Published on 12, July, 2020
Hi. I'm new and I'm looking for some opinions and advice from some other people like myself.
I'm 22 years old and I've been completely reliant on everyone my entire life. I cannot step outside the house alone, make phone calls to people I don't know and pretty much any social situation, involves me getting close to having a breakdown.
In the last few weeks, I have started having intensive therapy to help me with my anxiety that has ruled my life.
For as long as I can remember (I was diagnosed at 12 and have been under therapy for years), I have been taught safety behaviours. Things such as, planning before a situation, rehearsing what to do or say, having someone with me for support and now, I've been told that these aren't good for me. I've been told to push through the anxiety and deal with it without my safety behaviours, because apparently, this will reduce my anxiety overall, naturally.
When I was 12, it was confirmed by a highly thought of psychiatrist that having Asperger's, lead to the fight or flight section of my brain, to basically overwork itself, causing me to feel fear at even the smallest of things.
The thought of pushing myself through anxiety, scares the hell out of me. I'm terrified from the moment I wake up, so making myself do things in order to face the anxiety and deal with it, makes me physically shake.
Is my therapist right? Should I force myself through the anxiety, or will it make me worse?
It depends on what's meant by 'push through' - one of the things my therapist taught me was a technique to 'defuse' anxiety by understanding that it's OK to feel anxious but you don't have to let that anxiety control you.
The idea is that you take whatever is making you anxious and 'abstract' it to the pint where it's 'just words' and you can observe yourself reacting to the words rather than the situation e.g. you're in a crowded, noisy venue and it's making you anxious...
1. Write down (or visualise) the thought "I'm trapped in a noisy, crowded room" - read it 3 times and really 'engage' with it
2. Above the first line write (or imagine) the words "I am having the thought that..." - read the the two lines together i.e. "I am having the thought that I'm trapped in a noisy, crowded room" do this three times...
3. Above the new first line write/imagine "I am noticing that..." - read the three lines together i.e. "I am noticing that I am having the thought that I'm trapped in a noisy, crowded room" do this three times...
By this point you should (hopefully) have been able to 'pull back' from experiencing the situation 'live' and made it into a more manageable thing, you can then take more rational action e.g. you read/think "I am noticing that I am having the thought that I'm trapped in a noisy, crowded room" OK, so you should now be kind of observing your self and can think "Maybe I'll go outside/to the toilets where it's quieter so I can get my head together" or "I don't think I have the spoons for this right now, I'll make my excuses and leave..." or something, but essentially you buy yourself 'space' to see that you're getting anxious and 'defuse' it before it spirals out of control...
This approach isn't about 'forcing yourself to keep going', which (in my amateur opinion) is likely to just lead to a burnout or meltdown once you get away from the situation, it's about accepting that you are having a completely legitimate response but you don't have to let it control you.