If you have not heard volume 51 of The Anxious Morning, go back and check it out. This is a follow-up from yesterday’s topic.
Sometimes we need to look not only at the mechanics of recovery but the obstacles that can interfere with those mechanics. In this case, our potential to develop the belief that uncontrollable anxiety and fear are simply “normal for us” and therefore to be expected with no available avenue for improvement or positive change.
This can look a few different ways. For example, we may blame ourselves in some way for the position we’re in:
“This is just who I am.”
“I’m not strong enough so this will be the way life is.”
“I was just born to live a difficult life.”
“Things have always been hard for me, so they always will be hard for me.”
We can also blame others to some extent. We may decide the our anxiety problems are at least in part caused by family dynamics, narcissists, being gaslighted, asshole bosses, mean people, or the sorry state of discourse on social media.
There is no black and white here. No absolute right or wrong. How you got to where you are is likely based on a wide range of factors all working together. That’s not really what we’re trying to figure out. We’re just trying to become mindful of yet another recovery trap. That is, settling in to an almost fatalistic worldview where you’ve given up and accepted that “this is just how it has to be”. This can place you in a position where you see no point in even trying to enact meaningful change. This trap can trick you into giving up, or believing that you have no potential to get better.
A quick clarification:
I often use the word “surrender”. The word “acceptance” is heard often in these discussions. In today’s context, it’s important to understand that accepting and surrendering do not mean giving up on life, or reaching the conclusion that nothing is likely to change.
If you are finding yourself in this place, try to see how you got here. Declaring that you are doomed to a lifetime of anxiety struggles with no hope of improvement may just be the explanation you’ve arrived at when you were otherwise unable explain why all this is happening to you. Keep in mind that while it might be the only explanation you have left, this does not make it the correct explanation. Really, the exhaustive search to explain “why” isn’t even required in the first place, which is one of the counterintuitive parts of anxiety recovery.
When you’ve reached the conclusion that you can’t get better, realize that this may be because you feel like there has to be SOME conclusion to reach, and that this might be the only one that fits, so you’ve agreed with it even when it has little basis in reality.
You CAN get better. You are not structurally faulty, broken, flawed, or a victim of the world. This is not “just the way life is”. You don’t have to know why this is all happening. You only have to know how to respond to it, then do that, even when it is difficult.
53. Erroneous Self-Blame In Recovery