Deborah's Reviews > The Gift of Fear: Survival Signals That Protect Us from Violence

Since an acquaintance committed murder-suicide some years ago, I have often wondered what I might have done to avert that outcome. I'd cautioned my friends that I saw darkness in him, and even asked his girlfriend--earnestly, not in jest--why she was dating him when she could easily nab someone not-scary. She laughed off my questions, as did friends who told me I was "being too hard on him" or not "giving him enough credit" when I tried to explain my concerns. I couldn't articulate why he made me uneasy in ways that seemed reasonable from the outside. Things like "his smile never, ever reaches his eyes" were too "soft" to make much of an impression on anyone.

When I got the call, it's thus that I was horrified but not surprised. I felt a terrible guilt, because I'd seen something brewing but hadn't been able to change it. I wondered, "What could I have done to change the outcome?" Even a decade later, it's still something I wonder.

This book was recommended to me by two people as a life-changer, so I picked it up with little to no idea about its content. I had no idea it would so directly address the questions I've carried with me for the last decade.

I was delighted to discover it is a guidebook for listening and responding to fear, which aids survival when we listen to it instead of suppressing it as "irrational" or "unreasonable." It is, one learns as reading this book, the gift that protects us when logic takes flight. The caveat is that we must be open to, not dismissive of, its cues to benefit from it.

A dear friend called me shortly after I'd finished reading this book. She was concerned about troubling behavior displayed by her boyfriend. Thanks to having just finished The Gift of Fear, I was able to state that her fear was not only warranted but should be acted on. I summarized what I felt were key points from TGoF about why she should not dismiss her concerns but should instead make safety and distance from him her priority. I read aloud a list of thirty warning signals that one's SO might irreparably harm them. After I'd read the list, my friend said, "He's done at least 25 of those. At least."

Fortunately, because this book is intended as a guide, not a theoretical reflection, it includes information on getting assistance to escape an abusive relationship before it's too late (as well as information about avoiding such relationships by responding to warning signs evidence by abusers). Together, we used that information and put her on a path hopefully out of harm's way.

Since intuition guided me well in my childhood, I've been a lifetime fan. I've even told friends they shouldn't deride it because it's not based so much on sixth sense as human assembly and assessment of actual environmental cues. And yet, there have been many other situations where I've tried to suppress this intuition as inconvenient, or mistaken, or baseless.

After reading this book, I'm much less likely to discount such an intuition, for reasons you'll understand if you give this book a shot. I hope very, very much that you will give it a shot, because, as its author explains, most human violence gives clear and early warning indicators. To benefit from them up front, we must be willing both to hear those warning indicators and to respond as if we have really heard them.

It's my bet you'll be willing to do both things after reading this book, which I recommend wholeheartedly to everyone, everywhere.