself. In addition to the items listed above there are things you can do to guard against violence: Always walk with another person. Never walk alone. Avoid walking near dark areas, alleys and bushes. If you need to walk in the street be mindful of cars passing by as they may not see you. Wear reflective clothing if you are walking at night so you will be seen. Join neighborhood watch groups that focus on keeping your streets safe. You might make some friends and enjoy the experience of fighting crime. If you are approaching your car stick the individual keys on your keyring between your fingers, like a cat's claws. Position each facing out so you could use it as a weapon to defend yourself. Carry a loud alarm that you can set off in case someone approaches you against your will.

Learn to defend yourself. Feeling physically vulnerable and defenseless can cause anxiety. Learning self-defense techniques may help you feel stronger and better able to protect yourself from possible dangers. Consider taking martial arts or kickboxing classes. Physical activity will help manage stress and build confidence.

Change your thoughts. When you find yourself thinking about these fears, look for ways to think about something else. Obsessive thoughts only get worse if you let them. Distracting your own thoughts can help stop the cycle of anxiety that comes with overthinking your fears. Go for a walk or have a conversation with a friend to help refocus on something more pleasant.

Educate yourself. Read statistics about actual incidents of crime in your residential area. You will see that there are very few murders in your area when considering the size of the population. The goal is to give yourself a dose of reality so you can build healthier thoughts. Research indicates the factors that contribute to a fear of crime are: gender, age, race, lack of neighborhood cohesion, lack of confidence in the police, levels of crime, experience of victimization, perception of risk and assessment of offense seriousness.

Face your fear. Determine what you are afraid of and challenge it. Identifying specific fears will help you focus on finding a solution. Sit down and make a list of the things that lead you to be afraid of being murdered. For example, did you witness someone being assaulted or murdered when you were young? If so, you may have formed a fear that you will be murdered too. Challenge your fears by listing possible solutions. For example, if you are afraid to take a shower because you think you will be attacked, you could lock the bathroom door and have a friend stand on the other side to warn you if something were to occur. This is a small step and not a long-term solution, but it is a good starting point.

Make a plan of action. Most fears are managed by devising a plan of action. Overcoming a fear of being murdered is no exception. Identify what your main objectives are, set up the steps you will take and follow your plan. Make a list of the things that you believe would contribute to you being murdered. Is your fear related to the neighbors that live down the street who you have never met? Approach your dilemma one step at a time. Perhaps you could ask a neighbor who you trust to tell you what he knows about the neighbor. For example, you could ask, “What are your thoughts about the neighbor down the street? Do you think they are good people?” Working toward a solution will help lessen your fear. Creating a plan of action helps you feel like you can do something to improve your situation. You can work toward a goal of visiting the neighbor to introduce yourself.

Practice being fearless. To overcome a fear of being murdered you need to gradually work your way through the process. Research indicates that overcoming a fear is aided when a person faces the fear in an imagined situation or a live experience. Developing a positive habit is the desired goal. If you are afraid to go into your garage at night then build your courage by first opening the door and standing there for one minute. The next day place one foot inside the door and stand there for one minute. Slowly work your way up to standing in the garage for a few minutes. Body language and specifically body posture can help you feel strong and courageous. Stand in the garage in an authoritative “power pose” stance. For example, place your hands on your hips like a superhero. Stand there a few minutes until the surge of adrenaline makes you feel powerful.

Be open with your emotions. It is important to allow yourself to be vulnerable when you are trying to create change. You are facing some hard truths that might make you feel uncomfortable. Be willing to feel, talk and take action rather than resist. Being open with your emotions entails talking about what it feels like when you are in various situations. Do you get a lump in your throat? Do you feel uneasy and frightened like you on on the verge of panic? Do you have the urge to run away from situations and do you feel so unsafe that you cannot get into your car at night? Holding back your emotions and pretending you don't have reactions is the opposite of what you want to do. Keep in mind that lightening the mood will allow you to feel free. For example, be playful and silly and laugh at yourself. It will set you at ease.

Be aware if your fear is escalating into a phobia. Fear and phobias are not the same thing. When fear escalates to an extreme and irrational level, like if you stop leaving your home because you are afraid you might be murdered, it may be considered a phobia. Once you become educated, you will feel in command of yourself and your fears, which sets you on a path of healing. The physical symptoms of a phobia include: sweating, shaking, feeling lightheaded, having difficulty breathing, panic attacks, crying, shaking, weeping, trembling, being constantly vigilant and never relaxing, avoidance and protective behaviors such as refusing to go out at night, obtain protective measures like watch dogs, electric fences, security systems with alarms. Emotional signs of phobia include: overwhelming anxiety or panic, fear of losing control or going crazy, or knowing you are overreacting but feeling helpless to stop. If you have been victimized in the past, then it is reasonable to expect that you would be fearful. It is when your thoughts, feelings and actions escalate to the levels noted above, you may in fact be experiencing post-traumatic stress disorder. Contact a mental health professional to receive an accurate diagnosis.

Seek Professional Help

Find a therapist. If you are avoiding social contact or feel excessive and unreasonable amounts of anxiety or panic, consider seeking help from a professional therapist. There are times when a normal fear grows into a phobia and must be addressed. Consider selecting a therapist who practices treatment methods such as: Systematic desensitization: A form of classical conditioning that removes a fear response and replaces it with a relaxation response. Hypnotherapy: A form of communicating during hypnosis that facilitates a person’s imagination to alter thought patterns, feelings and sensations. Neuro linguistic programming (NLP): An approach that explores the interplay between your mind, language and how it affects your body and your behavior. Cognitive behavioral therapy: An approach that allows you to examine your thoughts and behaviors to determine ways to balance inaccuracies. It has been shown to be effective with managing anxiety and depression related to phobias.

Learn relaxation techniques. Relaxation helps lower your stress and fear. If fear takes a hold of you prior to or when you are in a private, work or social situation, pause and take a minute to breathe and tap into the relaxation skills you have learned. Relaxation techniques include: Guided imagery: This involves focusing on calming images and can be done by yourself or with help from a therapist. Biofeedback: A technique that trains you to lower your heart rate and blood pressure, which are associated with fear. Breathing exercises: These help to calm the nervous system associated with the fight-or-flight response, which is triggered when you feel fear.

Discover the underlying causes. Real change does not occur without identifying the emotional underpinnings of your behavior. Are you struggling with anxiety, stress, or depression? Work with the counselor to peel back the layers of events and emotions that have gotten you into the struggle. Your fear may be anchored to a trauma that you experienced as a child or as an adult. Talking with a counselor and processing the trauma will help to re-frame and manage your fears. A fear of being murdered can be related to identifiable and treatable disorders such as obsessive compulsive disorder (OCD) and schizophrenia, or may be caused by post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). A counselor or psychiatrist can help identify related disorders and help you deal with them. A psychiatrist can also recommend medications to treat any underlying disorders and help you get past your fears.

Recognize your emotional triggers. When something sets off an emotion and it reminds you of a previous situation that upset you, it is referred to as a trigger. Identifying situations that trigger your fears require personal introspection (the process of directly attempting to access your own internal processes). You can diffuse the feelings by stopping yourself from reacting when your trigger has been activated. Once you stop you can determine if the threat is real or not. For example, you are extremely nervous and afraid that you will ______. Challenge the thought by saying, “You cannot predict the future and you have never _____ before. You can handle this.” Use positive self-talk to calm your thoughts and nerves. For example, if you feel your fear, anxiety or stress increase, tell yourself, “You are fine and you are safe. The chances of my being murdered are highly unlikely. Relax and breathe. Have a good time.”

Set therapeutic goals. Commit to changing your behavior. In both psychotherapy and physical therapy, you will benefit from setting goals. For example, you might establish a goal that you would like to increase the amount of joy in your life by lessening your fear of being murdered. Perhaps you would like to be able to go out at night to events rather than be afraid to go outside when it is dark. Engage fully into the process. Keep moving forward, even when it gets difficult. Your hard work will pay off and leave you with a healthy sense of accomplishment.

Change your beliefs about worrying. To change your beliefs you must analyze and determine whether your worries are actually doing what you believe they are doing. If they aren’t, then it’s time to change. Challenge your beliefs by asking: Do you really feel safer when you worry about being murdered? Is worrying really worth the time and energy you put into it? Does worrying about it lead you to take action, or do you just worry and remain inactive? Once you see that worrying is an ineffective way to manage situations, you can find other ways to get the same results.

Creating a Safer and Healthier Future

Learn to increase your tolerance for uncertainty. It is common for a person who feels fearful to be anxious about uncertain outcomes. This is a struggle because no situation can promise 100% certainty. Therefore, you must learn to become more comfortable with it. Uncertainty is an unavoidable part of your day-to-day life. How you respond to it is where you can make a change. One method would be to act “as if” you are comfortable with uncertainty. First, examine the things you do to avoid uncertainty just to feel more certain. Write down your answers to the following questions: Do you double and triple-check most of the things you do? Do you avoid events or procrastinate a lot? Do you need excessive amounts of reassurance from others? Do you need an abundance of information before making even small decisions? Next, identify the situations in which you feel anxious about uncertainty, and what you do to feel less anxious. Rank the situations on a scale of 1-10 with 10 being the highest level of anxiety, and 1 being the lowest. Next, start with the least anxiety-provoking activity and practice acting “as if” you were tolerant of uncertainty. For example, you could go to a movie without checking the crime rate in the area. Finally, keep a written record of your results. Ask yourself what you did, whether it was harder or easier than anticipated, whether everything turned out well, and how you adapted if it didn’t turn out as you had planned. Writing these things down will help you see the improvements you make and the way to change your behavior.

Continue to build coping skills. You are stronger than you think. You will continue to improve your coping skills as you successfully deal with challenges. For example, take notice of the way you effectively cope with another type of fear in your life and apply the same technique. Also, observe how someone you admire copes with difficult situations. Ask them for suggestions that you can implement. Following a problem solving model will provide you a structure for creating change. You have identified your fear and associated emotions and now you must determine clear objectives, implement them, make adjustments as needed and monitor your progress. One objective may be that you set a schedule and keep a log of how much time you spend worrying about making it safely to school, work or the store. Self-monitoring leads to real change. You can examine your behaviors and develop ways to change them.

Keep life in perspective. It is important to keep the information you hear from others and the media in perspective. If you inundate yourself with negative thoughts and information, it will skew your perception of reality. Pause and think clearly and you will realize that the chances of the same crime happening again or even at all, are minuscule. When you're tempted to believe that the chances of getting murdered are increasing, stop and ask yourself something like: Are they really? And why do I think that? Are those facts credible? Taking the time to question your thoughts can break the cycle of being obsessed with them.

Accept yourself. Personal struggles can leave you feeling bad about yourself. Unfortunately, since feeling fearful involves worrying, you may be worrying that you are worrying too much. Anxiety and worry are a natural part of life, and you can learn to manage it rather than try to eliminate it or feel bad about yourself because of it. The cognitive behavior therapy you may be participating in will help you examine your thoughts and develop new, more effective ways of thinking about yourself as well as helping you manage anxiety and worry.

Let go of what is holding you back. Inhibitions are feelings that make you self-conscious and unable to act in a relaxed and natural way. In order to let go of what is holding you back you must feel safe with yourself, your surroundings and the people around you. Let go by rediscovering your playful side. As they say: laughter is the best medicine. When you play and laugh it increases feelings of freedom, which allows you to feel less anxious and worried. Play and laughter will help you remain positive and optimistic through difficult situations and has been shown to be healing. Schedule regular sessions of play on the calendar: meet with friends; play with children; host events that you enjoy; go with a friend to play golf, or bowl or sing karaoke. Most importantly, surround yourself with playful people.