by toddpolich | Oct 11, 2019 | Anxiety Blog
Talking Through Anxiety: Communication for Healing
Anxiety, depression and other stress related conditions have been traditionally very difficult to talk about. Thankfully, this is changing. The world has become more aware of anxiety conditions. Mental and emotional health are being treated far more seriously than in the past and people are having more understanding of the pain others suffer. Through this, more people are able to talk about anxiety and stress related issues. For the anxiety sufferer, talking is vital. It is one of the pillars of recovery. It is assumed that talking about these issues is helpful exclusively in the context of therapy, but communicating through stress related conditions is important on so many other levels.
Why Talk About Anxiety?
Talking about depression and anxiety is healthy for us and the people around us. As stress, anxiety, depression, ptsd, trauma, etc. impacts people internally, it also impacts the world around us. Understanding this, we realize that work, relationships, and social interaction will all be impacted. As much as we fear this, people around us recognize when we are not ourselves. And so they should. Hopefully the people we work with, our families, and friends are people who care. By telling them what is going on gives them a chance to hear what is going on. It gives them a chance to realize what we are going through. A chance to listen, understand and respond. It gives them the opportunity to help.
Sharing Anxiety
Anxiety can put enormous strain on relationships. Being exhausted, emotional, distant, irritable, detached, worried, angry are all the byproducts of emotional distress. When we exhibit these, relationships are impacted. It is essential for the people around us to understand why. Not knowing what is going on can create a great deal of tension in relationships. This creates more stress. That is the last thing we need. Anxiety is so difficult to understand. Difficult for those suffering and those we interact with. Inevitably our family, loved ones, friends, coworkers and those we associate with can be effected by our suffering. Not only can this effect our personal lives, but our social and work lives.
Anxiety at Work
Anxiety conditions can affect our work in many ways. As a result of anxiety and depression, we are sometimes not ourselves or at our best. Attendance, performance, communication, and demeanor can all be impacted by anxiety conditions. Therefore, letting certain people we work with know what we are going through is important. Supervisors at work should know. When informed, supervisors and management will most times be understanding. The good ones will.
By communicating to supervisors, we give them visibility of the situation as well as the opportunity to support us through anxiety. Often times, when supervisors understand what is going on they can make accommodations. In view of what we are experiencing they can juggle schedules and plan additional resources to support. Resulting in less pressure on us. Truly a good thing.
Anything to reduce stress is a must. Talking to supervisors is not only in your best interest, but in theirs as well. Knowing what is going on gives supervisors the ability to plan ahead and make sure that work is being covered. As much as supervisors hope that their teams are at full strength at all times, most understand that this is not realistic. Most would much rather know what is going on and be able to plan than to be blindsided by not knowing.
As well as supervisors, coworkers that we closely interact with will realize when we are not ourselves. Sharing with them what is going on could also be a good thing. Often our work is related to other people’s work, they may even depend on us. Furthermore, for them to know when we are going through difficult times is valuable. Giving our coworkers some insight provides them with some background when we our work is impacted.
Reducing stress if vital. For this reason we should try to alleviate complication and any points of unnecessary pressure. Having said that, coworkers and supervisors may not need to know everything, but depending on your relationships talking to your coworkers can help. The key is to know who to share with and how much. See below.
Talking Through Anxiety: Family
Anxiety conditions adds stress to almost every part of life. Most areas of life are impacted by anxiety, but non greater than close relationships. For that reason, talking to family, spouses and partners is vital. For their good, our good and the good of the relationship it is essential to talk. Adding to anxiety conditions with relationship stress makes everything worse. When we are suffering our behavior changes. This is normal. In reality, if we do not talk about it to the people around us they have no idea what is going on. As a result, they will see it, feel it and experience it but have no opportunity to understand. Instead of giving them the opportunity to support us, we put stress on the relationship.
For someone suffering anxiety conditions any stress is harmful. Particularly when it comes to relationships. Stress of this kind negatively impacts relationships and recovery of the person suffering. On the other hand, the support of a loved one or people we are in a relationships with can be a huge boost in recovery. Having an understanding partner is invaluable.
Communicating with our partners gives them understanding of what you are going through. Talking about what we are feeling and getting assurance that you are being supported is huge. Having someone that we trust to talk to allows us to vocalize what we are going through is so beneficial. Expressing ourselves is key to recovery. Although these people cannot get us through the pain, that is our own journey (see Anxiety: The Gift That Keeps on Giving), their support helps tremendously.
As much as the strain that anxiety applies to relationships, it can also bring people together. As our family has lived through and recovered from anxiety it has made our relationships so much stronger. Talking was and still is an integral part of this. Through the onset, struggling through recovery and living after anxiety we talked. We learned. Grew. And still grow.
Keep talking, have faith and know that it gets better.
Part 2-Talking through Anxiety: Knowing How, When, Why and With Who
by toddpolich | Oct 17, 2019 | Anxiety Blog
Talking through Anxiety: Too Much of a Good Thing?
Talking through anxiety and depression is a good thing. In fact a great thing. The benefits are many. The upside is tremendous. And talking about pain, suffering the emotional turmoil is crucial for recovery. Thoroughly discussed in Talking Through Anxiety Part 1, communicating helps others understand us, more importantly it helps us to understand ourselves. It gives others the opportunity to support us. Talking can alleviate stress and it opens the door to learn from coaches, counselors and those that have recovered.
Is There a Catch?
The truth is that for our own good we must be conscious of our conversation. Bluntly, it is possible to talk too much about the wrong things. Which can be harmful.
Too Much of a Good Thing
Talking feels good. Sharing feels good. It is healthy and healing. Indisputably, talking through pain and suffering is the key to recovery, but can it be harmful? Although talking is important, there are a few cautions. Typically, anxiety is extreme. The feelings of pain are extreme, the differences from highs to low are extreme. Along with this, often times how we think and how we behave can become extreme. When we find something that makes us feel better we want more. And more. Until it is no longer helpful. Becoming even harmful. Realistically this can apply to most things. Exercise (to be talked about in a later topic), food, sleep, all can be tremendously beneficial, but over-done can be counter productive. Talking is no different. But why?
Talking to close friends, partners, loved ones about how you are feeling is a great thing. A really great thing. Loved ones and those that care will listen and talk about what we are feeling. Just having someone to listen is so helpful. Having support from people who care makes such a difference. Most likely they will listen. They will feel with you. They will empathize and they will support. This is so important. This is why they are your loved ones. Talking to them is great and highly encouraged, but the key to healthy talk is ask ourselves what is the context of our conversation. More specifically, how are we talking, what are we talking about, and how much. But communication is communication, right? Why does this matter?
Narrative Loops
One of the cautions for those suffering anxiety symptoms is talking excessively with a negative narrative. This self-talk narrative can become detrimental. Without us realizing it what was once helpful can now become harmful. Understanding the powerful relationship between the conscious and subconscious mind is key to this. With this understanding, we gain insight on the impact of our words on our thoughts, feelings and beliefs and ultimately actions.
How do Narrative Loops Work?
Our words are powerful. For positive or negative they are powerful. As a result of our internal or external dialog, we can create a cause and effect type of loop. What we tell ourselves and the messages we broadcast influences what we believe. In turn, what we believe affects our behavior and ultimately how we interact with the world around us. The outcomes of this interaction, does a full circle in reinforcing what we originally told ourselves. Even if the message is not true, it can begin to confirm itself and repeat in this loop, becoming more entrenched in our belief system along the way. This narrative loop can become self fulfilling and self-perpetuating. Depending on the message, this can be a positive thing or potentially detrimental and damaging.
Example
Here is a quick example. A competent and confident person is feeling impacted by a life event. Loss of a job, breakup of a relationship, whatever. From here, this confident person now starts analyze. We humans are great at this. When stressed reality can become murky so a negative thought enters. This person now starts to question. From here they verbalize that people don’t like them, they are a failure, or that they don’t have worth. If they continue to repeat this, what may happen is that they will start to become influenced by this. Their active language now begins to mimic their verbal language. With this uncertainty, they may withdraw from conversation or take on a protective mechanism assuming that people are going to reject them.
From this point, they may become more abrasive or confrontational as a defense to what they are now perceiving as a world that is unfriendly. This of course impacts the response of the world around them. People may start to retract from them or become less conversational. Now this once confident person says to themselves “Ah ha! I knew it! People don’t like me and this is the proof!”. The cycle of verbal messaging starts again only now with unrealistic “evidence” backing up the negative belief. This can go on and on in a downward spiral. Until of course, the person breaks the communication cycle (Future Blog).
For this reason, it is vital that we monitor our dialog, internal and external, to ensure that we are not feeding a negative narrative loop.
How to Control Anxious Conversation
Although anxiety symptoms can at times dominate our thoughts, we do have a choice on their influence on us. Knowing what to talk about, how much and when is really important. For example, letting people like supervisors, coworkers, members of organizations and others who depend on us know what is going on is a good thing (Part 1). Is it good for them to know what is going on? Absolutely. Do they have to know all the details? Probably not. Sharing with our partners, family, friends, loved ones is a great thing. Should it be kept in check? Most definitely.
What is the Point?
If the objective is to inform people of what is going on in the context of work, verbalizing is a good thing. Similarly, if the objective is to seek support from friends, family, partners, supervisors and coworkers, talking is a really good thing. If we are looking to share and express our feelings with our close confidants, this is awesome. Actually, essential. Alternatively, if we are looking for those in our workplace or personal relationships to continually verbally discharge on or use a dumping ground this may not be the best venue. Continually feeding negative loops can significantly impact our well-being. We need to be watchful of this. Communication of this nature is unhealthy for us and unhealthy for the people around us.
Aside from the feeding negative loops, there is another element of potentially negative conversation. Looking to friends, family, loved ones, and those that we interact with through the day to communicate with is good. Looking to them as counselors is not.
Firstly, to emotionally compartmentalize is often difficult for the people who care for us. Our support people may find it difficult to hear and see us suffering. As much as they would like to help they also need guidance in doing this effectively and safely for them and for us (See Support Blog). They want to help. The reality however, is as much as our loved ones want to help there is only so much they can do. They cannot make the pain go away. As much as they would like to, they can’t. They can walk it with us and help us to keep balance, but they rarely have the tools to help us repair.
Finding the Right Audience
The caution in sharing excessively with friends, family and loved ones is ensuring we are protected and they are protected. As those that care about us, they may find it difficult to re-frame conversation to prevent us from engaging in negative narrative loops. While they are trying to support us, by allowing us to talk without helping navigate out of negative narrative loops can be detrimental. Without having the tools and strategies to guide us through we can begin to walk down the wrong path with no road map to get us back to healthy talking.
When looking for avenues of communication, it is very beneficial to seek the right people. People who can help. Finding people who have gone through anxiety and have recovered are great people to talk to. Finding these people is so beneficial because not only will they be able to relate to what we are going through, but they have experience in recovery. These people can give us strategies for recovery while giving us encouragement through the journey of healing. Knowing people who have recovered and getting their insight on what worked for them is great. Even if their advice or strategies don’t work for you, knowing that healing is possible can really invigorate our work on the path of recovery. Optimism is key. Having insight to what is healthy talk and unhealthy talk is essential.
Coaching and Counselling
There is no substitute for good coaching and counselling. Good coaches and counselors are able to listen to what we are going through and navigate us back to healthy talk and thinking. They are able to analyze our communication and strategically encourage peeling back the layers of pain in a controlled and safe manor. This is essential with PTSD. Good counseling is able discern how deep to explore to gradually get to the root of pain without causing damage along the way.
Working with therapists and coaches that specialize in anxiety is vital in this process. Specialized personnel ask the right questions, recognize response signals and can structure the conversation to lead toward non damaging discovery. With complex issues like PTSD and early childhood incidents this can be tedious. Patience and careful navigation is needed in these cases. Counselors, coaches and therapists are essentially teachers. Notable, they teach us about anxiety, and what elements in our lives cause anxiety. Most importantly they are teachers who help us create our own strategies to reduce anxiety while building healthy lifestyles to keep us free form anxiety in the future.
Our Experience
When my family was suffering through anxiety and PTSD, all we wanted was for the pain to go away. We wanted our lives back to normal. Although we wanted a quick fix, it wasn’t to be. The path to recovery was getting the right tools for recovery. That meant learning. Fortunately for us, we worked with an amazing counselor. Although we wanted to talk about the core issues and get right to the heart of it , this was not the right path. It took a great deal of leadership from the counselor to carefully guide us through the pain. Working in small increments that were digestible, we were able to reveal and understand the root of the suffering without throwing life into a catastrophic tail-spin. Along this journey there was tears, teaching, learning, self-discovery and essentially building mechanisms for recovery. Long term recovery.
Through healthy talking and communication we were able to get guidance in recovery. Equally important, we were also guided in building a positive lifestyle going forward. With prevention being king, we learned what is healthy communication and what is healthy lifestyle. In hindsight, the path was slow and painful, with a lot of hard work. As difficult as this was, the end result was building a life with insight, deeper compassion for those that are hurting, tools to help ourselves and others and a deep faith in God’s healing power.
Some Strategies of Communication
- Provide information to those that need it. (Partners, family, supervisors, key work people, friends, etc.). Allow them to know what is going on.
- Share what you are going through with partners, close friends, family, etc. It is OK to cry and be honest with these people and ask them for support.
- Monitor talk. Self talk and verbalization are so important. Recognize and avoid negative loops.
- When monitoring talk, ask: what is the objective? (Who, When, Why, How much is healthy?)
- Find the right audience. Talking to loved ones, although beneficial, should not take the place of professional coaching and counselling. A good practitioner has years of experience specializing in providing strategies and a road-map to recovery.
Keep talking. Continue sharing. Be patient with yourself and the process of healing. Know that things will get better.
To speak to Lilana email liliana@horizonshealth.com or to book a consultation/session click book session.
by toddpolich | Oct 23, 2019 | Anxiety Blog
Part 1: Intro to Youth Anxiety
What’s going on with stress, anxiety and depression in children and youth? When I first started working in schools, I realized that there is an extensive process and protocol in getting clearance. Unmistakably, the number one priority was ensuring safety of the children. As a result, I was required to have extensive criminal record checks completed. Further to this, there were references checks and interviews to ensure the security and safety. Rightly so. Refereed to as a “vulnerable population”, the importance of ensuring our young people’s well-being is and should be paramount. For children, injury and trauma can impact them for the rest of their lives. Furthermore, it can impact future generations (*Blog post to come). What people experience in formative years dictates future happiness, relationships, social well-being, physical and mental health, and virtually everything else that is important as people in this world.
Generally, we consider youth as a time of freedom and exploration. Typically, young people in this stage of life learn to socialize and learn about themselves. Youth is a time of building relationships and forming view and values of ourselves and the outside world. As well, this is a time of building relational bonds based on connecting, communication and guidance. Ideally, youth have this time in preparation for taking on more responsibility and the demands of an adult world. This should be a time of enjoyment, and discovery, building feelings of security and confidence to lead into adulthood. In reality, things for most youth are not like this anymore.
Children and Youth
Anxiety, stress and depression in children and youth is at an all time high. Unfortunately, the momentum is heading in the wrong direction. In fact, youth anxiety, depression and unhealthy stress is on the rise. It is estimated that in the US, 17 million children suffer anxiety, stress or mental health issues (US Stats). Furthermore, that statistics indicate that 22% of youth will experience some form of extreme stress, emotional issues or mental illness by the age of 18.
The evidence is shocking. More and more young people are seeking counselling and psychological help than ever and the trend is only increasing. Further to this, more and more young people are being prescribed anxiety medication and antidepressants. Of course, these are only the ones being diagnosed. Thousands of young people are suffering anxiety, depression and unhealthy levels of stress without diagnosis, or help. This is an alarming epidemic that is not being addressed nearly enough. But why?
Why Anxiety in Youth
We know that youth anxiety is a problem. A huge problem. The schools know it. Doctors know it. Parents. Everyone. Anxiety, whether in youth or adults, is looked at through the optics of the most visible signs. I suppose this is true of many social issues. We look at the symptoms. The pain. Not often do people look at anxiety to discern the root cause. This is much more difficult and it takes a great deal of patience and time. In dealing with stress related conditions we tend to treat the problem and not the causes. This is especially true with youth. Disciplinary measures, class assignment, learning assistance are all surface ways of dealing with children and youth that are having difficulty. The next steps are school counselling, doctors, and often times prescription of medication. These steps are often completely necessary. At times beneficial. Short term.
However, if we really want to get to the long term solutions of why our children are suffering anxiety we need to look at the root causes. Besides trauma, which needs a separate discussion of it’s own, there are societal factors that are working against our kids. And us. We will be discussing each of the following topics in detail in the following blog series on Youth and Anxiety.
Upcoming Articles
- The culture of youth
- Youth and Technology
- Social Being
- The Family Unit
If you suspect your young people are struggling with anxiety, depression and excessive, unhealthy or prolonged stress, do not wait to act. Talk to them. Listen to them. If needed seek professional help.
by toddpolich | Oct 9, 2019 | Anxiety Blog
What are ANT (automatic negative thoughts)?
Automatic negative thoughts (ANTs) are a trademark of anxiety and depression. People are often unaware of these negative thoughts. Therefore not realizing that they are the underlying cause of their fears, and negative physiological and psychological distress. ANTs are typically developed in early childhood and become inter-woven into an adversity coping style. This coping style comes to be replayed over and over as negative messages in various scenarios in life. Replayed deep in our subconscious brain, these old patterns cause great harm as we are unaware of what is happening.
For Example:
Most people that I worked with initially are frustrated by their own reactions to events in their lives. Feeling lack of control, they are seemingly stuck in a loop of behavior that feels automated. For the most part, the reactions they have are in fact outside of their immediate control. As these choices were not made with the logical, thinking part of the brain, their reactions are mainly automated reactions to pre-written subconscious programs based in faulty beliefs which are called ANTs.
Here is a list of sabotaging automatic negative thoughts (ANTs):
- Black and White or All or Nothing
With this style of thinking we see things as ALL good or ALL bad, nothing in between. Perfectionism is part of this style of thinking. Either we will do things perfectly well or perfectly fail to do them at all. - Mental Filter
With this style of thinking we pick out a single negative detail and dwell on it exclusively, so that our vision of reality becomes darkened and all positivity is filtered out. For example: you receive many positive comments about your work performance from a group of associates at work, but one of them says something mildly critical. You obsess about his reaction for days and ignore all the positive feedback. - Over-generalization
With this style of thinking we see a single negative event, such as a romantic rejection or a career setback, as a never-ending pattern of defeat by using words such as “always” or “never” when you think about it. - Jumping to Conclusions
With this style of thinking we interpret things negatively when there are no facts to support our conclusions. - Mind Reading
Without any concrete evidence we arbitrarily conclude that someone is reacting negatively to us. We make a decision to believe that they do not like us, while in reality that is not the truth. - Fortune-telling
We make predictions that things will turn out badly without any concrete evidence. If we feel depressed we may think along the lines: “I will never get better. I am a hopeless case.” - Catastrophizing or Magnifying
With this style of thinking we exaggerate the outcome. If we have small mark on our skin, even before we have checked that it is malignant we perceive future negatively and tragically. We are already seeing ourselves on the death bed.The story that best describes this style of thinking is:‘A man stubbed his toe, then he started thinking, what if this toe gets infected, and the infection spreads, and then I have to amputate the leg, and then I lose my job and my wife, and then I end up begging on the street …the mind went from ‘I stubbed my toe’ to “I will end up broke, alone and on the street begging’. - Emotional Reasoning
With this style of thinking we assume that our negative emotions necessarily reflect the way things really are: “I feel terrified about going on airplanes. It must be very dangerous to fly.” Or, “I feel angry. This proves that I’m being treated unfairly.” “I feel hopeless. The situation must really be hopeless.” - Labeling is an extreme form of black-or-white/all-or-nothing thinking.
With this style of thinking instead of saying “I made a mistake,” we attach negative labels to ourselves: “I’m a loser.” “I am such a fool” or “a failure” or “a jerk.” Labeling is quite irrational because you are not the same as what you do. Human beings exist, but “fools,” “losers” and “jerks” do not. These labels are just useless abstractions that lead to shame, anger, anxiety, frustration, guilt.
You may also label others. When someone does something that rubs you the wrong way, you may tell yourself: “He’s an idiot.” Then you feel that the problem is with that person’s “character” or “essence” instead of with their thinking or behavior. You see them as totally bad. This makes you feel hostile and hopeless about improving things and leaves very little room for constructive communication. - Personalization and Blame
With this style of thinking we hold ourselves personally responsible for an event that isn’t entirely under our control.
When a woman received a note that her child was having difficulty in school, she told herself, “This shows what a bad mother I am,” instead of trying to pinpoint the cause of the problem so that she could be helpful to her child. When another woman’s husband beat her, she told herself, “If only I was more beautiful/skinner/smarter, he wouldn’t beat me.” Personalization leads to guilt, shame and feelings of inadequacy.
Some people do the opposite. They blame other people or their circumstances for their problems, and they overlook ways they might be contributing to the problem: “The reason my marriage is so lousy is because my spouse is totally unreasonable.” Blame usually doesn’t work very well because other people will resent being blamed and they will just turn to defence and stonewall you. It’s like a game of hot potato no one wants to get stuck with it.
Conclusion
People that suffer from anxiety and depression often have one or many of these thinking styles. It is important to acknowledge that we struggling with ANTs. We are not born thinking this way, we learned to think this way. Since we have been thought how to think negatively we can also teach ourselves to change and learn new positive ways of thinking. This takes time, effort and discipline but it is possible and necessary if we wish to live more positive lives.
by toddpolich | Oct 7, 2019 | Partner/Family Support
To help the friends, family and partners of those suffering anxiety, the friends and family blog forum was created. The people who support their loves one with anxiety have a tough job. Anxiety, depression, ptsd, and other stress related conditions are painful. These conditions not only hurt the people who are directly afflicted, but also the closest people around them. Anxiety creates a tremendous strain on family and friends in trying support those who are directly suffering. In fact, it is common for friends and loved ones closest to their person battling emotional issues to be impacted with anxiety of their own. There is a great deal of information available for those that are directly suffering (See Anxiety Post), some good some not, but unfortunately there is very little for those in supporting roles.
The recovery of people going through anxiety, depression can be greatly influenced by those around them. Positively or negatively. Our actions, demeanor and level of understanding can make a huge difference in recovery. Being the support person is an important job but it is not an easy one. Caregivers have a lot to carry in helping not only those struggling with anxiety, but in many situations the rest of the family. Unfortunately, most often we carry this weight alone and get little support. This is detrimental to everyone.
Support for the Supporter
Those who support those suffering from anxiety related conditions need help. We need help understanding what our loved ones are going through. Help knowing how we can best support not only the sufferer, but the entire family. Lots of help in strategies to maintain a positive relationship through the struggles. Most of all though, help in keeping our own heads above water.
The purpose of this platform is to provide information, strategies, routines and mechanisms to help cope while supporting their loved one. We have been through it. I have seen the suffering of my loved one and suffered with her. It was not easy, but with God’s blessing we got through it. Life is so much better now. It will be for you too. Have faith.
