There are many well-trained therapists who specialize in treating anxiety disorders. They can help you to better understand why you are feeling the way you feel in response to certain triggers. They can work with you to help bolster your motivation, like a coach might motivate an athlete. They can teach you anxiety coping and management skills and guide you through scary exposure therapy.
They are not, however, as clever a treatment provider as your Anxiety itself.
Your Anxiety Disorder stands on your shoulders and whispers (and yells at times) in your ears what you MUST do to stay safe, including situations to avoid and safety behaviors to engage in. Examples include:
- Panic Disorder: “Don’t get your heart rate up…stay away from crowds…carry your anxiety meds everywhere…crank the air conditioning…carry a water bottle…”
- Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder: “Don’t touch that…don’t think that…straighten that out…think a positive thoughts to counter-act the negative one…check the locks…”
- Social Phobia: “Skip the party…don’t make eye-contact…keep things superficial…don’t you dare make a mistake or draw attention…”
- Specific Phobias: “Drive instead of fly…don’t pet the dog…by-pass the bridge or mountain road…check EVERYWHERE for spiders…”
At face value, Anxiety gives a signal to avoid things that make you feel uncomfortable and uncertain of the outcome in a situation. If you take the warning at face value, Anxiety wins and you lose. However, if you use anxiety’s warnings as a signal to approach, you are well on your way to taking back control from Anxiety. This is the Rule of Opposites.
PRACTICE DOING WHAT YOUR ANXIETY DISORDER TELLS YOU NOT TO DO
This is the very basis of exposure with response prevention therapy (ERP), a major component of cognitive-behavioral therapy for anxiety disorders.
In trigger situations, you may be engaging in a number of avoidances and safety behaviors that can be extremely subtle. Even a very skilled therapist may miss these responses to your anxiety. If you have social anxiety and you are in a grocery store and see that one aisle has someone in it that triggers your discomfort (perhaps they are unusually attractive, boisterous, or wearing a uniform of authority) Anxiety will try to guide you past that aisle to the empty one next to it. If you are letting Anxiety be your guide to less anxiety in the future then you can engage the Rule of Opposites: JUST BECAUSE ANXIETY WANTS ME TO BYPASS THIS AISLE I WILL GO TOWARDS IT. I WILL LINGER, PERHAPS SAY “HI” TO THE FEARED PERSON—AND I WILL CONTINUE TO SEEK OUT AND CONQUER SUCH OPPORTUNITIES!
When over time Anxiety’s dire predictions fail to come true and you have proven to yourself that you can cope adequately, your discomfort and uncertainty is likely to decrease.
In summary, the Rule of Opposites recommends that you:
- Expose yourself to what Anxiety tells you not to (without safety behaviors, of course)
- Accept that discomfort is a normal part of the process
- Observe that the dreaded outcome does not occur (or the consequences were not as bad as you thought).
- Repeat, repeat, repeat!
There is a big caveat. Make sure that what you are dealing with IS an anxiety disorder. Remember, in many situations your anxiety is actually serving a life-preserving function. Your anxiety, hopefully, will encourage you not to go skydiving without a parachute (and you will listen and choose to adhere to its admonitions in that case).
An anxiety disorder implies that the exposure target is not a probable risk for a dangerous outcome. When you talk to the attractive person at the grocery store, it is possible that they could pull out a gun and blow your brains out, though logically it seems highly unlikely and worth the insignificant risk if it means loosening Anxiety’s hold over you. When in doubt, have an evaluation by a qualified medical or mental health professional.
Anxiety may feel like your greatest adversary, but Anxiety could turn out to be your most perceptive and methodical partner if you filter it’s messages through the Rule of Opposites.
Eric Goodman, Ph.D.