Anxiety Disorders .. The "Default Thought" (Episode 92)

SPEAKER_05 0:01

But for people with anxiety disorders, the default thought is how do I feel? Is the anxiety there?

SPEAKER_06 0:07

Is it not? I got like three seconds of ha, and then bam, that default thought would instantly kick in downhill from there. I'm awake, but I'm automatically having that thought and now digging into it to see how I feel to start the day.

SPEAKER_05 0:23

Really high anxiety is frightening. So actually, a safety behavior is to monitor for it. And what comes part and parcel with that is the default thought.

SPEAKER_06 0:32

How do I feel has variations too. Because then when you notice that like I'm not feeling anxious right now, I'm not like inwardly focused, I'm not doing the inward compulsions, then the default thought becomes, but how am I going to feel?

SPEAKER_05 0:44

And you know you're recovered when your default thought is not how you feel. Welcome to Disordered. This is episode 92 entitled Anxiety Changing the Default Thought. My name is Joshua Fletcher, also known as Anxiety Josh, and I'm a psychotherapist who specializes in anxiety and anxiety disorders. I'm a previous sufferer, an author on the topic, and the co-host of this wonderful podcast.

SPEAKER_06 1:16

And I am Drew Linsolata coming to you from New York, Long Island, New York, where I'm also a therapist practicing in the specialization of anxiety and anxiety disorders, often also a former sufferer for many years, also an author and a podcaster. I just whatever what that guy said. Just I'm the same as that guy, except better looking. Anyway, welcome back.

SPEAKER_05 1:35

You're me if you ordered me off Wish.

SPEAKER_06 1:39

I'm Wish.com. I'm the T. You know what it looked like on the photos? Very good. Welcome back, dude. What are we talking about today? Love this topic, right?

SPEAKER_05 1:51

Uh I love this topic. It was something I wrote about actually in my earlier books and kind of forgot about it, but its importance is monumental. And the more I think about it, um, I think it's yeah, it's essential for anxiety recovery. The default thought. So this ties into we did earlier episodes of on the I'm obsessed with my anxiety. We did episodes on the inwards compulsion, episodes on attention. But I wanted to talk today about the default thought. And what I mean by that is, you know, for people who wake up in the morning, you know, the normies, their default thought might might be, what am I having for breakfast? For people at work and they're on their dinner break and they're suddenly not distracted, their default thought might be, you know, I wonder what time I'm meeting my friends later, or I wonder what I'm gonna do with my evening. But for people with anxiety disorders, and if this applies to you, then stay tuned. But the default thought is how do I feel? Is the anxiety there? Is it not? How do I feel? Do I feel better, worse, not? And their default thought is anxiety and how they feel.

SPEAKER_06 2:59

Yeah, that that nails it. I can't add much to that. How did that when I would open my eyes in the morning when I was struggling? And it's funny because it's such a vivid memory to me. I now kind of have a moment where I notice I'm awake. And that comes from those days. That's a holdover from those days. I would suddenly notice that I was awake, and it felt like I got like three seconds of ha. And then bam, that default thought would instantly kick in and it and it down downhill from there. I'm awake, but I'm automatically having that thought and now digging into it to see how I feel to start the day. That sucked. Oh, I wonder where this hamster wheel leads to. Oh, bad places. And then I would yeah, bad places. It it was instant. Boom. The minute I was conscious, that thought would kick it off.

SPEAKER_05 3:47

It's so strange because in hindsight, it's so clear. So I used to go to work and I used to enjoy going to work because it was a job that required a lot of my attention. And as we know, when you're fully immersed and distracted by something, you can't really be anxious because your brain is engaged. Have you noticed that? Every time you're distracted, your anxiety is lower. So I used to enjoy going to work, but then yeah, on my dinner break or after work, I would often think, Well, how do I feel? Is my anxiety still there? And onto the hamster wheel I went, because my default thought is what triggered stuff. And I think part of anxiety recovery, and you know you're recovered when your default thought is not how you feel. And it's the paradox of this is that you only noticed this weeks and weeks and weeks down the line when suddenly, I don't know if you had this Drew, but suddenly you just think, I've not really thought about my anxiety for ages.

SPEAKER_06 4:42

I remember those first glimpses of like what it felt like to start to break away from that. And and I would literally notice that. Like, I I haven't cared about myself for the last like seven and a half minutes.

SPEAKER_05 4:55

I mean, it shows, I can see.

SPEAKER_06 4:57

Yeah, totally. And I haven't cared about myself since then. So, like, no, it's it was really great because it the sense of relief, but you I but you know, we'll talk about it, I guess, in this episode, that neuroception thing. I couldn't, I would be looking for it. When is it gonna happen? When can I turn that off? But I didn't know I had moved away from it until after it happened, and then I could recognize that I was having a different experience. But those were such good moments. Like, oh, I've just been petting my dog. I talk about that mod all the time. I was just petting Lexi for like 10 minutes sitting on the living room floor. And I'm I hadn't done that mindlessly, just being interested in my dog for I don't even know how long. That was awesome.

SPEAKER_05 5:35

And did you also get that, you know, it feels irresponsible. Suddenly you get that sudden whoosh. If you think about anxiety and panic on a scale of one to ten, it often people fall into this, and I certainly did, that it was easier to manage my anxiety jumping from six to ten than zero to ten. And this is why we stay in this state of hypervigilance and threat monitoring. Really important, actual helpful stuff on this podcast, believe it or not. But for some people it they find it difficult to not scan and monitor, and they find it difficult to replace that default thought because the jump from feeling relaxed and engaged to really high anxiety is frightening. So actually, a safety behavior is to monitor for it, and there and what comes part and parcel with that is the default thought. If my default thought is monitoring for my anxiety, check and see if it's there, then I am protecting myself. But as you know, and if you've got 92 episodes into this podcast, we know that's not the thing to do.

SPEAKER_06 6:42

And if you've got 92 episodes in, congratulations for on that on their fortitude to trudge through 92 of these with us. I think that that default thought, how am I, how do I feel, has variations too. Because then when you notice that like I'm not I'm not feeling anxious right now, I'm not like inwardly focused, I'm not doing the inward compulsions, then the default thought becomes, but how am I going to feel? And like I'm perfectly fine right now, but all my default thought now shifts to like, but how am I gonna feel in two minutes or two hours or two days? Yeah, yeah. Like the the ability to be currently focused in the moment or focused outside of myself was gone. For anxious people, I think that's a very, very common experience. Like, I don't have the ability to be in the moment. I'm always thinking about how I felt and how I'm gonna feel. And that's it. How do I feel? How am I gonna feel? How did I feel? How do I feel? How am I gonna feel? So you're consigned. One of the most interesting things I saw about uh like the time, the default mode network. We'll talk about that, is it's involved in mental time traveling, and that's what it does. It's always like, how did I do? How am I doing? How am I gonna do? Boom, boom, but we're constantly going past future, past future. It's like it's really it's a pain in the ass, is what it is.

SPEAKER_05 7:52

And yet the happiest people you know and see are children playing in the yard because they're not doing that, they're just in the present, enjoying it. Their brain is fully in the present, using their imaginations, etc. They're not defaulting to how do I feel, how do I feel, how do I feel? But some something happens when we become adults, don't know, where we have this constant feeling of responsibility and vulnerability that keeps us on that hamster wheel.

SPEAKER_06 8:20

And we get really good at problem solving and meaning making. As kids, we're we're not that good at it yet. And we're better than the average bear, of course, in terms of like the food chain, but when we become adults, now we spend so much time meaning making, problem solving, pattern matching that we forget to be in a moment. That's why when your kid, we're we're a week before Christmas as we record this. Remember when a kid, like, wow, it took it felt like it was taking forever for Christmas to get here, or the summer vacation from school was like forever. Like now it's like bam, 2024 just went in a yeah.

SPEAKER_05 8:52

I I looked at my dates and I was like, oh my god. Oh god, I've got no Christmas presents.

SPEAKER_06 8:56

Oh my god, it's crazy, right? So that that happens, and I but I think part of that is everybody has default inward, everybody has a default mode network, it's just not as important, or it's for people that aren't anxious, it is more varied in what you will think about. So I think we all have a default mode network in our brains, but anxious people do have default thoughts. I agree with you.

SPEAKER_05 9:21

Yeah. I think it's important as well to realize that people when their default thought is anything to do with the anxiety. So for some people, they like their default thought because when they're in the habit of checking their anxiety as their default thought when they're not distracted or as soon as they've woken up, is that when it's not there, it gives them this sense of dopamine achievement, happiness, and that can become addictive in itself. Oh, I checked and it's not there. Yes, but that's still feeding the hamster wheel, it's still feeding that default thought. When ultimately the default thought should be it doesn't matter, it doesn't matter how I feel with regards to this anxiety disorder. It it doesn't when the more apathy I show it, the less importance I'm signaling to the brain that this feeling is no more important than anything else.

SPEAKER_06 10:23

I think the default, the default thought for anxious people often takes the form of a question. How do I feel? How did I feel? How am I gonna feel? And in the end, you realize that the default thought in the form of a question, and we're trying so hard to answer it because that's protection and safety and feeling better. But in the end, you look back and say, it's not that I found the answer to the question, Am I okay? I learned that that wasn't even a question that I needed to ask to begin with. So, like I call them worm questions. Like, do you know the whole like, would you still love me even if I was a worm? Like, that's a ridiculous question. It's a pointless question. Am I okay because of how I feel inside is not a worm question. Yeah. So, like that default thought in the form of am I okay is not a question that has to be asked 180 times every three hours.

SPEAKER_05 11:10

Yeah. Yeah, I agree. Uh, before we continue this foxtrop amongst this soapbox, I think we should dip into the community box. Yeah, let's do it.

SPEAKER_06 11:19

It's always nice to hear some victory, so let's hear one now.

SPEAKER_00 11:23

Hi, my name is Sarah from New York. You can use my name or the recording. I wanted to share, I did it anyway. I've been dealing with anxiety and panic for probably five to six years. I do go out and um work and do a lot of things in life, but I generally feel woozy and uncomfortable and like something's wrong. Most of the time, it feels like. I had something that seems very tiny, but to me was huge today. I just went to church for a 45-minute span without bringing my metal water bottle that I take with me everywhere. I've been practicing by leaving it in the car when I take trips into stores, but I have never purposefully gone to a church service or anything like that without bringing water with me to have for when I start to feel lightheaded or like I might pass out. So I'm really proud of myself for getting through the 45 minutes or so without the water bottle, even though it may seem silly. I just hope that maybe that's helpful for somebody else. Love your podcast. Thank you.

SPEAKER_06 12:36

Well done, Sarah.

SPEAKER_05 12:37

Woo! Great. Challenging uh the magic object and getting the credit. Yes. You know, getting the credit is so important. And what you taught your brain there, well done, Sarah, is that actually I want to get the credit for going to church. This magic water bottle water bottle has had this credit for so long, my brain needs to realize it was me.

SPEAKER_06 12:59

Well done. Emotional support water bottles. I was joking about it before we uh before we hit the record button. And in my house, my daughter always talks about her emotional support hydroflask. And I love that Sarah walked around without it. That's huge. Amazing. Well done, Sarah. Yeah, and thanks for sending it in. Appreciate that. If you guys do want to send in did it anyways or questions or participate in the podcast, go to disorder.fm and use the voicemail button or send us an email. We we'd love to hear from you guys. So should we go to a question? We have two questions, and they both speak to today's topic of the default thought. So, what do you think? You're introducing questions now. Ooh, I like chat. I know. Well, like they're germane to the topic. So instead of going to the end, we'll just listen to them now and we can relate them to this topic because I think it's important. So, what do you think? Yeah, let's go for it. Let's do it.

SPEAKER_02 13:46

Hello, Josh. Hello, Drew. My name is Naaman. You can use my name. Uh, thank you very much for your very informative podcast. Uh, I have a quick question about uh the anxiety of anxiety. So I'm a new anxiety sufferer for six months. I'm during the exposures and I think it's going pretty okay. But uh since I started to get this anxiety, I have been very afraid of anxiety itself. What is the consequence of having this anxiety? Like, is this like some kind of slife sentence that I have to live with it for the rest of my life? Or how can I uh conquer and recover from it? Because I feel like I'm feeling on edge all the time. I cannot control this. What if I cannot control it? I will lose my job, I lose my house. Do you have any recommendations about that? Because I have it in my head all the time. Um, and this is not some thoughts I had before, and it all started with these panic attacks, and then I got out of control. So please, if you have any recommendations, uh I really appreciate it a lot. And uh keep up the good work. Uh, you have an amazing podcast. Thank you very much.

SPEAKER_06 15:00

Oh, well, thank you, Norman. That's an excellent question. Thanks for letting us say your name. Josh, what do you think?

SPEAKER_05 15:04

Yeah, so Nerman's default thought is and his inward compulsion is you know, I'm gonna I have to stop this feeling. What if this feeling gets to the point where it ruins my life? And then his compulsion is to ruminate and scan, and the the the default thought is to is it there? Do I have to fix it? Which keeps Nerman on the hamster wheel. What do you think, Drew?

SPEAKER_06 15:26

Yeah, I agree. This is a variation of like, well, how do I feel now? And then based on how I feel now, I better ask, how am I feeling how am I gonna feel later? How's it gonna be later? How about later? Am I gonna control it later? Is it gonna go away later? How am I gonna do later? How am I gonna do it in an hour or 10 years from now? So yeah, it's just entirely focused on how am I and how am I going to be?

SPEAKER_05 15:46

Yeah, don't get wrong, it's scary. And Nurmson is new to it, but what we're saying on this podcast is that it thrives with your attention and your body will regulate itself uh if you kind of oh wait.

SPEAKER_06 16:00

Wait, let's do it.

SPEAKER_05 16:01

We haven't done it in a long time, so regulators your body will regulate itself when you leave it alone, you know. Um, but I get it, we've been there. It's so scary when you initially have that horrible anxiety and the looping thoughts and the strange symptoms, and you're doing the exposures. It is scary, but what we're inviting you kind of to do is to is to leave it alone, to show you, do what non-anxious neurman would be doing. Now, it your life feels different, but remember how you're behaving is contributing to that as well. Non-anxious neurman wasn't doing that. Non-anxious neurman was not fixating on how he felt to try and fix how he felt. You know, we work on not being afraid of the anxiety. You said yourself, I'm afraid, I have anxiety about the anxiety. Okay, well, we signal to the brain with our behaviors, with our attention, with psychoeducation, that this feeling is not special. Yes, it's uncomfortable, but I'm gonna treat it like every other feeling. But when you've stopped and built your life around it, and your default thought tries to help you out by reminding you of what your modus operandi is, then yeah, you're gonna feel stuck. But no, it's not a life sentence. It's okay to leave it alone.

SPEAKER_06 17:15

Yeah, I think the part of our brains that that makes that, again, everybody has it, so it's okay that we'll with in the absence of something else to pay attention to, we will think about ourselves. I don't mean in a narcissistic, self-centered, you know, egotistical way. It's just how am I? They're self-referencing thoughts, introspection, like, you know, what am I gonna have for dinner? Like me, me, me, me. What is going on with me in my life? And that's okay. I mean, there's nothing wrong with that. But people who develop anxiety disorders or even depression get so stuck in their default mode network that creates that default thought that it seems, well, no, but the thought is is about something that's very important to me. I want to have a nice life, not a crappy life. I want to achieve, not be limited. I want to like enjoy myself, not be afraid all the time. That is clearly important to me. So, therefore, a thought about that must be followed up by active thinking about that. So there then we run into the difference between having the default thought and thinking, which are two different things. So having a thought and thinking are not the same things.

SPEAKER_05 18:18

Yeah, yeah. My advice is like when you notice your default thought, anyone listening, just be like, oh, there's that default thought I'd like to change. Right. Well, I can change it in my response to it. That's it. That's what I used to do. I used to go there and bear in mind, not forgetting how frightening it is, you know, oh, how do I feel? I don't want to feel like rock bottom again. I don't want to spiral, etc. And it's like, oh, yeah, I understand why I'm having having that default thought because because I was afraid for so long, I got into a habit of checking because I don't want to feel that way again. And that's understandable. I don't want to feel that way either. It's not very nice. But when you realize that that feeling is not dangerous, and yes, it creates an abundance of symptoms and it's very confusing and it wants to hijack your attention. But once you realize it's not dangerous, practicing leaving it alone and changing your default thought by reacting to the current default thought is a way to show the brain anxiety is not the center of your life.

SPEAKER_06 19:18

Yeah. And the discomfort or that thought makes me feel a certain way, especially in Norman's case, it's how how, what if I can't? What if, if it begins with what if, there's a really good chance that that's a not a productive question. What if I can't control it? What if it takes over my life? What if I lose my job and my home and I and I never have the life that I want? Answering that question, it's unanswerable, right? I cannot predict the future. I don't know. Right now, I know I'm having a hard time with anxiety. So it seems like the answer is I'm screwed, and I can't get a definitive counterbalance to that. So I now I'm uncomfortable. That's the problem. Like, no, no, no. I have to try harder to answer that question definitively so that I can get rid of this discomfort. If I have the thought, like, I wonder if the moon is gonna crash into the earth, and I I look out my window and I'm like, no, I don't see the moon. Okay, I got an answer. It's not crashing into the earth. I'm good, I move on. But how am I gonna be in two months? How will I feel in two months? I don't know the answer to that. And I can't have that because that feels unsafe. So now I get really, really upset, anxious, afraid, uncertain, uh, all the things. And now I will engage in thinking, active thinking, worry, and rumination to see if I can solve that, answer that question and bring down my discomfort level.

unknown 20:32

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 20:32

And if you've not heard the episode as well, Norman, you know, we mentioned it in the last few actually, but it's that formula, you know, with if it's a you deem something a problem, attention plus energy equals faster solution.

SPEAKER_06 20:46

That does not apply here. Right. Right. It's and it makes things worse. If the the uh episode we did with Rihannon, right, about metacognitive therapy, talking about those vacillating meta-beliefs. Like, yeah, thinking is really good. Thinking will get me out of this. And then four hours later, you're even more anxious, and it's like, boy, that was a big mistake. Why can't I turn off my thinking? So if you find yourself getting engaged in thoughts that you you run with for hours or days and then recognize this has made me worse, but I can't help myself, you're in that that thing where like no thinking fixes me or saves me, but no, it doesn't. I wish I could stop it, but I need to go back to thinking. So it can be complicated and it's nuanced because it's not like I'm afraid of the dog, so I recoil from the dog. It's these are cognitive functions, these are like invisible behaviors that are happening only inside you. So they're it can be very nuanced, I think.

SPEAKER_05 21:36

Yeah, you've got this, you've got this new man, and anyone you can relate, you know, in layman's terms, away from Drew's nerdy terms. It's super nerding. Yeah, uh, it's um yeah, just learning to leave it go, identifying your compulsions, learning to turn your back on it, and knowing that when you have to do exposures, you know, that you can tolerate it. The feeling always passes. You've got this.

SPEAKER_06 22:06

But right, because if I don't follow the default thought, I feel worse, Josh. What am I supposed to do with that? It makes me worse. Thank you. You know. We set that all up. That was planned. It really wasn't, but it sounded like it.

SPEAKER_05 22:22

So you said you had another question?

SPEAKER_06 22:24

I do have another question that's very similar, and I think we'll play it because our listeners tend to get a little fixated on okay, well, that was about that thought. What about other thoughts? So let's hear another thought.

SPEAKER_01 22:37

Hi, Drew and Josh. This is Anne. Thanks for the great podcast. It's been really helpful in my recovery. I have a question about anxious memories. I have been dealing with anxiety for most of my life. And um, for example, when I take a look at my uh photographs in my iPhone, there's all these memories associated to the pictures, for example, but sometimes it's just memories popping up. Yeah, I struggle with that sometimes. So I have a question about if you have any tips or thoughts about how to deal with memories about anxiety. Thanks so much for all that you do. It's been really helpful and um wishing you a very Merry Christmas.

SPEAKER_05 23:27

What do you think? Uh Merry Christmas to you too. Uh I've I've uh enjoyed that. Um without knowing more. I mean, we can try and deduce what that means. Uh anxious memories. So I I look up a picture and it evokes a feeling in me because it reminds me of a memory. Now, maybe that memory is when you felt really anxious, or maybe it's just other memories that bring up other kind of challenging emotions. Um, I would look at maybe allowing the feeling to be there, but not trying to change that. Now it depends. I wasn't quite sure. So is is the the the picture triggering a memory that we're trying to push away or we want to avoid? Or are we trying to look at the pictures and enjoy them for what they are? Um, but enjoy them without the feelings that are coming up. What did you get from that, Drew?

SPEAKER_06 24:19

Yeah, I same thing. Like we can't really be sure what Ann's necessarily talking about in terms of the memories. What is a memory based on when she says memories about anxiety? Is it, oh, these are things I remember being so anxious on this day or whatever? In the end, it's the memory, which is in fact a thought, it's a cognitive process. And then the response to that is the default thought. Is this okay? Is this feeling that I just got looking at this picture, which you're gonna get because memories evoke feelings? Is this feeling okay? Am I okay? Like, am I gonna be okay having this thought, having this feeling, having this emotion that comes up? Like, what do I do with this? How do I fix it?

SPEAKER_05 24:53

This is what if I can't look at other pictures ever again because it evokes this feeling.

SPEAKER_06 24:58

That's right. What if I lose? Now I'm gonna time travel. The default thought makes me time travel. Like, what if I lose my memories? Because I can't, I don't want to look at them and I lose touch with my family history because it makes me anxious to look at those, and I can't overcome that. And oh my goodness, I'll be isolated and alone. Like the default thought will kick off that that crazy hamster wheel, it gets you so amped up. But they are they are feelings and thoughts.

SPEAKER_05 25:20

Well, in here, if if that occurred, and you know, one of the biggest triggers was looking at historical pictures, and obviously you've got to check if someone's not got like PTSD or anything, that maybe it's triggering PTSD, which would be a different case. But if they're just bringing up difficult emotions or anxiety, and you but you yourself want to access the pictures and and and and have an another feeling that's probably underneath the anxiety, we do basic exposure response prevention in that too. So we'd be like, you know, like let's get the picture out, leave it there, maybe put it next to us, and we sit with the picture, look at it, describe what's happening here, and allowing the feelings to be there. And you can actually retrain and rewire your associations with something. We do it not even with anxiety, with other emotions. So recently I'm working with someone with grief, and they've moved back to a family home, and they feel really heavy grief and loss, and through behavior and changing associations. You know, some of the homework was why don't you hold a party here or why don't you invite uh loved ones around and and and create new memories that create a new association with that place or object or thing, and you can do that with pictures too, you know. Uh, often people I've hear this before, I don't know about you, Drew. I hear this for people on their wedding days and stuff, and they look back and they're like, Oh, I was anxious, I couldn't enjoy it. Most people don't really enjoy it anyway because they're so preoccupied and under pressure and stress, but it's the memory of looking back at it that they enjoy, they live it vicariously through the memories because they've changed their associations, and that's okay too.

SPEAKER_06 27:03

Yeah. One of those, when you're describing that, you know, okay, let's look at the pictures, let's trigger those memories. And now, what are you feeling? Well, I'm feeling, you know, I want to feel happy because I'm looking at our pictures of our family vacation to wherever Disney World. Okay, do you so what are you feeling? But I don't feel happy, I'm feeling anxious. Well, what I'm feeling anxious because I can't feel happy. What if I can't ever feel happy again? Whatever the case may be. Meta worry. Yes, meta worry. So then in this situation, it becomes the mindfulness part of this, and I'll tie it into the subject, I promise, is well, what does that feel like? Let's actually look at this feeling. I'm having a feeling of anxiety and fear instead of the feeling that I want. Okay, well, let's get more curious about the feeling that you are, in fact, having because you're allowed to have that feeling. We sidle up to it a little bit, we describe it, we give it a name or a color or a shape and like really see what it feels like in your body. And like we take the mystery and the danger out of it with the mindfulness approach or the sitting with it or the tolerating, whatever it is. And then in the end, that leads to like, oh, look, I am able, I have a form a new relationship with my thoughts and my emotions. And now I don't see them as worthy of anxious or emergency response. So the default thought happens, but it doesn't send me into a tizzy for three hours because I know that it's okay to have that and the associated emotions. How am I going to tie it in? Because when we look at the, here we go. When we look at like the study of the default mode network, that self-referential part of our brains, even though it's true that biologically people have more tightly connected default mode networks that we see in anxiety and depression, even those people with the big levels of connections, look at the big bundles on bread, right? So, like, even those people, experienced meditators and people who have an active mindfulness practice, are as well connected as the anxious and and uh and depressed people, but their default mode net mode network doesn't stay active as long and it tends to be quieter in an fMRI. So even though you might be biologically predisposed to have that default thought and then get stuck in it, you can learn a new way to relate to the thought and the emotions. That's the exposure, the mindful exposure part. Yeah, that was a lot of words.

SPEAKER_05 29:15

It's all right. Nerd, nerd, nerd nerd. What are some of the most common examples of in our community of default thoughts? Let's go. Let's let's throw what let's have a little, we've not done this for ages. Let's have a little I know a little rapid fire round. Yeah, okay. Okay, uh, I'll go first. Uh am I feeling DPDR? Yeah, what if I'm dying now? Is my heart beating irregularly?

SPEAKER_06 29:39

Yeah, what if I pass out?

SPEAKER_05 29:42

Oh what if there's someone there who will see me panic?

SPEAKER_06 29:47

Can I handle this?

SPEAKER_05 29:50

Is the anxiety there this morning?

SPEAKER_06 29:52

What if I never get better?

SPEAKER_05 29:55

Oh, that's a good one. That's uh I wonder if there's a new symptom I have.

SPEAKER_06 30:00

Did I miss some important recovery information on Instagram yesterday? Oh, I wonder if that intrusive thought makes me feel the same way. I'm not so anxious today. Do I like that thought now?

SPEAKER_05 30:13

Oh, that's a good one. OCD, OCD heads, you've got you. Let's say they said OCD ones like uh uh I wonder if that word still bothers me.

SPEAKER_06 30:24

Oh, that's a really good one. I wonder if that word bothers me. Okay. Um oh god, I had so many of these back in the day. I can't even think of them anymore. I used to do the is it right to have this combination of thoughts and symptoms? Oh um, am I gonna have a bowel movement on time? Oh, that's a good one, too. Um, what should I eat today to make sure I don't get triggered? Is my memory still okay? I'll check. Yeah, did I forget my kids' birthdays and stuff like that? Yeah, I get that.

SPEAKER_05 30:57

Yeah, all these are default thoughts, you know. Have I overcome anxiety yet?

SPEAKER_06 31:03

Yeah, when will I? When will my brain turn off? When will the anxiety go away? Oh, did it work?

SPEAKER_05 31:08

Oh, yeah, I did, I did, I did, I did the willful tolerance thing that those two morons talk about. Did it work? Did it work?

SPEAKER_06 31:15

The default thought all around your anxiety. Yeah, that's exactly right. These are all they sound different, but they are the same thought. These are just very wide-ranging variations on am I okay? Am I recovered yet? Yeah, am I okay? Is it safe? Am I safe? Am I okay? Which I think we could probably argue from like a philosophical or spiritual standpoint. Most of us ask the question, am I okay or am I going to be okay daily in some way, shape, or form, whether it's quickly, silently, whatever? Like, it's okay. Where we want to know how we are.

SPEAKER_05 31:43

But like you said, with the heightened default mode network, it's it's constant. And um it's it's the hamster wheel. You got to step off it. It's not great.

SPEAKER_06 31:52

But the one default thought, the variant that you mentioned, did it work, is the reason why we cannot say, okay, cool. Thanks for telling me about the default thought, guys. How do I stop it? You can't stop it because you could react to it. That's right. Did it work? Is the metacognitive process that that, okay, I'm not gonna think about it. I don't want to have that thought. Did I have it? Too late. When you check to see if you had it, you had it. That's why you can never choose to not has it gone yet.

SPEAKER_05 32:21

Not if you're asking yourself that, you know it's not.

SPEAKER_06 32:24

That's exactly right. Because the checking, did it work? Am I having the default thought produces the default thought? You're done. You can't see it.

SPEAKER_05 32:30

We'll talk, we'll talk more about in that in our next episode on neurosception, which I know we keep banging on about. I like neuroception, it's pretty cool. Uh, I'm just aware of the time. Uh, we got time for Did It Anyway or a question? Yeah, you got some stuff. Let's do it. Uh, I got a really nice uh written Did It Anyway from Matt in the UK. He says, Hi, Josh and Drew. Just wanted to share a Did It Anyway after feeling pretty buzzed from a recent car journey that I thought quite impossible and I've been putting off for some time. Following a surprising panic attack over four months on a UK motorway, I've been challenged by frequent driving anxiety symptoms, which include intrusive thoughts, fear of losing control, tingling feet, shortness of breath to name a few. This has caused my driving to become limited in scope and distance. Today, though, I undertook a motorway car journey, taking my wife to see Hamilton in Cardiff, where I felt all the discomfort of anxiety and panic, but I did it anyway. I'm absolutely stoked. Yule Tide felicitations to you both. Have an awesome Christmas and new year. Love the podcast. Best wishes from Matt.

SPEAKER_06 33:43

Oh, love that. Great job, Matt. The guy goes to a play, and now he's giving us you tied felicitations.

SPEAKER_05 33:50

Yeah, I like that. That's excellent. It caught me off guard a bit. Yeah, excellent. Hope you enjoyed Hamilton. Three hours of non-stop singing and rapping. Um, it's lots of people like it. In Cardiff.

SPEAKER_06 34:02

I hope you that's the off, off, off Broadway version.

SPEAKER_05 34:05

Yeah, Incarnip, yeah. They did it in Welsh. Yeah, yeah. Hamilton in purely Welsh, like I've just made that up. They didn't.

SPEAKER_06 34:13

Oh, I was gonna say that would be amazing. I would watch that, and I don't understand.

SPEAKER_05 34:16

If they'd have done it in Welsh, it'd have been seven hours long.

SPEAKER_06 34:19

Just the number of consonants alone.

SPEAKER_05 34:23

Well done, Matt. That's really good. You went by your values. You were like, Well, I'll do it with the symptoms.

SPEAKER_06 34:28

Brilliant. Yeah. I uh and then you learn I can I don't have to take evasive action over how I feel automatically every single time. And I hope your wife enjoyed it. Sounds like a good uh good trip. What else we got?

SPEAKER_05 34:40

Uh, do you have a question?

SPEAKER_06 34:42

No, you have oh, I have two audio questions. Oh, see, we are wholly unprepared. This is the state of disorder, though. This we'll we'll do that.

SPEAKER_05 34:49

Our default thought needs to be have you prepared for the podcast?

SPEAKER_06 34:52

And the answer is always no, it's always no, but that's fine.

SPEAKER_05 34:57

We'll put it in the an extra question the next uh episode. But um, yeah, thank you so much for tuning in. Yep, be wary of your default thought, you know, and know that you can change it by reacting to it. You've got this.

SPEAKER_06 35:11

Yeah, I don't have to answer that, I don't have to talk about that, or we're not gonna talk about that, or good responses to the default thought. Experiment with it, play with it, and then write a review on Apple Podcasts or Spotify. Disorders and awesome podcasts, and we would appreciate that. But we do, you guys have been so supportive. It's really this is this gonna be our last episode of the year. This is gonna come out. Uh it might be because it doesn't come out this Friday, it comes out next Friday. I think this is it. This is it for 2024 from the Disorder guys. Thank you so much, guys, for supporting us the way you do.

SPEAKER_05 35:41

It's been a great year. Yeah, and have happy holidays. And even if you don't feel your ideal self, know that just turning up and doing stuff anyway is the win. Go easy on yourself, and we'll see you next year. Very good, we're out.