 This week on the anxious truth, we're going to look at the idea that you probably had anxiety before you had anxiety. Hey, everybody, welcome back to the anxious truth. This is episode number 206 of the podcast entitled you had anxiety before you had anxiety. If you're new here and this is the first time listening, I am Drulence, a lot of creator and host of the anxious truth. This is the podcast that covers all things anxiety and anxiety recovery. So if you are dealing with issues like panic attacks, panic disorder, health anxiety or agoraphobia, this is the place for you. I'm glad you're here. If you are a returning listener or viewer on YouTube, welcome back, always glad to have you join me. This week, we're going to explore an interesting topic, one that comes up now and then and one that needs a little bit of attention. So it's going to get its own podcast episode. We're going to talk about the idea that you probably had anxiety before you had anxiety, which is something that most people would probably say no, that's not true. I want to get back to my old self when I didn't have anxiety, but you probably did. You just experienced it in a different way. Now before we get into the topic, just a couple of quick housekeeping notes. If you're consuming the podcast today on YouTube, you'll notice that there's no video. It's just a still image and a little audiogram. Now that I am a full time graduate student headed toward being a professional licensed therapist, there's a lot more demand on my time. And video takes a while to produce. So once in a while, this is going to happen. I'll do video as often as I can, but sometimes they're going to look like this. So to my YouTube audience, I apologize that maybe there's no video this time, but the comment section is still there and I'm happy to interact with you guys. You're not missing anything because you see my my mug way more than you need to. And for those of you who are kind of new to the podcast, I just want to remind you that the anxious truth is more than just this discussion in this podcast episode. There are three books on anxiety and anxiety recovery. There's a free email morning newsletter and a mini podcast that goes that every weekday morning. There's all of my free social media stuff. And there's another eight years worth of podcast episodes. You'll find all of it on my website at the anxious truth.com. So go check that out. And if you are enjoying this content in this podcast, and you my work is helping you and you'd like to find a way to help me keep it sponsorship and ad free, all the ways that you can do that can be found at the anxious truth.com slash support. Of course, that's never required, but always appreciated. And really, I appreciate all of you guys. So let's get on with the topic today. I often hear people say, I just want my old self back. And in many cases, they would think that their old self was never anxious. Now I can speak for my own personal experience and say that I say that all the time. I used to say that all the time. I used to pine away for the return of the old Drew, who was never anxious, who is never worried, who was totally bulletproof, who just didn't have any of these problems. I was one cool cucumber, absolutely 100% like titanium plated. Or at least that's what I would have told you. And I think a lot of people in the community would tell a similar story of a time before they had anxiety. I didn't have anxiety back then. But really, and truly, anxiety is just a part of being human. Now we've talked about this before. It's hard to be a human being and never experience anxiety in some way shape or form. That's just not natural. Like anxiety is baked into us physiologically, psychologically, it's just part of the human condition if you really want to kind of wax poetic about it. So nobody gets out of this thing without experiencing some form of anxiety. So when we try to look back at our life before an anxiety disorder and try to get back to that time when I didn't have anxiety, I wasn't anxious, that may not be true. Now it doesn't matter because you are feeling better back then. So whether there was anxiety or not, I want to get back there. I get that. That's fine. I want to get back to that guy or that or that person. Totally fine. Nobody would take that away from you. Everybody wishes for that. And that's not wrong. But just consider the learning that we can kind of tap into when we reframe this a different way and say, Well, wait a minute, I probably was anxious from time to time. Now, when I look back in my own experience, I can see very clearly that there were times when I experienced anxiety. I just didn't know what it was. And honestly, I did not react to it as if it was a danger or an emergency. So I'll give you two examples. When I was a little kid, I can remember very clearly having instances that I think I can't be 100% sure, but I'm reasonably sure now, many years down the road were episodes of depersonalization and derealization. I remember very clearly looking at my mom and saying, wow, you seem like you're so far away right now, or like I can hear you, but I can't really hear you. And I can remember sitting in my room as a kid and feeling like the room was receding from like it was just a strange sort of a change in my perception. And I am reasonably sure that in those days, I was experiencing little bits of derealization and depersonalization. It did not scare me. I was curious about it. I didn't understand why it was there. But I remember thinking, boy, this is really weird. I mean, it was a little bit, maybe uncomfortable, but I can't really say with certainty how I, you know, the way I perceived it. But I can tell you with 100% certainty that it did not freak me out, that I was not afraid of it, nor was I worried that it was going to happen, you know, that it might happen again or when it might happen again. It would happen sometimes. And I can't really remember many more than, you know, a couple of those episodes, but they were there. Now, if I fast forward into sort of my early 20s, and this is between my first round with panic attacks, and my second round where I fell into, you know, major panic disorder, agoraphobia and clinical depression. And I wrote above all about that in my first book, which you can find on my website. It's an anxiety story. You can download that one free from Smashwords as an ebook or as a free MP3 if you want to read that or listen to it. But in between those first two anxiety episodes in my life, I remember very clearly getting this pit, like empty feeling in my stomach. Now, I had not experienced that before. And I even went to a doctor at one point and said, Yeah, I don't know what this thing is. It's weird. Like my stomach feels weird. Now I'm still not one to run to a doctor. Even in my worst anxiety times, I was not the person that ran to a doctor. Yet it was disturbing enough to me and uncomfortable enough where I actually went to a doctor a couple of times. And I couldn't put words to it. But I know now what that sensation was. Now I had not developed that second round of disorder, anxiety and panic disorder. So I was not interpreting it as anything special. I mean, it was special. Then it was somewhat disruptive for sure. And it was uncomfortable. I didn't like it. But I did not react to it in fear. So I can think of very clearly those two times in my life in the past, where I was very clearly to me experiencing some of the same symptoms and sensations of anxiety that I would then suffer from, you know, the second time it came around the third time I came around and I was struggling to do my recovery. They were there. Those sensations were there. I was experiencing it. I just didn't know what it was. Didn't give it a name and wasn't afraid of it. That is the difference. And almost all of us can think of a time when something maybe stressful was going on. When you were thrown into a state of maybe uncertainty, there was career changes or money problems or relationship problems or issues with your family or your kids. When you did probably experience what then you may have called stress. And I remember the stomach thing at one point, the doctor saying, you know, are you under a lot of stress? You know, this could be a stress thing. He didn't say he did not use the word anxiety. Not at all. He just he used the word stress several times. And so a lot of times people who do not have an anxiety disorder are experiencing anxious moments, anxious sensations, anxious responses that our bodies are programmed and designed to do like your body's always working the way it's supposed to just at the wrong time. And they will interpret it only as either I don't know what this is. And I'm amazed that the number of people in the community that will say that, like, Oh, I did have anxiety. I just didn't know what to call it. Now, some people who are, you know, kind of experienced this stuff throughout their whole lives. And I don't think I'm speaking at a turn. You guys have heard Joe Ryan on my podcast. You can find him at Joe Ryan dot com. He has said on camera on Mike and to me privately many, many times and many, many conversations because we're friends. Like I just thought this was normal. I didn't know that was called anxiety. I just thought this is what life felt like. Now, many of you could probably relate to that. So if it was it's a lifelong thing for you just it what had not developed into full blown. I'm terrified of this. Well, I was experiencing it. I just didn't know what to call it. Or you did know what to call it. And you called it stress life. Like I'm under the gun. I'm stressed. So I think it's really interesting for us to look at that. So when we pine away to return to an anxiety free state or a state when I didn't have anxiety, we're really kind of deluding ourselves because almost all of us have experienced anxiety in some way, shape or form in our lives even before it became disordered. And either you didn't know what it was and didn't know what to call it. And you just thought that it was normal. And that's the way everybody felt. Or you knew that it wasn't necessarily normal, but you called it stress and just knew that it was a natural part of sort of being under the gun sometimes at life. That's not that unusual. So the difference between but you were still experiencing it. So life was stressing you out. There were triggers. They were all of those things. They were for me. And I was in fact experiencing what I would maybe have. If I had a brain and I was a little bit more in tune with myself back in those days, I probably would have said like, Oh yeah, I'm kind of stressed right now. And I'm feeling that people who are a little bit more in tune with themselves know this. I'm really stressed out. And when I get really stressed out, I can't sleep. I can't eat. You hear people say that all the time. They're just not terrified of being in that state. That's the difference. So think about that. How many people do you know personally in your life, friends, families, coworkers, family members, coworkers, whoever, where you have heard people to say that they will tell you what happens when they get stressed. You know, Oh man, I'm worried sick about this, you know, this move. We're moving and I'm trying to sell my house. I can't sell it. I bought a new one. I own two houses temporarily. I can't have that. I can't eat. I can't sleep. I'm so stressed. We hear those things all the time. If you heard somebody say that, even if you didn't know them, you wouldn't think twice about that. There's such common phrases and such a common human experience, at least in Western culture, that we would not question that at all. If I told you like school is started, I'm trying to take care of my businesses that are still running. I'm still trying to take care of the podcast and content creation and and social media. And I have my classes and my assignments and my reading to do. Man, I'm super stressed out. I'm having a hard time sleeping. You wouldn't look twice at me. You'd be like, Oh man, you got to try and take it easy. Take care of yourself. Okay, nobody would question that, right? So I think it's it's interesting to highlight that a little bit, not because this is somehow going to be a magic epiphany that cures your anxiety situation. It's not gonna. But when we can kind of gain that little bit of insight and say, Oh, okay, this thing that I call a disaster right now that I insist is a nightmare from which I must run and escape and stop it. And it is too much and it's hell and it's overwhelming and nobody knows that exact thing that you're calling that you probably experienced at some other point in your life without calling it that. That's huge. That's a giant light bulb moment. And I remember when I went back and the times that I started to realize, Oh man, as a kid, I was experiencing depersonalization derealization. It was a huge light bulb moment. Now, unfortunately, that light bulb moment didn't happen to me till well after my recovery. It probably would have been useful had I come to that conclusion during my recovery, just saying universe could have helped me out there. But it didn't. It came later. But nonetheless, it was still very impactful. And that led me to Oh, wait a minute, that thing with my stomach or that thing those times when I would sleep even less than I usually do, like, Oh, yeah, that was stress. That was anxiety. Duh, hello. So think about that for a little while. You don't have to think about it a lot. This is not a rumination instruction here. But consider that even before you were in the state you're in now, you were likely experiencing anxiety in some form, just not calling it a disaster. And now that you have learned to be afraid of it and build stories on top of it, not only are you anxious, but I think this feeling means that I am going to go insane. Not only am I anxious, but I think these feelings mean that I am going to pass out, or I'm going to have a stroke or I'm going to die. You didn't build those stories on top of it. That was the difference. Same, same human experience, different interpretation, different reaction. And the reaction that you have now based on the new interpretation is what builds it into this nightmare, this walk through hell that you want to describe to people. Think about this, right? Same experience, different reaction, different interpretation. Now I'm not trying to minimize the fact that right now you would say, Drew, you're crazy. Clearly this is more severe. And severe is a thing that I hear people attach to the word anxiety all the time. Oh, I have severe anxiety. Well, if you're listening, I have bad news for you, like everybody listening would say they have severe anxiety. And you would say, well, clearly now it's more severe than it was before. Okay, well, I'm not claiming that your experience doesn't seem more severe than it is now. But I can tell you almost unequivocally that for me, and it's important to really take responsibility for this because responsibility isn't blame responsibility is power. I'm taking a thing that I used to experience. And I'm turning it into this severe event, because of the way I interact with it now, which is completely different than the way I used to interact with it. So just chew on this a little bit. Sometimes it can shed a little light on that and you could think like, oh, wait a minute, I'm not broken. I'm just interacting with these sensations and these thoughts in this experience in a different way than I used to. I've learned to respond to it differently. I've learned to interact with it differently. And I am helping to build it into a nightmare where I didn't, whereas I didn't use to call it that way. I didn't use to experience it that way. I didn't use to call it that. Right. So the realization that the odds are pretty high that you had anxiety before you had anxiety is a big deal. It can really kind of help us in terms of get that framework that we want to work in. Oh, yeah, there's just another brick in the wall that tells me that this is all about the way I interact with and relate to my anxiety. It's not about the anxiety itself. You know what I'm going to say now. And there you go. So I love this topic. This is a topic I could talk about a lot because to me it's a little bit of a mind bender, you know, which I love. But it makes us think about it, but it makes us think about this not in a non productive way. Hopefully this makes you think about the situation in a way that could be a little bit more productive and empowering. Again, why? Because now I could sort of see my responsibility here. And again, I can see that responsibility as empowering, not blaming responsibility. I can't say this enough responsibility is not fault. It's empowerment. It's it's power. It's influence. It's control. It's agency. It's all of those things. We want to be responsible. And guess what? That's going to be a podcast episode. Now that I say it that will be another podcast episode very shortly. The power of responsibility of taking responsibility. So hopefully this has been helpful. I'm going to wrap it up. That's episode 206 entitled you had anxiety before you had anxiety. You know it's over because music. I'm going to play you out as always with Afterglow by Ben Drake, whom you can find all the time at bendrickmusic.com. Friend of mind and a great musician. Thank you, Ben, for letting me use the song at the beginning and end of every podcast episode. If you have questions and comments about this, you know what to find me on social media, especially if you're watching or listening on YouTube. The comment section on YouTube is pretty awesome. And I'm digging like, you know, corresponding with you guys and interacting with you guys there. You can get me in my Facebook group. I'm on Instagram on Facebook. You guys know the deal. You know the deal. So if you want to talk about this, let's do that. That would be great. And I will ask you a favor as I always do. And that is if you're listening to the podcast on Spotify or Apple or any platform that lets you rate and review, then leave a five star rating and take a second and maybe write a few sentence review because it helps other people find the podcast. And that's why I do this to try and help as many people as I can. I would so appreciate that. If you're watching or listening on YouTube, subscribe to my channel, like the video, leave a comment, you know all the deals, you know, you know, all the stuff. These are all the things that I have to ask you to do. And I usually lack at doing it. So I'm asking you now help me out. And that's it. Hopefully you have found this episode useful. I've enjoyed doing it. I will be back next week with another one. As always, I don't know what I'm going to be talking about, but I will be here and remember as always, this is the way. So go and live your life.