In the Big Five Personality test, I score high in neuroticism. Very high.

If you’re not familiar with what neuroticism is, here’s the definition from my assessment:

“People with very high levels of neuroticism are more likely to think that things have gone wrong in the past, are going wrong now, and will continue to go wrong into the future. They are also more likely to be unhappy, anxious and irritable when just thinking or remembering, and when they encounter a genuine problem. They have very low levels of self-esteem, particularly when they are also low in extraversion. Neuroticism is a risk factor for anxiety disorders and depression.

Very high levels of neuroticism are likely to interfere with both success and satisfaction in relationships and career.

YOUR NEUROTICISM: Very High. You are higher in neuroticism than 91 of 100 people.”

Great. That’s all wonderful news. There doesn’t seem to be a good side to neuroticism, except neurotic people might be more likely to survive in dangerous times. In the enneagram, it’s the 6 side of my 7w6 personality. Fear and physical risk loom very big in my mind.

Being this way is seriously challenging – I’m constantly having to grapple with my emotions, talk myself down off ledges, and talk myself through why I don’t have to be afraid of the latest nightmare scenario that my brain concocts. I’m regularly struck with the possibility that the driver of the car going by might just open his window and gun me down, that the noise outside might be someone creeping around the house, that the discomfort in my side might be a tumor. 

I’m a light-headed canary in a coal mine. 

I’ve learned to manage myself, so I can survive the daily intense waves of my personality. I meditate, I practice CBT, I do box breathing, I exercise, I seek distraction, I work, I pray. It’s all a bit of an emotional juggling act. All the time. 

Well, almost all the time. I’m also highly extroverted (thank God), so I also experience intense positive emotion. I’m enthusiastic. I laugh a lot. I feel intense gratitude and love. Being at the top of the roller coaster is great, and it does help compensate for the bottom. The bottom of the coaster, my neurotic, worrying self, sucks. It nags at me and hurts my stomach. It fills me with dread in the face of risky situations. I’ve never liked my neuroticism, always been at odds with my freaking-out side. Except once.

That one time that it kind of saved our lives.

We live in a house that has an old furnace – it still works quite well, but when the energy company fellow came to inspect it, he told me to get a carbon monoxide detector, because old furnaces are pretty notorious for producing the stuff. It’s invisible, you can’t smell it, and it’ll kill you.

Carbon monoxide, what a jerk.

I started buzzing with anxiety over the possibility of carbon monoxide, and I immediately ordered the detector. Couple years passed, and during that time I probably plugged the carbon monoxide detector in a couple dozen times. It would get knocked out, removed when the plug was needed, plugged in an outlet with no power. My vigilance was based completely on the fear, the tightness in my stomach whenever I walked past the device and thought about odorless, deadly carbon monoxide. Images of my children, dead in their beds, would flash through my mind.

Then one night, about 2:00, the detector started beeping.

We silenced the alarm and it didn’t come on again. We waited a minute. Nothing. 

Maybe it was a false alarm? We didn’t have headaches. Besides, it would be a pain to leave our house. We’d have to wake up our daughters, bundle them up, and go out into the snow and knock on a neighbor’s door. Maybe the carbon monoxide detector was getting too old to work properly. After all, it wasn’t going off again.

This all was very plausible. Maybe everything would be fine.

But I was freaking out. My body was trembling from the adrenaline and stress.

This is how I remember it: I stood up straight, and in a loud, authoritative, not-at-all-quavery voice I said “We can’t know if it was a false alarm or not. WE HAVE TO ASSUME THAT IT ISN’T. I’ll go wake the girls.”

A tromp in the snow, a 911 call and a couple of firefighters later, and the man from the power company showed up. He tested our house for carbon monoxide, and then opened up all the windows to air everything out. The levels were high enough, he said, in his opinion the carbon monoxide detector saved our lives that night.

But that’s not quite right.

We were awfully close to ignoring the detector, seeing if it would sound again. It hadn’t saved our lives – my neurotic, freaking-out personality had.

If you’re neurotic like me, you might be tempted to resent your personality. I know, it’s a pain. It’s uncomfortable, and it’s agonizing at times. Remember: very occasionally, under very extreme circumstances, freaked-out is exactly what you need to be. And that’s a comfort, if a small one.

If you’re married to someone who freaks out regularly, who is really focused on proper seatbelt wearing, who can’t stop thinking about the Coronavirus, remember that they go through a daily battle with their emotions, they risk looking like a paranoid idiot, they deal with their own personal freak-outs over and over again, just for that one moment when they can keep everyone safe.

Give them a hug.

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P.S.: If you’re freaking out about carbon monoxide right now, get a carbon monoxide detector. Here’s an affiliate link to the one that saved our lives. I cannot recommend it highly enough. It won’t cost you any more, but it will support this blog.