The 3-D's

Jen talks to psychotherapist Joshua Fletcher - who is also very well known as @anxietyjosh on Instagram.

In addition to having a practice in the UK, Josh is an author and podcaster - and self-described "Anxiety Nerd" who across many mediums helps people with their anxiety symptoms.

Josh talks about the lesser talked about anxiety symptoms like "Derealization" and "Depersonalization".

For more information on "Anxiety Josh" visit his website here: https://www.thepanicroom.co.uk

For more information on Jen Kirkman, the host of Anxiety Bites, please go here: jenkirkman.bio.link

Anxiety Bites is distributed by the iHeartPodcast Network and co-produced by Dylan Fagan and JJ Posway.

Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.com

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:08):
This is the Anxiety Bites podcast and I am your host,
Jen Kirkman. Welcome to another episode of Anxiety Bites. I
am your host, Jen Kirkman. Thank you all again for
listening and for the kind things that you were saying
about the podcast and how much it's helping you. And

(00:29):
if you want to send me an email that you
want me to read on air, please send to Anxiety
Bites weekly at gmail dot com. Now again, somebody goes
through these for me, so and he hate mail or
marriage proposals, I won't see them, but if it's something
that's appropriate for the show, happy to read on air. UM.

(00:50):
There have been some requests for certain kinds of topics
and I would love to accommodate all of that. The
main issue is that we recorded a lot of these
episodes in advance, UM, and then I had to move
to New York for a job and I'm currently working
full time and so UM, I have a very small
window where I can record episodes, and not every guest

(01:12):
is available at this one hour that I have available
every week, So you know, trying my best, trying to
get as many different guests on as I can in
all different areas, but um. Anyway, today's guest, it's you know,
I was thinking, I always have a big, like one

(01:34):
topic that really interests me in a certain guest, and
then I see where the interview goes from there. And
I always start with just something else and then I
go down the rabbit hole of what I'm talking about
with the guests, which I love. I mean, my favorite
part of doing this podcast is is not the research
and guests for the show or updating my social media,
it is actually talking to people about anxiety. I just

(01:58):
sort of lose myself and I enjoy doing it so much.
But the big reason that I wanted to have Joshua
Fletcher a k A Anxiety josh is UM. He's known
on Instagram. That's how I first knew of him. He
talks about something that I rarely to never see any
other experts in anxiety, and josh is a psychotherapist talk

(02:21):
about which is as he calls it, the three d S,
which is de realization, depersonalization, and dissociation. And I have
experienced feelings of depersonalization and de realization. I think it's
mostly de realization in an anxiety attack or a panic attack.
Rather sorry because as we know there's really no such

(02:43):
thing as an anxiety attack. There's anxiety and then panic attacks.
So what's interesting about this is it's one of my
biggest symptoms, and it was, of course one of the
scariest ones that I had before I had any words
for any of this. And it's the hardest one to
do scribe because how do you describe feeling like you're

(03:04):
not really there. It doesn't feel like fainting, although I've
never fainted, but I imagine from what I've seen in
the movies that fainting happens rather quickly, and it's almost
like you don't know what happened, but de realization, it
just seems to go on and on, and it it
feels like the only way I can describe it. There's

(03:25):
a scene in the movies sixteen Candles, which by the way,
does not hold up. I haven't seen it recently, but
just even thinking about it, I'm like, oh lord, I
didn't even really love it that much in the eighties,
to be honest. But one of the characters, I forget
everybody's name, but the the dorky one, the younger one
that wanted to hang out with the cool kids. He
ends up at this party and in the morning he

(03:48):
has trapped under a glass coffee table and he's banging
on it, and once the debris is cleared off the
coffee table, we can see him under there. That's to
me what feeling of de realization feel like. Like you're
kind of trapped. People can see you, but you feel

(04:09):
like you're behind a glass, like you're not really there.
And it's not an emotional feeling. I'm not giving a
metaphor for Oh, I feel disconnected from people. No, I
feel disconnected from myself in those moments. It feels almost
like you might float away or turn invisible or something.
I wish it felt as concrete as oh, I think

(04:29):
I'm about to faint, But it's it's different. And I
actually had the weirdest phobia as a kid. And as
I say this out loud, I'm sure a ton of
you will say, well, I've actually had that too. Because
my theory is if I thought it with my human
brain than other human brains have thought it, I couldn't
be that unique. But I had a fear of losing gravity,

(04:51):
very specifically that I would lose gravity. What does that mean, Well,
we walk around all day, not flying, around the air
because of gravity keeping us tied to the Earth. Very
grateful for that, I had a fear that suddenly, one
day gravity would stop affecting me. Now, I don't know,

(05:13):
you might diagnose me as a narcissist just hearing that.
But the reason I think I had that bizarre phobia
it would only come up during feelings of de realization,
right before I would go into a massive panic attack.
And then that was the kind of thought loop that
my brain would think as I was panicking, Oh my god,

(05:34):
what if you lose gravity? And then what, I don't know,
I'm going to fly up into the atmosphere, you know,
which I think would be pretty terrifying to leave Earth's
atmosphere without the accoutrements of a rocket ship and all
of the helmets and things that you would need to
you know, breathe. And so that's the best I can

(05:56):
explain de realization. The other way I could explain it,
maybe is if you've ever um fallen to sleep and
then you kind of jump and wake up, and you're
not fully awake, but you're not asleep anymore, but you're
somewhere in the middle. And I don't mean sleep Perlyssis,
it's it's just that weird feeling of it's sort of

(06:19):
like that, but again, it usually happens for no reason.
At least in those weird sleep moments, I can say, well,
I'm somewhere between sleep and waking. Just try to go
back to sleep. So so I talked to my guest today, Josh,
about that, because I've never seen anyone really talk about it,
and he explains it really well. He um has posted
about it a lot on his Instagram, and we end

(06:41):
up talking about this subway that I take sometimes that
gives me feelings of de realization and I had been
avoiding it lately. So at the end of this episode
you'll here my update on that. But anyway, so let's
just get right into the episode. But of course I
get to the de realization like closer to the end
of the episode. But um, that's okay. It was a

(07:04):
great chat, and I love to talk to people who
do this for a living about their own experiences with
anxiety and and kind of what the world of being
a psychotherapist is like, in the sense that there are
a lot of different methods of doing things, and different
methods work at different times for different people knowing what

(07:27):
to do when for what person. And uh, I think
it's also very interesting when your psychotherapist has had their
own experiences with anxieties. Josh talks honestly about his I
don't know. I think that helps people really understand that
you can have these experiences, become an expert in why

(07:49):
they are happening, and help other people. It's not like
every therapist is out there on some throne thinking they're
better than everyone. It's really not like that. It's usually
people are called to something because they've experienced it themselves.
So I don't know. If this episode convinces anyone to
try therapy, then I've I've done my job here. But

(08:09):
a little more on my guest today now. By the way,
this podcast does very well in the UK. I'm getting
a lot of good numbers from Britain, so thank you everybody.
And that is where my guest today is from. He
is in Manchester and his name is Joshua Flescher. You
can find him on social media as Anxiety Josh. I

(08:33):
found him on Instagram. He's a psychotherapist who specializes in
working with anxiety and panic, and he has three popular
best selling books on that subject and he's the host
of the Panic Pod podcast. His latest book is called
Untangle Your Anxiety and you can get it now. I

(08:53):
will put all the links in the show notes, um
and again, if you go to the Panic Room dot
co dot uk you can read more about Josh and
his work. His other books are called Anxiety Practical About
Panic and another book called Anxiety Panicking About Panic and again.

(09:15):
His podcast is called the Panic pot. So here's my
chat with Josh. Tell me about your experience with anxiety.
What is your past experience of anxiety and what is
your experience today with it? Oh? Yeah, I've experienced a

(09:36):
lot of anxiety. I know, it's it's a buzzword. It's
sorry vague, isn't it. We all love anxiety, we all
have trauma, we all love these things. I've experienced anxiety
to the point of clinical diagnosis. So I've experienced panic
disorder Agoraphobia's see how I changed the word agrophobia to agoraphobia.

(09:58):
They're being considerate of my trans Atlantic was going to say,
did you say that in American just for me? Yeah? Yeah, absolutely?
O c D intrusive thoughts. Basically, if we were playing
anxiety diagnosis bingo, I would be winning. Um. Experienced all
the wonderful sensations that come with it, the thoughts or

(10:20):
the scary what ifs, the catastrophes, the the sensations, and
physical symptoms like the realization, dissociation, panic, feeling sick, wanted
to throw up, perspiration, muscle tension, you name it, at
the Sanderson um and and just yeah, and just the feelings, doom, dread,
all that stuff. Yeah, I suffered really badly with it.

(10:44):
I did a lot of years of trial and error
to overcome it. Finally found the right way to do it,
and dedicated my life to helping others and educating other
people about it as well. And that's why I became
a psychotherapist. And and I went down that way. And
what would you say, is the right way for you
at least to handle anxiety? My way? I'm joking. So

(11:07):
the right way with with anxiety is us learning about
its psycho education. If you don't know what's happening, then
you have no chance. You don't know what you're working with.
The first thing I do when I talk about anxiety
is split it into two. You've got conventional anxiety, which
is I'm worried about my job, I'm worried about my relationship,
I'm worried about money, I'm worried about insert something external.

(11:31):
And then the other side of it is internal ruminative
disordered anxiety. And this is the stuff that people don't
really talk about. So this is panic attacks, obsessing um
intrusive thoughts about stuff you don't like, and it wears
you out, worrying about symptoms, panicking about panic, fearing fear,

(11:52):
avoiding things because you're afraid of fear, misinterpreting fear, and
believing what if thoughts. That's the inwards disordered ant. So immediately,
for me, it was nice to hear that that kind
of anxiety existed, because when I was freaking out having
a panic attack of the panic attack, thinking I was
losing my mind, just that distinction was super helpful, like, oh,

(12:14):
other people struggle from this, and then that started the
journey to to recovery. Yeah, I love that you. Um
you said internalized ruminative anxiety. And I think there's two
sides of the anxiety fence, right there are people on
one side who say, oh, I don't have anxiety. They
think it's something really big and scary, they might have

(12:36):
the more conventional anxiety, you know, I'm just stressed about
my job, and then the other people on the other
side of the fence that have the deeper anxiety, they
think they're insane. And they look at the people with
conventional anxiety that are just worried about their job, and
they say, no, no, no, that's anxiety. It's just everyday stuff.
I'm crazy, And so I think that's just something I've

(12:57):
made up. But just from talking to people, I often
talk to people who are trying to diagnose themselves or
figure out how they feel, and I often hear that
one thing is anxiety and one thing isn't, and it's
really both, but it's just a different spectrum, right absolutely. Um,
I get I annoy a lot of therapists. Um because

(13:21):
I like the word disorder. Now I've been burned at
the stake for propagating the medicalization of mental health because
I like the word disorder. But no, I love it
but for its literal meaning, because all of that what
you described is anxiety. No, everyone's anxiety is subjective to them.
We don't negate people suffering. But for me, it's the

(13:45):
distinction between is its cyclical or is it temporary now?
For people who kind of worry about the conventional stuff
that is anxiety, you get worriors. You know, I've got
my cousins are warriors that are constantly worrying about what
if that happens, what if a boss doesn't like me,
what if that happens, what if I'm ill? What if

(14:05):
I do this? Just constant external different what if changing
it up a little bit? And then you've got the
disorder anxiety. So this is our anxious response, but it's
just kicking off and we don't want it to. We
all get anxiety before dates and job interviews and medical
appointments and things like that. That's normal, that's okay. It's

(14:27):
still anxiety. But it's like we're not questioning why we're anxious.
But the disordered anxieties when we're like, wake up with
doom and we're like why am I anxious? I'm lying
in bed, like, you know, like why why? Why is
the world suddenly look weird? Why do I feel like
I'm in the matrix? Why is everything so strange? Why
am I think weird thoughts when I'm out with my friends?

(14:49):
That's the internal disordered anxiety. It's still anxiety. It's the
same response, but it's our interpretation of it is different,
and the only thing that separates it is fear of
fear before a job interview. We're not worried about why
we're worried. We understand it before the first date. We
know why we're anxious. It makes sense. But when it

(15:10):
doesn't make sense, that's when you start to get on
the rumination roller coaster and struggle with disordered anxiety. We'll
continue the interview on the flip side of a quick
message from our sponsors. Let me ask you this. So

(15:31):
somebody wakes up there in bed, why am I feeling weird?
They're worried about why they feel anxiety, even if they
don't call it anxiety. So now we're getting into the
rum nation. So there is a difference, obviously, between a
slight curiosity. Oh, I feel a little weird, but I
know nothing's wrong because I'm in bed. Huh. Let me

(15:52):
dot dot dot investigate that. We'll get to that in
a minute. And then there's I feel weird, blah blah,
fill in the blank. I must be dying, the world
must be ending, I'm insane, there's a ghost in my bedroom,
and whatever So there is a difference because, like you said, okay,
if you don't find out what is going on, you
cannot get to solving your anxiety symptoms. But now I

(16:18):
like to drill down into the nitty gritty because I
feel like I don't know it interests me, so I
know it interests someone out there. So now we've got
this person laying in bed, what is the difference between
that kind of curious mind that knows, you know what,
I think, I need to talk to someone about this
because I feel weird and I shouldn't and the rumin nation.

(16:38):
Can you show us or tell us what each one is,
because I think a lot of people think, well, I'm ruminating.
I'm They wouldn't call it ruminating, they think, no, I'm
trying to figure it out, you know, trying to fix it,
trying to find the miracle. Thought, great question, and there's
a simple answer. People who ruminate believe that worrying will
alleviate the worry. They don't feel that they can tolerate

(17:00):
the feeling of uncertainty. The person with intrigue can tolerate
the uncertainty. The person who fear believes they can't tolerate
it will try to ruminate as a compulsion. And you're right,
some people wake up and feel like ship. I feel
like ship. Well, I know it's okay to feel like
sear in the morning. I'll be all right in an hour. Sorry,

(17:22):
you're totally allowed to swear. Yes, I encourage it. And
then yeah, intrigue. You know, you get these these yogis
and these mindfulness people there like treat the anxiety like
invited intrigue. It's like na like, if you've got a
disordered anxiety, ignore it, man, don't intrigue it, don't invite

(17:43):
it in just be like, I've got to eradicate, going
to raise the secondary fear here. So if you're a ruminator,
get out of bed, put your shoes on, and stop ruminating.
If you don't fear fear and you just the oh
I must have slept bad last night, Oh okay, well
carry on my day. Then then you know needs to
do anything, it's fine. But if you're in the midst
of that cycle, you know, one questions all the time

(18:06):
morning anxiety. Why do I feel doom when I wake up? Well,
we all feel courters al in the morning. That's what
wakes us up. When you wake up the body goes boom.
I have a lot of courters al which is a
fair chemical actually, But because we're misinterpreting anxiety or we're
in the if we're highly anxious, we start to then

(18:28):
see that doom feeling as an invitation to ruminate, to
listen to every thought the brain throws at us. I mean,
we get seven and a half to eight thousand different
thoughts a day, and yet we why are we picking
the same five crap thoughts every time? When what if
that happens? When if that happens? Here? For years even

(18:50):
for some people. And so it's about, yes, stepping off
the rumination roller coaster for hamster wheel of rumination, keep
your attention external. And that's what a lot of what
I do what doesn't help those sensationalized narratives, particularly when
you see therapy on TV and stuff like that, where
it's about getting to the root cause you know, like
I call it inception thinking. You know, if I sit

(19:12):
here and go through my memories and realize, oh, yeah,
it's because my dad didn't come to my soccer game.
That's why I haven't panicked. That that doesn't exist an
anxiety disorders, that it's just the fear and immerse misinterpretation. Oh,
I went off on a little rant, and so I
love it. I wrote down three things that I want
to go back to. One one of them is making

(19:34):
fun of the kind of yogi hey man, just invite
the thoughts in now. First of all, that is the
most British am I get. Am I do we say British?
Do we say UK? Thing I've ever heard British? Yes,
you're making fun. I'm from Boston originally, and then my
family is from Manchester, UK. Um that I could. I

(19:56):
was going to ask if you're in Manchester? And I
know this information is available on my but I really
didn't know what part you were in to anyone. To
anyone listening at home, Manchester's like London but not ship.
It's really good. Yeah. Well, and to anyone listening that's
in Boston, Manchester is like Lowell is So anyway, my my,
you know, I don't know any of these people, but
my great great grandfather was in Manchester, moved to Boston whatever.

(20:19):
So I feel this kinship with my British people because
Boston we're all just we have a low tolerance for bullshit,
and I think we can sniff it out pretty well. Um,
I think it's what might stop a lot of our
kinds of people from getting help in the first place,
because we're so against bullshit that we don't want anyone

(20:41):
to get into our minds, you know. But going back
to these these people that, hey man, just invite the thoughts,
I was recently proselytizing that kind of thing, even at
the beginning of this UH podcast. When I first started it,
I was saying that, you know, let's have fun with
our anxiety. At this point, I think of my anxiety

(21:02):
as this annoying friend sits in the front seat of
my car and they weigh in on things I should
think about, but I just ignore them. Or you know,
they're the idiot at work that pitches ideas and you
go ah ha and you never do it. But you
have to keep them there because they're the boss's son,
you know. And I think that's all cute and fine.
I'm not putting myself down, but I have to be
very careful because I got there decades after working on myself.

(21:22):
You can't tell someone that hasn't started working yet to
just take their ruminations that are that are as you said,
pretty you know disordered and think of them as a friend.
I mean we're not there yet, right. The anthropomorphosification as
a word, uh, anthropomorphisizing your anxiety like this those books

(21:44):
out there like where they turn it into animals or
friends or whatever. And you know, you know what anxiety
is there. It's there to save your life. Um. And
that's why I love psycho education and this is really important. UM.
As we know, anxiety is a threat response. I love
calling it a threat response because it will engage when

(22:06):
there's any threat, not just lines and tigers wanting to
rip you throw out, but threat to social stance, threat
to esteem, threat to relationship, threat to all those things.
That's what anxiety is there for. And it's great. But
because it's a it's a mechanism and our brain that
has not evolved since our ancestors. It doesn't understand the

(22:27):
accumulation of subjective stress. So it doesn't understand why you're
stressed out about social media, doesn't understand why your qualterly
report isn't in on time, It doesn't understand pandemics. It
doesn't understand all these things, and so all it does
is that it notices that you're getting super stressed. And
I always use the analogy of the jug we all have.

(22:50):
You know, it's a metaphor. Look at me, I'm super clever.
I'm using metaphor. It we all have a jug and
all our stress goes into it, and and that's mine.
But we all have a capacity for stress. And this
is why people develop anxiety disorders at times of their
life where things are super stressful, not just negative stress,

(23:11):
either positive stress. Or just got married, or just moved house,
we just got a promotion, I've just had a kid,
or just whatever stress we'll add to that job. And
when it overflows, that's when that mechanism in your brain
doesn't understand that. It's so just to be sure, it's
trying to save you. It's going you know what. It's

(23:33):
better to be wrong and alive than lack of daisical
and dead. Just like for our ancestors, you know, our
ancestors walking through the jungle, walking across the desert. We
all have. I call it the inner mere cat. It's
the same mechanism that a mere cat has. It's that
mare cats survived because they can't fight lines, but they
can see them coming from a mile away, so they

(23:54):
can plan around it, and that's how humans became the
dominant species. You can't fight or even run away from lines.
People talk about fight or flight, it's like, well, yeah,
but both would suck when you're fighting. Whenever I've been
in fight or flight, I I often wonder what the
fight would look like, you know, and you know, I
guess right now it looks like people punching um flight attendants. No,

(24:21):
but there's another mechanism of anxiety that isn't taught often,
and that is a mere cap mode because we became
the dominant species, the dominant predators, because we can go here, lads,
have you seen that over there? It's a pride of
lions sharping experions or sneak sneak up on him and
we'll we'll have a lion king theme barbecue later. Yeah.

(24:42):
That mechanism, that anxiety is one of the most powerful
things that have made the predators of the world. But
it sucks when you're sat in the office just trying
to type on a computer. Why the hell is that
going on right now? There's no shark, there's no shock,
there's nothing, and so recovery is turning off that threat response.

(25:06):
But each time you ruminate or do a safety behavior
or google your symptoms. You're just thanking it. So next
time it's just going to keep going on and on
and on. And that's what I'm really passionate about kind
of discussing and teaching people. I really like the way
you just framed it, and so thank you. You've you've
helped me have more fun with it in that it's
not this, oh no, we haven't evolved past this, and

(25:30):
you know, we used to do it when we were
didn't have toilets and had to run from tigers. You know,
it sounded so like, well, jeez, you know, what's wrong
with us? Why didn't we evolve? And and you're framing
it in a way that's like no, no, no, we're
not supposed to become tigers. We did evolve, but it's
just that that instinct is still there because it's survival.
But we are the you know, I mean arguably so

(25:53):
with the smartest species. But in that sense, we have
different senses than other species. We can see them coming.
That's our protection. Like we're all nerds, you know, in
the animal kingdom, Like we're the smart ones with like
our pencils and calculators and the jocks are out there,
you know, throwing things and trying to you know, bite us.
But we might win because we calculated how long it's

(26:16):
going to take them to get to us. Yeah, people
misinterpreted as a dysfunctional part of the brain. Listen, I'm
not gonna as someoney suffered a lot with anxiety. I
I sympathize and empathize with that belief. What does help
those realizing and again that word disorder. It's just it's
just going off when I don't need it to at

(26:36):
the moment, and it is always possible to get it off.
A lot a lot of people, I hear a lot
of things like what's the cure, Like no, no, no, no, no,
no, no no, no, you don't cure anxiety. We all have anxiety.
It's super Again, it's part with the nerds of we
need it. Honestly, we'd be extinct without it. It's it's there.

(26:57):
But some people's go fires off more readily than others.
Um and what you've got, And I always bring people's
attention back to the stress jug So, first of all,
a lot of people stress drugs are filled up by
the fear of fear itself. What if I panic when
in situations where I don't like it. What if I
have an intrusive thought around children. What if I freak

(27:18):
out when I'm driving on the freeway, What if I,
you know, embarrassed myself in front of my work colleagues. Now,
the fear of fear and the fear of anxiety itself
will fill up the jug, and that when people come
and sit in my practice, that's the first thing that
we look at. Then we look at, well, what else

(27:39):
is in the jug? How the hell did you get here?
And that's when there's a place for exploring narratives. Now
everyone knows that I'm anyone who knows my work, I'm
grumpy as hell because everyone there's this misbelief and a
horrible narrative at the moment in the pop going around
in the popular sphere about you can overcome all anxiety

(27:59):
and mental health issues by identifying trauma. It's a popular term.
It's it's it actually waters down the severity of trauma
for people who actually experienced PTSD. Um. You know, everything's
a trauma. You know, I spilt my milk on the side.
Oh it's traumatic. Oh no, everything's trauma, you know. Oh
you know, like I heard something the other day. Was

(28:21):
it my dad sometimes not picking me up at the weekend,
which he didn't was traumatizing. That's trauma for me. I
mean it's not, it's just upsetting. It's not traumatizing. You know.
You know if you left me in the jungle, then yeah,
that's traumatizing, but you know he didn't. But anyway, yet,
So what I do is unpick or what's in the jargon,
and yeah, you will find traumatic events, and you'll find sadness, grief.

(28:44):
You know, maybe your survivor of abuse, maybe you've learned
that your esteem is valued on your output rather than
who you are. Maybe there's just stuff anger in their breakups, divorce, whatever,
and you slowly pour out the jug. And that's for me.
How you get on top of anxiety is how I
got on top of mine. That's how people get on
top of those And and it's my opinion, which is

(29:06):
always fact on the issue. That's right, that's the name
of this episode. My opinion is fat with Joshua flushing,
that's not my stuff. Anxiety bites will be right back
after a quick little message from one of our sponsors.

(29:34):
You mentioned that other people in your field don't like
that you use the word disorder, and I don't know
if you need the opinion of a comedian slash podcaster
on your side. But not until I started using the
word disordered for myself did I start to go warp

(29:54):
speed um solving a lot of the symptoms and problems
of my anxiety at same in the last five years
I had I adopted saying oh, that's a disordered thought
or that's a disordered response, And why don't people like that?
I mean, doesn't that anxiety disorder? It's disordered. What's the
problem this face value? And there's a lot I can

(30:16):
see why people get angry at it because there are
there is a lot of medicalization and mental health. I'm
with those people. But also in this world of partisan politics,
partisan beliefs, partisan debates, actually I like to just not
take aside and see things for what things are. Anxiety disorders,
in my opinion, do exist. I've experienced five of them simultaneously. Um. Also,

(30:41):
the pro argument of having a disorder is that you
know what type of anxiety is. Some comes to me
and says, I've got anxiety disorder. I'm like, Bam, I
know what you're doing. You wake up, you check how
you feel. You're probably constantly obsessing how you feel. You
probably every time you're happy, you're obsessing about how you feel,
how you can fix that. Probably have panic attacks, anxiety texts.
You probably ruminate. Yeah, yeah, well, and I know you've
got anxiety disorder. But if someone comes into my practice

(31:03):
says I've got anxiety that I need to know why.
Maybe they're really anxious. Maybe they're in an abusive relationship
and they don't know it. Maybe they're super stressed and
actually they've got legit anxiety. Maybe they're being harassed and bullied,
you know, and that causes anxiety. So it's always cool
to set up that distinction maybe you know, and and
so it's always I always like separating things like that. Um.

(31:26):
But yeah, I just think the word disorder has developed
a bad rap for things like borderline personality disorder. That's
very contentious issue. I wouldn't necessarily ever use BPD as
a diagnosis or subscribe to it. Some people really like
it's their relationship with the label uh, and some people

(31:48):
categorically reject it or doesn't help. In the world of
therapy and psychotherapy and psychological intervention, is that there as
partisan arguments in there, there's there's tribal wars within their therapy.
So how do you expect you know, like the amount
of people that have come to me to help with anxiety,
and they've spent years trying to pinpoint trauma, you know,
and yes, they've been traumatized. I've been traumatized. God, I've

(32:11):
been I've been sexually abused, I've gone through death, I've
had my brother die in my arms, I've been beaten.
The share of all that, I have been traumatized. I
know what trauma is. And I said, for anyone wants
to do that, but I don't really have PTSD. People
with PTSD relive it, you know, the end of stuff,
and you've already done an episode on that and stuff
like it's really quite severe. But yes, it's the kind

(32:35):
of thing. It's like separating and seeing what it is,
I think your relationship with the word. But obviously we
live in a climate now where words taken out proportions,
semantics are slaughtered. It's scary. It is because people people
like you said, it's everything is partisan and so a
lot of times people don't want you to take their

(32:57):
word away from them, and you're trying to take it
away from them so you can help. Yes. Absolutely, Well,
there's I'm writing a book right now. It's it's called Ship.
Your therapist is thinking. It's got a lot of interest
for it. Yeah, I'm really looking forward to it. It's
not out for like another year, but it's sort of
the um. There's different modalities in therapy. Now, you've got

(33:21):
your person centered humanistic which I'm trained in, which is
applying the core conditions of Carl Rodgers and he said
that people what people are lacking to heal or to
grow is empathy, unconditional positive regard. So it doesn't matter
what you've views are that you care for this person,

(33:43):
and congruence, which is authenticity. If you have all those
three things in a therapy room, then it's like watering
a sunflower in your client will grow. I love that stuff.
I love the stuff like that. Yeah. Then you've got
the behavior sciences like CBT, which I'm also trained in.
I also like that too, uh, which I really like.
And then you've got like deep spiritual stuff like a

(34:04):
stout therapy, and you've got emergency intervention therapy like DBT
and stuff like that. But obviously the average Joe on
the street doesn't know all this. You know, and each
person when they train in their branch of therapy, it's
like a religion. They internalize it at all. Um, that's
why you've got to be an integrative therapist. So you
can look down on all the people that are SOULD therapist.

(34:27):
You've only trained in one modality. I can use many.
But actually it's really important because for my anxiety disorder,
I needed CBT. Definitely. For my O c D, I
needed E r P. Anyone with O c D E
r P I love it. It's great. It's hard, but
it's great. But then naturally, when I lost my brother

(34:48):
and my father, I needed a space to grieve, and
CBT sucks for that I really liked. I needed just
a space to feel compassion, to talk through, to talk
through my traumatic events, to talk through my sadness, my anger.
I still have a therapist now, we don't just talk
about a place to just get stuff off my chest.
So it's different. Some people go for existential worries. It

(35:12):
doesn't matter, it's different. There's a different modality for each
and unfortunately there's still lies this belief there. Well, I'll
get a therapist, they'll know everything. Well, no, actually they don't. Yeah.
It's like saying, um, you know, I don't know if
you wanted to study Judaism, saying I'll find a religious leader,
they'll know everything. It's like, no, you might accidentally grab

(35:32):
a priest like he's not going to know about you
know what I mean? Good analogy? Yeah, yeah, very definitely.
There is a lot of this pin the tail on
the trauma stuff and it does get it does hurt you.
And if there's people listening now, I'm not saying anything
offensive to I spent years in therapy, wasting money trying
to find the answer to my current fears in the

(35:55):
mystery of my past trauma. You know, don't get me wrong.
Some of it was helpful, but most of it wasn't
because anxiety disorders just exist, you know, and they do
and once you put in the behavior and teach the
brain that it's safe. I love formulation. That's what I
as a therapist. I think I'm really good at formulating

(36:16):
the problem for people. They come in, we sit down,
let's see what's going on. Sometimes it's if someone just
wants a space to talk, that's cool. Sometimes someone has
clear oh see the interest of thoughts or panic disorder,
and then we work with that. We're not playing pin
the tail on the trauma. We deal with the phobia. Um.
But interestingly the approach is similar anyway. You know, you

(36:36):
use exposure therapy, which you love. Do you have any
insights into men and therapy or men and anxiety and
that they are just I mean, I just you know,
arm chair over here. I assume that in society men
are taught don't so many weakness and you know, but
it can you take me beyond that like little trite
thing that I know, like, what's the big stuff with

(36:57):
men and anxiety? Yeah? I mean I call it what
I call it is emotional conservatism, and it applies to
men and women or however you identify. And it's more
sticks with men because there's a reverence of strength being
measured by how much you are able to not show

(37:18):
your emotions. And you know what, that comes from a place,
an important place because during the world wars and throughout history,
there wasn't time to mess about about it. There wasn't
time to DM people because you're a friendly because they
called called called out your trauma. No, there's just picturing
soldiers in Yeah, exactly and actually, yeah, emotional conservatism in

(37:44):
the war, particularly in the UK and the Germans flying
over during the blitz, huddle down, shut up, everyone's got
it shape at the moment, no one wants to hear
about your problems. And I get it. I understand that.
But obviously we're not in a world war anymore. So
what actually happens, what we need to do and at

(38:04):
one of the biggest killers of men in particular, well,
the biggest killer of men in the Western world is suicide.
Really I didn't know that. Yeah, in the UK, it
definitely is. And I'm sure because the UK in the
US that they say, I share a lot of things culturally,
but yeah, the biggest killer of men in the UK
is suicide. And that I tell people that, like what like, yeah,

(38:27):
overwhelmingly more than cancer. More than that, it's suicide. People
chooseing it. Yeah, because of emotional conservatism, because of this
reverence where it's weakness to talk about your mental health.
Now everyone assumes that my mates, so I grew up with,
I cried last night because my mate text me saying,
you know, that thing about self belief that we spoke

(38:47):
about and we very rarely talk about emotional stuff. I said, yes,
you know, I think I internalized that and it really helped,
and that is rare for even me and my friendship groups,
and I go public with mine on my Instagram page.
I literally recorded myself having a panic attack. I've pinned
it to my highlights reel just to show you. You know,

(39:08):
you don't. It's not weakness, you know. I did it
like a boss as well. If yeah, but you can
see I'm freaking out of it, like whoa, Like my
eyes are like wide open, like whoa. But yeah, it's
there because we've got to lose that emotional conservatism. Um,
you get it all the time. One of the analogies

(39:29):
I hear that I use all the time is it's
the result of an introjected belief. And that's another Roggerian term.
I love Carl Rodgers. I often fantasized about him being
my dad, even though he's not here anymore, but to
replace my clear father issues that I've still not addressed.
And he he said that we introject beliefs through looking

(39:50):
at experiences from um growing up. So picture you're a kid,
your grandma's funeral and you miss your grandma. You're never
going to see her again. And death is one of
the most mind boggling things to process. It's horrible, I know,
it's grief is horrible. So you're a kid and you
you grieve in your grandma she's cremated or whatever, and

(40:14):
then you're crying because that's natural. You're supposed to be crying,
is natural for the brain to process things. You should
you should cry about things. It's okay. And then your
uncle turns around and he goes, you know what, Josh,
don't cry, be strong for your grandma. And that is
the dumbest thing that we still do today. It's the

(40:37):
dumbest thing ever, because then they all I'm you know,
I'm gonna go around funerals, particularly British funerals. I'm just
gonna leave my card on people's seats because I'll see
you in about five ten years. When you're in a
bar fight, when you're doing drugs, smashing cocaine, trying to
to suppress the feelings that you think they're supposed to
be doing. I know I've done it. I had a

(40:58):
cocaine problem. I had I want to problem because I'll
believe for so many years that feeling feelings was weakness,
and so I tried to suppress it. But now because
I'm smart and got the right help, I was like,
oh right, actually, yeah that works. Now, Yeah, that's cool.
It's all about it's all about normalizing there's another word,

(41:18):
but it is about normalizing that it is okay to
have emotions. So I went off on another round. No,
it's good, I want you. This is what a podcast
is for. Well, you know, it's great because anyone who
has actually felt their feelings knows it's a lot harder
to do that than it is to stuff them down
with drugs, alcohol, you know, violence, or you know strength. Well,
I try to model what it's like to have emotions

(41:41):
and stuff to people, you know. Uh, and and in
in a way that people can empathize with. Again going
into the populist fhere now of people like it's almost
become a fad to share everything in terms of for entertainment,
as opposed to that real Carl Rodgers, congruent, authentic sharing

(42:02):
of feelings. That's what we're missing. Had your had Instagram
existed at all, In your Instagram it existed when I
was twelve, ma'am, that would have helped me. Uh. You
posted about this a while ago, and you've done an
episode on your podcast about it. The three D s
um de realization, depersonalization, and dissociation. And one of my

(42:23):
biggest symptoms of anxiety and then one of the precursors
to a panic attack every time for me as a
child was de realization and I think depersonalization, and my god,
I could never explain it. Please tell us all the
three DS and describe them, because you did. You describe

(42:44):
it so well. I have no language for them, Like
it feels like I'm not there. Oh cool, absolutely, Um,
it's a weird. One of the biggest symptoms of anxiety
and misunderstood is the feeling of de realization. Uh, it's
actually a dissociation shouldn't response, and it can both be
a part of trauma, but most of the time it's

(43:07):
just an anxious response. Obviously you go to a trauma therapist,
but oh my god, it's trauma, penitail and trauma. But
actually know, most people who get super stressed and anxious
will experience and good de realization or depersonalization. And this
feels the realization feels like you're not in the room,
but you are in the room. But it doesn't feel
like you're in the room. Objects feel both far away

(43:29):
and close at the same time. It just feels weird.
And under the same umbrella you've got depersonalization, you can
have exactly the same time, and that's when you feel
like you're in your body but you're not. Your hands
don't feel like yours. You can hear your voice, but
it doesn't feel like you talking. Um, it feels like
you don't. If you your body feels discompobulated. One leg

(43:52):
might feel heavier than the other. What basically, hyper focus
on not feeling like you, and that can apply to
things outside as well. The sky is weird. What I
hear a lot is like I feel like I'm walking
in a dream but fully awake, or one like I
feel like I'm in the matrix feels like I'm in

(44:12):
a simulation, you know. And yeah, that happens when we
get super stressed, super anxious. It's harmless, it can't hurt you,
but when it's not explained to you, it's super scary.
It was the trigger for my anxiety disorder. I was sacked.
I stood at work one day making a cup of
tea because I'm British and as I was doing it,
I dropped the spoon. It made a mildly loud noise

(44:35):
and just hit with this associate and I looked up
and I was like, the fuck is going on here?
And I was like, whoa. It was like looking at
the same room but through a mirror. What's going on here?
And then someone walked in and they started talking to me,
and their faces that like clay, and they sounded like

(44:55):
kind of far away. Um, don't get don't get fit,
free it out about. It's normal. But to my experience
at the time, I was like this before, and I
thought I'd gone crazy. I thought I'd last my mine.
I thought, that's it, You've finally done it, Josh, You've
lost your mind. And that was the biggest trigger for
my and then I went home to work it out,

(45:17):
to think about it, to explore roots of trauma. Never
left the Roote house for a year. Um no, yeah,
oh I was in a dark place, very dark place.
But yeah, that's that's That's simply the three D S, dissociation,
the realization, the personalization. I just call it the realization.
To keep it simple, I feel to realize I still

(45:37):
get it now. And then once May. Every few months,
I'll be walking around and I'll go, Wow, I'm experiencing
the realization I wonder why, Oh, now I know why.
Look back at the last week. It was super stressful
and I've been worrying about worry and that's okay, You've
got to take away the fear of it. Or didn't
help was when I took it to therapy and they
were like, and then I started getting all these false

(45:58):
memories like well maybe I was abused, I don't remember it,
And then that was a big one for me. I mean,
I just was like, please, can I have a repress
abuse memory because this would just solve everything, And they
make it seem that way sometimes and it's like it
was stress. You know, it's just stress and your body
is doing exactly what it should do. Don't be free.
It's one of the main questions I get. Millions and

(46:20):
millions of people experience it. You're okay if you listen
at home going all that's me, You're okay. You know
it's all right. Good CBT and anxiety disorder informed CBT
therapists will help you with that, and they do super
cool exercises for it, like something called how do I
American inter receptive exposure, and what is is like you

(46:42):
can you can actually like bring it on yourself to
expose yourself to it, to take away the fear. Where
I tend to get it is UM. If it does happen,
it will be somewhere like the worst place to ever
get it, which is like on the subway when it's
going over a bridge. I'm in New York now, and
that's the best place to get You think, Oh, if
you're working with me, we'd be doing that every day.

(47:05):
It happened a few times last month, and I went,
I do not have a fear of heights or bridges anymore,
or something you fear, you fear that, you fear that
if this is what everyone says, if I suddenly get
the realization now, I will panic, And if I panicked,
then I will lose control. And if I lose control,
it means I can't cope. So I will avoid it.
I will also simmer in a broth of anticipate patree

(47:29):
anticipatory anxiety UM to try and avoid it, to pre
empt it, our wish and compulsively check and superstitiously asked
for it not to happen. No, get your ass on
that bridge and go feel derealized because the more you
do it, you turn off the threat response and it
goes away. The aim isn't to get rid of the

(47:51):
realization it's safe. The aim is to turn off the
threat response in association with the realization. So I was,
I said the other day, I was sat there feeling realized,
but with no anxiety. I was like, wow, I just
feel spaced out. Yeah, I spent a year freaking out.
The realization and panic are not the same thing. It's
your interpretation of it. Lecture, a ted talk. No, you

(48:12):
know that is hopeful, because you know I I'm pretty
good with what you just said about panic attacks. Like
I'll do something and I'll think I might have a
panic attack while I do this. Who cares? You know,
it's fine, so used to it. Whatever, But de realization
really still freaks me out. And there is a sub
I have two subway lines I can take to my apartment.

(48:34):
One of them takes ten minutes longer, but it doesn't
go over the bridge. And so next time I'm avoiding.
I'm avoiding because I don't want to be in de realization.
I don't I don't want to have some problems. So
you're teaching the brain that the realization is scary and dangerous.
It's not. It is initially. Yeah, I know I did.
That's why I didn't leave the house for a year.

(48:54):
What if I step outside and field the realization? And
I only overcoming when I was willing to be realized.
But here's the thing. It goes away. You'll you'll notice it.
You'll just go You're like, oh, I feel like me again,
and I'm not. It wasn't because I avoided the bridge. Yeah,
you know, um, and it's yeah, it's one of those

(49:15):
it's uh. But I'm glad we're talking about that because
I really like to drill down into you know. Uh.
If you just say to the common person or even
a therapist, oh, I have sometimes an anxiety on the
subway going over the bridge, they're gonna start dealing with
fear of heights. That's not what I'm talking about. And
I know that somebody listening is like, I didn't know
there was a thing. So I'm excited that we got
to that. Yeah, and do you know here's the stat

(49:38):
The vastijority of people that fear flying do not fear
the plane crashing they fear their own fear inside the plane.
I fear going insane inside the plane. They don't fear
the plane dropping. That was my experience with my fear
of flying all my life that I now don't have.
But I it started with the fear of crashing, and
then I maybe really truly only had that once and

(49:59):
the rest the time it was the fear of having
another panic attack. You know. So you can get on
a plane and fly across the world, but you can't
go for a Bridget get over that bridge. If someone
said to me, right now, get on a flight to Australia,
I'd be like, oh cool, I get my ear buds
and I'll read a book. But if someone said get
on the queue train it's just a one minute over
that bridge, I go, oh, I don't know. I don't
want to. I will be looking. I will be listening

(50:22):
to your next podcast, and I expect the update that
you did it. Okay, I'm gonna do it for you
and I when this episode comes out in my intro,
I will reveal how it went. And then yeah, actually
you just you just read like a police You just
the big news from America. This woman went insane on
a train and it fell off the bridge because he

(50:42):
pushed the driver messaging my lawyers, mine needs smell. That
would actually be amazing if that happened. Now, you can't
go crazy. Anxiety can't make you go crazy. Everyone thinks
that the realization means you're gonna go crazy. You're not
gonna go crazy. We'll be right back. Let's end with

(51:11):
you have a great social media presence, as I said
the top of the episode, and we're gonna link to
everything in the show notes. Now I hear all of this.
You know, Instagram is so bad for people's mental health,
and I get it, but I also feel like, for me,
I'm having a great time with social media in terms
of how much I still get to learn for free

(51:31):
about anxiety and other things, and I get to see
so many people talking about their feelings. And I don't
know how I would have gotten through the pandemic without
social media, living by myself. You know, So, is there
a counter to how terrible social media is? Social media
isn't terrible? And also again you know me, no, I

(51:51):
don't blanket statements and parts and stuff. I'm not You're right,
you're right right. It's like it's like our relationship say,
it's part of the argument. Isn't all social media's bad,
it's your relationship with what you are seeing on your
social media. Now, don't get me wrong. I speak to
a lot of people who follow anxiety pages and some

(52:12):
of them suck. They're actually not helpful, it's misinformation, and
some of them are incredible. So it depends on what
you're following. Uh. Some of my favorite pages that I
follow on anxiety are um, obviously mine, but but like
there's people like Kimberly Quinlan who talks about O C
D N E RP and she's a genius. There's people

(52:34):
like The Anxious Truth, who's Drulingslatry lives in New York. Um,
there's people like um, I look like qualified therapists that
that there were a lot um of stuff like that.
And then there's also people that just post about their
journey and that's okay too. It's okay to have that
sphere to to kind of normalize, you know, going through stuff.

(53:00):
You can get into vulnerability pawn, which is the thing
that at the moment where you know it's just become
a thing where I'm just gonna keep showing my vulnerability
because I'm getting likes and clicks. I do think a
lot of people they almost get like addicted to the
sympathy and empathy they get by posting their vulnerability and
and they do in the name of helping others. But

(53:20):
I don't. It's it starts to eat its tail. It's
their intention, absolutely love that it eats. It's a tail.
Like yeah, Like, so when you see my vulnerability that
I share pinned on my thing, it's actually I turned
that into psycho education. So I'm saying is, look, I'm
doing this, but I'm not feeling sorry for myself. You
can do this too, you know, whereas some people do that.

(53:43):
But yeah, it depends on your on on I find
with vulnerability powners actually kind of it. It almost dampens
your hopes, like, well, if this really well known person
is struggling, what what hope do I have? So yeah,
it depends to answer the question is who are you following?
Find someone that you trust and who actually resonates with you,
and then see who they're following, see what they're doing,

(54:06):
you know, And that's what I do. Um you know,
And just because someone has a qualification and a therapist
doesn't mean they're right, that's including me. I sound sanctimonious.
I sound like a pretentious preak, but I could be
wrong to you as well. What I say, use your judgment,
use your intuition, and kind of just just see what
speaks to you. But as long as it's not part

(54:28):
of the compulsive cycle where you're constantly seeking reassurance, because
that doesn't get you anywhere. Yeah, thank you so much
for being on my show. This was such a delight.
Thank you. Thank you for using your platform to talk
about it and things like that. I really I really
appreciate it. And I'll listen to some more of your episodes.
I think that's super cool. And you've obviously done your

(54:50):
research on it as well. You're you're and lived it. Yes,
And and don't listen to any of the episodes where
I say things that that I've now changed my mind on,
like the anxiety is your friend, where I'm like, hey, man,
anxiety is your friend. Bring it on the yoga mat.
Just just accept Oh god, I say that a lot.

(55:12):
To just accept your anxiety. Yeah, accept Like I feel
like I've got a gun to my head and I'm
gonna ship myself. Yeah, okay, I'll accept that. Oh, man,
I'm still gonna say I'm still going to say it
because I'm a hippie at heart, and I hope you
enjoyed my chat with Joshua Fletcher anxiety josh and oh,

(55:35):
I'm just cracking up about how he immediately made fun
of people say, be friends with your anxiety. That's all
I do on this podcasts. But I'm still gonna say it.
But I'm going to be a little more mindful now
that that's not always the first thing that we that
we can do about our anxiety. For me, it was
really like the million thing I did about my anxiety.
And I always think sometimes when I learned something or

(55:57):
adopt a behavior as one of the like latest tools
in my tool kid, I guess I always have this
tendency to think, oh, well, I should have been doing
that from the beginning, and you know, maybe I wasn't
even able to do that from the beginning. And that's
why that tool presented itself to me. Now, this whole
notion of having a sense of humor about my anxiety,
and you know, think of it as a friend in

(56:18):
the front seat. I mean, that's not the only thing
I do for my anxiety. It is is one of
the things. And so yeah, this notion that, well, let's
just start there for everybody else. When I give my
little advice, it's like, maybe that's something to think about,
but it might not be available to someone until they're
a little further along with more cognitive work. Again, I'm

(56:40):
not a therapist. I'm just a podcaster trying to bring
you so many different points of view and information to
help you find the bread crumbs you need to get
out of the woods of your anxiety. So here's my
update on the whole subway situation. First of all, I
love when I do an interview with someone and they
end up helping me somehow. It happened with the Anxiety

(57:02):
Sisters and the doctor Lawana Marquez episode and the Clare
Bidwell episode and the um dr jet episode. Just you know,
all of a sudden, I feel like a minute therapy session.
But I didn't get a chance to practice yet on
that subway. Now, let me explain, I'm not doing avoidance.
I live and work in Brooklyn, and I really don't
need to use the subway ever. Um everything I do

(57:23):
is walking, and the subway that I would take in
Brooklyn is not the one that I have that issue
with anyway. Um, But I'm recording this a week in advance,
so on this upcoming weekend, which will be the past
for you by the time you hear this. I did
have an appointment booked in Manhattan that would require me
to take that train that goes over the bridge, and

(57:45):
I ended up rescheduling the appointment only because they're supposed
to potentially be a Nor Easter snowstorm this weekend and
I'm not exactly sure, um that i want to walk
to the subway in like the whipping winds and the
ice and whatever, so rescheduled on account of weather. But
I will get on that train at some point. But

(58:07):
I will tell you something did happen that did give
me a chance to sort of work on my de realization.
I was again on the subway, different one, not the
one that goes over the bridge, and I fell asleep
because I if if I sit down and I'm on
a train, any train, even if it smells bad, I

(58:33):
can fall asleep. And I was reading a book, not
even a kindle, an actual book that you hold in
your hand, and so between that sort of relaxing thing
and the train, and I'm warm, in my coat and
my mask. I fell asleep and I woke up about
six stops away from where I live, and it was disorienting,

(58:53):
to say the least. And I woke up and I
got off the train and it was broad daylight afternoon,
but I wasn't sure where I was, and there was
just something about I don't know, it's just that feeling,
and I started to get feelings of de realization and
I thought, Oh God, here comes a panic attack. And
then I just went, Oh, I can talk about this
in the podcast. Oh my god, this is so funny.

(59:15):
Oh my god. I remember when I was talking to
anxiety Josh about this and then it just stopped. So
I didn't even get to practice sitting with it. It
stopped because I thought of this podcast. So I don't
know if that's what would have happened on the bridge.
I I think who knows. But that's the only update
I can give for now. But I will put one

(59:37):
in the corner on this one that's not even an expression. Well,
I'll put one on the board for talking about this stuff.
Because when you talk openly and honestly about your things
that you are hiding and not really telling other people,
that you're doing, and you're you're doing all these kind
of anxious safety behaviors. If you speak it out loud,

(59:57):
I'm telling you, if something happens when you're out, to
start doing it again where you're accountable in a way.
You know. I knew I was going to have to
report back to all of you, and something about that helped.
Now I don't have the words for it because I'm
not a therapist, but definitely definitely something about that helps.
So here are the takeaways for this episode. Conventional anxiety

(01:00:20):
is wearing about your job or money, for example, but
internal ruminative disordered anxiety is panic attacks, obsessing, intrusive thoughts,
panicking about panic, fearing, fear. The list goes on. As
a therapist, Josh has to ask his clients is it
a cyclical problem or is this temporary? Anxiety before a

(01:00:40):
date or a job interview is normal, as we know
why we are anxious, But disordered anxiety is waking up
with let's say, a feeling of doom for no reason.
It's all anxiety, and we still practice the same response
for it. But what separates it is that the disordered
anxiety is more of a fear of fear well field

(01:01:00):
cortisol in the morning. It's the chemical that wakes us up.
But if we misinterpreted, it becomes anxiety, and we see
that doom feeling that we wake up with as an
invitation to ruminate and to listen to every thought that
our brain throws at us. Each time we ruminate or
do a safety behavior, or you google your symptoms, you're

(01:01:21):
just thinking your threat response, which adds to your anxiety.
People often misinterpret that we haven't evolved past anxiety as
a dysfunctional part of the brain, but we don't care anxiety.
We do need it. We would be extinct without it.
De Realization can be a trauma response, but mostly it's

(01:01:42):
an anxious response, and it feels like you're not in
the room, and objects can feel close or far away
at the same time. Depersonalization feels like you're in your
body but you're not. Your hands don't feel like yours.
You can hear your voice, but it doesn't feel like
you're talking. Your body feels discombobulated. You feel like you're
walking in a dream, but you're fully awake. The three

(01:02:04):
d s can happen to us when we are super
tired or stressed. They are harmless and it can't hurt us,
and the number one cause of a panic attack is
fear of fear. Thank you again for listening to this episode.
All information on the work of Anxiety Josh can be
found in the links in the show notes. You can

(01:02:25):
also go to Jen Kirkman dot com and click Anxiety
Bites if you want to read the takeaways from every
episode I've done, or just get more information about the show. Again,
thanks for listening and Anxiety Bites, but you're in control.
For more podcasts from my heart Radio, visit the I

(01:02:46):
heart Radio app, Apple podcast, or wherever you listen to
your favorite shows.