The only way to overcome anxiety is through exposure

I think yes, it does but it’s better if it’s done gently and with as much psychological safety as possible.

My anxiety causes me to have dissociative seizures that are like epilepsy and forget my whole existence for hours and hours (global amnesia).

of course you can say that for some people the symptoms of anxiety are worse than for others.

Exploring the triggers without knowing what you’re doing risks causing further damage.

you also need to be aware that some children will be being abused and their behaviour is a reflection of that.

The professionals note that graded exposure therapy is not always an appropriate treatment for anxiety.

in general it is not considered appropriate where:

the anxiety is around actual harm and the activity is very likely to harm you. Eg being raped, remembering an accident where you lost your leg, memories of war etc. you can’t do repeated exposure to a car accident because it’s too expensive and it almost certainly will cause actual physical and mental harm.

other examples include anxiety around eating gluten when coeliac, anxiety around something you have an anaphylactic reaction to etc.

it’s also not considered appropriate when the anxiety is part of a more encompassing mental health issue. So for example if someone has schizophrenia and is also anxious about going outside, the schizophrenia is the guide to what treatment is appropriate and graded exposure therapy isn’t it.

How do you know if you are suffering from anxiety or PTSD/CPTSD?

Most PTSD/CPTSD will have happened at a very young age and you will probably have no conscious memory of it.

Exactly. A serious of unfortunate events in work last month set off my cPTSD panic. No amount of exposure will stop that being a trigger. Thankfully I have a very supportive boss who got me out of the situation and to safety so I could start to recover.

sometimes though the post panic ‘hangover’ is worse than the attack itself!

I can’t say on here anyway. It would be deleted. It’s too difficult for others to read.

so I can’t discuss my triggers here. It’s not that I wouldn’t want to - to get the op to understand. - but in order to do so I have to discuss the things he did during my rape and mnhq will delete those as they are too distressing for others to read, in the view of mnhq.

I can't say why, but when we have previously run courses uptake was very low despite offering daytime and evening, online and in person And we have noticed that those whose parents did the courses had much better outcomes. This may be a direct impact of the course, or indirectly that those parents who attended the course may also be more likely to follow through with the strategies suggested during the in person sessions.

We get so many referrals, so have now made the course mandatory as a pre requisite to access in person therapy - when we receive and screen a referral as appropriate, a link is sent to the parents to sign up for a course.

Are you really going to ask a complete stranger on a public forum, with no support, to start dwelling on what triggers anxiety in her related to her extreme experience of abuse?

@Taztoy please don't engage. I'm so sorry that you've even been drawn to share such personal information to justify your anxiety responses.

Adding to the general ‘not always’ conversation, there’s also nervous burn out to consider.

Sometimes our system has been so sensitised by prolonged stress, that you need a total stress detox to start to recover. Then controlled exposure after that.

Achieving that total rest after burn out is really hard. Ironically, COVID and lockdowns did that for me. Amazing opportunity- for me. Obviously for others it was the absolute opposite.

Anxiety from chairing meetings is literally nowhere near the anxiety ND children and adults are experiencing all day every day or those struggling with CPTSD or both.

It's almost impossible to control exposure in a school environment because there are too many variables. The environment itself is unpredictable. Why do you think so many autistic children struggle to attend? I agree to an extent with your point about controlled exposure for certain specific anxieties (dogs, spiders, the dark whatever) but there are some environments that are too complex to control - and sometimes anxiety is pervasive and not situation based.

i have done similar during a proper course of therapy. It was a long and complex process giving me a skill bank to deal with one particular target situation (some of which where transferable) it’s not as simple as “just go and do it”

I agree to some extent.

I’ve recently found myself extremely anxious about leaving my home after a really awful experience. And I am able to push through this anxiety. It’s easier each day (although I had a blip this weekend) and I’ll keep pushing myself everyday until it doesn’t scare me anymore.

but….

my dd. She’s ASD. No amount of exposure to her anxieties eases things. She’s had endless therapies. CBT doesn’t work for her. She’s tried everything they offer. But she’s had to accept that these are her limits in life. She physically cannot speak in certain situations. Her fight or flight kicks in if there’s a lot of noise and she just runs, hands over ears, terrified. She’s learnt to manage most things, ear defenders, sunglasses and wears her hood up. Still manages to hold down a job that’s doable for her (small office setting) and is completing her masters part time.

id told her how proud I was of her going to a small gathering last bank holiday and she told me that she ended up very sick because if it, both before the event, and after. She felt it wasn’t really worth it and she probably won’t bother again. I’d said maybe it’ll be easier the next time. She told me autism doesn’t work like that. And she’s bloody right.

This. I have been diagnosed with autism late in life. Every lunchtime we have a free canteen and staff go and eat lunch it is expected. On days I feel overwhelmed I find it is simpler for me not to go. I sit in my office quietly and work. This has made a huge difference to my exhaustion levels when I get home

I agree

Exposure to what exactly though?

With a phobia, there’s usually a clear trigger you can gradually desensitise yourself to. Generalised anxiety disorder isn’t necessarily tied to one specific thing so what are you suggesting they be exposed to?

I agree to an extent.

My DD suffered from quite severe anxiety a few years ago. The trigger was a class in school where she was shown a violent incident on a TV as part of a history class. This triggered a fear of anything death/dying and health related. She experienced physical symptoms of anxiety and this terrified her.

She wanted to stay off school, she wanted to leave every class when she felt too anxious. This was a child who loves school and desperately wanted to stay. It impacted every part of her life.

We did not allow her to stay off school. However, I did remove her from history in the end. And we had strategies, including strict rules and boundaries for her in other classes. The teacher in history would not have had the skills to support her through exposure. He was hopeless.

So in this instance - I suppose she was exposed because we made her go every day, even on the mornings when she was crying and shaking and begging us not to go. But I felt that exposing her to the class that terrified her the most was pointless and cruel.

So it’s not as easy as just getting on with it.

She is thriving now - I believe that’s because of the support she got from us at home and at school where she was able to access school based counselling.

But I feel overall that exposure in the way it’s being described on this thread is too simplistic. And it depends on the reasons that sit behind the anxiety too.

Exactly this!!!
Such a good post .

. I have cptsd. Diagnosed. And I’ve explained why. Please stop minimising it