 The people close to us in our lives who are trying to support us, sometimes need their own support. So today on episode 264 of The Anxious Truth, we're going to talk about what happens when your helpers need help. Hello everybody, welcome back to The Anxious Truth. This is podcast episode 264. We are recording in June of 2023 in case you are listening from the future. I am Drew Lincellotta, creator and host of The Anxious Truth. This is the podcast that covers all things anxiety, anxiety disorders, like panic attacks and agoraphobia and OCD and health anxiety, and anxiety recovery. So if you are struggling with any of those things, this is the podcast for you. If you, this is the first time you have sort of stumbled upon the YouTube channel or the podcast, welcome. I hope you find this content helpful and useful in some way. And of course, if you're a returning listener to the podcast or if you are on the YouTube channel, welcome back. Thank you for spending another week with me. So today we're going to talk about what happens when your helpers need help. Because living with and supporting somebody in recovery from an anxiety disorder is a difficult thing. For those people that love us and support us, sometimes they are also entitled to support of their own. If they are going to help us, often they need help so that they can help us. And this is the thing that we have to acknowledge. I think it's not news to anybody. Sometimes the impact that our anxiety has on the people around us, whether they be romantic partners, intimate partners, parents, siblings, close friends, whatever it happens to be, it is impactful. Our lifestyles are impacted. There's a huge amount of restriction and avoidance and conditions and reliance on other people and they feel that strain, which again, I think is not news. It's uncomfortable to talk about this stuff. By the way, I get that it's uncomfortable to face that reality, but we do have to talk about it. It's an important topic. Even though it doesn't have to do specifically with your recovery, this is part of it. So if we acknowledge that and we know that that our anxiety problems can often put a strain on our relationships, whatever those relationships happen to be, there are various types of relationships, but it will put a strain on those that then adds additional fear. So if you are afraid of the thoughts you're having or you are afraid of your bodily sensations or you're afraid of panic attacks or whatever happens to be you're struggling with in your anxiety journey, now the strain on your close relationships, the people you love and value in your life is going to add another dimension on top of that. And I hear it all the time. This is the thing that also gets talked about quite often in the community. I'm ruining everybody's life. My partner is at the end of their rope. I don't blame them if they leave me. What am I going to do without them? If this ends, I don't know what I'm going to be able to do. These are very common additional fears that go on top of your initial fear that you're already dealing with. So keep this in mind because when the time comes that maybe one of your helpers decides, you know what? I'm really impacted by this. I love you, but I need my own help. Those fears about the impact that you are having on other people because I was there, I recognize this. When you are disappointed or angry in yourself because you refuse to go pick up the kids from school or you keep canceling social engagements, whatever it is, now you start to project that and say, well, my partner, my friends, my family, they're disappointed in me. They're angry. They're resentful. They're running out of patience. They're going to leave me. This is terrible. The way you feel is already bad and then you think about the way they might feel about what you're doing and then you feel even worse about you. I'm not saying that that's wrong. That's a pretty normal response that any human being would certainly have. We don't want our loved ones to be angry with us. For instance, I get that, but your anxiety and fear will twist that and try to make you believe that somehow you have some say in how they feel or you get to control that or you might be able to manipulate it. I don't mean that in an evil way with malicious intent, but you may find a way to sort of engineer it so that you can do all your avoidance and you could do all your compulsions and you could do all of your hiding and safety seeking and reassurance seeking. At the same time, I could somehow manage to engineer it so that my friends, my family, my partner, they're not going to be mad at me, so I won't feel bad about that. So when they do decide, I think I need some help here. At face value, we might all say, I get that. I love you too, and I support the fact that you need help in this process. At face value, that would be the reaction that most people would have, right? But when it gets to the point where they do reach out for that help, which they are entitled to, they are entitled to have a place to vent, to say what they feel, what they're thinking, what their challenges are to speak freely and without judgment, like they need that space outside of the relationship, sometimes to just work through what they're dealing with. They're allowed to do that, and we might support that right away and at face value. But what's going to happen is, remember, your anxiety and fear is going to try and tell you that you also have to be really afraid of how they feel and what they think about you. And maybe you can find ways to control that or manipulate that or engineer that so that you won't feel so bad because they feel bad. When your helper, whoever it happens to be or your helpers reach out for help independently of their relationship with you because that exists outside of the relationship, right? They need a safe place without judgment where they can talk. That's not to you. Now this is where your anxiety and the fear really gets its dander up. It will start whispering in your ear, you know, the worst case scenarios. What is she talking about today in therapy? Like what is going on in there? You know, I know what's going on. He's so angry with me. She can't take it anymore. She's out of patience. She's going to leave me. I'm going to lose my lifelong friend from childhood. I know what's going on. I know what they're saying. Your anxiety and fear will sound that alarm and tell you what a dangerous situation this is for you. And then it may also try to wiggle its way in because that discomfort, when you think of that, what if my partner is talking to their therapist that they're counseling right now or the counselor right now and telling the counselor or the therapist that they are out of patience with me or that they're thinking of leaving me. Those are tough thoughts to have their normal thoughts to have, but those will make you really uncomfortable. And then your anxiety and fear might say, you got to wiggle into this process. I don't mean you'll bust through the door and break into the therapy session, but it will probably compel you to try to control how your partner or your friend or your family, your sibling or your friend, whoever it is, they will try to compel you to control what they're doing. So it will want, it will demand a role in your helper's help process, which it does not get to have, but it will insist that it does get to have that. So just let that sink in for a second because this is a little bit circular and reasoning as everything that we talk about is. But if you have been in this situation where the people who are supporting you are reaching out for help, you may have found yourself in a situation where now you wind up ringing your hands and your anxiety is insisting that you somehow get a say in how they get help and what they talk about and what they feel. You will want to try to control what they feel, what they think, what they say. Now in moments of clarity, you'll be able to step back and say, you know what, let them go vent. This is healthy. They got to do it and it's okay. I support that. But in moments where you are vulnerable to the fear and the suggestions of anxiety and the cognitive distortions that come with it, it will insist that this is a worst case scenario. Horrible things are about to happen and you better somehow get involved so that you can control the narrative there. It's really weird. Anxiety and fear in the states in the context that we address them in will insist that all kinds of stuff needs to happen. That doesn't need to happen or can't happen. And in many cases in this situation, your anxiety and your fear will demand that it plays a role in controlling the narrative around your helper getting help. And that's not realistic. That would ultimately cause even more conflict, which makes things even worse. And it's an unrealistic demand. But since when does anxiety make realistic demands? Anyway, we know that. But if your partner reaching out or your friend or your mom or dad or sibling, whoever, if your helper reaches out for help outside the bounds of the relationship and you can't control that, that will make you feel badly and it will probably make you a little bit afraid, a little bit worried, a little bit nervous, a little bit apprehensive, a little bit uncertain, and then disordered anxiety will rush in and say, you better do something about that. You feel really bad right now. You're getting really afraid. Do something about that. But there's nothing you can really do about it. So the moral of the story here today, and this one is going to be a short episode, I'm going to try and make these all shorter. I know you've heard me say that again and again and again, but in the end, 30 minutes a week from the anxious truth and 40 minutes a week from disordered, the podcast I do with Josh Fletcher, it's a little bit much for you guys. So I'm going to try and make the anxious truth shorter, like maybe 10 to 15 minutes max every week. So I'm going to wrap this up went up pretty quickly, but think about that. You may from a logic standpoint from a purely human standpoint say, yeah, this is a really hard situation for everybody in the family. I get it. You know, my partner needs some support. I'm good with that. I want them to get the help. It's healthy for everybody. If they do that, but then the anxious fear will roll in and say, yeah, but you're feeling really uncomfortable right now. Cause what are they talking about in therapy? What's actually in their head? What are they saying? Are they really tired of you? They might, they might leave. They might be talking about leaving right now. And then it will demand that you somehow find a way to get involved in that to control it to steer it and somehow have a say in the narrative of their help process. So when that happens, remember this, remember this particular episode, you're going to have to step back for a second and say, this is one of those situations in my recovery journey when I'm going to have to deal with some discomfort in this moment to allow the possibility for a better outcome down the road. So while you might feel incredibly uncertain, which may trigger actual panic in you over the fact that your partner or your best friend is speaking to a therapist about you right now, which they are entitled to do. You'll know that a face value. But if you are literally triggered into near panic meltdown, because they are speaking to somebody about your situation and that feels dangerous to you, that is a moment where you have to try to reconnect with the idea that this is really uncomfortable for me right now. I'm jumping to huge conclusions that might not be warranted. I'm in the grips of fear based cognitive distortions. And even if I'm uncomfortable now, I have to roll the dice on that to give myself a better chance of a positive outcome in this relationship later. Like anything else, I can skip my exposure today and feel better today, but that decreases my chances of a positive outcome in two months. Same thing here. I'm going to have to just allow this discomfort and work through it and let it play out the way it's going to play out. Because if this person can get the help that they need, we have a better chance of a better outcome in two months or three months or six months, whatever it is. So it's a strange topic because it isn't necessarily focused directly on the anxious person, but on the sort of the dynamic, the family or the social dynamic around the anxious person. But it matters. We can't ignore this. This is a real thing. I've heard it expressed several times. I've heard the fear about the relationships and about our loved ones. I've heard that fear expressed almost on the daily. This particular thing I've heard expressed sometimes, but often enough to know that when the helpers go for help, it's often a huge trigger for the anxious person. And if we're not careful, you can get sucked into that trigger and then set off a sequence of events that actually makes things worse instead of making them better. So when you allow that anxious fear to drive you and you try to insert yourself into their helping process or the process of them getting help, control that narrative, control how they feel, control what they say, things can get really dicey. If the relationship wasn't strained already, that can make it worse. So unfortunately, we get back to a very common theme here, which is, I'm going to have to just be uncomfortable and find the best way I can to work through that. Otherwise, I'm going to make things even worse. And I'm going to minimize my chances of a positive outcome down the road, which is really what I'm looking for. And that's kind of all I have to say on this. It's not a huge topic. It's a relatively simple topic in terms of the amount of information, the amount of stuff that I could tell you without just repeating myself over and over for the next 20 minutes. But just try to remember this episode if you ever wind up in that situation or even in situations where maybe your friend or partner isn't even necessarily reaching out for formal help, right? It doesn't even have to be formal help. They don't have to be going to a therapist or a counselor. Sometimes they just start going to their own friends to vent a little bit. Just the way that you like to vent about your anxiety sometimes, maybe in an online support group, maybe you're one of my Instagram subscribers and you're in the group chats and that sort of stuff just, we only to vent sometimes. So it doesn't have to be that your partner or your friend or your mom or your sibling went to a therapist. They could just be just using their own social network for support. And that can make you uncomfortable. And anytime you're uncomfortable, disordered anxiety will get at the hair on its neck will stand up and it will demand immediate and swift action to try and address that discomfort and that perceived danger. So hopefully this helps. If that's a thing that you're struggling with, maybe you could take this episode with you. If it's a thing that you think you want to talk about with your your supporters with your partner or your friend or your parents or whatever. Hey, listen, I listen to a podcast episode today. I know this is really hard for you. I just want to let you know that if you if you need your own support, I will do my best to support you when you get help. Like you're helping me and I will try to help you when you need the help that that will help you help me. So it's a weird kind of it sounds like a comedy bit, but maybe this spurs that conversation like, listen, I get it. You know, it's really uncomfortable. And if you want to go get some help, I support you in that and I'll do my best to stand by you while you get the help you need because I understand that I'm impacting you and maybe we can work on this all together. But working on it together means you're doing your part in recovery. They are reaching out outside of that for their own support so that they can be here for you to cheer, lead for you and encourage you and do all the things that we know they should do or that you would like them to do. And before I end the episode, just a quick acknowledgement. I could have done at the beginning, but if you're listening to this and you're in a situation where you don't really have anybody close to you that's helping you, I do understand that that's that happens. That does make it difficult. I understand not everybody is surrounded by family and friends that are trying to support them or help them, or you might even be in a situation where you are surrounded by people who are close to you but are not helping or they might even be hurting. And if you are, I get that we're going to talk about those things either here or in the Disordered podcast, the other podcast I do, but so we'll address those things too very soon. In fact, actually Josh and I already did that. Episode 15 of Disordered was my family doesn't get it. We talked about that. So you can go and check that out if you wanted Disordered.fm. But I just want to take a moment and acknowledge the folks that are struggling on the other side of the spectrum where maybe they're alone or they're with people who are not helpful. That happens too. And we'll do the best we can to support you on that one as well. So that is it. That is episode 264 of The Anxious Truth, a short one. I'm 15 minutes. I'm good with this in the books. I'm not going to do the music at the end anymore. Nothing anybody cares. I'm a huge fan of my friend Ben Drake and his music. And I love I've loved using Afterglow for these years that he let me do it. But it's just getting a little bit sticky because I upload these to YouTube and then YouTube flags them as copyright infringements, even though Ben has been bent over backwards to like allow my channel to use it. The software is just not cooperating. So I think we may have heard the last of Afterglow on the podcast. So we'll have no ending music, but that's okay. Everything changes over time. What I'll leave you with is what I always leave you with. If you're listening to the podcast on Spotify or Apple podcasts, any place where you can leave a rating or review, leave a five star rating. If you dig it, maybe take a second and write a review if you can because it helps more people find the podcast and then more people get help. If you're listening to this, there's nothing to watch because there's no video this week. But if you're accessing the podcast on YouTube, subscribe to the channel, like the video, leave a comment, ask a question twice a week. I circle back in and answer my YouTube comments. I promise I get to pretty much all of these days. Pretty proud of that. And that's it. Thank you for stopping by. Thank you for supporting the work. I hope I'm helpful in some way. And I'll be back again next week. I don't know what I'm going to talk about as usual, but I will be here. And just a quick reminder before I sign off, any little step that you could take today in the direction of recovery, even if it's a difficult step, even if you're scared, even if you're uncertain when you do it, and even if it seems insignificant, take the step anyway. It will teach you something that in the end, even the smallest steps add up over time. And that's it. See you next week. Thanks for hanging out.