Disordered: Anxiety Help

BUT WHAT ABOUT WHEN YOU'RE TENSE AND SORE? HOW CAN YOU HANDLE THAT?

This is one of those questions we get asked all the time. In this episode of Disordered, we're taking a look at how tension, soreness, twitches, and feelings of muscle weakness fit into the anxiety and recover picture.

Anxious, scared bodies are going to anxious, scared body things. That's how we're designed. There's nothing wrong with...

"I know I'm not supposed to focus inward or engage with my anxious or intrusive thoughts, but what am I supposed to think about?!"

This week Josh and Drew answer an excellent question from a listener that hasn't really been asked before. What do you do when your anxious thoughts keep coming even when you don't want them to come, and when you insist that you MUST only focus outward because that's how r...

WHAT RECOVERY LENS ARE YOU LOOKING THROUGH?

This week Drew and Josh take a bit of an unexpected turn to explore ways that CBT and exposure-based approaches to recovery can fall short. Recovery can't always be about facing, accepting, exposures, and Claire Weekes. While we might not look to other models to unearth deeply hidden root causes for an anxiety disorder, other theoretical frameworks can be quite useful - or even n...

MY NERVOUS SYSTEM IS DYSREGULATED!

This week Drew and Josh get up close and personal with "nervous system dysregulation". This is a term that might have some benefit when dealing with issues like stress management or general wellness, but goes straight off the rails into the unhelpful zone when it comes to anxiety disorders.

Declaring an anxious state to be a state of dysregulation might be defended from a semantics stand...

This week on Disordered we're taking a grand tour around the OCD loop! Josh and Drew talk about pure-O, somatic, and "traditional" obsessive compulsive disorder subtypes.

While not every possible theme and subtype can be covered in a short podcast episode, the guys touched on some of the more common themes found in the community, taking care to address how regardless of the specific obsession, there are common c...

What Is Your Therapist Thinking While You're Talking?

Therapists are people too. They have feelings, opinions, insecurities, fears, and personality quirks. And they - like you - sometimes have an inner dialogue. If you ever wanted to know what goes on inside the mind of an anxiety therapist, this week Josh and Drew dig into this a bit, including a few moments where the guys exercise their drama and acting skills. Absolutel...

This is the one-year anniversary episode of Disordered! We've been at this now for a full year, and we cannot be more grateful for all the support you guys have provided along the way.

What better way to mark a year of Disordered than with an episode dedicated entirely to celebrating the community surrounding this podcast? If you need some encouragement or inspiration in your recovery, listen in as we play and read "...

What about all this "neuropathways" talk? What does it mean in anxiety recovery?

Funny that you asked! This week on Disordered Josh and Drew are talking about neuropathways, anxious habits, and how the concept of "building new neuropathways" applies in the context of anxiety disorders and anxiety recovery. Let's start by acknowledging that even counterproductive anxious habits are built atop pathways i...

OH NO! IT'S COME BACK!

The habits we develop and the neuropathways that get created by a disordered state of anxiety mean that even long into recovery, an anxious person might be re-triggered by life events, stress, memories, or any number of expected issues. This is normal. If this happens, we can feel things again ... anxiety, anxiety symptoms, and scary thoughts. This is not failure, or returning to square one, or "...

BURNOUT!

Running out of gas and being emotionally, physically, and/or mentally drained can happen to any human. This week on Disordered Drew and Josh explore how an anxious mind can twist and distort the concept of burnout. In many ways, the fear of burning out, and the catastrophic interpretation of what that might mean, can be worse than burnout itself!

The guys explore different signs of burnout, how burnout comes in d...

Are you using wellness concepts, techniques, programs, and principles as a way to resist feelings of anxiety?

There's absolutely nothing wrong with taking care of oneself and wanting to be healthy physically, mentally, emotionally, and even spiritually. But in a large community of people struggling with disordered and chronic states of anxiety, compulsively seeking, chasing, and engaging in wellness rituals as a way to des...

The default state for most humans - to varying degrees - is for the brain to launch into inward thinking and inner dialogue when there's nothing else to pay attention to. If you're struggling with chronic or disordered anxiety, this can become a real issue and a major struggle.

This week we're looking at the inward compulsion. That fear-driven habit of not only having thoughts, but answering them, engaging with them, ch...

"Is it normal for my symptoms, or thoughts, or my anxiety to get worse when I start engaging in recovery?"

Even Dr. Claire Weekes acknowledged this experience when writing about recovery many years ago. This week on Disordered we're talking about feeling MORE when you stop hiding from anxiety. This is often misinterpreted as "getting worse" but feeling more doesn't mean your anxiety, your symptoms, ...

"What does anxiety therapy look like?"

"What goes on in a session with an anxiety specialist?"

"How can I find the right therapist for me?"

This week Drew and Josh address these questions, including a really interesting 12-minute mock therapy session to start the episode. Josh plays the therapist while Drew is the client struggling with panic and extreme levels of anxiety. It's role play, but ...

But what about hormonal issues, perimenopause, and menopause???!!!

This is a question that we are asked all the time, and rightfully so. This week we're joined by Helen Bennett, a qualified UK psychotherapist specializing in supporting people who are dealing with fertility challenges and struggling with the menopause transition.

This episode is chock full of excellent information about the experience of menopause and...

Do you ever get anxious ... because you're not feeling anxious?

This is a real thing in our community! Anxious people who begin to experience moments where anxiety and agitation fade into the background will often find themselves becoming anxious because they're not feeling anxious!

This week Drew and Josh explore this confusing but all too common anxiety recovery issue. The discussion includes:

• How old anxious brain...

"Healing" is a VERY popular word in self-help, mental health, and wellness circles. For many, this word resonates. For our friends struggling to overcome chronic and disordered anxiety, it can sure feel like there's healing to do.

But what if recovery wasn't all about healing? What if there was as much learning as there is healing in the process? Or what if the healing part doesn't always look the way you...

Anxiety triggered by exercise, exertion, or being in the gym is a common struggle for anyone dealing with issues like panic attacks, agoraphobia, or any anxiety disorder that places a focus on physical anxiety symptoms or feelings of shame, inadequacy, or embarrassment.

This week Drew and Josh share not only a professional take on this aspect of anxiety, but their own lived experience struggling with exercise, exertion, feeli...

Productivity anxiety is an often overlooked subject in our community, so this week Drew and Josh are taking a look at anxiety triggered by an obsession with productivity and the fear of "failure" as defined by not meeting extreme productivity or output goals.

This can show itself almost anywhere in life. Work and career. School and academics. Parenting. Building perfect relationships. Even recovery from an anxiety disorde...