The only way to overcome anxiety is through exposure

[Passaggressfedup]

I recently overcome a massive anxiety of mine. I feel so liberated and proud. It has made me think of the other significant anxiety triggers I experienced in life and concluded that all have been overcome through regular, controlled exposure over time.

I read so many thread about children or young people experiencing anxiety, where the parent has opted to take the child away from the situation thinking it is what's best for them.

I appreciate that there was some specific instances where removal is the for the best, but aren't we, as a society, making things worse by not helping our children to face their fear so that they can not only gradually get over that particular fear, but also learn to build that sense of resilience, pride and positivity that comes with it?

I think you are generally correct OP (having suffered quite life-alteringly at different times for a few years) and I'm sorry your thread is being derailed by a few people wilfully misreading you.

My mother was an anxious person who couldn't or wouldn't tackle it and she had a restricted life and blighted relatiinships because of it.

You mean experienced posters are calling out the armchair psycology and highlighting the damage it can do.

Please be aware that the advice on this thread may well be dangerous, depending on you or your child’s level of trauma and the causes. It is amateurish at best and could well do more harm than good. You should seek professional support. If you are trying to help someone in your family
FGS, it's not medical advice, it's a point of view. I have made no mention of trauma, others have brought it up! It's amazing how some poster can turn anything into drama and outrage just for the sake of it.

It's a forum. People share their views. You agree of you don't. You debate or you don't. Nothing more than this.

you might be surprised how many people there are out there who have been raped or sexually abused
As a proportion of people who experience anxiety? I would expect not a very high proportion.

I can only repeat what I've already written a few times. This is not about exposure to the incident of trauma. It's about secondary fears that might have arisen from it.

My fear was triggered by a very traumatic event.

I felt anxious every day I went to school and ended up taking some overdoses - I guess the regular exposure doesn’t work for everyone.

Yes, this. And in these cases, there is no replacement for 'felt safety' which must come first. There is only so much a parent can do, if all the good work gets erased at the most crucial point.

Example being having a reintegration plan (school) based on tightly controlled exposure. But when the child gets there, the school doesn't stick to the plan - "just try a little bit more". Trust and confidence erased immediately. Build trust first (no tricks), then comes confidence and capacity.

I do know my dd. And i have had camhs parenting courses till they're coming out of my ears. What i want is for others to help me by sticking to the bloody plan and helping me rebuild my child's trust and feelings of safety when she's away from me.

Exposure can really help with specific phobias but anxiety disorders are quite often more complex than that. There’s a reason medication and therapy are both used. Anxiety can involve nervous system dysregulation, thought patterns, trauma, neurodivergence etc, not just a fear of one specific thing.

Avoiding everything long term isn’t likely to be helpful, but neither is assuming every anxious person just needs more exposure.

You mean experienced posters are calling out the armchair psycology and highlighting the damage it can do
I think it is showing that this subject of discussion is triggering a defensiveness response.

Ultimately, the fear of considering controlled exposure itself is part of it for many.

The fear of considering controlled exposure?

im working intensively with qualified mental health professionals. I’ll take their advice. Thanks but.

What you see on the outside op as just anxiety - you’re not seeing the whole picture.

im not going to tell everyone in my life what causes my anxiety. That’s my health information and it’s of itself traumatic to share.

you’re judging and you don’t know the whole facts from the outside.

I felt anxious every day I went to school and ended up taking some overdoses - I guess the regular exposure doesn’t work for everyone
Because it wasn't controlled! Exposure is a gradual process. It's understanding what about school made you feel so anxious for a start and then very slowly, through steps that were unpleasant but not unbearable, you start from scratch.

The solution to a kid scared of school is not to get angry, tell them they just have to go, let them experience unbearable fear every day, and tell them to get over it.

It's not to tell them they don't have to go to school ever again and wait for the fear to miraculously disappear.

I agree with what a few posters have already said - exposure is only appropriate if the child has been given the right tools/support to face whatever is causing the extreme anxiety. It would just be a form of torture if not.

I would also say the same methods may not work if the child is autistic where anxiety is often baked into the child's cognitive function. That doesn't mean you have to give up supporting them to manage their fears but multiple episodes of exposure can actually have the opposite effect and destroy a child's mental health. My child required withdrawal from the cause of stress, medication and intense therapy before exposure was even a possibility.

It's also important to remember a successful life may not necessarily look the same as an NT child in terms of education/work/activities/relationships - sometimes adjusting your expectations is not a failure of parenting.

There’s a reason medication and therapy are both used
And they are usually both very good means to help through gradual exposure.

im working intensively with qualified mental health professionals. I’ll take their advice. Thanks but
That's great. I don't provide advice but points of view. You don't have to agree. Professional advice is what you should receive if you are looking at managing your anxiety.

I agree with many others that it can help to an extent in the right situation.

DS has severe anxiety and pushing too far out of that comfort zone would send him backward not forward.

I had to do something completely out my comfort zone at work last week. I did it, I hated it. I know i can do it but I also know if it comes up again (not likely thankfully!) I will still panic.

By the way, I'm really not inventing anything!

Gradual exposure, or graded exposure therapy, is a highly effective, evidence-based behavioral technique for anxiety disorders, where patients systematically face feared objects or situations in a structured, step-by-step manner. It helps rewire the brain’s fear response through habituation and inhibitory learning, reducing avoidance behaviors. This process often uses a "fear ladder" to rank challenges from least to most intimidating, building confidence and safety cues over time

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

Exactly this!!!
Such a good post .

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.

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

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 had to do something completely out my comfort zone at work last week. I did it, I hated it. I know i can do it but I also know if it comes up again (not likely thankfully!) I will still panic
It takes time though. I used to be sick to the core when I first started to chair meetings at work. It took quite a few of these before I could manage 6 hours of sleep the night before...until I got to the point where I didn't even think about it until an hour before.

The alternative would have been to tell my boss I will never chair a meeting ever with all the consequences that would have come with 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.

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”

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.