The Anxiety Cycle: Triggered …. AND TRICKED! (Podcast Ep 275)

This week on the anxious truth,
we’re going to talk about the anxiety cycle and the fact that
you are not just being triggered, but you’re also being
tricked. So let’s go Hello, everybody. Welcome back
to the anxious truth. This is episode number 275 of the
podcast we are recording in late September of 2023. In case you
are listening from the future, if you are new to this podcast
and just sort of stumbled in today to the podcast or the
YouTube video, I am Drew Linsalata, creator and host of
The Anxious Truth. This is the podcast and the YouTube channel.
It covers all things anxiety, anxiety disorders, and anxiety
recovery. So if you’re struggling with things like
recurring panic attacks, agoraphobia, health, anxiety,
or OCD, this is the place for you. I hope you find the content
here helpful and useful in some way.

And of course, if you are a
returning viewer, or listener, welcome back, I’m always glad
that you hang out with me once every week or every other week.
And I hope that I’m helping you this week, we’re going to
talk about the anxiety cycle, which is something that we
talked about all the time in this community, you’ve probably
heard a lot of different descriptions and discussions of
the anxiety cycle or the OCD cycle if you have OCD. And we’re
going to talk about the fact that there’s triggers involved
and most people recognize the word trigger, I was triggered,
my panic was triggered, and my OCD was triggered. But not only is
the cycle about being triggered, but it’s also about being
tricked. And over, when you begin to realize that the cycle,
you have the opportunity to break the cycle once the tricky
part comes into full view. Before we get into that, just a
very quick reminder, the anxious truth is more than just this
this video on YouTube or this podcast episode, there’s 274
other episodes of the podcast or on the YouTube channel that you
can check out.

There are three books that I’ve written on
anxiety, anxiety disorders, and anxiety recovery. There’s all of
my free social media content, there are courses and workshops
that we think are pretty affordable, and try to be psycho-educational and helpful, all of that stuff can be
found on my website at the anxious truth.com. So take a few
minutes, pop on over to the anxious truth.com Check it out
and avail yourself of all those resources. People tell me that
it’s all helpful, which makes me feel good because I’m hoping
that it is. So go check it out, a lot of the stuff is free, and
even the stuff that isn’t as pretty reasonably priced. So go
check it out at the anxious truth.com. Let’s talk about the
anxiety cycle, which is that cycle where you get triggered,
and then you start to come down and you get triggered again, and
then you come down. And that’s going to look different for
everybody, depending on where you are on this journey.

But the
anxiety cycle certainly involves triggering. And I think most of
you guys listening to the podcast would understand that
like, oh, yeah, mine was triggered. We all know what it
means when you say that you are triggered, my anxiety was
triggered, my panic was triggered, my OCD was triggered.
And then once triggered, this is especially true if you’re new to
this, and it says it kind of just started happening to you. My
anxiety was triggered, and I went into a very highly anxious,
agitated distressed state. I did whatever I could to try to
figure out how to get through that. Over time it did subside,
it came back down again. Now I’m always really worried that I
might get triggered again, I’m always on guard, and I’m trying to
figure out ways to manage my body in my mind to stop it from
happening. But then it happens again, and I get triggered
again. And then I’m worried. So you wind up in this sort of
trigger cycle where you get triggered, you go through a
period of really high anxiety, fear, panic, intense distress,
whatever that may look like for you, then it does come down to
some degree.

And then you spend all your time trying not to be
triggered again. And the cycle continues. Sometimes that goes
that cycle in minutes. Sometimes a cycle is hours.
Sometimes it’s a cycle that goes on for days, we don’t it’s going to
change over time. But most people would recognize that I’m
triggered, I get anxious, and then when it’s over, I’m so
thankful that it’s over. And I try so hard to not have it
happen again or to be prepared for when it happens again, then
you spend your whole life in this situation where you see
yourself as being in a constant cycle of being triggered over
time. And this is where change begins to happen. Over time. As
you begin to investigate this more, maybe you start to
listen to podcasts like this one or watch videos like this one.
Maybe you read books like the books that I write, maybe you
have heard of Claire Weeks, or some of the other folks that I
collaborate with, maybe you have a therapist, maybe you have an
anxiety support group that you belong to online, and you begin
to learn a little bit more about this.

And you start to hear
people say things like it’s really scary, but it’s not
dangerous. The way to get through this is to work through
it as opposed to running from it or avoiding it. Like we’re not
trying to manage our triggers. We’re trying to learn to get
better at being afraid so that we learn that we don’t have to
be afraid. You might hear all of the things we talked about in
this podcast all the time. And when you start to incorporate
that information. At first, you might hear somebody like me say
panic is really scary, but not dangerous, and you will reject
that and that’s normal. This is not true. This guy doesn’t know
what he’s talking about.

It feels horrible. And I should
never let that happen again. And that’s okay. That’s where you’re
in the beginning where the cycle is just triggering them. and down,
then trigger them down, worry about trigger trigger down worry
triggered down. And it just keeps going. But at some point,
you may say, Well, I don’t know, maybe he’s got a point here. Or
maybe the people in the support group have a point, or maybe
Claire weeks at a point when she wrote those books, okay, cool.
And then you begin to look at it a little bit differently. And
everybody kind of takes this journey in one form or another.
And you might be in the very beginning part, where you hear
me say things like, it’s not dangerous, and you still don’t
fully believe it, then you kind of reject it on an emotional
level, that’s okay.

But over time, as you consume this type
of information, and maybe you interact with other people who
are struggling with the same things that you are, you begin
to start to understand that, wait a minute, it didn’t happen
again. And everybody keeps telling me that it’s really
scary. And it’s really difficult. And it’s really hard,
but it’s not dangerous. And every time it happens, I still
wind up, okay, it was just really scary. Why does it keep
happening? Why am I getting fooled into this? At some
point in the process, you begin to realize that it is not just
being triggered, but your anxiety is also tricking you. So
in the context that we’re in, in this podcast, we’re always
talking about a situation where your anxiety is essentially
driven by itself, the source of more anxiety is the anxiety. So
I’m afraid of being I’m afraid of panic, I’m afraid of those
sensations, I’m afraid of my thoughts, I’m afraid of my own
body and my mind.

So it’s internally generated. And I
spent all of my time trying to get away from my own body in my
mind. So there is no actual danger. And in that
situation, you begin to realize, wait a minute, there is no
danger, I kind of get that logically. Now, I can’t make my
brain believe it on an emotional level. Because when triggered,
it all goes out the window, and I run and I hide, and I call my
safe people, I hear you, this is a normal part of the journey.

But
you do start to at least recognize that, maybe, uh, maybe
I am okay. But just knowing that doesn’t mean anything. But you
begin to at least start to consider the possibility that
maybe this thing is tricking you. And so as you go down the
road, and you start to hear people, and if you’re involved
in online support groups like this, or you’re in this sort of
online community, you’ll start to hear people get really angry
at it sometimes, like, this makes me so angry.

Why can I get
this? And if you’re in that mode right now, where you’re
thinking, why can’t I get this? I hear what they’re all saying,
why can I get it? Why can’t I believe it? Well, now you’re
starting to get it to the point in time where that cycle begins
to look a little different. It’s not just a triggered cycle. Now
you start to see it as I was triggered, I got through it. And
then you look back and say I was tricked. So think of the cycle
as now having another component to it. It’s not just trigger,
calm down, worry, trigger, calm down, worry. Now it’s a trigger,
calm down. There’s still worry there. But there’s another point
on that circle. Now, that’s where you can look back and say,
I was tricked again. I was I was tricked. Again, it got me.
Because I ran home. And I recognized I didn’t have to run
home, I canceled my plans.

And I recognized that logically, I
didn’t have to cancel my plans. It’s tricking me. And when you
get to the point where you add that other equation to the
cycle, oh, wait a minute, I got tricked again. It fooled me
again. And I went through this, anybody who’s ever reached the
recovered state went through this journey that I’m describing
here, when you begin to understand, or at least consider
that part of the cycle is when you get triggered you calm down, and
then you realize that you were tricked into thinking that you
had to take evasive action, you had to run you had to avoid you
had to escape. You have to cope, you have to use all of your
strategies.

You realize that oh, tricked me again. It tricked me
into doing all those things. It tricked me into restricting my
life. It tricked me into avoiding it. It tricked me into
relying on people that I don’t want to have to rely on all of
those things. That’s when you get to the point where you can
start to say, this is where I will start to use that trick
point where I recognize the trickery of disordered anxiety
if you will. It’s a it’s a trickster. Dave Carbonell, who’s
very well regarded in the anxiety disorder community. He writes
books on this sort of stuff. He’s a working therapist, he’s
been on the podcast. He calls anxiety, a trickster all the
time, like panic attacks are tricksters.

And he’s not wrong
about that. So it feels so strong. But then afterward, you
begin to realize at some point early in the journey, all you
know is it feels so strong. I have to manage this somehow. I
cannot imagine anything but trying to stop it from
happening. Don’t talk to me about anything else but
calming down and preventing this. But over time, you
discover Well, that’s not working. I keep getting
triggered. But then you start to realize, Oh, it’s a wait a
minute, it’s tricking me. It’s tricking me into going into OMG
mode. Oh my god, oh my god catastrophe mode. It keeps
tricking me into going into catastrophe mode.

When you begin
to recognize that You are being tricked on a reasonably regular
basis, that’s when you can start to make a change. It’s the point
where you realize that there’s another point on that circle,
the circle the cycle of the circle of the cycle, if you will
maybe put some graphics on the screen, if I can get the time to
do it, where you can say, oh, wait a minute, I was triggered, it passed. And
now I recognize that I was tricked.

Now it’s going to
inform what comes after that, on that path, that circular path.
Traditionally, it would be now I’m going to worry, I’m going to
take evasive action, I’m going to retreat, I’m going to try and
figure out where the trigger was. I’m gonna have to try and
analyze all this. What were they thinking? What was I feeling?
What did I eat? What did they drink that day that I used a new
shampoo that day that may have triggered my panic, my allergic
to this, instead of going down that road? Again, this is where
you can begin to veer off. Wait, I was tricked. And so what if I
act like I don’t have to worry about this? And that’s where you
begin to make those behavioral changes that say, instead of
retreating, let’s use panic attack for an example, you have
a panic attack.

And instead of saying that was horrible, which
it certainly is, we can agree with that. It’s a horrible
experience. That was horrible. It feels dangerous.
There’s no way I should possibly allow that. And so now I must
continue along the circle, where I’d spent all of my time and
energy, figuring that out, trying to stop trying to manage
it, trying to fix it, trying to cure it. And I just stay on the
same cycle. But when you can say, Oh, It tricked me again,
what happens, is it tricks me into making it the most important
thing all the time. So what if I start to act like it’s not the
most important thing all the time, that’s the time where
that’s the point in that cycle where you could begin to peel
off the circle a little bit.

So if you’re trapped on a circular
road, at some point, you need to wait to peel off that right and
go off on a tangent away from that circle to get out of the
cycle. Cycle cycle circle cycle. This is a tongue-twister of an
episode here. And where you find that opportunity is at the
point where you begin to realize you’ve been tricked again. So when
you see the cycle, not just as trigger trigger trigger, but as
trigger tricked, trigger tricked.

At some point, you say
I want to be tricked again. Okay, well, it just happened. I
can’t stop that it just happened. But what can I do a
little differently to not get fooled again the next time? This
is where maybe I can start to do exposures that teach me
how to navigate through that triggered state a little bit
differently. This is where I can try to engage with my life as
best I can.

Even though I feel shaky vulnerable and afraid
that I’m going to panic again. This is where you start to make
actual changes. And if you are in an early stage of this, where
every time you hear me say things like this, you kind of do
the whole I get it, but I get it, but there’s always a but
there’s always a reason why you can’t apply or it’s too hard or
it feels too strong, or I forget everything but I’m triggered,
give it time, because at some point you begin to recognize it
tricked me again.

And I know I’m being tricked, and I don’t want
to be tricked anymore. So it’s the point that we can insert
that other realization into the cycle and we say okay, now I’m
gonna start to peel off this path. I’m talking in very
metaphorical terms here, I’m talking in a 50,000-foot view, I’m
not giving you very specific, well, what do I know,
you’re gonna say, Well, what do I do differently? Tell me Give me
steps on what to do. I can’t because everybody’s steps are
going to look a little bit different. And in a podcast
environment, I can’t give you specific advice that exactly
what to change.

But what I can do is make you think about this,
if you are beginning to at least, consider that you might
be fooled by your anxiety, it tells you what’s dangerous, and it
makes you feel a certain way. And then you follow it. And
you’re starting to get to the point where you feel like I
don’t want to follow it anymore because this is ruining my life.
Or this is causing me all kinds of problems. And I don’t want to
do it like this anymore. If you start to recognize, oh, that’s
the tricking, it’s tricking me. And at first, that’s a very
faint voice in your head.

Maybe it is tricking me. But it feels
really dangerous. I can’t take the chance. So I’ll treat it
like it’s real. And then over time, that voice gets a little
louder, and a little ladder, I got tricked again. Dammit, I was
tricked again. And then sometimes you get angry at it.
And you see this sometimes in the community. And that’s the
moment where you could say, this is my opportunity to think about
what I might do differently. And in this situation, again, the
broad brush in that situation would be instead of making my
entire existence, about my anxiety, about trying to manage
my triggers and figuring it out and staying safe and worrying and
focusing on how I feel and what I’m thinking all the time.
Because I’ve treated it like it’s so important for so long.
It’s tricking me into doing that.

So what would if it’s
tricking me, then it’s not dangerous. And what if
I take the risk of not making it the most important thing in the
room for the next hour. What happens? See? What happens if I
go and walk to the park with my dog? While I’m anxious?
What might happen there? Like, how can I? How can I start to
refute the trickery? How can I start to like kind of put my
hand back in its face and say, no, no, you’re not going to get
me again?

That’s the moment that we can begin to contemplate
making actual changes. Those would be behavioral changes,
routine changes, dropping safety behaviors, and starting to do
exposures. The list is long and beyond just this one podcast
episode. But if I can leave you with anything today, I would
leave you with a start to consider that maybe you’re being tricked.
And if you’re early on in this process, you might say, doesn’t
feel like it.

Sorry. Okay, come back, come back in a few months,
and tell me what you think. Tell me if it’s any different from that
point, if you feel any different about the idea of being tricked,
if you’ve already started to come to grips with
the idea that it’s tricking me, well, now it’s time to start to
consider how can I deal with that information. If I’m
starting to see clearly like it keeps fooling me and to
doing what it wants me to do? Instead of what I want to do,
maybe get to sit down and start to think about what I can do
different, what little changes can I make today that will make
today is different than yesterday, this is not to say that that is
a light bulb moment.

And suddenly you change everything,
and you do a week of exposures, and suddenly your effects
don’t work that way. But that is the inflection point at which
you can start to peel off of that cycle, which means you
break it and go off in a different direction. And that’s,
that’s sort of the trigger slash trick cycle. And a 16-bit
nutshell, it’s a bit of a weird concept, I think it might be a
little bit hard for you to put your brain around, especially if
you’re new to the beginning stages. But if you’re listening and you
feel it fooled me again, and you’re getting angry at it, or I
can’t believe a way to do that, to me, this might be valuable to
you use that moment to inform a change, to motivate a change to
get to sit down and think carefully. Like, what did I do
this time that next time I’m not going to do because I recognize
the trickery?

And I don’t want to go through another iteration
of the cycle where I get tricked again and say, Ah, I
can’t believe it pulled me in again. So what can I do
differently before my next trigger? And what can I do
differently after I get triggered in that triggered
state, I know that if I follow it again, I’m going to be
angry at myself for letting myself be tricked. That’s a
place where you could start to intervene and make some changes
that might enact long-term changes that send you down
the road to recovery, right? Because in the end, it’s not
just a thinking fix.

We can’t fix this by thinking and having
new thoughts. We have to fix it with new behavior. And this
is a way to start to inform that new behavior. So notice when
you’re being tricked, because kinda you are and again, if
you’re in the early stages of this process, and you’re feeling
like, no way is this a trick, this feels real, it’s super
dangerous. Stop saying that I get it. I’m not trying to offend
you put it down for a little while, see how it goes, and learn
what you can come back to this concept later on. But if you’re
ready to use this concept, maybe I’ve given you a little bit
of a lever point you can use to start to make some changes.
That is episode 275 of The Anxious Truth in the Books. You
know, it’s over because of the music, that’s new music, I
missed the old music team.

So for those of you commenting that
you miss Afterglow, me too, but the stupid YouTube algorithm,
the copyright thing just makes it so that I can’t use it
anymore. Anyway, I appreciate you coming by today, if this
episode has been helpful to you, or the podcast in general has
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love to interact with you guys on YouTube. It’s been a whole
lot of fun now that I started doing that for the past six
months, and I will continue to do that. And yeah, we’ll be back
in another two weeks for another episode.

Not sure what
I’m going to be talking about it, but I will be and just remember
that no matter what small step you can take today doesn’t
matter how tiny it is. If you could take a step in a different
direction today, going toward your fear and learning that you are
capable, it counts they will add up and they will get you to
where you want to be down the road. Be patient be nice to
yourself and try something hard today. I bet you could do it
even when you think he can’t see you next time…