 This week on the anxious truth. We're talking about social media use mental health and anxiety recovery and we have a special guest to help us with that So let's get cooking Hey, what's up everybody? This is the anxious truth podcast episode number 191191 recorded in January of 2022 if you are new to the podcast I am Drew Lynn Salada. I am creator and host of this fine show the anxious truth is the podcast But we talk about all things anxiety and anxiety recovery So if you're struggling with things like panic attacks panic disorder or gorophobia or any related conditions This is the place for you. I'm really happy you're here. And of course if you are a returning listener or a returning viewer I'm certainly happy that you here. Thank you for coming back every week. I appreciate that before we get on to our discussion This week we're talking about social media social media use and how it impacts mental health and anxiety recovery And I have a special guest to talk about it with that. I know you guys are gonna love Before we get into that I want to remind you I know I'm gonna sound like a broken record that this is more than just a podcast The anxious truth is more than just a podcast. There's a second podcast and morning email Little daily dose delivered into your mailbox in the morning three to five hundred word anxiety recovery lesson and a tiny little three to five minute Morning podcast called the anxious morning, which is completely free and everybody that's involved right now is loving the hell out of it And I'm really enjoying doing that you can find that at the anxious morning comm and there are other things beyond this podcast There is my social media presence So if you're not following me on the social platforms do that and I'm also an author I've written three books and anxiety anxiety recovery So I urge you to check those out as well You can find everything at the anxious truth comm and you'll also find a way to support my work If you like it and I'm helping you and you want to find a way to do that Just go to the anxious truth comm slash support and you can check all that out So avail yourself of the resources and as always I appreciate any support that you offer even if it's just cheering for me Thank you very much. So that out of the way, let's get on to our discussion We're gonna talk about the use of social media and where it kind of fits where there are pitfalls Which got to be careful with as it relates to mental health and anxiety recovery. So let's get on with it right now All right, here we are welcome back peeps For those of you listening to the podcast on audio You got a whole intro if you're watching on YouTube. You're just getting you're getting the no-frails version So to my right is my good friend and wonderful human being Kimberly Quinlan. How's it going KQ? What up? It's great. Thank you for having me. I'm honored to be here again I know it's always so much fun to have you you did we're today We're gonna talk about I have to say this for YouTube because you didn't get the intro today We're gonna talk about social media and like social media in relation to anxiety and anxiety recovery now Kimberly did One of the best 15 minute videos you're ever gonna see on Instagram ever about this last week I was literally fist pumping while I was listening to her and I'm like, all right We have to do a podcast on this so so here we are Let's talk about some of the stuff that you went over in terms of relating like social media use to mental health and recovery It's tremendous points Right. Well, the the the whole video was called the responsible use of social media And so I had been thinking and reflecting a lot on social media and I had been observing my thinking about it social media is being bad for me or Bad in general and then I started to really think about that social media is mutual Right and how we consume social media is what kind of defines whether it's healthy or unhealthy And then we can go from once we once we declare that then we can start to explore How can I be responsible in my consumption of what is on the internet? And when I talk about responsibility I want to be really clear some people think that that sounds like a disciplinary word and I Love the word Responsibility I think it is one of the most compassionate words It helps us to know that we are Responsible for our mental health that it is our job to take care of ourself And that is the most self-compassionate thing you can do and so you can do this with any area of life But please I hope you do it with social media. Yeah, I love that I think the idea of personal responsibility is very there's tremendous power in that Oh, I get to do things I get to have influence in this process. I choose. What do I choose? Yeah, why am I choosing it? Sometimes I think along those lines You know and choosing what how do I want to use social media? What is good for me? I think 10 especially these days people get caught up in the idea that oh, no, no, no like you're scrolling Instagram all day because I follow 78 anxiety accounts. I I have to do that. That's good for me No, not necessarily is it Well, you know, I will speak personally and one of the points that I will make here and I'll make it now is It it not everything is for you Right. Not every post is for you. Not every page is for you And we have to really stop and consider what is for you from me personally I have when I did this and I sort of really watched myself. I realized There are so many social media pages that are focused on mental health saying The same thing and it gets really noisy and it gets really like You you could leave feeling quite overwhelmed and confused because everybody's saying a version of a very similar thing That can be incredibly overwhelming. I personally went through my whole social media account Put a whole bunch of people on mute. I don't I'm not saying I don't want to hear what they have to say But I'm being very intentional about what do I need to hear and what don't I need to hear what's helpful What's effective and going from there has been really helpful Yeah, you muted me, didn't you? I didn't I did not meet you. You are not muted my friend I thought about it. See I thought about it every page I look at and I go no, this is I'm not gonna mute my friend Drew That's too funny. I love that. That's such a good approach Sometimes they were it's so funny because there are days and it's so meta which really My phone is making noise I'll have to make noise Intrusive thought. Yeah, it's totally an intrusive Thought it shouldn't be doing that. Oh, and it's a timer that I said, you know what this timer is. It's gonna do this Oh god, this is so ridiculous Hang on. This is gonna get You can't have the scenes So one of the things that's kind of weird addressing social media use is there have been times when I have said Hey, here's an idea like on instagram and my story is I'll say Why don't you just like unfollow all of us for today? Just for a day and try it and then come back tomorrow if you think you have to and invariably It'll generate like a bunch of responses like oh, that's a great idea. I'm gonna do that like yeah But you didn't unfollow me to tell me that so it's such a weird cycle But I think it's a great idea sometimes to say Yeah, I'm just gonna pare down a little bit or maybe I'm gonna rotate people I'm gonna gonna follow my five favorite accounts this week and then I'll rotate to five different ones next week Because the tidal wave it's a tidal wave Yeah, that's over here. Here is the truth. Here is the truth. I'll be very transparent about my experience is I Have a social media page. I am very invested in growing my page I have learned a lot from professionals in this area and they basically say go for things like lists go for things like symptoms go for things that are spicy And I was listening and going aha. Okay. I'll do those things And then I started to realize I'm doing Exactly what I should do to grow following But this is not in the service of people who are in recovery And I had to own that I had fallen into the trap of algorithm hunting And the thing is and I'm not saying any account is bad Any account I'm not I wouldn't even I can't even come to mind with someone I'm thinking about as I say that But you have to understand that as a consumer and me as a consumer I have to understand that the the clickbait the the lists and all those things They're very validating, but they can form as a form of reassurance which keeps you stuck. It feels helpful It feels beneficial. It feels like you're gaining knowledge and for a lot of people. This is where I say Some posts are really helpful depending on where you are in recovery If you're new to this idea and you're learning about it That can be so helpful to realize like oh, I have Depersonalization like of so many people my best post is on depersonalization and people say I had no idea what that was But then if you're seeing these posts repetitively They do start to be a form of reassurance. And so the one of the main points I made in that video was Really take into account that each post is not specifically for you and question and consider Whether this is keeping you in a cycle of reassurance. Now. I'm not saying that to freak everybody out and feel like oh, no Now I'm like using a social media as a compulsion. I I'm not saying that any of this is going to be bad or devastating It's just something to think about Yeah, I agree and I think a lot of it is how do you really feel when you're done with the doom scroll or That you feel compelled to go back to it every hour I got a scroll for 10 minutes That kind of says something and honestly just to follow up on the point and that look I've been there I remember the business here and to a certain extent and the advice I I know how to get followers if I want them I know how to get likes and comments if I want that but The platforms that we operate on and I'll instagram. We're on together all the time So I'll call it instagram, but they are all the same are not operating based on what's best for you They are operating based on how can drew and kimberley keep your attention is what that's what the platforms are there for We exist for instagram so that we can keep your attention and keep you on the app But that doesn't necessarily have anything to do with helping in your recovery or providing you with valuable information or guidance so That just keep that in mind as you're scrolling scrolling scrolling and liking liking liking there's a reason We keep liking the same messages again and again and again There's folks at instagram. I'm going to go all evil empire like we got them In a way There's a reason why those posts keep you coming back again and again But I also think that you have to recognize that this is not necessarily a tool that's geared toward my recovery this is a tool geared to keep my attention and In the end it means that sometimes as a content creator you create content that I know is going to be like crickets But it's the most valuable content you create I'm sure you can appreciate that I do I really really and I respect you for it, right? I had to make a decision I remember you and I having a phone call and we were saying like I think I was like in the line in and out or something and I and I I think I messaged you and I said kill me if I ever point at things, right? And I'm sure I've done some pointing. I'm not saying there's anything wrong with pointing But I think the thing to remember and here's where I would bring to the point is To be honest when I am on social media. I am providing psycho education But think about psycho education in the context of me as a clinician I do a ton of psycho education at the beginning of treatment and then we don't go back We move on to behavior change and so when you're on instagram, you are consuming education But the real good stuff happens in the behavior change, right? And that happens off social media And I love how we you were talking and I and I made the point too is Track your time if you are finding that you're uncomfortable and you're picking up your phone to manage You're going to you're trying to access psycho education And that's actually not a great management tool a really great management tool is behavior change Right or coping strategies or whatever it is that you're learning at that time But but the actual learning the the act of learning isn't isn't a recovery Behavior that I would encourage a lot of yeah, I would agree And I love how you pointed that out like the psycho education part is only Maybe not even half in the beginning It's probably 80 percent of it because you don't you go and not knowing anything But then that percentage gets smaller and smaller and smaller and then the action Actually starts to matter more than anything else And I will tell you as a content creator in all honesty Content that that I create that speaks directly behavioral change because craters algorithmically It's not good. It doesn't get attention. It just not But if I post five reasons that anxiety is scary, I'll get a thousand likes on that in two hours I get that keep that in mind as you're using it I want to go over Well, one thing I want to mention too is I have found that sometimes social media becomes a surrogate For the action and people will think well, I follow all the accounts. I like everything I comment I watch all the videos. So I'm doing recovery Right. Are you? Well, I think it's the same as have being in therapy right is I often have to have Conversations with patients of you coming to therapy isn't actually it's one hour of the week It's actually not going to create a lot of change in your life. So saying you're in therapy Isn't isn't it's important It's so important But the real change is on four o'clock in the afternoon when you do something to face your fear It's the homework you do. It's it's the actual work. And so I agree with you is Following social media accounts, particularly mental health ones doesn't Mean anything about recovery. I wouldn't even I wouldn't even put them in the same category If I consider them as as a way to get information But then the real change is you In that moment facing your discomfort or writing it out That's a microp right there. That's that is really good advice. That's worth the price of admission right there folks, right? So two things I want to pop in on really quickly, I guess and we talked about this people went on the air So kimmer and he kind of knows but you had you talked in a video about not everything is for you I love not everything is for you Because I think what winds up happening is I made the the I made the I the brought that into the meds discussion discussion of medication or not medication and we have this thing that We also use the social media scroll the doom scroll to validate our choice And confirm our recovery choices or confirm that we are where we're supposed to be So in a conversation about using medication to handle anxiety people who don't use it feel compelled to roll in To remind everyone in that conversation that they don't use meds In a conversation and this is just an example I'm not picking on specifically meds a lot of different things in a conversation about not using meds People might be discussing that and people who are on medications will have to roll in and declare There's no shame in using meds when in reality if you look objectively at the conversation that conversation wasn't for you And it doesn't invalidate your choice So sometimes we see things on social media that don't jive with the way we're doing recovery or the way we're taking care of ourselves But maybe it wasn't for you and you're not obligated to jump in and get into the fray To defend your position or validate your position I think that sometimes can be really harmful and I see it a little bit too often I think Well, and I think that the question to maybe ask yourself as you're going on is Why do I feel such an urgency to to defend my decision? right because Not everything is for you and I say it over and over like not everything is for you You know meds can be really helpful for some people. The reason I brought that up is I get asked every single day on social media about medication And I always say Please please please do not ask anyone on social media about medication or medical health That's just a very that's the most compassionate thing you can do because The people you're asking number one aren't professional Number two don't know specifically your genetic makeup your height your weight your pre-existing condition And so even the conversation around medication I usually just I don't shut it down in like a in a way that's shaming. I more want to frame it as Please don't talk about medication on social media Because they don't know the totality of you They don't understand the many many things that are needed to to go into that decision And the people coming in being defensive don't know that person's totality of what makes them up and what's important to them So I think it's the kindest thing. We are we've gone so far in Social media and in the internet expressing our opinion And I want to kind of bring us all in a rain us in a little and remind ourselves Social media and the internet is awesome. You can find any answer to any question But be skilled in the answers the questions you're asking Yeah, right It's be be wise and compassionate in the discussions. You're having identifying first that What was right for you is not right for other people Yeah, and why do I feel so strongly about defending my position or or Rebutting an alternative position and I think social media. You're right has conditioned us the royal us To say, oh, no, no, we have to be right and we need to make sure we're heard We don't always have to be heard. I'm not telling anybody to sit down and shut up ever But are those conversations productive for us or not in a mental health state? That I want to go and argue about medications or types of therapy or whatever it doesn't matter Meds was just an example. I wasn't picking on that particular topic. No, I think it's true of so many things It even even again in the mental health space online It could be around a different modality than cbt, right? So someone might say a meditation was so helpful for me And someone would say no meditation made it so much worse for me or whatever it may be and these are healthy discussions I applaud people for having them But where I really wanted to educate was as you're reading and observing or engaging in these conversations Just keep in mind that not everything is for you and not everything is for them. It's very personal It's really it's a really good point. It's a really important point So, I mean, I loved, you know, you did talk about being a critical consumer of information I think it's really important for us to also understand not only can you get any answer to any question You can get any answer that you want For any question That is that is really also and I think very important in this situation because I think that whole thing where like social media becomes a surrogate for the actual reaction of recovery for some people I look it's an easy mistake to make not blaming anybody It's it's much easier to scroll than it is to do your ERP homework much easier. I get that But when you are looking for confirmation of something that says well, this will give me a break or I really want that to work I don't want ERP to work because it's really hard and scary. I want this to work instead If you go looking for confirmation that the other thing will work better. You will in fact find it You can confirm anything on the internet if you look hard enough I know if If I'm in a fight with my husband and I want to make my point I can google it and show him you will a hundred percent make your point There's no doubt in my mind and then when he wants to prove you wrong in return. It'll take him six minutes No, I think I think that okay, so let's sort of so I always try to like bring it back to like real life So in real life often once I've seen a patient for a while they will start to say Okay, so what about this one situation like what do you think and I annoy them by going What do you think I'm gonna say right because I don't want them to be going Constantly requiring me as an authority to tell them I want them to start to inquire for themselves Okay, what are the pros and cons of this behavior? Is it effective? Is it short term beneficial or long term beneficial? And so that they're starting to be able to critically analyze Behaviors because again everybody is different And so that's what I would say to a lot of people is if you're going on to ask a question It's fine to go on for education But I I want you really just to be honest. This is like I said the responsibility piece Be really compassionately honest with yourself like Is this for me just to relieve myself of my urgency here? Would this strengthen that muscle that I'm trying to strengthen of being uncertain and and you know willing Like have some really I love questions ask yourself some really good question That is this effective Do I notice a trend of me doing this? You know when I'm doing this is there a sense of me like You know if then statements like if I just do this well Then I'll have this thing and then things will feel better And so I think that that check in can actually help us to make you will probably find You didn't need instagram at all Right, I love that. Yeah That's good. Like why why do you want to ask that question or why do you want to research this thing, right? Oh, why are you picking up your phone? Yeah, it's just the act of being on social media to avoid the discomfort that you feel right now Right, and I I want to say I do it too. Like please please do not do not think I'm coming from any kind of Like mastery over this This is just questions that are fun to ask that sometimes the answer's not fun to hear But it can help help you to be a really You know effective consumer on the internet. I think this even goes I mean well beyond just mental health and recovery too everybody has I don't say everybody it can't But it apparent that it runs rampant at least in the western world now and I find saying I'm walking through my house I said this to somebody just not too long ago today. Like the other day I was walking through my house and I asked myself Why on God's green earth am I walking through my house with my phone in my hand? What what is the purpose of having my phone in my hand going between the dining room and the living room? I don't understand Why do I have this thing in my hand? What is going to happen in this magical rectangle of light that is so important between one room and the other in my house Everybody has these issues. We all have these issues in this age. So these are hard things to confront sometimes I want to ask you one more thing before we sort of wrap up these In a therapeutic environment forget pre-internet, right? There's no internet somebody comes in and they engage you and they're six seven weeks. Whatever into it and they begin to ask Okay, well, what about this modality? What about this alternative treatment? What about this? I mean, I understand that stuff is natural and you should be able to bring that to your therapist or to whoever's your helper I get that isn't the wrong question But you might be able to answer it a certain way or guide them to their own answer The internet makes that question askable every minute of every day all the time So how would you advise one just so I guess it's a personal opinion is clearly this is not therapy We know this these videos are not therapy and Kimberly cannot be your therapist on youtube, but What would you advise a client to do in that situation when the going gets wrong? Are you going to say, you know what? Commit to this for x amount of time You're going to have to leave the other stuff around you can always revisit it if it's this isn't working for you But for now we need to have a focus on this modality for now Is that a thing or it is no I actually I supervise all of my stuff And this was actually a case that we recently went over Is so the way that I do it personally and every clinician is going to show up a little differently But I try not to ever assume that I am the authority on anybody Um except my husband, right? It's a tough room But so I'm going to with a client Is I'm going to first just give them the science right because They're you know, I think it's our job. My job ethically is to provide scientific Gold standard treatment, right? That is my I took an oath to sought to be on the right side of ethics I you know, I I Took an oath that when I show up and if there's a client that I'm not skilled at seeing that I referred them out So I am going to explain to them the science and why and that's an important point Is I made this mistake when I was an intern is I went straight in started doing the tools and I did not explain Why we were doing it and the client fully melted down, right? Like had not like why are you making me do all this crazy stuff? And and I hadn't done enough education and enough of the explanation of the science So I'm going to explain the science I'm going to ask and prompt them a lot of questions like what about that is You know really magnetically pulling you in and we might even explore if there is a trend happening Oh, that one seems to have really quick results, right? Like oh the hypnotherapy. I heard it's two sessions So I'd be done and okay Do you find that there's a trend where you're engaging in behaviors to get fear to go away really quick? And we might may be curious about that at the end of the day if they're adamant about trying it I don't stop them. I don't because For them and this is true for me. It's true for all humans is I think sometimes we need to see The same pattern play out before we are motivated to make change Right, we have we things have to not work a certain amount of times Before we go wait a second, right? Like if my son's playing a game on the carpet And something doesn't work. He'll do it again And he will do it again little point work and but at some point he's going to go. Okay This is not effective something is wrong. I may have to ask for help And so I think sometimes we do need to let them learn by repetition But I I can't stuff anybody and as a clinician my job is not to Ever pressure somebody into doing something I don't want to do Yeah or dictate that but yeah, you know the the internet social media Makes it infinitely askable all the time. Is there a better way? Is there a better way? Is there a better you can ask that every minute of the day and find a better way every minute of the day So that's another thing to be mindful of like am I continually looking for a better way every day? Again back to the economy of attention. It's an attention economy I know you've heard those sort of things before like yeah If you if you're going to seek out a social media source that is a different modality of treatment or a different way to approach an anxiety problem They have a vested interest algorithmically to convince you that you should listen to them Whether it's appropriate or not Yeah, keep that in mind right keep that in mind. So I think you have to also look for the people I think who are going to not insist that you All right, if you don't just if you disagree with me, there's the unfollow button go ahead. I'm not for you. It's okay Yeah Yeah, I've had clients who have brought things like that up I read on the internet or there's this one program online that was really cheap and said that they would give me a hundred percent guarantee And sometimes when I just talk through and go yeah, it makes total sense that that those types of products would be seen so Magnetic right and sometimes when we just sit in like yeah, it makes total sense that you know, that Sounds good Often they don't Purchase those products and go to those they just needed to be validated right they just needed to be like Yeah, you know, I if there were solutions quick solutions to problems I you know, like that makes total sense. They just kind of wanted to air it out Yeah, it makes sense That's a conversation you can have with your therapist or a trusted advisor or a friend or a partner in life Who whatever it is it's hard to have that discussion on the internet So just be aware of having This was so great anytime we get to chat. I'm a happy guy. So you haven't you want to add to this at the end No, I think um keep track of your time is one thing I would mention in terms of just I would actually encourage you to jot down when you pick up your phone People track for a day or two. You'll be shocked at how many times I think your phone can actually tell you that Do now time widget on an iPhone is yeah Because if you do it on your home screen, you will be mortified Yeah, and then the only thing I would really just really push is your mental health is your responsibility It's your job. Um, I'm not saying that it's only your job and that you're alone but Try to really play around with the idea that this is my opportunity. It's my my option. It's my choice Even though that at the beginning is like, oh, I don't like the sound of that It actually can be really empowering because then you've actually like, oh, yeah, it is my choice I have more agency than I thought I did. So I would just play around with really Taking responsibility for the things in your life and whether they're effective or not It can change the game in my opinion Yeah, I'll put a cap on that and I'll use Kimberly as an example because her content is tremendous That's that thing that says, well, I'm going to ask for recovery in the comment section on instagram Your responsibility is to go beyond that nobody can tell you recovery in the comment section anywhere on instagram or otherwise But you have in front of you a resource that has put out years of free psycho education. That's incredibly valuable So be responsible and say I will go and avail myself of this resource that has been handed to me as opposed to Please just just hand me what I want right now Yeah, what do they think the most powerful ways you can use social media is to say Hey, this looks like a really interesting post instead of going into the post to try and see if this will be my recovery Let me explore what else this person has and invest time and ingest some information because there's Good stuff there. There really is. So, yeah, thank you. You too. You too. I still have such respect for all the content you create Oh, thank you. You're very sweet. Uh, anyway, how can people find you? You can You can follow me on instagram at your anxiety toolkit. You can listen to my free podcast at your anxiety toolkit Or you can get a ton of free resources or courses at cbt school.com I highly recommend it. Those courses are tremendous. I can say that firsthand. Yeah, so I appreciate you coming as always Thank you for having me. All right. See you guys next time if you're listening I'll come back and wrap this up if you're watching. We're done. See you all next time Alrighty then we are back in the studio, which is the same desk. I was sitting at not five minutes ago talking with kimberley That is episode 191 in the books I hope you enjoyed it special. Thanks to my friend kim quinland for coming by again you could find her at Your anxiety toolkit on instagram and her website at cbt school.com You should go check it out support her work too because it's excellent and she's just a good human being And that is it. I will play you out as always with after globe on my friend ben drake There it is You can find ben and his music at ben drake music.com go check him out and tell him I said hello And if you are watching the podcast on youtube, please like the video Leave a comment subscribe to the channel If you're listening to the podcast on itunes or spotify or some platform that lets you leave a rating and a review Leave a five star rating write a little review. It helps other people find the podcast and that's why I do this to help As many people as I can That is it. Thanks for coming by. We will see you again next week I don't know what we're going to talk about but we're going to be here. So come on back and remember This is the way