The biggest source of my anxiety as a kid was school, and I went there every day. No avoidance. I sat in class every day just having panic attacks pretty frequently and just enduring it.
At a point it gets so bad that you just start disassociating as a form of avoidance, and what in the hell are you supposed to do to stop that?
“Facing your fears” is exceptionally bullshit when it comes to anxiety. You need to actively stop having negative experiences with something to quell anxiety with it.
I’m tired of people pretending all you need is exposure because it’s really going to fuck people over when they “expose” themselves repeatedly to anxiety triggers and find their situation becoming worse.
I’ve been just getting into exposure therapy for social anxiety the last few weeks/months. The cycle he describes in the video is the same thing my therapist helped me understand. It was definitely something going on in my life that I did not realize. Avoidance leading to higher anxiety in the long run is a really insidious process.
The exposure therapy to break the cycle has not been as simple as “just face the stuff you need to face” – there’s a much more gradual and controlled ramp-up, and lots of discussion of thoughts and emotions along the way. But it does seem to be starting to work for me.
And I’m someone who is mildly skeptical about some types of therapy, so I did some research beforehand, and there does seem to be pretty good evidence that this process works for a lot of people. This and Cognitive Behavioral Therapy seem to have pretty solid scientific footing. If you’re struggling with anxiety, I do recommend finding someone who can help you through these techniques/frameworks.
The biggest source of my anxiety as a kid was school, and I went there every day. No avoidance. I sat in class every day just having panic attacks pretty frequently and just enduring it.
At a point it gets so bad that you just start disassociating as a form of avoidance, and what in the hell are you supposed to do to stop that?
“Facing your fears” is exceptionally bullshit when it comes to anxiety. You need to actively stop having negative experiences with something to quell anxiety with it.
I’m tired of people pretending all you need is exposure because it’s really going to fuck people over when they “expose” themselves repeatedly to anxiety triggers and find their situation becoming worse.
I’ve been just getting into exposure therapy for social anxiety the last few weeks/months. The cycle he describes in the video is the same thing my therapist helped me understand. It was definitely something going on in my life that I did not realize. Avoidance leading to higher anxiety in the long run is a really insidious process.
The exposure therapy to break the cycle has not been as simple as “just face the stuff you need to face” – there’s a much more gradual and controlled ramp-up, and lots of discussion of thoughts and emotions along the way. But it does seem to be starting to work for me.
And I’m someone who is mildly skeptical about some types of therapy, so I did some research beforehand, and there does seem to be pretty good evidence that this process works for a lot of people. This and Cognitive Behavioral Therapy seem to have pretty solid scientific footing. If you’re struggling with anxiety, I do recommend finding someone who can help you through these techniques/frameworks.
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