When things are actually less scary than they appear, but your heart won't believe it.
Disclaimer: I am not a mental health professional, just a person who is musing about brains and feelings and relationships and how people support one another and how we're all, like, one big family, maaaaaan.
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A person having sucky feelings does not necessarily mean that Everything Is Awful And Terrifying (though it can do, obviously), but can just mean that their brain is being a jerk right now and that they need to give it time to adjust to the idea that things are not awful and terrifying. One's instincts can go into Awful And Terrifying mode for lots of reasons, and being in an awful and terrifying situation is just one of them.
Sometimes they have been in an Awful/Terrifying situation very recently, or been submerged in Awful/Terrifying memories/stories/warnings, or just had their certainty that things aren't going to take a turn for the Awful/Terrifying shaken away. The instincts that rise up in those situations are designed to keep a person alive in the potential Awful and Terrifying situations- because the concequences for percieving danger when you're safe are generally less dire than the concequences for thinking you're safe when you're in danger.
In the false-alarm type-situation, it generally sucks for everyone involved - someone feeling unsafe generally isn't too happy or sure of themselves, especially when there isn't anywhere to place blame in the present (after all, their brain is being a jerk, but it is trying to do what it thinks is neccessary for its host's survival), and the people around them trying to help and often inadvertantly making things worse for reasons they can't percieve*, and then getting angry or frustrated or upset and confused themselves, sometimes at the person experiencing the distress in the first place.**
* (Danger! Someone wants me to feel safe? That means being lulled into false security DOYOUWANTMETODIE! The person is now backing off and giving me space? They can't be relied upon to protect me from the DANGER! They're asking me what I want them to do? Trying to manipulate me! When one (or one's loved one)'s brain is being a jerk, often there isn't any way to 'win', or any 'right' choice, and you just have to muddle through as best as you can and try to gain insight into what the fuck it thinks it is doing and why until it calms the fuck down and explains it to you. I hear that councelling can help, but I don't have experience with that.)
** (Tip: that's the route that is pretty much always the wrong choice, even when there are no right choices. Fit your own oxygen mask first- even if you really want to help, you can't unless your own injuries are also being seen to. People attempting to be Team Me for a person who is hurting generally need their own Team Me that doesn't entirely consist of people who are hurting, because they will need support from people with the spoons to give it without being triggered into feeling worse again when they're in over their head.)
We've got a bit of a worrying thing in our little circle at the moment where hurting people are turning to each other and re-hurting them while trying to get help with their hurts, and it's going to escalate rather than diffuse if we're not very careful. It is okay and useful to take a rest, do something to free up your mind like music or knitting or maths problems or hemming things, and just let your mind sort itself out a bit while you aren't directly paying attention to it. Also, widening the circle a bit- even if the problem your friend is dealing with is something they don't want widely known, you can say '[friend x] has a problem which is causing stress in [these ways]' as the entire context, and then talk about your own feelings.
Choosing people to talk to is a bit of an art, as you want to diffuse the feelings and sort them out rather than just make everyone feel terrible- and with a lot of people you have to be very clear that they don't have to be your confidant just because you want them to be. You can go and find someone else to talk to- even if you need to be hugged or similar until you can find them. 'No, I can't hear this right now' is actually pretty hard to say unprompted (especially when someone is crying at you, and especially especially when their words are taking you back to the Everything is Awful and Terrifying place). Fight, Flee or Freeze as catagorisation of danger-responses is a thing for a reason- and saying 'No!' counts under 'fight'. You know, the one people only tend to pick if they think they'll win.
I also tend to find that writing essays about my feelings tends to help me understand what they are, some of where they're coming from, and maybe a bit of what might help to deal with them. (Which, if you're reading this, you read my LJ and so know that.) Knowing whether you want to talk to someone so that they can help you with solutioning or just to listen to you and make comforting noises tends to help the conversations be productive rather than frustrating- though sometimes you want a bit of each because you're still mixed up, and that's okay too. I think I'm mostly at the stage where I want comforting noises and repeated confirmation that I'm still in touch with what is actually happening - a bit like the relationship equivelent of whenever I have my antidepressant dose increased and keep checking in with people to make sure that I'm not hallucinating stuff.
(So far, I haven't been, aside from the usual short auditory ones that I've always had every so often- it's just that for some reason I notice weird stuff happening around me around those times, and when I point it out to people they go 'huh, I wonder why that's happening?' I have a theory that a lot of people tend to get brain-wierd around the same times due to enviromental triggers, and that some types of people start doing/creating wierd stuff to make themselves feel better at the same times that I finally get my meds kicking in... and this is off-topic now.)
TL;DR: 'My brain thinks that everything is awful and terrifying' doesn't neccessarily mean that everything is actually awful and terrifying.
Edited to add: This shouldn't be taken to be in defense of gaslighting- only the person having the emotions gets to decide whether they're actually in an unsafe situation that they don't understand, or whether their brain is just being a jerk. Answering someone who comes to you saying that they're having the sucky-feelings with 'are you sure your brain isn't just being a jerk' is more than a bit dickish. This is about the situation when your brain is saying 'alarm!' when there isn't anything tangible to react to, not the situation where 'fix the solution' is a possible response.
*
A person having sucky feelings does not necessarily mean that Everything Is Awful And Terrifying (though it can do, obviously), but can just mean that their brain is being a jerk right now and that they need to give it time to adjust to the idea that things are not awful and terrifying. One's instincts can go into Awful And Terrifying mode for lots of reasons, and being in an awful and terrifying situation is just one of them.
Sometimes they have been in an Awful/Terrifying situation very recently, or been submerged in Awful/Terrifying memories/stories/warnings, or just had their certainty that things aren't going to take a turn for the Awful/Terrifying shaken away. The instincts that rise up in those situations are designed to keep a person alive in the potential Awful and Terrifying situations- because the concequences for percieving danger when you're safe are generally less dire than the concequences for thinking you're safe when you're in danger.
In the false-alarm type-situation, it generally sucks for everyone involved - someone feeling unsafe generally isn't too happy or sure of themselves, especially when there isn't anywhere to place blame in the present (after all, their brain is being a jerk, but it is trying to do what it thinks is neccessary for its host's survival), and the people around them trying to help and often inadvertantly making things worse for reasons they can't percieve*, and then getting angry or frustrated or upset and confused themselves, sometimes at the person experiencing the distress in the first place.**
* (Danger! Someone wants me to feel safe? That means being lulled into false security DOYOUWANTMETODIE! The person is now backing off and giving me space? They can't be relied upon to protect me from the DANGER! They're asking me what I want them to do? Trying to manipulate me! When one (or one's loved one)'s brain is being a jerk, often there isn't any way to 'win', or any 'right' choice, and you just have to muddle through as best as you can and try to gain insight into what the fuck it thinks it is doing and why until it calms the fuck down and explains it to you. I hear that councelling can help, but I don't have experience with that.)
** (Tip: that's the route that is pretty much always the wrong choice, even when there are no right choices. Fit your own oxygen mask first- even if you really want to help, you can't unless your own injuries are also being seen to. People attempting to be Team Me for a person who is hurting generally need their own Team Me that doesn't entirely consist of people who are hurting, because they will need support from people with the spoons to give it without being triggered into feeling worse again when they're in over their head.)
We've got a bit of a worrying thing in our little circle at the moment where hurting people are turning to each other and re-hurting them while trying to get help with their hurts, and it's going to escalate rather than diffuse if we're not very careful. It is okay and useful to take a rest, do something to free up your mind like music or knitting or maths problems or hemming things, and just let your mind sort itself out a bit while you aren't directly paying attention to it. Also, widening the circle a bit- even if the problem your friend is dealing with is something they don't want widely known, you can say '[friend x] has a problem which is causing stress in [these ways]' as the entire context, and then talk about your own feelings.
Choosing people to talk to is a bit of an art, as you want to diffuse the feelings and sort them out rather than just make everyone feel terrible- and with a lot of people you have to be very clear that they don't have to be your confidant just because you want them to be. You can go and find someone else to talk to- even if you need to be hugged or similar until you can find them. 'No, I can't hear this right now' is actually pretty hard to say unprompted (especially when someone is crying at you, and especially especially when their words are taking you back to the Everything is Awful and Terrifying place). Fight, Flee or Freeze as catagorisation of danger-responses is a thing for a reason- and saying 'No!' counts under 'fight'. You know, the one people only tend to pick if they think they'll win.
I also tend to find that writing essays about my feelings tends to help me understand what they are, some of where they're coming from, and maybe a bit of what might help to deal with them. (Which, if you're reading this, you read my LJ and so know that.) Knowing whether you want to talk to someone so that they can help you with solutioning or just to listen to you and make comforting noises tends to help the conversations be productive rather than frustrating- though sometimes you want a bit of each because you're still mixed up, and that's okay too. I think I'm mostly at the stage where I want comforting noises and repeated confirmation that I'm still in touch with what is actually happening - a bit like the relationship equivelent of whenever I have my antidepressant dose increased and keep checking in with people to make sure that I'm not hallucinating stuff.
(So far, I haven't been, aside from the usual short auditory ones that I've always had every so often- it's just that for some reason I notice weird stuff happening around me around those times, and when I point it out to people they go 'huh, I wonder why that's happening?' I have a theory that a lot of people tend to get brain-wierd around the same times due to enviromental triggers, and that some types of people start doing/creating wierd stuff to make themselves feel better at the same times that I finally get my meds kicking in... and this is off-topic now.)
TL;DR: 'My brain thinks that everything is awful and terrifying' doesn't neccessarily mean that everything is actually awful and terrifying.
Edited to add: This shouldn't be taken to be in defense of gaslighting- only the person having the emotions gets to decide whether they're actually in an unsafe situation that they don't understand, or whether their brain is just being a jerk. Answering someone who comes to you saying that they're having the sucky-feelings with 'are you sure your brain isn't just being a jerk' is more than a bit dickish. This is about the situation when your brain is saying 'alarm!' when there isn't anything tangible to react to, not the situation where 'fix the solution' is a possible response.