{Spoilers from “Frozen”}
Ok, so if you’ll allow me to be weird for a bit, I’m going to compare Elsa’s fear of her power to anxiety attacks. I know, I know, but just bare with me...and think about it for a moment.
After she hurts Anna, Elsa is terrified of hurting anyone again. She locks herself away and doesn’t want anything to do with people.
After discovering anxiety/panic symptoms, people tend to want to do the same. Lock ourselves in our rooms or our houses and avoid things that cause the symptoms.
At the party, she’s perfectly fine until Anna starts asking her about her power. She gets overloaded and stressed and when Anna takes her glove-and pushes her too hard-she looses control.
If you have anxiety, you can be fine one moment and then suddenly overwhelmed the next. You want to escape but-not unlike Elsa-you can’t before it’s too late and an attack sets in.
Then what do you do? It’s all you CAN do to attempt to “conceal it, don’t feel it. Don’t let it show.”
When she runs away, builds her tower, and finds her “freedom”...that’s like when we finally get away and convince ourselves that staying out of those situations is the best and easiest way to avoid the symptoms that not only hurt us, but scare us witless.
The scene between Anna and Elsa in “For the First Time in Forever (reprise)” is not only my favorite from the movie, but it speaks to me unlike many secular songs I have heard. “For the first time in forever, I finally understand. For the first time in forever, we can face this hand in hand. We can climb down this mountain together, you don’t have to live in fear. Because for the first time in forever, I will be right here.”
When I really listened to this, it made me want to cry. To know that someone it willing to stand by you, and face it with you, is a feeling unlike any other. And there was only one person for the longest time that really seemed to understand and want face it with me. It’s something that I will always be thankful for. For the rest of my life; it’s something that I will never forget.
When she discovers that love is what can thaw the winter, and can help her control her power...that’s like when we discover that hiding from it is NOT the answer, but turning to someone that loves us and wants with all their heart to understand and to help us overcome...THAT is the real way to help calm our anxious hearts.
My anxiety has been the topic of many tear filled (for her) and symptom filled (for me) conversations between me and my spiritual mother over this past year.
She wants to understand, almost as desperately as I wish she could.
And although I try my very best to explain, it’s so difficult a thing to understand if you haven’t experienced it.
But weather they can understand exactly or not, having someone to talk to-that will listen at any time of the day or night-that loves you with all their heart, like you were there own...it’s a blessing that not many have. But I am one of few, and I am so thankful. Because I know that she will always be there, no matter what.
That’s why I like to compare Elsa’s fear of her powers to my anxiety. Because love and understanding is the way to take control of both.
