What's YOUR Anxiety Narrative (Episode 79)

SPEAKER_02 0:00

How do you think your anxiety developed? What do you think is the real problem here? Who are you? Who do you what do you believe about yourself? Like these all go into the picture that you have to paint to kind of see what you're gonna do next.

SPEAKER_03 0:12

Some of my colleagues who trained in different modalities are they're like, no, you must address the trauma first. Is there a part to play in that? Yes. For me, though, what working with disordered anxiety, I will look at the barriers to people believing that they are the coping technique, that they are the strength.

SPEAKER_02 0:29

This person with this big following is telling me what my anxiety is. No, they're telling what their anxiety was. Your narrative really matters, and your helper has to understand that, be sensitive to that, and match it. We can rely on general principles, but you have to apply those within the differences.

SPEAKER_03 0:45

That's where those narratives can play a part.

SPEAKER_02 0:52

Welcome to Disordered. This is episode 79 of the podcast. Today we're asking the question: what is your anxiety narrative? I am Drew Linsolata, a therapist practicing under supervision in the state of New York, specializing in the treatment of anxiety and anxiety disorders, one of the co-hosts of this fine podcast, a former sufferer of anxiety disorders, OCD, and depression for many years of my life, but better now, and also an author, social media guy, educator, advocate, you know, anxiety nerd.

SPEAKER_03 1:20

And I'm Joshua Fletcher, also known as Anxiety Josh. I'm a psychotherapist who specializes in working with anxiety and anxiety disorders, previous sufferer, based in Manchester in the UK. And it's a pleasure to be a co-host of this podcast.

SPEAKER_02 1:37

Yes, it is. Let me balance that Hell Britannia quickly. Thank you. Today we're going to talk about anxiety narratives, which I think is a great topic. Credit to Josh on this one. Like, what do you mean by anxiety narrative? What do you talk about? What does that mean?

SPEAKER_03 1:50

So anxieties are spoken about a lot in the wellness sphere, uh, even in the therapeutic sphere. Um, people have their different uh theories as to where anxiety comes from and how to address it. And I thought we'd use today as a way of kind of I love a conceptualization, Drew. I'm boring, but it's really important. Uh looking at your anxiety narrative where it plays a part. Some people get anxious because of things outside of an anxiety disorder, some people are well in the midst of an anxiety disorder. Um, understanding and conceptualizing where your anxiety comes from and originates uh is super important. And we'll also kind of talk about a lot of popular theories and narratives around it. Um, because I think it's really important to you know get down like on paper, like on and or just formulate in your mind what the problem is here.

SPEAKER_02 2:47

Yeah, and that narrative is important as the person, the helper, right, in like a therapeutic relationship, like we're gonna bring certain narratives into that based on our theoretical orientations and the way we conceptualize anxiety disorders. So it's both like your helper will have their narrative and you have your own, also. Like, what what do you think about it? One of the first things I'm gonna try and figure out is what do you think about your situation? Because my narrative doesn't matter until I hear yours. So, like, what how do you think your anxiety developed? What do you think is the real problem here? Who are you? Who do you what do you believe about yourself? Like these all go into the picture that you have to paint to kind of see what you're gonna do next. The narrative really drives the the car and away down the path. So it's important.

SPEAKER_03 3:29

And you speak about values a lot and uh where do values fit into the narrative? Um, I think the first port of call though is to understand kind of what type of anxiety you have, why are you anxious? For a lot of people listening to this podcast, it's I'm anxious because you know, my threat response is misfiring, usually down to accumulated stress, or whether it's you know, slow accumulated stress or a traumatic event, and we're stuck in this state of fight or flight, fearing it, misinterpreting it. So the beginning of the narrative for a lot of people listening to this podcast is how do I stop fearing this threat response and misinterpreting it and getting off the hamster wheel, which is something I always bang on about. But at the same time, when you're looking for help with anxiety, or you may have heard this from a therapist or from a mental health guru, is that they you might hear conflicting information. So some therapists might say, Well, you can't get rid of your anxiety because you've not addressed this childhood issue. Um, some people may say you need to somatically experience something in order to process stuff, which you know it can play a part, but again, in if you if you're struggling with chronic anxiety, misfiring threat response, intrusive thoughts, and obsession and fixation over your symptoms and catastrophizing for me and probably Drew, it it's how do we calm down this threat response first so we can think straight?

SPEAKER_02 4:58

Yeah, what's so important there is so many times the first thing people want to know is why is this happening to me? So, like first I'm gonna ask, well, why do you think it's happening to you? Because that matters, right? I I'm not gonna tell you what it is. You know, my job isn't to tell you, it'll help me interpret, but where why do you think this is happening? Where do you think this comes from? And if it is a clear, I'm anxious because I'm anxious in our context. Now the therapist's theoretical orientation or their narrative that they kind of bring into treating anxiety is well, here's where I think this comes from. And for people like us, it's like, well, it almost doesn't matter where it comes from because you can't probably clearly figure that out while you're burning anyway. Like, so that's you're you're not gonna have a really fruitful search for maybe the root cause of whatever it is while you're on fire. So our narrative, I think, as anxiety specialists is gonna be kind of like, well, we really care more about the here and now and what's happening right now. And then if over time the past comes up and it gives you the opportunity to sort of dig into that a little bit or do some introspection, cool, but we're not gonna start there. Whereas maybe other people might come into the therapy room, even clients, they have a narrative that has to do with this connects directly to my dad, or this connects directly to this event. Okay, well, I got to listen to that then. And some therapists will also assume, well, this must connect to your past in some way, or this is how we treat this. And it will vary so widely, which would make some of this stuff really confusing, don't you think?

SPEAKER_03 6:21

Definitely. And when you're looking at like trauma narratives as well, that can be confusing to someone with disordered anxiety. There's a lot of therapists, and some of my colleagues who trained in different modalities, and they're like, no, you must address the trauma first. It's like, no, I'm gonna go with Drew's violent analogy of us being on fire. Let's put the fire out first before we do that. Is there a part to play in that? Yes. For me, though, what working with disordered anxiety, I will look at the barriers to people believing that they are the coping technique, that they are the strength. That's where those narratives can play a part. Well, actually, I don't believe in myself. When I was growing up, my mum and dad were pieces of crap and always put me down and bullied me and put so much pressure, and I was been in rubbish relationships, and I don't feel very good about myself. I don't have much self-belief. So don't ask me to go and do an exposure on public transport because I'm not feeling great. So for me, I'd look at that as a therapist. I'd go, okay, well, that's a barrier to you seeing that you're the coping technique. You know, look, I think Drew and I were a bit lucky in our in our anxiety narrative because stress accumulated. We developed an anxiety disorder through uh our own paths. And luckily, we were like, Well, what do I need to do to get better? Let's you know, pull up my boots, roll up my sleeves, let's do the exposure a little bit at a time and go easy. And we were already our own friend, but your narrative might be, I need to be my own friend first, right, before I start doing this, because you uh you're the person where Craig the critic comes in and stops you and beat and beats you up. And what is your anxiety narrative? Also, as well, if you've got someone feeding in your ear, oh no, it's because of trauma, and you got strapped and you need to do this and do that, the narrative you might not even know what it is to get better, and I think that's why I wanted to talk about it today. Uh, it was also inspired by um someone who messaged. Um yeah, that was it. I'll just read this message out. It's from a fellow therapist. Love this message. So, dear Drew and Josh, thank you so much for all your work. I'm a therapist, and your approach to treating and understanding anxiety has helped me to support so many people who are living with anxiety. Thank you. Makes you know that I think is really good that uh works uh influencing that. I wondered if you could talk about somatic experiencing when treating anxiety, and it's a really good question. Um, do you feel it's helpful? Can it be counterproductive? Love to hear your thoughts on this, and thanks again for everything. That was from Layla. That that was that was true.

SPEAKER_02 9:11

Truth be told, I couldn't wait to hit the button. Thank you for the question. Thank you, Layla. You're getting to the end of the morning. So such a good question. Just as an example of another narrative. Yes, exactly. And I think what's so important about Layla's question is what you're seeing here is a clinician who is open to looking at other other ways of doing this. Like, well, maybe I like somatic experiencing for whatever reason, but let me let me see if what the feedback is on using that in this particular context. I could not like this question more. I love it.

SPEAKER_03 9:39

This and that's what makes, in my opinion, Layla a great therapist. I'm open to other narratives as to why this is happening.

SPEAKER_02 9:47

Yeah, I I would agree with that because when you said it could be so confusing, and this is also why it's so important that it's not just what the helper thinks. It can't be only my narrative. It can't be, because otherwise you run the risk of, well, let me tell you my story, and I'm gonna hold that up as your model for wellness or improvement or your well-being. It can't be. My narrative is my narrative. And you pointed it out really eloquently. You're right. For people who maybe don't have the same background that you and I were lucky enough to have, you I couldn't just say, oh, I just got in the car and drove every morning. Yeah, I did. That is what I did, but I can't just say, well, then you do that. Go ahead, you do that. Come to my workshop and my mastermind, and I'll just tell you what I did. And then when you can't seem to get a grip on it and you don't know why, it's going to feel like you're broken because I don't know. I have this person with this big following is telling me what my anxiety is. No, they're telling what their anxiety was. So, like your narrative really matters, and and your helper has to understand that, be sensitive to that, and match it. And here we have somebody who sends in a question that clearly wants to be able to match where their clients are.

SPEAKER_03 10:52

Hello. It's really refreshing that that question as well. And you and again with narrative, if you're someone on social media scrolling and you're um you see in your feed, and there's another person who can you can maybe relate to maybe have the same symptoms, the same what ifs, the same worries, and they get to a certain place, and their narrative was they don't live your life. You can ex you can relate to their you know phenomenological experience at the time, but as Drew says, it's a very one-track approach, it worked for me, so therefore, yeah, it should work for you. And and I mean, that's the reason why I like training to be a therapist because you get to see nuance and things and stuff like that. It's not just you know, one coach with one method, and this should work. Because if it doesn't work for you, maybe you've got other hurdles that need a more in-depth exploration with a therapist first. Um it's important because you can end up feeling like a failure.

SPEAKER_02 11:52

Yeah, I'm like nothing's ever gonna, or you're hopeless, nothing's ever gonna work for me. And that's not true. I think it's funny because narrative is is woven into the, you know, we hear it every day and we get it, but everyone's different. Everyone's different. Like sometimes people will come back at me with like, but everybody's different. That is correct. Everybody's different. We can rely on general principles that are generalizable across very large populations, but you have to apply those within the differences. So, like, yeah, the principles of exposure are the same from you to me to anybody listening here, but the way we would apply them is going to depend on the person's experiences, their personality, their beliefs, their entire narrative. That's how we learn how to apply the principles. So it's really important. And if you're confused as to what your own personal narrative is, the first thing you might ask a helper is where does this come from? And the best thing would be to try and work together to see where they think it comes from, where you think it comes from. And then you can kind of go from there.

SPEAKER_03 12:49

I think what we're trying to say is like always question narratives and stuff and see if it applies to you, unless it's the narrative that Drew and I are trying to propagate. That's the correct narrative in everything.

SPEAKER_02 13:02

Yeah, I had a that was waiting. I was just waiting for that.

SPEAKER_03 13:04

Uh but what's what would our narrative be, though? I might I would be like, what's the barriers towards practicing the willful tolerance of uncertainty? The willful tolerance of uncertainty, surrendering to uncertainty, uh, the gap between the oh my god to the oh well, which I love. Yeah, but what are the barriers that are getting to that as well? And that's where kind of therapy and a kind of your own narrative comes in. So if you're that person who you know you've seen online that this technique worked for so many people, why is it not working for me? Different narrative, but maybe those barriers play a part, you know, when you think about self-esteem, think about grief, your own fears, your type of anxiety, the approach to agriphobia is different to maybe OCD and intrusive thoughts. Yeah, you know, uh the approach to GAD is different from that. So, yeah, crafting your own narrative to recovery is really important. Um, and yeah, I think it's just something that's people forget. It's like, what's the one thing to help me get better? You, but let's have a look at what's in the way of getting you towards realizing that you are the person that can tolerate this.

SPEAKER_02 14:18

One of the things that's and I promised that I would, you know, before we hit the record button, like, well, I have a theory. Josh was like, Oh, do tell us.

SPEAKER_03 14:24

Oh, he's not told me this theory yet either.

SPEAKER_02 14:27

Yeah, it's not a theory, maybe it's more of an observation or a take on this, and maybe it's gonna sound like we're tooting our own horns, but it's our podcast, so maybe we'll do that once in a while. In my limited, you know what? My limited experience as a therapist, but a lot of experience interacting in the anxiety community for 10 plus years. What I feel like I see, and you tell me if you agree, or maybe I'm off base, I might be off base, is I think people that specialize in treating anxiety disorders, and there it is again. Seriously? Um, sorry, guys. One of the things that I think we tend to do is like, yeah, these are the things we use, these are the tools, these are the methods, this is the modalities we use. But I would never tell somebody that every single problem that walks in the door is literally like an ERP exposure. It can't be. It can't be. Like your past doesn't matter. We're only dealing in the here and now, and we this is the way. This is the way. I used in my podcast that way, and there's a joke, but like, whereas sometimes I feel like in other therapeutic circles, it's like, no, everything is pain, everything is trauma, everything is boundaries, everything is like, no, how could that be? And I feel like maybe we're a little bit more flexible, or am I just claiming high ground now, like the pitchforks and torches coming out? I don't know. I can't possibly imagine that I could tell everybody I ever meet with a mental health problem, do this. But but I hear that narrative all the time from other areas of the therapy world and the helping world.

SPEAKER_03 15:50

Yeah. Does that make sense? Yeah, it does make sense. Yeah, yeah. I think it it amplifies the importance of getting that correct formulated narrative for yourself. For example, so when I struggle with health anxiety, it wasn't so long after losing my brother and my dad. So naturally, my threat response, Captain Amygdala, is going maybe the threat is you're dying. Naturally, naturally. And but but for some therapists, it was like, no, no, this sounds like unprocessed grief manifesting as this. I was like, Well, maybe, maybe not. So my threat response is only trying to find reasons as to why I feel so anxious. Yes, my threat response is probably triggered due to stress. So I love the stress drug analogy. I always use that as part of forming a narrative. Why is your stress drug overflowing? Well, what's in your stress drug is different to everyone else's, and what can we do to empty it? For me, grief was filling up that stress jug, and because the threat response couldn't really pick up on any danger in my environment, it would pick up on aches and niggles and anomalies because it's trying to help me find where it is. So my narrative was understanding, yeah, I'm going through grief, which was stress, which adds to my stress jug. Uh, so processing that grief did help, but in the moment when the drug's overflowing, my narrative was to know I need to stop engaging with this topic for a minute to teach the brain that this uncertainty is expected, but it's okay, and I need to learn the initial principles. Whereas going straight towards grief and reliving traumatic moments wasn't gonna initially help my stress drug to overflow, you know, and that's just an example of kind of crafting the narrative to recovery here. Um, don't get me wrong, I went back and did explore that. It was really nice from a preventative point of view, not a reactionary point of view.

SPEAKER_02 17:48

And I think in in our context where people are anxious because they're anxious, while certainly there were precipitating circumstances there, you know, if you were sitting across from me, one of the common questions that I know you hear all the time is, well, this is what's going on in my life, blah, blah, blah. And now I can't, I'm stuck on health themes. I can't get these sticky thoughts about my health out of my okay. Well, you just told me that this horrible thing happened to your dad and your brother. Like, why wouldn't you think that? It's the first thing I got to tell somebody because they're wondering, what's wrong with me? Why is my brain stuck? Why, well, first of all, let's acknowledge that. Like, those are gonna feed in. Why would you not be thinking that is a thing I say all the time in my sessions now. Why would you not be thinking that? Like, let's not be broken, right? You're not broken. That's not the problem here. Like, of course, you're worried about that. Why wouldn't you be given what you just lived through? So now we got to incorporate that into the work, right?

SPEAKER_03 18:37

So and I didn't react to it and think and talking of that actually, we had a really good did it anyway, didn't we? On a similar theme of health, about trying to I just remembered, yeah. We got that.

SPEAKER_02 18:47

We got a lot of did it anyways and stuff today, which is really good. Well, no, we have a question about health. So we have a question about checking health compulsively, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 18:56

There was something about I've I've stopped I've checking and now I've I've stopped trying to fix it and leave it alone or something. Oh, yes, that one that's a did it anyway. Yeah, well, okay. Let's play that because it feeds into it feeds into stuff nicely. Yeah, it kind of does. All right, let's hear it. It's a good one.

SPEAKER_00 19:09

Hi, Drew and Josh. Um, I want to give you a few I did it anyways. I've been really focusing on working hard on my anxiety, but also not working so hard on it, if that makes uh sense, and letting things be and just going with the flow a bit more. And this summer I really wanted to do some beach ogre. I saw it last year and never got to do it. So this year I was determined to do it, and I did it anyway. Just me make it more of a uh well, so it's not in the driving seat the whole time, and I am more in the driving seat now of my life. So thank you both. Um, and hopefully I'll have some more. I did it anyways, um, in the coming months and might pop back up and tell you about those two. Thanks again. Bye.

SPEAKER_02 19:58

Oh, I hit the wrong button. Sorry, guys. Um, you know what I wiped out? I wiped out our applause. I'm sorry. I've got it waiting. Hang on, here it is. There you go. Thank you. I can make up from my production incompetency. That was a great minute anyway. You know what I love about this one? I the narrative, if we bring it back to our topic, sometimes even changes over time. So, like, this is a person who I have to do something about this, I have to do something. That becomes part of the narrative. Like, this is I have to fix this, I have to fix this, I have to interact with this, I have to find a technique. And then suddenly it's it over time it shifts to like, no, no, wait, I tried to do less about this because I'm accidentally putting it in the driver's seat. What a great turnaround this is.

SPEAKER_03 20:38

So good. You changed your narrative there. It's such a good did it anyway. Yeah, yeah. And the love stop trying to fix it constantly and just let it. I'm in the driver's seat, but it can come along with me. Well done. You just switched the narrative there as well. You realize, and particularly with stuff like health anxiety and stuff. Um, we get a lot of these questions as well, like, and I think we've got one later on, but like it's about what in the mainstream general wellness stuff, you know, check yourself, check, do this. Every time there's an anomaly, you must check, you must act. When we see anxiety and disordered anxiety itself as the anomaly and all the symptoms it throws at us, we can get pulled in. Our narrative is well, everyone keeps telling me that I should keep checking and stuff. Maybe not now. Maybe it's time to craft my own narrative here because this lies outside this kind of realm of information.

SPEAKER_02 21:29

Yeah. The narrative building, your narrative, not the helper's narrative. Sometimes that takes that's a difficult thing to build. Like if you're really confused, you don't really know, and you're working to try and figure out what your narrative is and sort of formulate and conceptualize this. Sometimes you're forced to confront longstanding beliefs, like cultural things. You know, I've had people that like they come from a culture which is totally fine, where things like intuition and gut feelings were really important, like in the family culture. And so the narrative that they come in is is. Has that baked into it because why wouldn't it? They were raised in that culture. And it's really hard for them to rebuild that narrative around, oh, like following everything I think as intuition or messages or gut feelings that I must honor. I'm gonna have to put that aside for a little bit. So sometimes your personal narrative is built based on your culture, you're upbringing your beliefs, like those imputed beliefs that you have, and like, oh, now they stand in the way of a constructive narrative, so I gotta do some work on that. Like it's a complicated puzzle sometimes. It's okay if it is.

SPEAKER_03 22:30

It's it's quite like but particularly when you're looking at therapy narratives as well. Like a lot of therapists have therapy narratives. I work with some kind of hardcore purist therapists that are like, no, this is the the narrative and the modality I'm trained in, and all suffering is because of this theory. It's like, no, be open, be open like Layla, and just be like, Well, maybe not for this person, because we're all different, and it's really important to realize.

SPEAKER_02 22:59

Well, should we answer Layla's question? We actually didn't answer it. She's like, Okay, guys, can you actually answer the question at this point if she's listening?

SPEAKER_04 23:08

Sorry, yeah, I didn't think of that.

SPEAKER_02 23:11

Like, oh, maybe we should actually answer.

SPEAKER_03 23:13

I wonder if I wondered if you uh could talk about somatic experiencing when treating anxiety. Do you feel it's helpful? It can be counterproductive. Well, for most people with anxiety disorders, I'd say it would be it can be seen as an urgent reaction to anxiety. Yeah, if I'm going to but but also you can use it, interestingly, you could use it as an exposure, right? So I don't know. So it depends why you're using somatic experiencing. If someone's afraid of their of air hunger, then you could use somatic experiencing as a form of interoceptive exposure. Like, well, if breathing scares you, let's get used to breathing and experiencing that and the discomfort that comes with it. Yeah, but if you're going, well, if I actually, you know, where are you feeling that emotion in your body? For some people, and particularly me who's got neurodivergent, I'm like, I don't know what you mean by where do I feel the emotion in my body? My stomach is tense because I'm anxious, my chest's tense because I'm anxious. It's not because you know, there's some stored deep emotion there. I don't believe that stuff. Lots of people do, they love it. And I'm like, and it might work and it might be a very neurotypical thing. But for someone who's very neurodivergent, if you ask me, like, you know, where where do you feel that fear and grief? I'm like, uh, everywhere. I need to go to the toilet, my heart's pounding. Um, I don't know, my arm. I don't know, I don't know where it is. So it depends. For some people, they might be like, you know what? I actually can feel that fear, that anticipation in my stomach. And sitting with that somatic experiencing and being okay with that symptom that that I'm afraid of could work, but it's not gonna work for everyone. It certainly wouldn't have worked for me.

SPEAKER_02 24:57

That's really you know, that's fascinating. I just learned something right there.

SPEAKER_03 25:01

The way you're gonna send a knowledge lad.

SPEAKER_02 25:03

Yeah, 100%. I I really dig that. Like, well, where do you know what it where do you feel it in your body? I don't know. Like, okay, that's not the way you experience it. That was really that was actually very educational for me. It feels like the somatic experience thing becomes I don't think you can do anxiety disorder recovering based on the the physical symptoms of anxiety, if that's where you're hooked, right? You can't not do some form of somatic experiencing. It's going to be part of the work, it's just big baked in anyway. I think the danger part there is where the physical experiences are then interpreted in some way. That gets a little rough. Like, we're gonna try and find meaning. Like, I love the explanation. This is your body naturally responding the way scared bodies do. So, like what I always say, like, well, are you scared right now? Yeah, I'm really scared. Okay, well, what do you feel in your body? My heart is racing. I'm so like, yeah, that's your body doing scared body things. End of story. You know, maybe later they might be able to say, Oh, that reminded me of when, or this is why I feel that okay, cool. But for now, trying to interpret the somatic experience and add meaning to it, that's a problem most of the time, I think, in anxiety.

SPEAKER_03 26:13

And I think that's a narrative which is counterproductive, particularly for people with anxiety disorders. And it was certainly counterproductive in my recovery as well. Yeah. When I think I've said this before on this podcast, but you know, I went into training to be a therapist, very happy, and and left trading feeling like there was something wrong with me, because maybe through the act of transference or whatnot, but like this, I left convinced that I had trapped trauma and grief and all this stuff. Yeah, and actually looking back years now, I was like, kind of made me more unwell. I was really quite happy and content. That's why I wanted to be a therapist. And a lot of these narratives I was fed on by my anxiety. So my my brain was like, What if you've got trapped unresolved trauma? What if you've got you've been through a lot, Josh? And then I noticed I slowly started to ruminate more and do all these things, and I was like, and then I got pulled back in, and it's really interesting. Now, don't get me wrong, some of those narratives are really helpful for some people, particularly those people who are not the opposite of the inwards compulsion. They're afraid to feel, they don't even care, they don't even check in with themselves about how they're feeling. Their awareness of their emotions are uh zero. Really helpful for their progression narrative. But if you're, you know, if you're listening to this podcast, uh, you know, odds on that ain't gonna help you.

SPEAKER_02 27:37

One of the more common bits of feedback to hear from a big social media audience is, you know, so okay, well, your body's doing scared body things. Your job now is to let it do that without interacting with it. And like, what else is important to you right now? What else can you engage in while it's doing that? And sometimes what I get is, yeah, but isn't aren't I avoiding? I have to feel it more. I have to feel, I have to sit with it, I have to, I have to let it express itself. Like, you're right, where that's correct, but you they it the narrative can sometimes lead an anxious person with an anxiety disorder to feel like there's a right way to do, I have to do it more, but isn't that avoiding? Shouldn't I just sit with and find the meaning in the churning in my stomach?

SPEAKER_03 28:13

No, mix mixed narrative, uh contrasting narrative, no. Also, uh this finding meaning stuff that it's just like no people with globus sensation. This is one I hear a lot. Um, I get globus sensation, it feels like there's something in my throat. And I I hear this from therapists from lots of people that's a symbol, it's a symbol of the unsaid. Like or or or throw the ocam razor at you here, yeah. It could be because your posture's forward, your head's tilted forward, your neck muscles are constantly tense, you probably your digestion's gone, you probably got a lot of trap wind, acid, reflux, whatever, because of a constantly firing threat response. And then you get this globus sensation because of your tense neck muscles, your esophagal muscles, and your posture, you know, just like you'd get chest pain. So it could be my boring non-Netflix answer, yeah. Or if you're gonna go down that way cooler sounding narrative, it's it's a symbol of the unsaid. We've all got stuff we've not said, yeah, you know, you know that I I went into saw my mate the other day, his shirt smelt of damp, but he was having a bad day, so I wasn't gonna tell him that his shirt smelt of damp. I didn't suddenly start getting globus sensation and rolling around everywhere because of the unsaid. I was just like, no, you know, it's like I heard this podcast, thankfully.

SPEAKER_02 29:48

I love it. See, like I thought my little take earlier was spicy. No, that was wasted the non-Netflix shots fired. I heard that.

SPEAKER_03 29:56

Honestly, it really is, and this is this is why people love the stuff of like Gabe Ormite and and and uh and best of Van der Koe, because it sounds applicable, it's like wow, there's something kind of mysterious to explain this. Now, don't get me wrong, they've got some really valid stuff in there, but when it's the only narrative, you know, ADHD anxiety is called caused by trauma, all of it. No, that's quite a reductive narrative, and actually, it harms people who are trying to carve their own narrative. Yeah, and I always start simple. Now I'm not I'm gonna get off my soapbox and stop ranting.

SPEAKER_02 30:33

Fair enough. I think another narrative that is hard to again, this is starting to sound, you know, we don't we didn't do this episode so that we get like, oh, we're better than the trauma narrative. No, it's not that at all, or just picking on the trauma narrative, but there's also the physiological narratives. So, like, I had a situation come up where it's like, well, you know, such and such an influencer says, like, okay, yeah, I know the guy with the doctor of chiropractic tells you that your brain lives in your body, so therefore you must feed your brain. Yeah, yeah, it does live in your body. You're actually right, but that is a tough one too, because then we have the wellness narratives that have focus a lot all on physiodop physiology, movement, diet, like, oh, you don't understand the way out of an anxiety disorder is movement. Like, well, yeah, yeah, it's part of it, or it's affixing your gut biome. Right. Like all of those things, so that there's those narratives. And then I'm not even talking about the therapist or helper narrative, it could confuse your own narrative. So if you listen to this podcast, how many times do we hear like I don't even know who to listen to? I hear every day. Who am I supposed to who do I trust? One person says one person says I have to move my body and experience somatically, and another person says I have to dig for pain, and another person says that it's not pain, and I have to just do what do I do? You have a hard time. Especially now.

SPEAKER_03 32:05

Yeah, the more this goes on, the more I realize how important it is. Like, and I think that's what a good anxiety disorder-informed therapist will do. That's why I love a formulation. So, part of cognitive behavioral therapy is we constantly keep revisiting the formulation. What's the problem here? Yep.

SPEAKER_02 32:22

What do we do next? Yeah, we'll and sometimes that I think for me, what I find is yeah, the narrative that you have that that isn't, you don't have to abandon it. So sometimes I'll tell people, like, we just have to put that aside for now. Like, I'm not saying that's wrong, but for now, let's try it. Would you be open to trying this just to see what happens, you know? And then we can maybe bring that narrative back in, or you can on your own, or you can work with somebody else. You're like, it doesn't matter. But for now, we got to try and work that in in a way where we respect your belief or what you want to be true, but we also have to work in reality in the here and now. Yeah, sometimes it's tricky. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 33:02

I saw the other day, like with DPDR, um, here's a tenuous plug. Drew and I are doing uh today. If you if you're someone who tunes into disordered on the day, that's right. We're doing a DPDR workshop um this evening, UK time, which is uh 8 p.m. But if you're not around, we'll uh will it be available to download. But the reason why I bring that up is because in with DPDR, which is what we'll be talking about, demealizing agent depersonalization. I'm part of these councillor therapy groups online on Facebook, and I go in to check and you know offer my two cents if anyone wants it. And it's usually therapists asking really cool questions like how would you work with this? and they're trying to broaden their horizons. Uh and I get ones like on DPDR, and it's like different alternative narratives, like if someone's experiencing dissociation, it's due to this and that, and unresolved trauma from the past, and this, and it's the body saying this and blah blah. And people forget just the most obvious simple thing, like it's a stress response. I got DPDR the other day, you know, because I I hadn't stopped, I didn't take a lunch break, and my body was like, you know, I'm just gonna dissociate because it's a stress response. I'm gonna remind you that you know this isn't sustainable, that was it. It wasn't because of these things. That was that was it. No one offers that. And in this forum, it was like this group was like, you need to explore attachment, attachment to the self in a child, in a in a inner parent, wounded child work, and all this stuff. It was like, or you could just be like, it's just a it's just a symptom of anxiety, guys. You don't need to add a narrative to it.

SPEAKER_02 34:41

Well, that's the fixing narrative, also, which can be confusing for people if you listen to this podcast. It's really hard to to okay. So we're gonna do like acceptance and tolerance-based approaches to this. We're we're intentionally not trying to fix it. So I think one of the competing narratives from the anxious person's point of view is oh, yeah, that sounds right. Like this, oh my goodness. Uh sorry, so many today.

SPEAKER_03 35:05

You hear those? You want to okay Cupid again? Getting a few getting a few hits today.

SPEAKER_02 35:12

It already showed me that. Why are you showing it to me again? Anyway, sorry, guys. Is it my newsletter? Sorry. Could have been right, right? Josh newsletter. No, believe it or not, it's a calendar thing that tells me to produce this episode. And that happened two weeks ago, too, I think. But the conflicting narrative for the anxious person becomes I, oh yeah, cool, this seems right, like Claire Weeks, acceptance and what Josh and Drew are saying, and people sound like us, yeah, accept it, don't fight it, blah, blah, blah. Navigate through it, tolerate it. But I also like the fixing narrative, which is when I get anxious, I must do a thing that fixes it and calms it down. You cannot reconcile those two things. So I saw that in an ERP training that I did for, you know, I it was four days worth of training where there was a lot of confusion, and many, I'm sure, excellent therapists who want to help kept asking the question, but when do I do the intervention? But when do I do the intervention? Like in other words, my client is in a state of distress during this exposure and they're trying to engage in their ritual prevention and their distress level is up there, like son's level is really high. When do I do the ventral vagal, you know, intervention? And the answer is you don't.

SPEAKER_03 36:14

Ventrovagal narrative.

SPEAKER_02 36:16

Right. So it was really hard for the, and again, I'm sure excellent therapists, I'm not picking on anybody, but like that's from the therapist side, from the anxious person side. Oh, I want to do acceptance, but I also want you to teach me how to stop the panic when it happens. Oh, you can't reconcile that. That's conflicting narrative. Conflicting narrative. Why isn't it? I do the things I don't avoid. I'm going shopping, I go to work, but I'm not getting better. You may have conflicting narratives that you're hanging on to. Not, I'm not talking about the helpers. You yourself might be trying to have two things true at the same time that can't be. So this is important. This was a great topic, man.

SPEAKER_03 36:50

It really, yeah, it's interesting. It's an interesting one. So, yeah, if you're someone in conclusion, yeah. If you're someone who's a bit like, you know, I I I am being bombarded with different narratives and forms of information about how to kind of help my anxiety. Uh, whether it's online, maybe it's even your own therapist or a friend who's perhaps been through their own anxiety issues. You work on crafting your own narrative for you. Uh, that's important. And when you craft it, you get the credit as well. I've crafted my own narrative, I've taken the information, I know me better than anyone else. I know what compulsions I'm in, what safety behaviors I'm doing, and I know I need to work on maybe surrendering or willful tolerance or practicing with uncertainty. And that's my narrative. And I crafted that, and I'm going to get to the end of that and you know, live a content life. Try not, and it this particularly applies to resource gatherers. I need to go out. Maybe there's one more thing that another anxiety expert is saying or whatnot. You know, most people that do this already know enough, you know, in my opinion, anyway.

SPEAKER_02 37:58

I think so too. The only thing I would add to that, the resource gathering is the part I was going to bring it up. Sometimes if you're really confused, like, but I don't know how to craft my personal narrative. Maybe start with like, well, but I have to craft it. I cannot ask social media to give me the narrative. And okay, if you're looking for input, there's nothing wrong with that. That's not a crime. But at the same time, you might start with like, wait a minute, I've been trying that one, and that's clearly not working for me. So I'm gonna have to mute that one for now. And that might be disordered. You might have to stop listening to us if we're not working for you. That's okay. But you may have to craft a personal narrative by by subtraction. Like, oh, wait a minute, I've been trying this and this and this and this, and I'm still in the same boat, and I'm feeling like I'm hopeless. I'm gonna have to start taking those things out of my narrative and trying other stuff that feels more right to me. So that's okay to do that.

SPEAKER_03 38:44

So I think what is good for your personal narrative is feeling scared and doing it anyway.

SPEAKER_02 38:50

You know, I heard that to be true, so let's check one of those out.

SPEAKER_01 38:54

Hi, Josh and Drew. My name is Fernanda, and you can use my name. Thank you so much for everything that you do for this community on your podcast. I've lived with GAD, OCD, panic, health anxiety, the whole nine yards for a long time. And today I want to share a did it anyway. I had a really stressful day at work and I wanted to act on my anxious impulses, but I heard your podcast last week about letting it just be there and not reacting to that shock and trying not to fight it. And I felt so much better. I went on my Peloton, I watched Survivor with my husband, and it was really good. Thank you for everything that you do. I'm gonna remember you guys when I conquer my biggest anxiety challenge yet. Next year, going to a foreign country that really triggers me and makes me anxious. Thanks again. Enjoy your day.

SPEAKER_03 40:06

Good job. I like that. I like the attitude shift to it. It's uh really well done, and uh, no doubt that you'll uh go get through your trip to to the foreign country.

SPEAKER_02 40:17

Um I learned that survivor is still a thing.

SPEAKER_03 40:21

Yeah, also interestingly, that did it anyway, reminded me of an interoceptive exposure I did with a client many years ago. Um, do you remember when the the Sex in the City reboot came out and they had Peloton? It was like they had a Peloton bike, and one of the characters like I didn't had a heart attack on the Peloton bike. Yeah, one of the exposures was for someone who had cardiophobia, and I was like, and they had a bike. I don't know if it was a Peloton, if they had a bike. I said, watch that episode whilst gone on your bike. There's a good exposure, and they did it to be fair. And uh I was really proud of him, yeah. Just to teach the brain that just because you're seeing it, uh, it doesn't mean it's a thing.

SPEAKER_02 41:00

You know, I'm looking. Used to be, does he still the guy that died? The character, I'm sorry. Yeah, follows me on Instagram. Really? Chris Noth. He was he was the guy that played the guy that died on the Peloton, and I remember like he looks familiar to me. And I was like, oh my god, that's the guy from Sex In the City.

SPEAKER_03 41:19

I don't know the character name, but like, yeah, he died in the when your A-list is like you and I, Drew, like you know, you know, it's just all sorts.

SPEAKER_02 41:26

It's so hard to get out of bed. I just wade through the sea of celebrities clamoring around me. It's really hard.

SPEAKER_03 41:31

I've got uh one written did it anyway. Uh, we'll do the question next next time just because a little aware of the time. There's a therapy trope. I'm just aware of the time. Um, I'm just aware of the time. Um, hi Josh and Drew. Loving the work you both do. As someone who suffers from panic disorder and social anxiety, I spent every day for the last eight months ensuring some form of panic attack or social anxiety or fearful state, enduring, not enduring, enduring. Uh, and I wanted to share, I did it anyway. The last four times I've been out to eat with my family and partner, I have suffered terribly with panic attacks and being stuck with physical symptoms such as lead arms, the sensation of losing control of my arms, cramping, and nausea. But this weekend, my family came down to where I live in London with my partner. I went out twice. And although I experienced the symptoms and mental discomfort, I did it anyway and held my one-year-old niece in my lap and enjoyed a nice weekend with my family. Thank you too for making me believe recovery is possible and making it feel like nothing to be ashamed of. Well done, my dudes. Oh, another one. That was really awesome. I love that. You did the opposite. So I've got lead arms. I can't control. No, I'll hold my niece. Lead arms is I don't think I've ever heard that term before. It's really good. Lead arms. Yeah, yeah. Well, I can show you some steel arms. Oh no. I don't know what that that's that's the cue to leave. Thank you for tuning. Oh, but before before we before we go, uh keep an eye out for disordered round table. It's coming soon. Uh very frequently, uh, maybe every week, every couple of weeks, Drew and I will invite to do like a live discussion. If you want to come in, um be a limited amount of seats available if you want to come in, sit on the round table, ask a question, share your experience. We want to be more involved with the community and spend more of our time with you guys. Uh, but yeah, keep an eye out for that. If not, follow us on social media or tune in every Friday. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 43:27

Of course, if you're digging the podcast, leave a review on Apple or Spotify. Just say. All right, guys, thanks for listening. Five stars. Keep your review to yourself. We'll see you guys next week. We're out of the