Ep 8 - New to Anxiety: Take it Slowly. Plus, the Adverse Childhood Experience/Anxiety Link
New to anxiety? This is the time to slow down and choose wisely. When a friend had his first real bout with anxiety, what he was offered almost right away was disheartening to hear — and it's why we want anyone early in this to take their time before deciding anything. (His story starts at 15:46.) We also dig into a recent study linking childhood emotional abuse and neglect to adult anxiety, and why you don't need to dig up your whole past to recover.
FREE BOOK — Anxiety and Panic: A Bad Day Survival Guide. How to make peace with your worst days and turn them into your most powerful tools in anxiety recovery. Download it free → https://www.theanxietyrecoverymindset.com/survival
This week host Bryan Mareau walks through a PsyPost article, "Personality Impairments Link Childhood Maltreatment to Adult Anxiety," covering a study in the journal Psychological Reports. Its headline finding: of the types of maltreatment studied, emotional abuse and emotional neglect showed the robust link to adult anxiety. Its closing point — that therapy might work better when it goes beyond symptoms to self-esteem, identity and relationships — is a solid one, and it lines up with what Jim Folk and AnxietyCentre.com have long called Level One and Level Two recovery.
Where we part ways is the order of operations. When you're in the thick of panic attacks, sleepless nights or depersonalization, you usually don't have the capacity to go unearthing decades-old trauma — and you don't need to. First you settle the symptoms, change your relationship with anxiety, and start teaching your brain safety instead of danger. We also talk about Dan Buglio of Pain Free You, who argues that what keeps symptoms going is the mind's CURRENT perception of danger.
Read the article → https://www.psypost.org/how-childhood-emotional-abuse-and-neglect-fuel-adult-anxiety-symptoms/
Then a note of caution for anyone brand new to this. A friend recently had his first real bout with anxiety — mild to moderate by his own description — and in his first visits to a doctor and a therapist he was offered sedatives and potentially long-term medication, and was told about an option that hooks electrodes to your brain to deliver pulses of electricity. Our take: this is the time to go slow. Learn what's happening and what isn't before you decide what to do about it. Rushing to make it all go away is what prolonged our own recovery.
(We're not doctors. This is our experience and our opinion — make your decisions with a qualified professional you trust, and take your time doing it.)
Mentioned in this episode: Tim Lambert's recovery story (Episode 6) · Dr. Claire Weekes · AnxietyCentre.com · the DARE method · Dan Buglio (Pain Free You)
Chapters:
0:00 Intro — Tim Lambert's recovery story & why it applies to you
1:56 What's on this week's show
2:41 The PsyPost article: childhood maltreatment & adult anxiety
4:23 Why chasing childhood causes gets complicated
6:48 The finding: emotional abuse & emotional neglect
7:47 How emotional neglect builds a protection system
8:44 The article's close — and Level One vs. Level Two recovery
10:56 Our pushback: studies like this can feel hopeless
12:23 Don't let the cart pull the horse — settle the symptoms first
13:05 Dan Buglio: deal with the danger in front of you now
15:06 You don't need to turn over every stone
15:46 A friend's first bout with anxiety
18:53 What he was offered right away
20:16 New to anxiety? Exercise patience and caution
22:33 Free book: Anxiety and Panic — A Bad Day Survival Guide
23:10 Thanks & what's coming next
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The Anxiety Recovery Mindset cuts through the noise of conventional anxiety advice and gets to what actually works. Hosted by Bryan Mareau — author of The Anxiety Recovery Mindset. New episodes weekly.
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