HealthyGamerGG - What if Everything Goes Wrong

Episode Date: July 23, 2022

Dr. K talks about struggling with anxiety, being worried about everything, and how reality and fear interact! Support this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/healthygamergg/donationsAdvertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

And if nothing happens, I feel better. But what happened in your situation is you were taught that no matter how good things look, you should still be afraid. Hello. Hey. Hello, Dr. Kay. Hello. What do you go by, friend? I go by Honey.

Honey. Nice to meet you, honey. Yes, honey. And what are you working on nowadays, honey? Thank you. Well, the reason I wrote today is because I want to stop having the fear of losing everything I've gained. Just for, yeah, sounds terrible and maybe it is. We'll see.

Sounds scary. The thing is, yeah, it is. Well, I've had made many improvements on my life. When I was a teenager, I had a very, a great problem with social anxiety. I couldn't even talk to people. And then I worked hard through it. When I met my boyfriend, I started to improve. And then I saw this community.

And well, that gave me a big push too. And I have a great job. I have a great life. And I have worked so hard for everything. and I'm very, very happy with my life. I mean, in a moment that I think even when I have new problems, I know how to work through them and try to improve. But sometimes I get scared. I lose some things.

This happens in different ways. For example, this morning I woke up. I was kind of half sleep, and then I felt a pump on my arm, and I was like, oh no, maybe I have cancer. And I was like, oh, yeah, it's not cancer. It's just a mosquito bite. And then my brain goes like, well, you don't have cancer, but what about your boyfriend?

Does he has cancer? And I'm like, no brain. No one has cancer. Let's just stop. This doesn't make sense. And then I move on with my day. And sometimes it's that easy to just move on. But some other days, especially when I'm working, when I'm doing good at work, I start to think on what if I can complete the next assignment?

What if the people who trust me at work stop trusting in me? And I understand that sometimes these are just thoughts and this is not reality. This is not what it's really happening. And when I think about it, I know this comes from. for how my parents raised me, but still I can find a way to stop having these thoughts. They just happen randomly. I can go some days without it, and then one day it happens. So I think I'm lost.

I don't know what to do with it. So here's what I'm hearing, honey. I'm hearing that you struggled with social anxiety. You put in a lot of effort, a lot of energy, and a lot of time. and through a lot of your hard work, you've managed to develop, you know, it sounds like you're in a healthy romantic relationship. It sounds like you have friends. It sounds like you have a job that you're proud of. It sounds that like you have a lot to be grateful for and that you've worked really hard to build a pretty good life. Exactly. I, I think that's what I'm hearing

is that despite that. So instead of all of this progress, making you, feel more comfortable, confident, and reassured, what you're noticing is that sometimes your mind still is, like, worried that it's all going to come falling apart. Yes, exactly. I have great triggers also with money. Like, oh, what if you, if there's a big problem in your country and then the, I don't know, the economy falls and then you lose your money and, like, well, I can't. that doesn't really matter if that ever happens.

But yeah, my mind does all kind of thoughts in different directions like sickness, money, things like that. It's like, I think it's like you said, it's just, I feel like I'm going to lose things and I can really enjoy what I have. Okay. That sounds terrifying, right? Because like you said, it's like it's one thing to work hard for stuff. But then the whole point of working hard is that like then you get to enjoy it, right? Yeah, that's right. And so it sucks to work hard and not be able to enjoy it because your brain is like, hey, by the way, if you're at vacation this week, what if like your house gets swallowed in an earthquake? Yeah. Let's let those happen. Let me ask you a couple of questions,

You said you know that you know where this comes from and has something to do with your parents. Can you explain that? Yes. Well, the first thing is about that. My parents usually have very, they are very controlling using their own health about it. So, for example, when I was a kid, I have a sister, they told us things like, we don't have enough. time and someday we were going to die, see how old I'm getting. It was too much that when we were 10 years old and my sister 11, one day they went to a party and we stayed at home and we were

Catholic at that time and we started praying because we thought my parents may die in an accident when they came back from from their party. And also my father used to say many things like, oh, if I lose this job, I'll lose everything. I owe everything I am to this company. And logically, I know that that wasn't true. And for me, I don't have exactly attachment to companies because I remember my father saying that all the time and I knew that wasn't true.

But it makes me feel like small things can make everything fall apart. Okay. And my father was always, yeah, talking about, about money and how little he had, but he really didn't have, that wasn't true. My father made very good income. We even went on vacation to a expensive place and it was fine. But my father refused to give us money because he said we didn't have any. So that law was also like this confusion of knowing that my father had money, but then saying, saying he doesn't. And as an adult that I understand how much he made, that I understand that that made no sense and it was just a way to not give us any money to my sister and me. So I think that confusion of having a lot of money in your house, but in practice and wanted to do stuff and buy stuff, you don't have any. That's, I think that that confusion makes me think that having a lot of money doesn't mean you won't be living like a poor person. Okay.

I think that that's what I've seen. Very insightful, honey. So let me ask you, have you ever seen a mental health professional, honey? I seen one when I was a teenager because my parents couldn't make me have any friends and they didn't know what to do with me. But I think it helped me to be able to do some stuff, like to mimic being able to not have social anxiety, but that didn't fix it. I was just terrified inside and doing stuff on the outside.

But after that, since that experience was like that for me, I didn't understand anything about myself or why I was so anxious all the time. I didn't try it again. Okay. So is it okay if I share some thoughts with you? Yeah, sure. First of all, I just want to commend you on how hard you've worked and also how insightful you are. Because it sounds like, I think you're making it easy for me. And I think you've, you've,

you know, done a lot of thinking about this already, which helps a ton. So let's start with this. So I think you should definitely consider getting a clinical evaluation, you know, because you may have something like, you know, I don't, we don't really know, but, you know, so you may have a real anxiety disorder. And that's the kind of thing where like, like, that's where, you know, once you, get diagnosed with it and you get treated for it, like in eight weeks, 12 weeks, 16 weeks, you may feel completely differently. Like, you may feel substantially better like if you actually get like clinical treatment for it. So that's definitely something that I want you to consider. I don't know if you do or you don't. We're still going to talk about sort of the things that

we do in the HG way, which is we're going to sort of explain how your mind works and things like that. But I want to make it clear that a lot of, you may get a lot of benefit out of actually clinical evaluation and treatment. With me so far? Okay. Yes. Just something to consider. Okay. Especially when you're kind of talking about it, it seems like you're not worried about a thing. It seems like your mind is almost always worried and just picks different things to be worried about. Yes. Does that make sense? So it's almost like the worry is like independent of the problem.

Like today, the worry is going to pick this. And tomorrow, the worry is going to pick this. And the next day, oh, there's a bump on my arm. I guess we're worrying about cancer today. There's no bump on my arm. What else can be worried about what we be worried about? Oh, I know we can be worried about the economy. If we're not worried about the economy today, I know we can be worried about our boyfriend.

Right? Yeah. So let me, let's start with this. So you were taught to be afraid, right? Yes. So normally, so let's forget about your upbringing for a second. If I'm afraid of something and nothing bad happens, what happens to my fear? This may be a hard question for you.

Yeah, it's very hard for me. It's actually hard for me. Okay. Sometimes I would say go away, but sometimes it just, comes back later. Great. So I know that's hard for you. So the answer is if you're raised in a normal environment, it goes away.

Right? So like if I'm worried about a snake being in my toilet and pardon, apologies to everyone out there who, you know, now is going to be worried about that. And I walk inside and I don't see a snake in my toilet. That fear will go away, right? So generally speaking, if we think about the human brain, if I'm afraid of something and it happens, that reinforces the fear. Does that make sense? Yes. It just makes sense. And if I'm afraid of something and it doesn't happen, then that reduces the fear. The fear goes down. I know it may not be that way for you, but does that make sense in general? Yes. Yes. Yes. Now, it sounds like you grew up

in a really, really tricky situation where there was plenty of fear that was disconnected from reality. Yes. Right? So your dad is like, oh my God, I'm going to lose my job. I'm going to lose my job. Let's go on vacation to a fancy place because we actually have plenty of money. So what your mind actually learned, so I've seen this a lot, and there's actually studies that show that if you have a parent with an anxiety disorder, we have no idea whether your dad actually has an anxiety disorder or not. We don't know whether you have an anxiety disorder or not. But there are studies that show if you have a parent who has an anxiety problem and you have a child who has an anxiety problem.

Providing treatment to the parent reduces the child's anxiety. So if you give a parent anti-anxiety medication, the effect you see in the child is the same as if you were to medicate the child. So the benefit that a child gets from medication, you don't even have to give the child the medication. You just give the parent the medication. And the child improves by the same amount. And so we know that there's a very, very strong relationship between paramed.

parental anxiety and the child's anxiety. And essentially, I think what happened with you is that despite being reassured, you were still told to be afraid. So what's happened is your fear, even though you had nothing to worry about, your dad was still worrying, which means that your brain learned that reassurance has no impact on the fear. Does that make sense? Yes, yes, that makes much. So normal people, I'm afraid.

And if nothing happens, I feel better. But what happened in your situation is you were taught that no matter how good things look, you should still be afraid. Even if we have plenty of money, it could be gone tomorrow. And so what's happened now is that in situations where I've seen people like this, I mean, we're not 100% sure if this is what's going on with you, but may fit, is that the fear has become completely divorced from reality. Yes. Right? Because you're not like reassured. Because like there was nothing to worry about and your dad was like, be afraid, be afraid, be afraid.

And your brain is looking around and you're like, I'm confused. What am I supposed to be afraid of? There's nothing to be afraid of. And your dad is like, no, no, no, no. You have to be afraid. And then you were like, wait, but if I, if there's reassuring stuff and I should still be afraid, that disconnects reality for my fear. Does that make sense? Yes.

Yes. It makes so much sense. And then what happens with your dad is like, you, you, you know, you. someone in chat said this and I was going to say the same thing, you're waiting for the other shoe to drop. Have you heard that phrase before? Yes. Yes, and that's how it feels like. Right.

So what you've learned is that no matter how much reassuring stuff you get in life, everything could go wrong at a moment's notice. And so that fear almost becomes independent. And now the confusing thing is the fear doesn't, like it doesn't know what to stick on to because everything in your life seems to be going pretty well. You got a nice boyfriend. You got a nice job. You're doing better. You're social. You're doing, you're living your life. And there's so much fun. And then the fear is sitting there and it's confused. And it's like, wait, we have to be scared of something because

and even though everything around us in reality is good, like we divorced ourselves from that a long time ago. And dad taught us that going to a party, we better pray to God because they're going to die on the way home. Right? And so now that your mind is divorced from it, what it's doing is it's latching on to whatever it can find. Oh, there's a bump on your arm. Must be cancer. Woo, we found something to be scared of. Yes, yes, it's true.

So it's almost like it. It makes some sense. It's like an automatic pattern in your mind where your fear is looking for something. Now, the tricky thing here is, okay, so what do we do about it? So the first question that I have for you is, have you noticed a change in how often or how intense the severe is over time?

Yes. Since I've been with my boyfriend, well, he had a very nice upbringing, and he's very secure in those things. He also, I used to get triggered when he spent his money at Star. And right now that doesn't happen. But since I've been with him, it's been so much less. So much that this morning,

when the bomb thing happened, I was able to be attached from it quickly. But before, well, we've been together for some years. So when we started dating, that thought would have been on my mind all day. And right now that doesn't happen. So it's seriously improving and it's happening less, but still there. Yeah, okay, good. So that's, I'm happy to hear that. and that's what I would expect.

Because here's the thing to understand. When your fear is separate from reality, you need something to feed it. And in your case, it sounds like your parental upbringing was like feeding your fear, right? And so what we tend to see oftentimes is that when kids grow up with a particular like inherited problem, not genetically, but like, you know, when they grow up with something like this, the more they spend time in the real world and away from the paranoid parents, the less serious it becomes. So, like, now what's happening is you're getting, you're getting, like, reality testing, right? So your brain is learning, oh, wait a minute.

Like, we actually, like, don't need to be worried about that. And the more that you just sort of, like, live separately from your parents, and I'm happy to hear that, especially your boyfriend, it sounds like, is a positive influence. That's also very common. But as, as basically as your brain has your own experiences, it'll naturally start to, you forget over time. So the one thing, if it's moving in the right direction, I'd say just be careful about how much time you spend with your parents and like be careful about, you know, spending time

with people who are a little bit more grounded in reality. And the more that you sort of live your own life, like the better the fear will become. Okay? With me so far? Yes. Yes. I think I'm with you so far. And also I've been separated from my parents because I'm,

what you say makes so much sense. Now I got to understand something I couldn't understand about myself. I was trying to disdunciate from my parents for a long time and started to get very anxious when I thought on talking to them. And I think this may be part of it. Like that feeling that everything goes into chaos again when I talked to them. Yep. Right? So like you're, I mean, yeah.

So I think you're going to kind of absorb their anxiety, which we oftentimes find some people are kind of like that, where they're like a little bit more absorbent. So another thing, when you're ready, honey, is the other thing that you can try to do, this sometimes works, have a conversation with your dad about his fear. And I know this sounds kind of weird because we're trying to keep distance from them, but sometimes it can actually be very, very eye-opening to be, like, really objective and calm and just listen to your dad, talk about how irrational his fears are. Right? Okay.

Right? So, like, like, when you actually talk to him, you'll realize, like, wow, this is incredibly crazy. And as your own brain matures and you're able to sort of, like, judge that, you may actually be able to, like, get distance from it in your own mind. because as you talk to him and you can sort of have like open-ended conversation, right? And you're not trying to be judgmental. You're just going to ask dad. So dad, you know, when we were growing up, you seemed really concerned about money. Can you help me understand that?

Why were you always so concerned about money? How long have you been concerned about money? So one thing that was kind of confusing for me, dad, is that you were worried about money, but we actually like took a lot of really nice trips. We had a nice upbringing. Like, help me understand because it seemed like in a lot of ways we were okay, but you always seemed worried about it. Can you help me understand that?

And then the more that you kind of talk to him, what you'll start to see is like the irrational fears like coming out. Right? And you don't want to get sucked into that. Yes. And the interesting thing is that when you talk to your dad, if you're not careful, he'll slip into the same pattern of,

oh, like you have to be careful, honey, you have to be careful, you can't trust anyone, everything is going to go. So you don't. So if you, but the interesting thing is if you start asking, him about his life and his experience and his views, it's going to feel very different. Does that make sense?

It's not going to be like the autopilot conversation. Yes. Yes, I understand because I talk to him and hear his fears, but it's like I'm running away from hearing it. So this is the opposite and that may be very important. Yep, but the key thing is that you don't want to get swept up by his stuff, right? You want to try to control the conversation. and you want to listen.

And as you listen to him, just be careful with what happens within you. If you feel yourself getting triggered and stuff like that, pull yourself away from the conversation. You may not be ready for it yet. But eventually what I'd love is if you could have a conversation where you can like hear him and also like be calm yourself, like don't get sucked into it so that you can really kind of see like how hard this has been for him. And then you can even say things like, oh, dad, it sounds like it's been very hard for you worrying all of. of these years. And I can see that you worry about us today, too. That sounds really, really hard. And then he may start crying or whatever, like, you never know, right? And then, like, you're going to give him a hug and then y'all will, like, you know, cry together and then it's going to feel

weird. But, like, hopefully at the end of it, both y'all will feel better. Being him, maybe he'll start screaming at the middle because he don't want to get more questions. That happens to. Yeah. So that's why you... So you then be extra careful, but you want to be like open-ended and non-judgmental, right? So, so and like give it a shot. Yes, I understand. But I think, honey, just to kind of, you know, recap. So the first thing, I'd seriously consider getting a clinical evaluation.

Second thing to kind of understand is that, you know, essentially your mind, normally your mind thinks that fear is tied to reality and gets reinforced through what happens in the real world. The interesting thing is that despite the real world telling you, hey, everything is okay, everything is okay, everything is okay, it sounds like your parents really contradicted that. And they were like, no, no, no, it's not okay. You can't trust the world, honey. You can't trust the world. And the more that you started to do that, then what happens is your mind is like, okay, we can't trust the world in terms of like reassuring. So we've got to be scared no matter what. Nothing the world can do will ever put us at ease because we can't trust.

the world. Yes. That's very accurate how my parents are. And so you carried some of that with you, but the good news is as we grow into adults and we form our own relationships and we learn our own lessons, as you keep on doing that, I think this problem will slowly get better and better and better. And the last thing, if you ever want to really do this, it can be a little bit more intense, is that you can have a conversation with your dad where you really listen to

what he's saying and then you judge for yourself like how irrational it sounds and sometimes doing that can help you with your own irrational thoughts and you can even sort of say oh there's the voice of my dad it's not even my voice this is the voice of my dad that i'm hearing within me that's an echo from all the times he's talked to me in the past and that can be quite healing to do okay yeah that's amazing I could never thought of that. It's great. Thank you, Dr. Kay. Of course.

Good luck, honey. Thank you. And thanks for all the word you've done. I've learned a lot from you, not just for myself, but to understand others. Great. And be able to really listen and not try to guess what everyone's thinking. So thank you, Dr. King. It's smart.

Seriously. Good luck to you, Annie. Thank you. Take care. Bye. Bye. All right. So let's do a quick recap.

So the tricky thing is sometimes our mind has this part that's just always afraid. It's always afraid of the other shoe dropping. And it's kind of weird, right? Because normally, if we're afraid of something and it doesn't happen, we should calm down. Like when reality does not mirror our fears, we should be. reassured. Oh, I'm afraid that, you know, some meteor is going to fall out of the sky. And then a couple hours go by, no meteor falls out of the sky. And then I'm like, okay, whew, I don't need to worry. That's normally what should happen with a fear, right?

Is that a fear will either be reinforced by reality. And then our brain learns, oh, wait, I do need to worry about this. Or our fear will be reassured by reality. Because the action doesn't happen and then our mind is like, okay, we don't need to worry about that. Phew. The tricky thing is that sometimes our fears seem completely divorced from reality. And actually what can happen if we tunnel down into this, sometimes what we find is that early on, despite the fact that reality is reassuring you, you were taught to still be afraid, oftentimes by a parental figure.

Someone in your life was like, you can't trust reality, you can't trust reality, you can't trust reality. And as you internalize that lesson, then you're kind of screwed because all of the fears that you have can never be reassured. Because the real world no longer like counteracts your fear. And so we carry this fear with us over and over and over again. And the weird thing about the fear is that since there's nothing to actually be afraid of, it kind of like looks for whatever it can find. So on a particular day, it'll be afraid of this. On another day, it'll be afraid of that. Oh, we've got a bump on our arm.

It's cancer. Oh, no, no, it's a mosquito bite. So we're not worried about that anymore. Let me worry about something else. So it's like the fear exists as an emotion and is looking for a manifestation. And it finds whatever small signal it can in the real world and puts all of the emotional energy into that weird little signal. Oh, so-and-so didn't text me back.

Maybe they had a heart attack. Oh, my God. Right? That's what the fear does. So what do you do about this? the first thing to understand is that sometimes this is what a clinical anxiety disorder manifests as. So sometimes if it's focused on being sick and things like that, we call that illness anxiety disorder. Sometimes it can also be generalized anxiety disorder where we sort of think about people as worriers.

So they worry about all kinds of different stuff. That's why we call it generalized anxiety disorder. It's not focal on a particular area. So it's worth getting clinically evaluated if this kind of like falls into your experience. And the other thing to kind of recognize is that, like, over time, you have to be really careful about what influences taught you that reality and fear are like two completely separate things. And ideally, as you start to live life a little bit, form additional relationships, have additional experiences, your brain can start to learn, oh, it actually turns out that reality and fear is connected. And the more that you can sort of connect to those, the more oddly enough, the fear will actually go down. So great call.