Do you feel like you are putting on a mask, when you have all this anxiety and you don’t want the world to know? Anxiety lesson 5

Anxiety lesson 5

Negative thinking and self-talk

Do you feel like you are putting on a mask, when you have all this anxiety and you don’t want the world to know? Do you have constant negative chatter going on?

We assume that situations and not cognitions (your judgement of threat) is responsible for your anxiety. Anxious and fearful people are much more likely to overestimate the intensity of threat, which of course then leads to avoidance of situations. We do this by reinforcing the negative all the time with negative thoughts and self-talk.

Negative thoughts and self-talk is automatic, we have hundreds of negative thoughts everyday and catching them as they run through your brain and looking at them closer is a very difficult thing indeed and takes a lot of practice. YOU CAN LEARN TO SLOW DOWN AND NOTICE YOUR NEGATIVE TALK

With self-talk comes a whole host of other information that is lumped together such as images, memories and associations. Identifying self-talk may be about unpicking several thoughts from an image or single word.

Also, the negative talk or thought is almost always irrational, it sounds so convincing and truthful that it is hard to ignore. It really does become the truth because the anxious state doesn’t allow for us to consider information that it contra to that thought.

Negative self-talk/thoughts reinforce avoidance. You talk to yourself let’s say about the bus being dangerous

‘people stare at me when I get on’

‘I won’t get my words out when buying a ticket and the bus driver will be annoyed’

‘the last time I got on the bus it didn’t feel safe’

‘there are always people that want to make conversation on the bus and I can’t make conversation’

So, you avoid getting on the bus and will employ any strategy that helps you to avoid getting on the bus. The bus becomes this terribly awful thing that is no longer about buying a ticket and just sitting down until its time to get off, instead it is an event that involves the very worst-case scenario on the bus journey from hell.  In short, anxious thoughts leads to avoidance of the situation it also stops us considering the most likely outcome.

Self-talk can start or heighten a panic attack and although I don’t want to concentrate on panic attacks in this blog, it is worth explaining that self-talk at the beginnings of a panic attack starts to turn all our focus inward. At this point we no longer notice what is happening around us, we just focus on our psychological feelings

E.g. “My heart is pounding faster”

“I feel dizzy”

 “what if I collapse”

“I’ve gone hot and my chest has gone tight, that’s the start of a heart attack”

 So, the fear of this exacerbates the symptoms, without wanting to sound unkind. It becomes a self-induced state. From now on name it ‘false panic[HH1]  talk’ More on panic attacks later in the blog series.

Anxious Negative self-talk always assumes the worst. ‘Everybody has done more revision than me, I’m going to fail’

To counter this thought you would say

1) “you can’t work on what everyone else is doing, you can only work on what you are doing. 2) A more real statement would be ‘Some people will have done more revision than me, some will have done about the same and some will have done less”’

3) “Where is the evidence that people have done more revision”.

4) “Historically how many exams have I totally failed (this requires you to mentally go back one by one and literally tick them off)”

5) “I am confident I have done all I can, let’s see how it goes”

“My future mother in law is coming, I have to make sure everything is perfect. She has to like me”

To counter this thought you would say

“why wouldn’t she like me, I’m a good person”

“is it actually true she has to like me, is it necessary for my wellbeing that she approves of me”

What is the worst that could happen, I am surviving and have other people who care for and support me”?

When you counter the anxiety self-talk, it must be in the present tense because the negative self-talk it in the present tense. E.g. “I am confident, I am surviving”

So, the questions are:

What is the evidence that supports this, if I took this thought to court could I prove it was true?

Am I basing this thought on facts or on feelings?

Is it an all or nothing thought?  (the more likely scenario is always in between)

If my friend said this to me how would I respond?

It is hard to do at first, I have attached a thought sheet so you can record your thoughts and work on them. https://www.therapistaid.com/worksheets/socratic-questioning.pdf

It is a whole new habit to create, but we create habits all the time that sometimes aren’t good for us. This does require work, maybe it could be a new year’s resolution to work on negative self-talk and with this will come self-compassion. This can only be positive.

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 [HH1]