Danielle Thornton, an anxiety and OCD specialist, explains why avoidance makes anxiety worse and what actually works: exposure and response prevention. She normalizes setbacks in recovery and says intrusive thoughts will still happen, but you can learn to handle them differently with professional support.
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Welcome back. My name is Danielle Thornton. I'm an anxiety and OCD recovery specialist and I've been helping people recover from anxiety, OCD, even depression, just like I have since 2019. And with the proper recovery skills, you can get there too. Today I want to talk about those of you who are afraid of the anxiety coming back. Afraid, afraid of being triggered. And this is actually really common at the beginning stages of ocd, before you're actually getting treatment and before you've been at least through some of the recovery process. And here's why. The basis of OCD is fear based thoughts. So whatever it is we're afraid of, there's a million things I could list and it's going to be different for all of you. Although there are some common themes.
It'S about fear. And to get to the recovery stage, what we have to do is learn to react differently to fear, uncertainty and intrusive thoughts. Because before we know what to do, we're doing the best we can with coping mechanisms that usually don't work very well, including trying to run away from the fear, trying to avoid it, push it away, not see it, not come across it, and all of that. But as you have probably seen, and that doesn't work. Running away from it doesn't work. Trying to avoid it doesn't work. It only teaches you in your brain that I can't handle it. I can't handle triggers, I can't handle these uncomfortable feelings, I can't handle anxiety. And the more you run away, the worse it gets. The reality is when you start to face it and learn to react, do it differently. The anxiety will decrease, the intrusive thoughts will decrease, your confidence will increase, your comfort levels will increase, and that's what exposure and response provides. Treatment is all about what helped me get to the recovery stage, what helps all of my clients who do the work get better. So if you are afraid of the anxiety coming back, it's not that I'm telling you to be okay with it or be happy that you're going to have anxiety, but anxiety and uncertainty is part of life. And through the recovery stage, we have to get comfortable with the process of recovery, which is ups and downs. And it's no different than trying to learn how to ride a bike. You fall off and you get back on, you stumble and you recorrect, you fall off again and you get back on or learning how to walk. None of us really remember this, but we took a couple steps, we fell down, we got back up, we took some More steps. We fell down again, we got back up. The brain does not change overnight. And that's why recovery is a process. And this brain process of anxiety and OCD and intrusive thoughts and uncertainty, your brain is going to continue to try to protect you. It's going to continue to try to give you intrusive thoughts until it essentially runs out of subjects. And it's not going to run out forever because uncertainty is part of life. So every once in a while, your brain is going to try to go back to this pattern of, oh my gosh, something might be wrong, something bad might happen, and give you an intrusive thought. But once you learn the recovery skills like I have, what this looks like is, oh, my brain's wanting to worry about, fill in the blank. I'm not gonna engage, not gonna do compulsions. I'm not gonna try to figure it out. I'm not gonna try to create certainty or perfection. And it's not getting what it wants. It fades away. Now that takes a while to get to. I didn't just go from A to Z like that. Recovery is a process of learning the right techniques, practicing the right techniques, and getting support through that process. And that process will come with OCD or anxiety coming and going and coming and going. But the more you try to run away from it and not want it to come back, the more it's likely to come back. And the worse it's going to feel, the more you expect it to come back and understand and accept that uncertainty is part of life. And your brain's going to keep giving you intrusive thoughts until you really retrain it to not really care if it gives you intrusive thoughts or not. And I know it sounds easier said than done, and this is why I highly suggest going to my website, looking at my one on one coaching options or even one of my memberships or courses to get help with this. Because I see so many people trying to do it alone. It's really difficult. There's no way I could have done it alone. So get the proper support and training and education, someone to guide you through this process so that when you do have something that comes up, when you do have an intrusive thought that you're really struggling with, you can talk to somebody. Because what helped me the most was having somebody that understood what I was going through, somebody that knew what I needed to do to push me and keep me accountable to going in that right direction, someone to help me get all of my compulsions down to zero. Which is part of the recovery stage. Someone to help me recognize and understand what all of my compulsions were. Because the first couple years my ERP specialist did not teach me that and I was doing compulsions I didn't know about. So all of this is really, really crucial. It takes time, it takes support and, and it works with everybody that I work with. So don't be afraid of it coming back. Expect it to come back. Know that it will. And when you accept it and you're ready for it and you know what to do and you have that confidence, it's no big deal. And you will stay in that recovery state. I hope this was helpful. If it was, please hit like comment below subscribe to my channel. All of this helps me to continue to provide you with the content that you are looking forward to. Know that the content that I'm putting out there is helpful for you. So again, if you need help, the link is in the description below and we'll talk to you next time.
Sam.
