Avoid or face?

[uru]

I got a bit of advice from people here to avoid the thing which makes me anxious. So like don't google symptoms of disease, that kind of thing.

However, Claire weekes book generally suggested you 'face your fears'.

So which is it?

[swgrl09]

For me, "facing" my fear was going to the doctor and getting a REAL diagnosis instead of googling and speculating. Googling was a compulsion that fed the fear but didn't solve anything. Going to my doctor - and TRUSTING my doctor - was facing my fears.

[Sam Winter]

i agree with swgrl09, thats how i faced my fear x

[uru]

Ah that's interesting...

[Fishmanpa]

Exactly as above. Googling is feeding your fears. Going to the doctor, in some cases, is facing it as long as you're not abusing it as a reassurance behavior.

Positive thoughts

[winduptoy]

When Claire Weekes was writing there was no such thing as Google, if there were I'm sure she would have suggested to ban yourself entirely. Rumination is very different from confronting your fear. Doctors diagnose, Google messes with your head. That's how I see it anyway.

[MyNameIsTerry]

When Weekes was writing there wasn't Google but we had medical encyclopaedias. If you've ever seen the TV comedy One Foot In The Grave, have you seen Victor Meldrew looking up his symptoms in one to find a rare disease or serious disease like cancer to then start worrying and looking for confirmations...and his wife shouting at him for looking at the book? That was filmed many years ago now before all the internet stoked all this up.

Back to the original question, I think it's perhaps more complicated BUT ask any therapist and they will tell you that avoidance is a reinforce of anxiety. Ask anyone who understands neuroplasticity & memory and they will tell you that you will only signal a new feared situation that will be potentiated into a stronger one that will be used to check against in order to create anxiety.

Googling is a different issue. If you have an obsessive compulsive cycle then Googling is a form of compulsion so it does need to be stopped. BUT, and again any decent therapist will tell you this, you can't simply cut it out of your life. Why? Because Googling your symptoms to find something that scares you will only be replicated by logging onto a social media site, reading a newspaper, seeing a TV article or being caught unaware by a person - any of which describing something you fear. Ask yourself, can you avoid all of these sources for life? No.

So, a therapist will likely initially work on stopping you using something like Google because it is very triggering and preventing the work they are doing to bring your anxiety levels down (e.g. relaxation techniques) but they will later bring it back in during Exposure Therapy or they haven't actually tried to get you to recover. There are threads on the HA board showing therapists doing this with people on here. The difference is that by Googling you can be acting on a compulsion (if your HA takes a form like OCD or a Sensorimotor Disorder, which have obsessive compulsive cycles) and/or you are effectively "flooding" yourself with your worst fears. (Flooding being an older less used form of exposure which has a poorer success rate).

Weekes wouldn't have done it any different to now because CBT was around in her day as was REBT (which is even older) and she does a lot of what they do. She would not tell you to avoid what you fear for life because she would know that would only reinforce your belief that Dr Google was bad.

Dr Google isn't bad at all. It's how you use him that is bad. I have no issues with Google, hence I can use it without any trigger and I get the same results as you HA guys but when I get a list ranging from a mild problem to cancer or tumour, I instantly dismiss all of those and look at the milder end, the more realistic end. If I can't find something that matches, I may take it to a GP BUT I won't think it to be all those terrible things HA people dread. Why? Because my anxiety just doesn't take that form. So, telling me to not Google would be worthless because I have full control over.

Look up Cognitive Distortions. This explains the HA traits very well and it's something that you will work on in CBT, if the CBT is any good of course.

OP - Do you have a typical pattern where Google scares you? If so, then you will struggle to control your CD's and just scare yourself. Seek medical advice but if you are a typical HA person you will not believe them and probably be Googling or on here asking. That's just part of the cycle and why therapy is needed because no med will change your negative thoughts as they are in your subconscious to be re-used, you need to mothball them by building new neutral/positive ones and CBT works on doing this. (there are many therapies and self help methods that also do this too)

If you can Google like me, you will likely be fine but it can still be an issue if you are at a more severe stage of your anxiety where anything can be a trigger.

So, avoid or fight? Neither really. How about accept or challenge? Those work better as avoidance certainly causes long term anxiety (as well as decreases self confidence, self esteem, self worth, etc) and fighting can be counter productive, challenging the CBT way is better i.e. counter evidencing.

[uru]

Thanks for he advice. I don't have HA but it's still relevant :)