Does The Body Keep The Score In Anxiety Disorders? (Episode 030)

SPEAKER_01 0:00

Hi, Drew and Josh. Absolutely love your podcast. It's brilliant. I have a question. What is your opinion on the somatics angle on anxiety? So finding the trauma in your body, finding the alarm in your body, you know, the body keeps the score, all that kind of side of things, uh, as a way to, for want of a better word, heal anxiety. Um, I would love to hear you both discuss that. Um, thank you so much for the podcast. It really is amazing.

SPEAKER_04 0:32

Welcome to Disordered. Uh, this is episode 30. Um, we're really excited to talk about today's subject, which is does the body keep the score in anxiety disorders? My name's Joshua Fletcher, also known as Anxiety Josh, and I'm a psychotherapist based in Manchester in the UK, and a previous sufferer.

SPEAKER_05 0:51

I am Drew Linselata, co-host of uh Disordered. I am based in New York in the United States. I'm a graduate student in clinical mental health counseling on the way to being a licensed therapist here in New York, and also a former sufferer. Good question, wasn't it, Drew? I think it was an excellent, excellent question. We probably should have already talked about this, but here we are today, better late than never.

SPEAKER_04 1:11

Excellent. Yeah, uh, we used um this uh uh as as the basis of um the title of this is a basis of the episode. Um it's uh the title of a well-known book um about uh trauma research um that we really appreciate. I'm glad that there's lots of research in the field of trauma um because uh it's still quite a vastly misunderstood field. But we like to focus on anxiety disorder specifically. That's our that's our jam. Um we'd love to answer this question. I think it's gonna be a good one that we're gonna explore today. Yep. Um so thank you, listener, for sending that in. Uh, if you do have questions or did it anyways, please go to disorder.fm and you can record a voicemail too. And we will listen to them. Uh Drew, does the body keep the score?

SPEAKER_05 2:02

Uh well, I mean, it does. You know, I I I don't think we're here to sort of like poo-poo that research. And here's what I love about the idea that the body keeps a score. And we we said we're not going to say the cut the name of the book, and here we said it like 18 times, but that's fine. Clearly a popular book. And I really appreciate the way that that book explained, like in layman's terms, why trauma responses and states of distress like that feel the way they feel. And it took away the mystery of like something is wrong or broken or damaged. So I really appreciate that. I think it's so important that we have that. But but sometimes we we take good things, and especially in the social media era, we we tend to twist them a little bit. And so I'm I'm primarily concerned in our community of people dealing with anxiety disorders. And by the way, there's a lot of comorbidity between trauma and anxiety disorders. We know that, we're acknowledging that, but it's sometimes we get that literal interpretation like, how can I possibly overcome my anxiety disorder if it's literally stored in my cells, like in the intracellular fluid somehow is my trauma. And I think sometimes that gets a little tougher to conceptualize.

SPEAKER_04 3:11

Yeah, I mean, this episode we'll just be sharing our opinions. Yeah. Um, that's what it's there for. Uh, I personally, as someone who is a therapist who does work with trauma and anxiety disorders, uh, I actually think there is kind of when you're talking about trauma stuck in the body, I don't think that's a good narrative. I don't think it's a helpful narrative. And I'm just being honest, in my opinion as a therapist, that's fair. Uh, I work with people with PTSD um who have kind of stored traumatic memories um in the hippocampus um and interventions like EMDR, which are promoted in the book we aforem aforementioned, um, and stuff like that. For me, working with anxiety disorders, I'm re what I'm really passionate about is a lot of these narratives can actually be counterproductive because people with an anxiety disorders are prone to rumination and obsessing.

SPEAKER_03 4:07

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 4:08

Um, what I find about books in this field, particularly those that promote the inwards focus of things, and there was a great question uh about pinpointing the location of trauma on you. I mean, I don't know, I've been through my fair share of trauma, but I couldn't tell you if my trauma was trapped in my leg or my neck or my buttocks or my foot. I would I don't know. Yeah, um, yes, somatically I've been in therapy, and they're like, where do you feel that anxiety? And I'm like, I feel it in my chest and my stomach because that's what my body does, because I'm a tall man and I naturally hunch forward, and therefore, uh you know, I feel my anxiety there, right mostly due to posture and things like that. Um, and so for me personally, I find those narrative that narrative for me and and several people I work with to not be helpful. I'm not saying it's not helpful for you, please don't, but for some people, if you're looking at this and it's encouraging you to go inwards and ruminate and body check and scan and find this hidden trauma that's the shortcut out of doing brave things for anxiety, I'd ask you to just question that a little bit. And that's something I'm really passionate about.

SPEAKER_05 5:18

Yeah, I I think you described that really well, and I appreciate that. I think even in the question, she mentioned, you know, what do you think about that in terms of healing anxiety? And I think that's where it starts to get a little bit dangerous in our community because as a as a way to conceptualize why your body is doing what it's doing, it can be super helpful, right? It explains it, it takes the mystery out of it, it takes maybe the danger out of it. Your body is doing what bodies are designed to do when you're triggered by memories and emotions and all of those things. Okay, cool. But you know, but how do I use that now to heal my anxiety? I think maybe you use it to inform the idea that, like, oh, well, I part of healing it or getting past it or overcoming anxiety disorders you have to learn to experience it without running from it. And maybe this helps you understand that, oh, I'm okay, I understand why this is happening. I'm gonna learn to start to work through these things. But sometimes it becomes, and anxious minds are literal minds in often in many cases. And I all I can say is what I hear from a very large number of people, they get so fixated on that narrative that says it's stored in their body that they feel like, yeah, but what what modality un unstores it? If it's physically stored, how can I do this? And I think that's the dangerous narrative. Because again, those literal anxious minds will take it literally and and take that to the nth degree.

SPEAKER_04 6:32

Yeah, yeah. I I'll share a personal story um from my own um kind of run-ins with anxiety. So I was in a good place and I was doing a bit of anxiety coaching, and I thought, no, I really want to take this to a level where I can be respected and also learn more to be a better therapist. And this was before I I mean I trained in humanistic therapy and and cognitive behavioral therapy for anxiety disorders. But before this, you know, um, I went to do humanistic therapy at university during my masters. And on my masters, I mean I went to this course feeling very happy, the most happy happiest I've been, most content I've been in my entire life. And I went into this course and it was really helpful, learned loads of stuff, Rigerian concepts, you know, things about basically learn to be a counselor, be to be a good listener. And towards the end of the course, there was this huge kind of emphasis on this word trauma. Now bear in mind I've you know struggled with OCD in the past and anxiety and panic disorder. So during a stressful time, and as we know, when we get super, super stressed, that's when our threat response, the amygdala, can fire off. Um I had a dissertation in and I had some essays that were due in, and yeah, it was just generally quite stressful. This trauma narrative was presented to me like ah, yes, and bear in mind I've been through a lot of trauma, which I'm not gonna share on on today's podcast, but trust me, I've been through a lot. And I then thought and developed, whether it was my OCD brain, my tire brain, my anxious brain, it latched onto this concept where oh, I've got trauma stored in my body that I haven't fixed. So every time I get anxious, it's because I've not addressed this hidden, scary trauma that's trapped on a cellular level, and that frightened me. And that actually triggered an OCD theme in me, which made me start to obsess about trying to find this trauma. And subsequently, I went on and did months of breath work, tapping, somatic experiencing. Um, which, you know, some of it was right, some of it wasn't. But for but for me, I developed an obsession and my my attention was inwards again.

SPEAKER_00 8:56

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 8:57

And it made me quite unwell. It put me right back in an anxiety disorder's grips. And I'm only speaking for myself here. But if you can resonate, just know that actually the narrative can actually be unhelpful for people with anxiety disorders.

SPEAKER_05 9:11

I'm I'm not sure that it's that uncommon in our community either, which is a terrible experience to have. But I what I also find is you know, that this leads to a different topic, but a related topic, though. Sometimes this this sort of stuff, which shines a light on the trauma narrative, which is great. We really, really needed that, right? For a very long time, we needed that. Okay. So we got that. But then, you know, and you know, we have shared friends and what that talk about insta therapy, and we'll talk, we'll rant about that at some other time. But it somehow has become attached to a narrative that says that trauma is universal. It must be universal. Everyone experiences trauma. And so I think the corollary to your experience that I see off in our community is well, I have this as an anxiety disorder, and I'm working really hard, and I'm terrified of my body when it does those things. And I'm hearing that it are you sure this is an anxiety disorder? Because I hear every day that that's my trauma that's stored in my cell, in my body expressing. And so it launches from like, well, wait, maybe I don't have panic disorder, or maybe I don't have OCD. I must, I probably have some sort of trauma that I'm not aware of and can't find. And it's stored in my body, and that's why my body is doing these things. And sometimes people hear those narratives on social media channels where they'll hear that. Well, let's unheal trauma. Well, there are people in the anxiety space that are that are promoting that.

SPEAKER_04 10:36

I literally heard yeah, I literally heard that on my master's cause. Sure. And so therefore, I'm trusting these authorities. Right. To say to and I thought maybe I've missed something here.

SPEAKER_05 10:49

How often have you heard somebody say, but if I don't find it, I'm never going to get better? And they're frantic about that.

unknown 10:54

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 10:55

It's a scary uh uh idea to think that no, you're always gonna live your life this way unless you can somehow find this this trauma, which is we can talk about the definition of trauma and how often it actually truly develops, which is I think important to talk about. They they are frantic, and I understand that they're terrified that like I can't find it. I've been in therapy for three years, and now I hear that I still haven't found it and it's in my body, and I'm never gonna get better then. That was me. Yeah, and that's that's a tough place to be put in.

SPEAKER_04 11:21

And if you're someone prone to compulsions, yeah, it becomes compulsive. And do you remember when we talk about the finding the miracle thought or finding the hidden? And bear in mind, if you if you struggle with OCD and panic disorder and things like that, right? You'll be tempted to find the shortcut. Because anyone with panic disorder wants the shortcut.

SPEAKER_03 11:39

Yep.

SPEAKER_04 11:40

Maybe if I have this magnesium, maybe if I do this, maybe if I meditate, maybe if I do all these things, I can stop the panic and stop the anxiety in its tracks. Well, if you present a narrative of, hey, this can all stop quickly, yeah, when you find the magic trauma in your body, God, that's you know, you'd snap the hand off. You're like, Yeah, yeah, I want to find it. Yeah. Maybe it's in my stomach, you know, maybe it's in that. Maybe, oh well, my digestion is off recently. Maybe it's that's the trauma. It's like, or you could be super stressed and in a cycle of obsessing about how you feel, which keeps you stressed, which triggers anxiety and around and around you go.

SPEAKER_05 12:18

We should probably, I think it's part of this discussion. Like, and I know you I've heard you talk about it, and you know, I've been immersed in it for quite a while now in my master's program. And I'm happy to be learning this stuff and be in this literature. The majority of people who go through crisis situations, now, crisis is probably universal human experience. That's true. We all get confronted with, you know, challenges and events, some horrible in our lives that overwhelm our ability to cope, and we would call that a crisis for sure. And maybe we need help with that. But the percentage of people who go on to develop what might be identified, I'm not going to say diagnosed, as trauma or long-term trauma or even complex trauma, is actually relatively small. And I'm not trying to minimize the experience of those of you listening who clearly have been through traumatic experiences and have developed that. But I think part of this is feeling that like trauma is universal. No crisis is universal. Trauma isn't necessarily. And trauma can only be defined by the person who lived the experience and came out the other side in one way or the other. We don't get to, I don't get to define whether you have trauma, only you do.

SPEAKER_04 13:25

No.

SPEAKER_05 13:25

And I think that's so important. So somebody that you see on Instagram or Facebook does not know if you have trauma or not. Only you do. Even if even as a clinician, you would say that. I don't get to define, yeah, I don't get to define whether you have trauma.

SPEAKER_04 13:38

Well, it's interesting. I mean, as a clinician, you can identify PTSD. Sure.

SPEAKER_05 13:43

But there are signs that may indicate that, yeah, this probably looks that way.

SPEAKER_04 13:46

But and and then as a joint kind of vague diagnostic label, you can diagnose complex PTSD. Sure. Um, but again, this is this is the problem with the word trauma. It is vague. It is, it is so vague. Uh, how often do you get asked, but isn't a panic attack trauma?

SPEAKER_05 14:07

Yeah, or people who will say, I feel like I've developed PTSD because I have panic attacks. And like, well, then we could get into the technical definition of PTSD and you wouldn't probably meet that. But uh trauma is a very vague thing. And again, the only the person who has lived the experience, it depends on how you adapt to it. There's a million different variables and mediating factors that go into it. Why does one person experience this event and not develop what we would call trauma? Whereas the other person does develop or or wind up traumatized, if you will. But it's just not a universal thing. Panic attacks are horrible, scary, frightening, life-changing events for many of us, but they don't automatically equal trauma, which is important for us to say.

SPEAKER_04 14:49

Yeah. And and again, we if you choose to use the word trauma, I have trauma. We're never gonna negate that. But we do invite you to kind of look at the impact of semantics. Uh, and I'm someone who's been there. Like I used to I remember used to say say to my colleagues, my friends and family, I need to work through my trauma at the moment. But this was me after living quite a happy life, and yeah, and and going through this course and believing that all this trauma had been unearthed. And don't get me wrong, I'd been through I've been through traumatic stuff. A lot of you have, and you're incredibly brave and courageous for doing that. Sure. Um it's such a strange one. I have people come into my practice going, you know, I want to work through my trauma. And some people mean actually ends up meaning discomfort and fear, and some people mean PTSD in terms of having flashbacks and complete and utter fawn responses and withdrawal in reminders of traumatic episodes they've been through.

SPEAKER_00 15:50

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 15:50

Um, and some people describe just living with an anxiety disorder as traumatic, which it is. But when you say I have trauma, it's it's it's vague. And even me, I'm a therapist.

SPEAKER_05 16:05

Uh what do you mean by that? It would it would be hard to really define that because it's not universal from person to person. Like, well, what was your adaptation? Well, no adaptation. I dissociate on a regular basis. I avoid things that remind me of that. You know, I'm having flashbacks in that, I'm having sleep disturbances, I can't maintain relationships. So, yeah, there are some things that say that, okay, this was this situation that you were in didn't just temporarily overwhelm your ability to cope, it's had a lasting effect. Okay, so that's probably in that that vague definition of trauma for sure. But out, you know, otherwise, but again, everybody gets to define. So you're right, even as a clinician, like I can't, I can't say. I can say if you meet these diagnostic criteria, but you that still doesn't validate or not validate your own experience. It's just not universal. I think that's the main thing in this conversation. And the whole, like, is it stored in the body? There's a lot of great neuroscience that's come out lately. Like, yes, there's fragmented memories that haven't been fully processed, and there are sensory fragments that seem to be predominant, like the sense, the sounds, the sounds, the, you know, the colors, those become triggers. Like, yeah, that's true. But then a really great explanation. Well, it's your body is remembering or your body is keeping the score of what happened, which is a great explanation, somehow becomes frightening for people if you're not careful. Like, that's all that means. Like, yes, your body is reacting and doing what bodies do. You'd hope to try to overcome that and integrate the experience and move on, you know, and turn like flashbacks into bad memories, but but it's not automatic that everybody that experiences bad things has trauma stored in their body forever.

SPEAKER_03 17:40

Yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 17:42

I think when you bear in mind a lot of our community have uh fixators in nature and they will fixate on something. I think and and only for the people in our community, I would just give like a be cautious because a lot of the of the literature out there encourages you to focus inwards. And I think that you're already an Olympian at focusing inwards, yeah. You know, and and again, you're teaching the brain that there is a threat somewhere in your body. That's it. And actually, I'm of the disposition and very passionate about this. You don't have to agree with me, but uh uh if you're listening home, but you're not broken. I'm really potion passionate about that. You're not broken. Maybe things are disordered, you know. Maybe the amygdala is firing off when you don't want it to. Sometimes that can just be as simple as stress, sometimes it's as simple as a phobia. I just don't like being anxious, and therefore I have taught the amygdala that anxiety itself is scary, and thus the compulsions and the complete lifestyle change. But then when you add extra narratives on, like, well, actually, yeah, when I was younger, that bad thing happened. Oh, yeah, and I lost that person, or maybe this is part, maybe it's stored inside me somewhere, yeah, and now I must locate it and breathe into it and talk to it. Um which there's other books out there as well, and there are lots of and social media people that do you know why that's appealing? It's because the one thing I like about it is that it does promote compassion, you know, like breathe in compassionately, treat yourself with that stuff. Um, but the one thing I don't like about it is that what's the end goal? When do you stop doing that? Do you think it's gonna it can act, it can be very compulsive in the sense that if I do this enough, I never feel anxiety again. And I think for a lot of people who listen to this and a lot of people who've struggled with anxiety disorders, again, it can be quite counterproductive uh counterproductive.

unknown 19:48

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 19:49

I mean, where's the you know, they're also in a way, well, I mean, you know, with the positives to it is, you know, this type of thing, the trauma is stored in the body. It does advance the trauma-informed narrative. And trauma-informed, by the way, is does not mean we look at everything as trauma. I think that's that's often misinterpreted too. Like if I don't automatically suggest trauma, then I'm not being trauma-informed. No, trauma-informed is we don't look at you as having as a as pathological anymore, like maybe 60 years ago.

SPEAKER_04 20:19

Oh, I don't know, Drew. Are there some therapists in the UK personally who do think everything is trauma?

SPEAKER_05 20:24

I I get that. And I guess we're here to respectfully disagree with that and offer some examples of when in our community that narrative can be dangerous to people.

SPEAKER_04 20:33

So I've I've seen clients that come in here, Drew, honestly, and they're like, I've spent six months with a therapist constantly inviting me to re-explore this horrendous thing I went through. What like trying to poke holes in it, trying to find the magic bit that makes me release all my feelings. When actually all they've been doing is re-traumatizing this poor person. And I when they come and sit in, I'm like, we don't need to do any of that, you know, unless you think it's relevant.

SPEAKER_05 21:00

Or if something is coming of it and it is resonating and it's ringing bells and things are starting to fall into place, then that's great. Then that narrative helped you, which it can. This is what we're talking about today, is not absolute and it doesn't apply to everybody. And again, in a community of people full of anxiety disorders, we're gonna see some comorbidity with other issues, physical, emotional, mental, including trauma or diagnosable trauma or PTSD. So some people get really angry when they hear conversations like this too, because they think we're invalidating them. Or if you have, in fact, lived through those type of events and it has affected you in a way that most people would look or you have decided I'm traumatized by, and then okay, you can incorporate ways to deal with that. And maybe that means that doing exposures right now is re-traumatizing. Well, that's great. That's you advocating for you, and you don't do them yet until you've done some of that other work. I I I can only speak for me. I'm sure you would probably agree with this, though, would fully endorse that. You know, if the type of thing that you hear talked about on this podcast. You feel is traumatizing to you, you have to advocate for yourself and say, I'm not ready for that work now, or it doesn't fit me now. Yeah, 100%. Not here to invalidate anybody.

SPEAKER_04 22:08

So yeah, never. And we're never we're not, yeah. Uh and because I found as well that pe and I used to be like this, people used to give people can be very defensive and misinterpret when people when they feel like their experiences are being attacked. Yeah. You know, we're I just want to make it clear that when we're discussing this topic, it's just about the vagueness of the label, not your experience. If anything, I find that the word trauma has been so overused that it actually negates and minimizes the experience of people who've been through absolute actual trauma. And this is a pop at Insta therapy as well, you know, like people talking about you know, I've been through trauma, and you know there's some people where I'll admit I've sat there and gone, really? Yeah. And then you and then you actually hear people that have been through horrendous trauma who don't think they have trauma because everyone else is talking about trauma.

SPEAKER_03 23:09

Yes.

SPEAKER_04 23:10

And and then I'm actually like, no, no, no, you you've really been so traumatic. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_05 23:15

Recently, literally in a conversation where somebody had a memory come up that they assumed was nothing, and that I mean, it was a a big deal. Any uh any human being, any adult listening to this person tell that story would go, Whoa. But this person literally prefaced it by saying, It's gonna sound worse than it is. And I had to say, no, no, it it didn't sound as bad as it really was, but that's really messed up. And you go this person get very upset and shaken and start to really quite like okay, this might be something, stop minimizing that experience. That's the exact opposite of, well, sometimes I sometimes I want to be alone and don't respond to text messages for a day or two. That's a trauma response. Like, oh maybe, maybe maybe, okay. Oh my god, personally, so you have to be careful about that.

SPEAKER_04 24:02

Oh, yeah. Can we play what isn't a trauma response?

SPEAKER_05 24:06

Uh a little much. Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 24:08

Well, or sorry, what most likely is not a trauma response. Yeah. Uh, you know, um, you're upset because your boss showered at you. Well, that's because you have a branch of complex PTSD. Don't get me wrong, maybe. Maybe, right? But also, if a boss shouts at you, you're just gonna feel upset and want to withdraw. I certainly would. You know, it's just like that doesn't mean I have all these 50 labels. Yeah, do you know what I mean? Uh it may want to it may tap into my foreign response where I want to please this person, but again, it's like what doesn't help is when I can't do this because of X. Yeah, and anyone with anxiety disorders will can relate to the fact that they avoid things. I can't. I can't do this because of X. I can't do this because of trauma. Yeah, I can't do this because of panic disorder. I can't do this because XYZ. And again, that's uh what I like to considerately and compassionately challenge with some clients and people aware of it is like, what do you think the limitations are for this? You know, um, you never ask anyone to revisit their trauma because that isn't necessary. But if you're avoiding things because you don't like discomfort and fear, everyday things that you know deep down that you want to do, then I'd ask if well, has this kind of the semantics of this infiltrated that voice of avoidance?

SPEAKER_05 25:42

Yeah, it could be. So, you know, I think uh the natural thing to get to before we get to like questions and stuff would be So there's probably there maybe there's two uh possibilities in this conversation and they they overlap. There's no there's no card and fast boundary between the two. I do have an anxiety disorder and I do not have trauma. Okay, so we're using that term vaguely because it is, or I have an anxiety disorder and also I have, in fact, lived through some horrible stuff, and I and I do, and I have been traumatized by it. You know, neither one of those, and they're there a lot of times they will bleed together, that's true, but neither one of them, in my worldview, means that you are stuck like this forever. Even if in in fact you have experienced, you know, uh horrible things in your life that would and you will say that you are traumatized by that and you have a right to say that, and it is stored in your body, there's that's still not a life sentence that says, Well, I just spend the rest of my life having trauma in my cells, and therefore I I can't live anymore. I have to live this very tiny, guarded life. Absolutely. Yeah, I'm so glad you said that.

SPEAKER_04 26:48

All hard, really, but absolutely, yeah. Um and and there are trauma-specific treatments out there. I mean, uh the more and more read of the stuff about EMDR is great. Very promising. Um, yeah, it is promising, particularly for the you know, the the people who get like flashbacks and horrible, invasive, intrusive memories um when they're trying to access their life. Um, there's some good empirical evidence to back that up as well. Uh also just a note on whether this episode resonates with you or not. Going through anxiety, if you struggle with it every day, can be exhausting, dare I say it, at times traumatic and extremely hard. And well done to you for that. And I think you are courageous, you're resilient, and you're getting through it. No matter how you're getting through it. Some days you'll be like, Yeah, I didn't get through it well today. And some days you'll be like, you know what? I practiced my will for tolerance. What those knuckleheads talk about are disordered. I did all right then. But just know that we're never negating your feelings, we're just trying to make things clear so it makes the path to recovery a lot easier.

SPEAKER_05 27:58

Yeah. And if you have been traumatized and you do, you are dealing with you know your life as being controlled or restricted in many ways by those trauma responses, that's also, you know, you've you are finding ways to protect yourself and stay safe. So that as crazy as that sounds, is uh the almost the first realization that, like, maybe I didn't adapt in the most productive way to move me past the experience, but I did adapt. I adapt in a survival way. So there's something to be said for that too. There's strength in that. It doesn't feel like it, but there's some. So there's a starting point for all those things. And the only thing that I would add to this conversation is what struck me as somebody being trained in this now actively is there's supportive care, which is we talk about it, we validate it again and again. You're a trauma victim, you have complex trauma. This is a trauma response that is that's great because it lets people know that they are supported, people care about them, they're being validated, there's nothing wrong with them. But when you look at the the the modalities that are empirically validated, all the ones that end up with integration and moving forward, not in a perfect life, because nobody gets to build a perfect life, but in a more productive, adaptive way, all wind up going through that trauma. So, you know, yeah, and that's where the things like somatic experiencing start to come in. Yeah, you're gonna have to feel it. You're gonna have to rebuild that narrative, you're gonna have to go through that with proper trained care, supportive care of course. But it's not just saying trauma again and again and again and saying it's stored in your body and you're done for for the rest of your life. That's not a life sentence. Absolutely not.

SPEAKER_04 29:28

I couldn't put it better than myself. Yep. Nice one, true. Um probably we'll read it. It's a tough topic. Uh, we hope that we've navigated it okay and um we'll come back to it and maybe get some guests on as well.

SPEAKER_05 29:41

Why don't I actually put a little disclaimer in front of this episode, maybe, that says, please listen to the whole thing before you come at us with pitchforks. Bring it on your 30 seconds of this episode could be like, I'm never listening to them again.

SPEAKER_04 29:56

No, I I I don't think so, Drew. I think I think you should never apologize for sharing opinions, and I'm really passionate about that. Um, unless you're giving us horrible podcast reviews, don't do it. We'll apologize immediately. Have we got any questions from the community? We do or any did it anyways.

SPEAKER_05 30:13

Well, we have a did it anyway for sure. We have an audio did it anyway, and then we have a dramatically read did it anyway performed by our very own Josh Fletcher. Oh, yeah, I've I've I've got one I want to read out. All right, so we'll do the audio one first and then you'll do the one where you read it. So let's get to it. Here we go.

SPEAKER_02 30:29

Non-anxious me would go ahead and send this voice message. So I'm doing it anyway. This is Bill, and I have been listening to the show non-stop for the last three days, and I've already related to everything. Uh, today I was at work and had a huge adrenaline surge after I got a uh unexpected email. I normally would have kind of freaked out, called my support person, but I decided to keep going and and do it anyway, and reply back to that email and kind of get back to normal. So thank you for all you do.

SPEAKER_03 31:15

I love that. So good. It's so good, short and sweet.

SPEAKER_04 31:19

I did it anyway, man. But something as as kind of uh you know, I'm not gonna say small as that, but but the noticing from Bill is gone. I usually would go to my support person just no, I'm I'm I've got this. In fact, I'm gonna go back to my email despite feeling like this. And you could tell at the end there where the intonation went up, you know, they're proud of themselves. Good for you, Bill. Well done, man.

SPEAKER_05 31:41

Yeah, it's one of those core like experiences in recovery, like, all right, I'm uncomfortable right now, but I can get through this, I can deal with this.

SPEAKER_04 31:48

And thanks for tuning in as well. And poor you for binge. Oh, he's binge binge listening. You know, you you might want to read the the body keeps the score after that.

SPEAKER_03 31:57

Um I've got I've got a did it anyway to read out. Can I read it? This one's gonna be super dramatic. So you tell me when you're ready, and I'll just yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_04 32:05

I'm ready. I'm ready. Cue the music.

SPEAKER_03 32:07

Ready? Let's do it.

SPEAKER_04 32:09

I never thought I would be strong enough to have a did it anyway story. When you're in the pits of anxiety, you sometimes never feel like I'll be better or strong enough. However, today, I did that shit anyway. My anxiety has been so debilitating, I've debated on him inpatient care in the thickest of it. My new psych put me on a medication that helps balance mood and sleep. On day two, after no real sleep and a severe morning panic attack, I decided to take on the day and shower. Showering isn't easy because I always think too much in there, but it's necessary. Halfway in, I'm lightheaded, can't stand up, and nearly puke. Anxiety, highest of high. I'm never getting off the shower floor. I live here now. Managed to get up as clean as I could, got my kids ready for the day whilst choking down the waves of anxiety attempting to take me over. My husband asks about our nephew's birthday party, which I totally forgot. There's no way, it's not possible, I'm already a mess, and was one foot out the door to the ER just this morning. However, I don't want to miss any more parties. I don't want mummy missing from any more life events. I am never going to make it there unless I try. So I went. I didn't have a great time, nearly threw up and passed out mid-gift opening, but nobody knew. However, I didn't miss the memory. We stayed the whole party. Mom was there. I went for shower f I went from shower floor to birthday party within a day. I still don't know what I'm doing. I also felt like I was most likely going to die from chest pain when I got home. I obviously didn't, but tell the old anxiety that I am not better, I'm not even close, but today I freaking did it anyway.

SPEAKER_05 33:52

Oh, that is so good. I love that one. And you know what? That's a person with a good sense of humor, too. I live here now. You're on the shower floor. That is so good. I appreciate that.

SPEAKER_04 34:07

You went from feeling the worst to like, no, I'm gonna go do it. Well done. Yeah, well done.

SPEAKER_05 34:12

That's so good. What's great about that too is the context she put it in. I'm not better, I'm working on it. I got a long way to go, but today I did it anyway, and that's what I'm taking out of this.

SPEAKER_04 34:23

It goes to prove to you as well that anxiety will convince you to that you can you are not capable. And yet, look, that that's that's brilliant. Um, also, I really like the sentimentality from that. I didn't, I wasn't actually didn't enjoy it when I was there, but I enjoyed it when I got home because the memory of it comforted me.

SPEAKER_05 34:42

Yeah, and like, you know, mom was present. Like I didn't miss another family function. I did it, and yeah, yeah, there's something to be said for that. I love that. That's the whole connecting to the values thing, like values versus fear. She went to the values that time. I love it. Thumbs up.

SPEAKER_04 34:56

That was great. Are we done? I think we're done. Yeah, we're gonna have some more questions and data anyways next episode. Yeah, uh, if you do have questions or or anything you want to shout at us through um the disordered FM voicemail, you know where to go. Um, but thank you for tuning in as always and look after yourself.

SPEAKER_05 35:16

Yeah, come check us out on social media at Anxiety Josh and the Anxious Truth, and we'll see you next week.