Anxiety as doubt, with fear as a symptom?

[NoPoet]

Hi all, I had an interesting conversation with a girl from my writing group who has bad anxiety problems.

It seems to me that fear is not the main cause of anxiety. I am starting to believe that doubt is the cause. Using myself as an example, I am confident in my writing and am not afraid to read it to the group. I enjoy doing it, and their reactions have boosted me to the point where I am writing nearly every day, as opposed to a few days a year.

On the other hand, going on a night out is something I am NOT very confident about. I used to spend all week imagining getting mugged or humiliated somehow, or alcohol making me depressed or making my medication poison me. I doubted my safety, doubted my appeal to women I don't know, doubted my ability to handle alcohol, doubted my ability to socialise. This led to the intense fear we think of as anxiety.

After going out nearly every Saturday night for the last two months, several of my persistent doubts have either been reduced or conquered altogether. I no longer experience intense fear and distress before going out, and when I do feel fear it is entirely connected to doubts.

I do not doubt myself because I am afraid. I am afraid because I doubt myself.

Could it be that anxiety is actually an expression of self doubt? The fear is caused by the doubt, therefore fear is NOT anxiety, fear is a SYMPTOM. Doubt is the causative agent. Therefore there's little point trying to fight your fears - you should understand your doubts and work to reprogram them.

Maybe this is why a lot of people struggle so much with anxiety? We are encouraged to fight the symptoms, not the cause. Food for thought? Or am I just ranting?

[pulisa]

It's all about living with uncertainty...or not being able to as most people with an anxiety disorder find out

[NoPoet]

I agree that uncertainty is a major factor in anxiety, but lots of people prefer to just "go with the flow" and don't experience fear or distress when faced with uncertainty. "Going with the flow" implies confidence in yourself and faith that whatever happens, you'll handle it. Fear is redundant.

A person with severe anxiety is likely to doubt they can cope with whatever's coming, or they doubt that it will be anything good. They crave order, certainty, assurance. They cannot obtain these, or if they do they cannot hold onto them for long. They fear the future, but they fear it because they believe they cannot face it. They cannot trust the tides of fate. They cannot trust themselves. They experience doubt, so they experience fear.

[Carnation]

This is interesting NoPoet. I can believe that theory.
Reprogramming your thoughts and actions can definitely be the answer.

[MyNameIsTerry]

Absolutely agree. One thing I've found is that if you have underlying issues with things like self esteem, self worth, self confidence, fulfilment, etc then you have bad foundations that can lead to such things as anxiety. So, in resolving my own I believe I have to deal with these or I will leave my anxiety an "in" for a relapse later.

OCD used to be called "the doubters disease" and I know now how true that is. So much of OCD is based on fear of nothing other than yourself. You don't trust yourself. You feel uncomfortable with yourself.

Feeling uncomfortable in your own skill can easily lead to anxiety/depression or come from it making it worse.

It's obvious looking at your example that you are using exposure to habituate. That may not have been the intention but if you look at what going out means you have to face head on, it really is an exposure exercise or a Behavioural Experiment so habituation should be coming from it. It's good to hear it is and that must be far more challenging due to the Asperger's side than it would be for anxiety alone?

I think seeing fear as a symptom of it's own is a good thing. Something is triggering it and THAT is the real root cause that needs to be dealt with. With your incite into your Asperger's I bet you could easily list the elements that would cause that and in anxiety we could do the same with our own personality traits, how we developed and things like our core beliefs.

There is clearly a very strong link between these deeper areas and our anxiety. When we grow in confidence, our anxiety fades. But also when we tackle our anxiety, our confidence grows. This can be subtle, but you eventually end up seeing it and often others may tell you they see it first e.g. someone's posting style changes or they just appear bolder to you.

Exposure therapy can get you there with a lot of this by making these changes in the background rather than direct. But something like Cognitive Restructuring takes a more direct approach at looking at your thought processes instead. With CR you attempt to change how to view things rather than use the process & outcome only to achieve them.