What Anxiety Recovery Lens Are You Looking Through? (Episode 56)

SPEAKER_02 0:01

I just wanted to share my win with you. I am eight months postpartum, and since giving birth to my daughter, I've been suffering from panic disorder, agoraphobia, monophobia. I'm having troubles just driving around the block. Um, so my daily thing is going for a drive and getting further and further each day as I go for a drive. And yesterday I went probably the furthest I've gone in a long time by myself. I did have a panic attack. I did not call my husband, which is what I would normally do. Um, and I just turned around um and started coming back home. But I'm not done yet. Which then my anxiety really started to lessen. So I decided I was gonna drive just a little bit further because I knew that it was just anxiety, and that's what I did. And then I came home. But I'm not done yet. Felt a little bit defeated. So I decided today I was going to go to the store. We'd like we had delivery come to our house for our groceries, and I decided I was gonna leave two items out so I could go to the store and get those two items. This is the first time going to the store by myself in eight months, and I did it. I went, I did it. I felt really anxious, I felt shaky, my heart rate was up. I waited in line, but I did it. And I felt really good after. I did not call anybody, and I'm just proud of myself for getting through that. That's my small win.

SPEAKER_06 1:23

Welcome to Disordered. This is episode 56 of the podcast entitled What Recovery Lens Are You Looking Through? I am Drew Linsalata, a therapist in training specializing in anxiety and anxiety disorders in New York, in the US of A, a podcaster, author, and educator in this community, and a former sufferer for many years of my life. And here's my esteemed co-host.

SPEAKER_05 1:44

Hi, I'm Joshua Fletcher, also known as Anxiety Josh on social media. I'm a psychotherapist who specializes in anxiety disorders based in the UK, uh, co-host of this podcast, content creator, and author of the book, and how does that make you feel? Welcome, brother. What are we talking about? What a great, what a great did it anyway that was.

SPEAKER_06 2:04

That was an amazing did it anyway. And for the for we won't say the person's name because I don't think she gave us permission. Thank you for sharing and thank you for letting us indulge ourselves with a few sound effects. There's so much good in that, and it also leads to today's topic, which is sort of what recovery lens are you looking through?

SPEAKER_05 2:19

Yeah, and we decided to have a seance of Billy Mays there because it was one of those exposures where you're doing the scary thing and then it's just like kind of building and building, which is great. And you're like, you know, you weren't done yet. You're gonna carry on. So um, yeah, thanks for uh letting us be chilled together.

SPEAKER_06 2:37

Yeah, and I think that you know, to me, I was literally we'll get into this in a second because the reason why we put in the old Backstreet Boys, tell me why. I felt defeated. And meanwhile, we're listening to that and we're both like fist pumping, like this is amazing, yet I felt defeated. So we're gonna talk about you know why that sort of stuff sometimes happens.

SPEAKER_05 2:56

Yeah, and it's it's it's a really important subject we're gonna talk about today. Um uh also you said my small win. That ain't a small win. That's a huge big win. A big win. Um, so yeah, we're gonna take that bit. I've I felt defeated. Uh, we're also gonna, you know, we thought we'd do this episode today because in response to another question we had.

SPEAKER_06 3:16

Yeah, should we listen to that question? Because it speaks to this also. Let's do it.

SPEAKER_00 3:21

Hi both. Um, my name's Ryan, and feel free to use it. And I've got a question around getting the credit. So I aim to do sort of between one to three exposures per day. Um, and recently I've done some you know amazing things in my personal life, like getting a new job, um, buying a house and renovating it to make it a home and all these amazing things. But I'm really struggling with giving myself the credit, and it's not that I give other things the credit because I know it was me, but I don't feel like it was me. And I'm not too sure if that makes sense. And I'm not necessarily giving it to other things, I'm just not necessarily giving it to myself. And I I don't know whether it's a fake it till you make it situation and keep telling myself or whether there's something I can do otherwise. Thank you.

SPEAKER_05 4:07

It's a good question. Really nice question. Uh, and we had a brief discussion before uh we click record, and um yeah, we're gonna look at some theories around that. Um, and we're gonna have a little rudimentary tour of TA transactional analysis and how we look at the lens of our recovery, of what we do, what in a voice is is dictating our metrics of success.

SPEAKER_06 4:32

Yeah, for sure. I think there's this is the episode where we people like us, I think that specializes in the thing that we do. Sometimes we're seen as like mechanics or engineers, like, oh, it's all about the numbers and assessments and like the mechanics and the rote and procedures and exposures. Yeah, it is. That's true. But other things come into play too. And Josh mentions transactional analysis, which is a type of therapy. It's more than it isn't always just CBT and exposures and thought records and clear weeks. It can't be because people are more than just their anxiety disorder. So the struggle in recovery is often helpful to see through different lenses. Like why it why are you struggling with this part of recovery? What is it about you or your experience?

SPEAKER_05 5:16

I and the more I you know learn and practice as a therapist, and I'm sure you are as well, Drew, is that for me personally, I realize the importance of compassion and being nice to yourself and how you value yourself. Uh, we talk a lot about perfectionists and Craig the Critic a lot on this on this podcast. It's Craig the Critic. He's always knocking about. And we're gonna look at, yeah, I like to use the model of TA. It's a really interesting episode to this today. So if you do want to feel free to kind of explore your own situation here, it's something I've done with clients in the past, and it's really important with regards to how you talk to yourself and the attitude you have towards yourself when doing things like the glare weeks exposure stuff, CBT things. Because, yes, you know, we're big advocates of that and the particular exposure therapy, but how are you talking and judging yourself whilst doing the exposures?

SPEAKER_06 6:17

Yeah, what lens do you see that self do you see that stuff through? What lens do you see yourself through? And that's where other theories and other frameworks can come in handy to help explain that or put it in perspective for you, you know, as opposed to like, I don't know why I can't seem to get myself to like the question, I can't seem to give myself the credit. You know, just repeating the mechanics or the theory of why you need the credit is fine. But well, maybe we would look at how do you see yourself in general. That may enter into it, you know. Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 6:47

Yeah, definitely. And we're gonna do a little bit of uh interaction today to show you um the principles of TA. Now, I'm not fully trained in transactional analysis, I've just done a bit of training. So sorry if there's any fully trained transactional analysis therapists listening. Sorry in advance, but we're just gonna take a little rudimentary talk. And if you're listening, listen carefully and apply this to you because it's fascinating. And I personally loved exploring this in my own personal therapy. Okay, so we're gonna start. We're gonna imagine a traffic light system, uh, a British one where you've got red, amber, and green. Um just a picture that uh three letters P A C parent, adult, child. According to TA and Eric Byrne, we have three modes of personality parent mode, adult mode, and child mode. And I'll we'll just briefly explain them to you now. Um, I always start child mode because it's the fun one. So child mode split into two parts. We have two two child child modes. The first one is fun child, playful child. Uh, when was the last time you were in playful child, Drew?

SPEAKER_06 7:59

Probably last night, to be honest with you. I was playing with my dog, playing with copper. Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 8:04

Or what about when you were putting in the Backstreet Boys and Billy Mays?

SPEAKER_06 8:08

Then we're just being children, that's just us being children like we are normally exactly 100%. Playful, that was a playful moment.

SPEAKER_05 8:16

And we're giggling and and and being silly. Drew and I, when doing that, or we're playing with copper with the dog, you're in playful child mode. You're in playful child mode, whenever you're just having a laugh, out with your friends, whatever, and you're in doing all these things. That's playful child mode. It's great, it's the most fun one. The other side of child mode is needing child. Um, and this is when we are anxious, upset, angry. We feel like we um are on the wrong side of justice. We feel like we're not getting the respect that we deserve or have the sense of injustice, and we can regress into needing child. Come on, Drew, you're on the spot. When was the last time you're in needing child mode?

SPEAKER_06 8:59

Um, let's, you know what? Two nights ago, I got off a call. I was just feeling like my calendar is packed. There's so much going on. I'm overwhelmed. And I just gimme, gimme, gimme. I don't like this. This is not fair. My life is bad. Like, you know, there was that moment where all I wanted to do is complain and I want give me. I need relief from this. I don't like this.

SPEAKER_05 9:22

Yeah. Yeah. So that's the that's an example. It's not, you know, you can be literally like an adult having a tantrum, like I was. So I was playing pickleball the other day, uh, and I still stand by this, so I'm gonna go regress into needing child right now. I was playing and I hit the sweetest shot past this guy and playing doubles, and it was in. And I could so tell it was in. And three people around me were like, No, it was out. I was like, You're all blind. That was clearly in. Uh, and uh anyway, uh, I went into needing child. How can you not see the injustice of this? I'm angry, I feel ganged up on, it's really horrible. That's obviously a petulant version of needing child. However, the biggest example of needing child is I feel scared. Yeah, and actually. And it's not a bad thing. None of these modes of personality are bad. Just sometimes when we're on when we're stuck in these modes, they don't help. So for me, when I was agrophobe, couldn't leave the house. I'm a needing child. When I was having intrusive thoughts about how bad uh a person I am, I'm a needing child. I want that reassurance. I want that assurance from an authority figure or someone to tell me I'm okay. Can you think of any examples when you were in the midst of anxiety, Drew?

SPEAKER_06 10:34

Yeah, for me, I relied so heavily on save people. I I was needing child, I wanted to be protected and saved. You know, I was wrong about that, but that was clear. Like, I need you to save me here. Please save me. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_05 10:47

And all of us, when we first develop anxiety, we try to get out of it through the mode, the lens of needing child. Who can help me? Now, don't get me wrong. Nothing wrong with finding help. But when you're doing it through that lens, so for me, it was Google searching, trying to find the magic wizard who would tell me everything's okay. And lo and behold, when you Google search everything that's wrong with you, you end up further in needing child because you're like, oh my God, I've been exposed to the horrors of the world.

SPEAKER_06 11:15

Yep. Or if you stay in needing child mode, you know, and and the definition there, so needing child, yeah, when we're kids, we do need teach me, protect me so I can explore and learn, like explain the world to me, help me navigate. Yeah, that's healthy, like needing child, right? And in the anxiety state, it was save me because I think I need to be saved. And if you do that for me and you you accommodate the needing child, then I learned that I have to always have that. I can't ever get out of needing child when I'm anxious. I always need you to save me or protect me.

SPEAKER_05 11:47

Absolutely. And it's a very common thing. Sure. And again, there's nothing wrong with it. Like sometimes if I'm upset, I will purposely access needing child in a healthy way. But you know what? I'm gonna cry about this loved one. I'm gonna I'm stressed and I'm gonna cry, and that's okay. You know, I'm not a stoic Chad. I'm just gonna sit there and be like, you know what? It's my time to cry, whatever. So that's child mode, playful child, needing child. Moving on up, middle of our traffic light. We've got adult mode. This is the really boring, pragmatic, logistical one. Uh Drew and I will role play it for you now. Drew, when are you free to record this week?

SPEAKER_06 12:24

Um I have one hour to record this week. That's all I got.

SPEAKER_05 12:28

Are you free on Thursday morning?

SPEAKER_06 12:30

Yeah, we could do Thursday morning. How about at like eight my time?

SPEAKER_05 12:33

Does that work? Uh, not quite for me because I've got a thing. Are you available at nine?

SPEAKER_06 12:38

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_05 12:39

You know what? We can do that. I could do nine. Brilliant. How was your day?

SPEAKER_06 12:43

It was pretty boring and busy at the same time. How about you? What'd you do today?

SPEAKER_05 12:47

Just as boring, just as busy. There we go. Two adults communicating basic information from a logical, pragmatic point of view. Problem solving as well. Interesting. Very good. Small problem there. Through dialogue, we did it. Adult mode. When you see things through the lens of pragmatism. Um, can you have an example of from every day, Drew, where you're in adult mode?

SPEAKER_06 13:07

Yeah, I mean, that's good. I mean, things like grocery shopping, you know, interacting with your partner, like planning the finances, or you know, just like adulting, the boring part of adulting, just taking care of life.

SPEAKER_05 13:20

Yeah, it's always like boring work emails as well, like just circling around about no, you're not circling around anything. You you're pressing me because I can't be bothered to reply to my email. You know, it's that very it's diplomatic as well.

SPEAKER_06 13:34

Adult mode is diplomatic. Adult mode is also just sending this again in case it got lost in your inbox because I really want to be on your podcast, and it sounds like you're not interested in having me on your podcast. That's adult.

SPEAKER_05 13:45

That's just just bumping this to the top of your email. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I hope this email finds you well. No, you don't. That's adult mode, right?

SPEAKER_06 13:54

That's like boring adult mode.

SPEAKER_05 14:03

But boring adult, but needed, and actually, it's it's essential to kind of get on with other human beings. Uh, when you apply adult mode to anxiety disorders, it's great. Psychoeducation is very much adult mode, isn't it? Like, okay, my amygdala's far enough. I've got loads of adrenaline, loads of cortisol. I understand adult mode, me, I can see this through the lens of adult mode. So I can apply these principles of CBT, exposure, um, what these guys talk about, and adult mode remembers that. And that's really important when you're doing things like um anxiety recovery. True. Then you go up to parent mode, which, like child mode, is split into two parts. What do you think those parts are, Drew?

SPEAKER_06 14:51

It would be like critical parent and nurturing parent.

SPEAKER_05 14:55

Yes, absolutely spot on. We all have these modes of personality, just sometimes we don't access them at the right times. Now, critical parent is everyone's favorite person. Who is it?

SPEAKER_06 15:08

Oh, yeah, he's our guy, our guy. It's Craig the critic.

SPEAKER_05 15:11

Critical parent is that inner voice telling you you should do this, you're not doing enough, you're not doing this, you're not perfect, you've not mastered something. Why aren't you at this stage of your life? It's the critical parent's the person comparing you. Critical parent can literally be the echoes of a critical parent. Why aren't you doing good enough? Your emotions are making me emotional, your grades aren't high enough, you suck as a son or daughter, whatever. Uh, sorry if that happens to you, you know, it's it's their problem, not yours. Um, yeah, that inner critic, that critical parent, again, not always bad.

SPEAKER_06 15:46

Right. As a parent, there were times that you do have to be corrective or instructive, you know, and there's a little bit of you can't help it. If you're going to correct somebody, there is inherent criticism in that. I don't think you can do it without some criticism.

SPEAKER_05 15:59

Yeah, not all criticism's bad if it's constructive and balanced. You know, like sometimes I'm like, no, Josh, you that's silly. You don't need to do that today. And I'm like, yeah, actually, you're right. I need a bit of a bit of tough love there. Thank you. Uh critical parent. When it's only critical parent, God, that's a depressing thing. So people with depression will always have this critic, like, you're not good enough. What's the point in you? You're not, you know, you're a burden, etc., etc. And it's only critical parent talking. It's really annoying. Um, and for anxiety disorders, it's you're not strong enough. What if something bad happens? You're a bad parent having anxiety, etc., etc. But nurturing parents is the compassionate side of us all. And this is what I'm really, really getting into as I get older. Um, uh, because it's essential. It's like it's that nurturing, supportive, unconditional part of you that's just rearing you on. And this is one of the most important lenses for anxiety recovery. Why do you think it's essential?

SPEAKER_06 17:01

Well, and this this is where things like self-compassion, you know, the Kristen Neff stuff and everything gets huge, you know, being kind to yourself, like making space for yourself, giving yourself grace. We hear all these cliches and all these sayings all the time in our community, right? This is where they get applied, I think. This is where you start to say, like, you know, and it's so in other words, if if I'm gonna interact with another person, say a child, one of my kids, I might say, Hey, I know that was really difficult for you, but I'm really proud because you did your best. Okay, maybe you didn't do so well on the test, but we'll get it next time. Like, what can we learn from this? You got this. I still love you, I still believe in you.

SPEAKER_05 17:35

Yeah, yeah. Excellent. Unconditional parents, and in seeing things from that, we'll do another are you ready for another role play?

SPEAKER_06 17:41

Yeah, let's do it, man.

SPEAKER_05 17:42

I'm on a roll. Uh Drew is a child. Uh that's not news. Oh, I've not even started the role play. I just wanted to throw that out there. Drew is a Drew is a child, he is my child, and he has just fallen over and grazed his knee and seen blood for the first time. You know, go and do it right now. Right now, don't fall over and graze your knee. There you go. You know, I've not seen blood yet. And and I can choose as a parent to interact with Drew. So, first of all, Drew, what mode of personality as a child are you gonna be in if you've fallen over, hurt yourself, seen blood, and you're scared?

SPEAKER_06 18:21

Yeah, now I'm needing child for sure. Like I I my knee hurts, I'm bleeding, this sucks. You know, I'm shaken up. You feel uncertain, you don't know what's going on.

SPEAKER_05 18:31

Don't like that. Now, here's me, the parent, and I have multiple modes of personality, and this may resonate with some people with your own parents. Now, I'm gonna now interact with you in nurturing parent. Oh, true, you're oh come here, it's okay. It's just a bit of a graze, it will heal, you get a nice little cool scar. Here's a Spider-Man plaster, you know, on your feet. You're alright, you've got this. There you go. Have a hug, have a kiss on the head, off you go. Brilliant. Dad of the year, superb. That's because I chose to be a nurturing parent. Now I'm gonna go in as a critical parent. You're clumsy. Why did you fall over? You deserve that. I told you to tie your shoelaces. Why aren't you doing this for that's what you get when you don't listen to dad?

SPEAKER_06 19:18

Typical, typical you. I knew that was coming.

SPEAKER_05 19:22

Yeah. Now I'm gonna be a parent who's gonna access needing child myself. Why do you have to do this to me? I'm already stressed and anxious. You falling over is just creating more stress for me. Do you understand how much stress I'm under? Seven-year-old Drew.

SPEAKER_06 19:39

That would be tough. Yeah. So that's critical parent being needing child.

SPEAKER_05 19:44

Exactly. Exactly. And this is a thing, there's a lot of things. Um, there's a lot of stuff in the wellness sphere, isn't it? About uh not narcissistic and whatever.

SPEAKER_06 19:52

But yeah, we should probably talk about that for a second because, you know, yeah, it's a little bit of a demonstration of TA as a particular lens, but this is where some of that stuff, when people say, like, oh, CBT doesn't care about your past. Yeah, generally that's true. However, when you encounter struggles in incorporating these methods or techniques or whatever you want to call it, we can look through these lenses to start to see, like, oh, well, your past experiences did teach you certain things that are now obstacles. And this is what's being illustrated here. So a lot of people in our community fear their emotions. They can't show big emotions because they may have been involved with critical parents who themselves was needing child. Your big emotion is ruining my day. I feel bad when you feel bad. So don't feel bad, please. Or keep it quiet.

SPEAKER_05 20:37

Yeah, absolutely. If you're ex if you're approaching exposures and you've been taught throughout your life that showing vulnerability is a bad thing because your parents couldn't do it themselves, that exposure is going to be double whammy. Because not only are you exposing yourself to that, you're yeah, oh, I'm uh it's never been taught to me that it's okay to be vulnerable.

SPEAKER_06 20:57

Yeah, or to display that sort of, you know, uh, you got people like Drew and Josh, or your your CBT or your anxiety therapist telling you, no, no, go do an exposure to intentionally be afraid and anxious and have all the feelings. And you're like, that's not, I'm not supposed to make a scene. I I can't be out of control. So that becomes an obstacle to doing the principles that you hear us talk about all the time.

SPEAKER_05 21:18

And it's usually because you that certain parent or however you grew up was a needing child themselves. You know, it's the very foundation of emotional conservatism, which is your you being uncomfortable and emotional makes me uncomfortable and emotional because I'm in needing child.

SPEAKER_06 21:35

And you know, uh we're getting a little off base, but I think it's important here. It's TA that we're talking about today at transactional analysis, but other lenses come in too. So if you look at Carl Rogers, his belief was every human being under the right conditions can self actualize, right? We can reach our full potential. So your past experiences got in the way of learning and exploring and experiencing and making mistakes and learning from them. That's part of. Actualization. So we could spend all of our time just repeating again and again and again that, oh, well, my parents were critical parents that always they were their own needy childs, and that's why I'm broken. Or we can get back, like, oh, this is why I wasn't able to actualize in the Rogerian lens. What can I do now to facilitate that process?

unknown 22:18

Yeah.

SPEAKER_06 22:18

So it all starts to fit together.

SPEAKER_05 22:20

Identifying the hurdle is the first part of overcoming it. That's the thing. Ah, that that isn't how my life is defined. Oh, I don't need to see and value myself like that. Yeah. Um, sorry, I sorry to you. No, it's fine, it's cool. Um, that that's and it's really important. Um, and then finally, with the adult lens, so going back to the scenario, you you can be so emotionless about it. So Drew's fallen over, scratched his knee, and I'm like, Well, actually, what's happened here is that you've fallen over and grazed the membrane on top of the top skin layer. What's happened here is ruptured and the blood vessel has come up, pushing excess blood outside. Thus starts the scarring process where the skin will try to heal. And the seven-year-old's like, just hug me, dad. Canell, you know, are you doing? I don't need to know the nerdy science of it. I just want to hug, I just want you to be nice, you know. You know, and I think a lot of the CBT modality gets thrown into adult mode, it's very logical. And don't get me wrong, I love CBT. You know, it's all good, it's my favorite, probably, of them all, because I specialise in anxiety disorders, but it has its limitations. And when we are approaching these things, we have pasts, we have the way we speak to ourselves. So it's interesting that when you listen to the first Did It Anyway, uh, the person sender inner said, you know, but then I felt dejected. What lens are you looking at your Did It Anyway through? Because that isn't in nurturing, encouraging parents. Don't get me wrong, a lot of it was nurturing parent. And then suddenly this other voice came in like wasn't good enough.

SPEAKER_06 23:57

Yeah. Explore where that comes from. I did such a good job. I wanted a call for help. I didn't. And not only did I not call for help, but when I was driving home and I recognized my anxiety was dropping, I didn't go all the way home. I stopped because I knew that if I go all the way home, I might accidentally like teach myself that I have to go right home. Two huge wins followed up by, and then I got home and I felt defeated. It would be a good idea to maybe, well, why did I why? Why couldn't I recognize that? What was defeat? That I was scared or that I got triggered? I'm supposed to control that.

SPEAKER_05 24:32

Yeah.

SPEAKER_06 24:32

Yeah. I'm not doing enough. I'm not doing enough. That's where you get no matter how many times you might listen to these podcasts or read our books and hear us say the point of the exposure is to be triggered. If you're having a hard time really taking that on board, like on an emotional level and putting it into practice, well, why? It's does it seem dangerous or wrong? It's not only difficult, but is it like morally wrong, emotionally wrong to intentionally not control my emotions? You know, those type of things.

SPEAKER_05 24:58

Yeah. Uh and they get in the way. They do. And and and answering Ryan's question, um, you know, my advice would be to reflect on what voice he's saying in. So you do you've done loads of great stuff, Ryan, and you've come a long way. But I I say reflect, reflect, not ruminate, reflect. Yeah. And this is where kind of actually good conventional talking therapy can help, which like actually, to I don't want to bring my comparison compulsive, ruminative self here and my OCD themes, or we end up in a cycle of reassurance seeking. I just want to explore how I why I'm speaking to myself in this certain way. Yeah. Uh, and I've done that personally. I've gone to therapy that's talking therapy, not taking my OCD themes. Uh, just you know, taking I want to talk about how I speak to myself as I approach the tricky exposure response prevention stuff. And that really helped because, like Drew said before he press record, he used the word holistic.

SPEAKER_06 26:03

No, I'm denying that. It didn't happen. We weren't recording. No, I wouldn't. How was your holistic journey? Yeah, you know what? I I did uh I did an episode of the Anxious Truth Podcast where I use the word holistic, and people were like, What happened to Drew? Where are were you abducted by aliens? But it's holistic just means the whole person. Yeah. And Ryan's question, I think, was great too, because I'm telling myself that I get the credit, but I'm not feeling what I think I'm supposed to feel a certain feeling. And since I can't create a feeling on demand by telling myself I get the credit, something must be wrong. Now, mechanically, we can point, I might point out you did it. Just take it at face value. All right, I don't feel like I got the credit. Okay, that's just another experience that you're having that you have to learn to navigate through. I can't seem to feel like I got the credit. Okay. Well, I guess I'll do it again and see if I get it next time. Like, but yeah, yeah, but I'm demanding to create an emotional state on demand. Why do I think I have to create a special emotion? Why the why do I feel like if I don't feel I'm not doing this right? That right exactly.

SPEAKER_05 27:15

Why aren't I feeling unclouded? No, it's okay. You did it. Come back and reflect on it later. Why am I not getting that immediate feeling now? I'm not doing it right. Critical parent, you're not doing it right. No, no, it's fine. You're doing it just fine.

SPEAKER_06 27:30

Yeah, it only counts or it's only correct if you feel a particular way. Now, you might just hear the explanation we don't get to demand emotional states. People brain, people don't work that way. You can't just say, Drew, be happy, and then suddenly I'm I feel happy. It doesn't work that way. And you might, you know what? It might be mechanical, and maybe Ryan, if you're listening, you say, Oh, I, oh, I'm I'm I misheard that. I'm sorry. Okay, I'm gonna give myself a break. Okay, cool. That was a mechanical correction, or it could be, oh, I I I see where this is coming from because if I don't do it exactly right the way I think it's supposed to be, uh then I'm gonna be critical of myself. I'm critical parent. Speaking to my needy, needing child. Like, who even am I? I gotta walk away from this. I can't believe I'm standing.

SPEAKER_04 28:12

It's so lovely. You're growing.

SPEAKER_06 28:15

Oh yeah. Thanks, there's Josh being like nurturing parent. There you go.

SPEAKER_05 28:19

There we go. There we go. That was purely acting. I've nothing apathy. Uh definitely apathy. Yeah, yeah. I can you press the back street button, boys again. Tell me away. Thank you very much. Um, yeah, and it's just something to reflect on parent, adult, child. It's also great if you're in a I loved it because it's good to explore your relationships with people. There's some people in your life who you usually bound to by blood. Um, well, you think you do, you believe you are. Well, you just don't get on with them. And these are people that can't access certain modes of uh of being. So they're incapable of being nurturing, they're incapable of even being in adult mode. They only have two modes where it's like critical parent or needing child, and they oscillate between the two. These are the people that are very difficult to find it very difficult to maintain relationships and get close to people because they can't access that. Probably because they've been through a lot of stuff themselves, yeah, you know, and need to kind of challenge it. So we always look at that with compassion, but I find it fascinating when you're looking at interactions with people. Why aren't I getting on with this person? Why does this person send me into needing child? Why does I feel like I need to get on the soapbox with this person and be in uh lecturing disciplinary in parent mode? What is it about this person that brings that out? It's a whole thing, cool thing you can reflect on. Reflect, not ruminate. We're not trying to find a singularity, but reflecting is really healthy because, like Drew passionately screams, we're holistic people.

SPEAKER_06 29:49

Yeah, we are whole people. You're all of your experiences come into this process with you. You didn't just like magically develop anxiety disorder one day and we carve it out and like treat it specially and then put you back into the world after we've excised the tumor of it, it is not a tumor, the anxiety disorder. So, you know, that matters. And I think also here, so we might be talking through the lens of TA, I brought Carl Rogers into this, but other people might find like attachment style or attachment theory resonates for them. That's where you could bring that in. Oh, well, I have an anxious attachment style. Okay, well, that might explain why you struggle with certain parts of the recovery process. It doesn't negate the fact that you still have to go through that process, but it can help inform, like, oh, this is why I'm struggling. I'm not broken, maybe this, I learned this, and I form this type of way of interacting with people. So it's not just like, well, Carl Rogers was perfectly correct and TA is perfectly correct. We use different lenses sometimes, and different lenses apply to different people or resonate with different people.

SPEAKER_05 30:44

Yeah, because we're we're we're complex individuals. Uh um, I was going to ask you, Drew, uh, what lens did you see your recovery through? Was it always one? Did it change?

SPEAKER_06 30:55

Well, in retrospect, I can see that it changed. Now, while I was in it, there was still, like, I guess if I had to use the TA thing, I would probably say critical parent. You know? Interesting. Maybe critical parent and that David Attenborough on what you described it in Stuart. Imagine that was your dad, and he just describes everything like David Attenborough narrates a documentary by cranes.

SPEAKER_04 31:17

There he is failing the Rick Down. My son sells cigarettes to fellow 13-year-olds.

SPEAKER_06 31:29

I think I was probably in that mode and critical parent. Now, in the end, I can look and say, oh, well, what I was really doing ultimately when I had to come to grips with the fact that I couldn't just run this over, is I did shift. I uh only now I can look back and say, maybe to more nurturing parent. And like, no, no, no, that was really hard. But I I tried to do a hard thing. So yeah, I'm not just badass, hardcore, just face the fear and do it anyway. I know it sounds like that, but in the end, what I had to do was, well, I'm doing hard things. What can I learn from this? So nurturing parent would have to kick in and say, okay, well, what did you learn from that? What did you take out of that? Yeah, that was really hard. You felt like shit, but it's okay. What did you learn?

SPEAKER_05 32:11

Because part of nurturing parent is encouragement.

SPEAKER_06 32:15

And but that encouragement meant that I would go out every day and do exposures, right? So if you're just powering through and you're speaking to your anxiety, but this is the part that blew my mind when we were talking before we hit the record button, like take away, you might look at this as this is how I relate to other people. But if you take away the other side, it's not another person, and insert how do you talk to your anxiety? Uh if I just talk about it, talk to it as a critical parent, you run yourself through like a torture chamber of exposures that don't seem to go anywhere and don't help, and then you burn out and and you lose, you know, you lose your ability or your motivation and you drop out of the race. If I had just, I'm just gonna push through and I'm gonna overcome it and I probably wouldn't have made it. I wouldn't have done it. I had to shift. I didn't know I was shifting.

SPEAKER_05 33:00

Looking back, you did the attitude shift where you shifted into encouragement. And this is why some people struggle with exposures and not because it's the lens they see their exposures through. Yeah, I'm setting myself up to fail here or whatever, but that encouragement. So there was a mixture of it in the first in the Did It Anyway, we heard today. It was, and I was getting there and I was getting there, but I felt a bit just you know dejected and depleted because of that. No, no, keep going with the first encouraging voice. You encourage yourself to do more. And if you're listening now and you're a bit like find that inner encourag, inner encouragement, you know, you can do it. Find it from people around you if you want, but also internalize it for yourself. It's really, really important.

SPEAKER_06 33:38

I'm gonna go even a little weirder on this. And you tell me, correct me if I'm wrong because you know more about TA than I probably ever will. But I think there are circumstances where if critical parent voice is kicking in, nurturing parent can nurture the critical parent to talk it down, right? Uh oh, I see what I'm doing here. I'm beating myself up because I maybe my expectations are still a little unrealistic or out of alignment. So I'm I'm really being harsh on myself because I got triggered. But let me remind myself the object of an exposure is to get triggered. That wasn't failure, that was a classroom for me.

SPEAKER_05 34:09

Yes, yeah, definitely. And also remember, they're not always bad. If it's only critical, so like when I was doing my exposures, it was like, and I got a bit lax of it. Critical parent, my inner critical parent would be like, you know, you're being lazy, get up and do something now. And actually, you know what? Yeah, okay. You've got me out of bed. Now I need encouragement and nurturing now. Yeah. Uh, whereas not just you're not doing this, you're not doing this anyway. And yeah, I think that's really important. Anyway, whistle whistle stop tour of uh of TA, uh, with my limited knowledge, but um something to reflect upon. You might as well reflect on this other than ruminate on the catastrophes that your threat response presents to you. Definitely reflect on this instead.

SPEAKER_06 34:50

Um else we got in our like nine or ten minutes that we got left.

SPEAKER_05 34:53

Uh we have uh I've got I've read some really good did it anyways. Do you want to hear some?

SPEAKER_06 34:59

Yeah, let's hear it.

SPEAKER_05 35:00

Uh I've got two, I've got a short one and a slightly longer one. Uh this one's a short one. Um thank you guys. Love your show. Was listening tonight uh on the way to the train stop, and I was listening to the OCD episode, and I was inspired to not do my compulsion of having to turn off my podcast after I cleaned my first two cat litter boxes. So this person's obviously got OCD and it's part of their ritual. Rather, I listened until I finished um all of the episode, and then I did my nighttime OCD chores. For me, this is a big thing, and I know I've got a long way to go, but that was you know, I'm gonna get there. They live, they just said that. I've got a long way to go, we're gonna get there. Uh, I just wanted to jump in there with my enthusiasm. That's excellent. Yeah, it's if you've got this really uh big OCD ritual and you and you're doing that, and you decided to break that and continue listening to a podcast instead, that's the first step of willful tolerance. You willfully tolerated that feeling of uncertainty or whatever, and you broke it up. Excellent start. That's that's a really good one, particularly if you've got quite severe OCD. Well done.

SPEAKER_06 36:16

Especially in that moment. In that one moment, you did something a little different than you did yesterday. It counts, right? So good. You're not gonna wipe out all your compulsions on one day on a Wednesday night. One at a time.

SPEAKER_05 36:30

Absolutely, yeah. Yeah. Have you got a question or do you want to read out another dinner anyway?

SPEAKER_06 36:34

No, I would go ahead and read out another one. I have lucky questions.

SPEAKER_05 36:37

Cool, here we go. Hi guys, my name is Oksana, and you can use my name. I just want to share my story and did it anyway. Thirteen years ago, I moved to Ireland from my home country and was struggling with very bad panic attacks every day for almost three years. I managed to get better and lived normal life for 10 years until my anxiety panic attacks decided to come back five months ago. While I understand this was probably due to some stress I faced recently, it was so upsetting for me that I have to go through this again. This time, a big struggle for me is derealization, dizziness, and a feeling like I will faint every time I'm outside and not at home. I started therapy, reading books about anxiety to educate myself and to learn how to tolerate it all. It's slowly getting better. However, the biggest fear for me still is crowded places. Oh, okay.

SPEAKER_01 37:38

But I'm not done yet!

SPEAKER_05 37:39

Today, however, I drove to a very busy shopping center where I met my cousin for a lunch. I was very nervous and wasn't feeling well, wanted to leave and go home, but decided to just let it be. After half an hour, I noticed I felt much better and almost couldn't feel my anxiety and racing thoughts. It is a big win for me that I enjoyed my time in such a busy place. Next aim for me is to go on a proper night out. Listening to your podcast and Did It Anyway stories from community is helping me a lot in my recovery journey. So I just want to say thank you for everything that you guys do. Oh, another great one. I like that. Like from that neuroception we were talking about uh in the dysregulation episode. Uh you didn't you weren't looking for the anxiety to disappear. You just realized after 30 minutes, oh, I'm actually enjoying myself. Wow, when did that happen?

SPEAKER_06 38:42

I think that comes from like opening up to the experience a little bit. Instead of I'm gonna try and fix this, and that's my focus of attention. Well, let me open up to the experience that I'm having, see what else is going on, and suddenly you you realize, wait, when did that happen? When did I start to feel better? Well done. That's brave, by the way, to do that.

SPEAKER_05 38:59

Really good. Keep these coming in, guys. We do read them and get through them. Um, we're very privileged to have lots of people sending in stuff. Uh, whether you want to send in a voice note or you want to send in an email, you can do it at disorder.fm.

SPEAKER_06 39:15

I think that's about it. We have a lot to read. I gotta read through some of these and come up with some questions for next episode, I guess. But it's never overwhelming. I actually like seeing all these messages. They're fun.

SPEAKER_05 39:25

It's really nice. I'm gonna go home and access Playful Child by putting in some music and dancing around my living room.

SPEAKER_06 39:32

I'm going to be just adulting for the rest of the day. So have a good time, playful child, while I'm adulting.

SPEAKER_05 39:40

Yeah, because your Drew's five hours behind me.

SPEAKER_06 39:42

You know what? That's right. I have to get my taxes done today. Go see my accountant. Talk about adulting at a high level that will just put you to sleep and kill your soul.

SPEAKER_05 39:49

I fell asleep halfway through that sentence.

SPEAKER_06 39:52

Anyway, um, yeah, thanks for listening, guys. If you have a moment, maybe write a review of the podcast on Apple Podcasts or Spotify, or at least give us five stars if you really dig us. It's really helping. We're growing and we appreciate it. I guess we'll see you next week.

SPEAKER_05 40:03

Top 12, so top 12 mental health podcasts in the UK. Up there with some big names. What a privilege it is for them to be near us.

SPEAKER_06 40:14

They are feeling better about themselves today because hey, look, we're hanging out with George. Dan Harris is like, I am 11% happier today because this made up with me in the charts. And that's all because of you guys.

SPEAKER_05 40:26

Thank you so much.

SPEAKER_06 40:26

100%. Thanks for listening. We'll see you next week.