The only way to overcome anxiety is through exposure

Oh behave, I’m more equipped than most to support my children, my DD has still had 3 months off school due to very high levels of anxiety. She’s just gone back but it’s been a good year of work with her starting long before she felt unable to go, and culminating in me taking the pressure off for a while to give her space to recover and to work with what was underlying the anxiety.

Its all well a good to have a smug “well parents must just not know how to help their kids”, but anxiety needs careful support and management if it’s not to become a life long issue. I’d rather my DD was genuinely able to cope than mask her way through life in the name of just getting in with it.

Nope you are wrong, sorry stick to the day job .

Also. Pride and confidence? Really?

im a bit surprised because that’s not my experience. I’d be interested to know what your therapist has said and advised?

Sorry but your arm chair psycology is quite dangerous.

”Ultimately, even well controlled, each step is unpleasant...until you've done it, and pride and confidence overtakes the bad feelings. That motivates for the next step.”Nope not at all, quite the reverse actually.

Did all that and it made my ND worse, far worse. All of them have had significant MH problems and the right skilled therapy has literally been life changing.

How do you propose to expose people to triggers that are rooted in abuse?

For me, my triggers are around my rape.

i have had lots of therapy but my triggers are involuntary.

Regarding spiders and wasps and things. I think this fear is often handed down from parents.

So many grown adults screech when a wasp comes near them or can’t cope with a spider in their house and their kids copy that.

Some of us ‘just get on with it’ because we were brought up with a very strong sense of how unacceptable it is to let people down. If you had that kind of upbringing it is like a superpower - it doesn’t occur to you to bail out and not go to work etc. I worked a full day after our second ivf failure. I couldn’t wear contact lenses as my eyes were so sore from the crying the previous evening. I made up a story about having forgotten to neutralise the contact lens solution and got through a full day of teaching, meetings, dissertation supervisions. It didn’t even end at night as I was scheduled to lead a Lent prayer group in someone’s house. I turned up and did it. Later on when people found out, I literally didn’t have one person tell me they would have done the same. Everyone told me I should have called in sick. But it never occurred to me to do so. Nothing bad happened. It was tough, but I got through it. Years later I had to deal with an external inspection at work - very scary in some ways as the then boss was not the type to forgive a bad departmental outcome. Again, I just got on with it, despite actually feeling slightly sick before the first meeting.

I’ve tried to instil a strong sense of responsibility to others in my DC as I’m convinced it actually is very helpful to the person themselves. Don’t necessarily prioritise your feelings - remember your responsibility to others. If some of my students over the years had had a similar attitude it would have served them much better than the upbringing they appear to have had where it was fine to bail out when things get tough or challenging.

Completely agree - although how that exposure is managed is obviously key. Eg suggesting drawing spiders with a child rather than signing them up to I'm A Celebrity. The wrong way could definitely make it worse.

Didn’t take long for the thread to turn nasty. AIBU is not an excuse to be harsh, I’m sick of it.

I think is also depends on the underlying reason for the anxiety. If it’s the fear of something new or unfamiliar, exposure can help. If there’s a particular reason an activity causes anxiety (eg bullied at work, making a significant mistake) simply putting them in the situation without dealing with the root cause will make things worse.

I’d also say it’s pretty rare for there not to be something underlying anxiety beyond just feeling anxious. It can take a lot of careful unpicking, because often the individual can’t actually remember how it started, or can’t make the links themselves. It’s far too simplistic to think mere exposure is the answer - if that were the case many therapists would be out of business.

My anxiety is caused by a violent rape.

would I be cured if I got raped more often?

Oh dear ignorance at its best. It’s not treatable for all.Receiving PIP does not mean no effort has been made.

My dd is ND, suffers hugely with anxiety and yes gets PIP. Mis management and forcing into situations causes extreme reactions and has resulted in CPTSD. She has had a lot of intensive treatment from skilled professionals and we have learnt that careful balancing of her anxieties is key- not exposure.

sorry she and her family are in that situation. Hope she continues to get good services from school and NHS.

Mental health is complicated. it’s not as simple as ‘just get on with it’, even with great professional support, and most DC don’t get that.

Oh that's easy, considerable childhood trauma, GCSE schooling years academic pressure, Covid, and a few other factors all combining simultaneously in a perfect storm.

But thanks for the judgement.

I don't agree because the relief is normal and expected afterwards but it's only until the next time, the solution is developing tools to ground and dismantle the anxiety. Sometimes you are anxious and you have to do the thing anyway thrrr is no avoiding it. there is relief afterwards but you had to do it anyway and were anxious all along. If you haven't learnt tools to 'talk yourself down' it will arise again, the anxiety pattern and reaction hasn't gone. If you mean phobias gone after exposure then yes probably but anxiety will keep resurfacing if not about X it will soon be about Y.
As far as pushing children I pushed my child to keep going climbing this wall in Kidzania and she still tells me what a terrible mummy I am for pressuring her to keep going up. This was 7 years ago! And she hates climbing now.

Forcing children to just face things without tools before and after is just cruel, anxiety doesn't even have to be about a specific thing to face like a phobia. I find CBT, arts or creativity in general, being in nature, journaling and exercise hugely helpful.

@Jellycatspyjamas

Yes exposure helps to resolve anxiety but, there’s a very fine balance to be struck between supported exposure and someone becoming overwhelmed and being unable to cope in the moment. If pushed beyond their capacity to cope, people remember how awful/out of control they felt and become anxious about feeling anxious which can then spiral very quickly.

Agree. Anxiety does need to be faced. Avoiding something that scares you is only ultimately going to make people more anxious.

But a brutal “get on with it” approach in someone with severe anxiety is just going to trigger panic and withdrawal. It’s about a supportive and gradual process of building someone’s confidence.

My niece doesn’t go to school. Her school have been amazing with her, and she has had all the support in the world. She just won’t go.

YANBU.

This is literally how anxiety spirals - you create a cycle of avoiding the trigger which makes it worse. The only way to break the cycle is for your brain to learn that the trigger doesnt need it to go into fight or flight and the only way to do that is to expose yourself to it.

If you do anything often enough it becomes boring and non eventful. Same with anxiety triggers. Of course, noone is saying it's easy but it is a simple and effective process. Also, the way its done matters - if you simply plonk yourself in a stressful situation it can make it worse but when its done properly its highly effective.

What kinds of thing are the parents you refer to enabling their DC to avoid, OP?

Do you mean school or exam refusal / school related anxiety and parents moving their DC, home educating, and/or seeking adjustments?

If so then YABU: schools, mental health and other services aren’t providing the kinds of therapy you’re talking about.

Didn’t work for me (I have autism) so I’ve given up and now just avoid the things that make me anxious. It’s not through want of trying or lack of therapy but just seems exposure therapy doesn’t work for me it makes it worse not better.

It depends.
I have severe anxiety but am autistic and a lot of it is a physiological response to sensory cues. Exposure to them would not and does not lessen their impact.

Agree completely, this is why I disagree with benefits to keep people with anxiety out of work. How on earth will it help?