Episode Transcript
Speaker 0 00:00 <inaudible>.
Speaker 1 00:08 You are listening to our anxiety stories, the anxiety Canada podcast with Jon Beekman, checkout anxiety, canva.com for more totally free anxiety resources, including our app mind shift at CBT. Melanie.
Speaker 2 00:25 But Dolly, Melanie, you there? How are you? That's great. You're, you're anxious. You said if this has been crazy.
Speaker 3 00:38 Sure. I know all the tools and I was, I was waiting on hold speaking this is quite delirious cause I'm super anxious.
Speaker 2 00:44 Well yeah, you should see it from my perspective because, you know, I, this was my idea, right? And then maybe sometime we're on Saturday or Sunday, I started thinking, Oh no. And I started getting, yeah, I started getting anxiety started having like mini panic attacks and uh, and that's just the F I'll, I'll consider that folly. But, um, it's, uh, it's interesting and it's heartening to hear that, you know, a trained therapist a year, a psychologist or a registered psychologist, um, experiences anxiety, thank goodness
Speaker 3 01:17 w we all experience anxiety and some of us more than others. Some of us, uh, you know, kind of wired that way. And some of us, uh, get some baggage along the way.
Speaker 2 01:28 Yeah, for sure.
Speaker 3 01:30 And then anxiety is kind of new for some people and then some people say it, uh, you know, it can wax and wane. And you know, for me, I think the key is not letting anxiety boss you around. So you did have a great idea. This is an amazing idea and we need more people to be out here. You know, talking about anxiety, talking about what tools we can use to manage anxiety, um, such as anxiety candidates, great new, um, for my chip CBT app. But also, you know, to say here I am. Um, and just because I'm thriving doesn't mean I'm not also suffering with some anxiety too. And that there is, you know, definitely a management, uh, component involved for people with anxiety disorders. That is, you know, people who have a symptoms that caused them, that stress and, and you know, things that you start to interfering with their lives.
Speaker 2 02:22 Yeah. Did you, did you experience anxiety, you know, on a, on like a critical level at any point in your life?
Speaker 3 02:29 You know what, I, I was very lucky because I've always been a worrier. I come from a long line of warriors.
Speaker 2 02:35 Yeah, yeah. The anxiety that the, the name anxiety has had many different names over the years. It's interesting.
Speaker 3 02:42 Yeah, for sure. And I just thought certain things were normal because everybody, you know, in my family was that way. Um, for me it started ramping up in my twenties and I'm 45 now and you know, I was just, uh, reflecting before, uh, I, you know, was going to be talking with you about how lucky I was that I had already started some graduate training in clinical psychology and I knew about thanks ID because when I had my first panic attack, I knew what it was.
Speaker 2 03:14 That's interesting. I've never really heard that angle before.
Speaker 3 03:17 Yeah. Well that's why I thought, okay, what can I talk about this? Actually you meet them. I'm like, Oh yeah, you knew what was happening.
Speaker 2 03:23 Yeah, yeah. How strange is that?
Speaker 3 03:27 Yeah, it was straight. I mean it, and it was different and I think it's an example where, you know, panic attacks are quite common. And then whether or not they develop in to panic disorder where you start having more of them and these thing, you start doing things differently because you don't want to have another one. Then you start to develop kind of that fear of fear. I think I was very lucky because I was able to figure out, uh, what was going on. And so it didn't feel good. It was very, very uncomfortable. But I don't think it was as scary for me. I didn't actually feel like I was gonna die or lose control or go crazy or some of the common thoughts people have because I realized what was happening. I'm like, Oh, Oh, well having panic,
Speaker 2 04:12 I guess. I mean, if I can use it in this term, I guess you're lucky in that sense. No panic attack is never lucky, but,
Speaker 3 04:19 Oh no. Uh, but I, I definitely was lucky and I think, you know, for me that's one of the great things about anxiety Canada is that, you know, one of the things you could do is, you know, search anxiety and you can have access to high quality evidence-based information at anxiety Canada so you can learn a little bit more about what's going on. And, um, you know, of course you'd have to know that it is in fact anxiety cause panic attacks often when people are experiencing, they don't know what's happening and a lot of people end up in the ER thinking they're having a heart attack.
Speaker 2 04:55 Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 3 04:56 Um, but you know, I think anxiety Canada, what is the things, um, that you know, we offer is that high quality education
Speaker 2 05:08 <inaudible> <inaudible> yeah.
Speaker 3 05:09 I mean it costs money to make it all happen, but for the average Canadian,
Speaker 2 05:14 for the user, yeah. What, um, what, what led you down? Cause there's many different, many different facets of, uh, of psychology. What led you down the CBT route?
Speaker 3 05:29 Well, was a bit of a, an easy path for me. The first course I took on any type of therapy was cognitive behavior therapy back in my undergrad at McGill university. And, um, the instructor who taught it included not only, you know, what was the theory and what were some of the research studies, but what I thought was an overwhelming amount of evidence that this type of therapy worked really well for a lot of different problems. And so that was my taster. And then when I went into graduate school, the program, um, that I was lucky enough to be accepted to have a strong CPT focus. So I was able to get really good training right from the get go. But that's not everybody's path.
Speaker 2 06:15 Yeah. Yeah. And do you find, uh, you know, I just, I thought to ask this, when you mentioned your panic attack, um, do you find that that obviously you have empathy, you know, you, you are a psychologist, but yeah. Ideally that's right. Not guaranteed though, right. With, uh, with every psychologist and psychiatrist out there. But you do. Um, uh, I guess I'm wondering, you know, when you had your panic attack and you gained that, that real, that, that on the street understanding, um, did that, does that, did that help you with your practice with how you deal with patients?
Speaker 3 06:49 I think so. I mean, I don't believe that you need to have personal experience with everything to help somebody. I think there's enough commonalities of the human condition and things that we share, you know, in terms of separating and distress. But I think it, it, it's an extra layer of insight into how horrible it feels in the moment. And so, you know, there's different types of empathy. There's cognitive empathy in that kind of being able to see things from another person's perspective. And then there's emotional empathy, which is really kind of sharing the feelings with someone else. And so I think in cognitive behavioral therapy we're often looking at that cognitive piece where we're trying to look at things from different perspectives and also helping people look at different things, things from different perspectives in particular with an anxiety one that focuses on, um, you know, a realistic appraisal of their ability to cope and of current threat because of the things it often people overestimate the threat or danger and also underestimate how well they're going to be able to cope or handle a situation, the situation. So we're often talking about different perspectives, but in terms of, you know, that little insight into, you know, what it feels like to be overwhelmed in the moment. Yes, I definitely have that.
Speaker 2 08:09 Yeah. Well, yeah, I guess, I guess so for sure. It's interesting, like I often wonder, you know, and maybe you have more insight into that, is there, there's people who do like if you subjected say 10 people to the same kind of stressors, there's that percentage of people, which is alarmingly high, um, that it goes to that next level. You know, it goes to that next level of, of, of getting a phobia or you know, becoming chronically having chronic anxiety or generalized anxiety, um, you know, in your research and your studies. What w what's the difference between, between, besides just being a fluke of nature, um, what kind of, what kind of things can inform, can, can create that kind of, you know, difference in, in reactions with people?
Speaker 3 08:52 I think that's a great question. And you know, there's studies done for different, uh, you know, disorders and there's definitely more nuances in the literature, but I think the take home is, it's usually a number of factors. So there are, as you said, kind of fluke of nature, which I put as, you know, kind of genetic vulnerabilities. And there's kind of these, uh, you know, as illusionary mechanisms that, you know, are, we are, we're not born blank slates, right? Or we become kind of pre-wired with some stuff, but it's like a cognitive behavior therapist. My slant definitely is what are the cognitive factors or the, the, the ways you're thinking about things that might be, um, making things worse or maintaining things. And what things are you doing that are making things worse? So for example, you have this great idea, let's do anxiety stories. Then it's the weekend before you're like, Oh crap.
Speaker 2 09:50 Yeah, exactly.
Speaker 3 09:51 It's what am I getting myself into? I thought it was going to help people with anxiety disorders and now, and it might not even be that it's a cause of, of level. You're thinking, I'm going to make a fool of myself or uh, you know, nobody's going to participate. Like it might not even be that, you know, concrete. You just might have this like full body react to choose the upcoming event. Now if at that time you decide to call it off and you say, Oh, sorry, anxiety kind of that you're going to have to find yourself another host. Yeah. Well you're never gonna learn that you can actually move through that anxiety to accomplish your goal and you don't get to learn that often. Good ideas come with the side of anxiety.
Speaker 2 10:33 Yeah. And that's, it's interesting because that's been one of my go to things, you know, coming up to this and, and you know, going, talking to my, to my friends. And so I was before this and it with me, with my experience, it's always been a matter of, you know, uh, being presented with something, having anxiety about it, and then often taking the plunge and then being glad I did it afterwards. Um, so that's, that's the faith that I'm running with today. Um, you know, if I'm speaking frankly, my, my big concern about today is, is being triggered. It's like I'm going to be talking to all these people who have anxiety, who you know, all about anxiety, anxiety, anxiety. It's, it's ruled my life. How's this going to be? How's this going to affect me the next hour, the next day, you know, the next month after this happens. So that's been my big, my big thing that I've been
Speaker 3 11:21 well and, and you might be more vulnerable, right? And I think, you know, sometimes if we kind of open ourselves up a little bit to the painful emotions, they don't boss us around quite so much. You know, if we fight them, sometimes they, they just kept vice here. Yeah. And sometimes doing things that are worth it. Um, you know, we'll involve, you know, an escalation in some symptoms and you'll see that, you know, marathon or marathon runners don't generally feel super energetic the next day.
Speaker 2 11:52 No, no. Yeah.
Speaker 3 11:54 Well, I mean, I, yeah, I, what I, I've found in my experience with anxiety is that it does go. Um, I, you know, I've had really bad anxiety and then I've felt I've had long, long, long periods of time where I felt normal in quote marks and good. So that's another one of the things that I go to. Um, when I start thinking, Oh, I'm going to be triggered, I start telling myself, no, um, maybe I will get triggered. Maybe I'll feel a little bit, but there's, there's smooth sailing ahead still. Right. Or it's worth it. Right. And I think you, um, you bring up or you reminded me of, of one thing that a lot of people, things ID share is we don't like uncertainty.
Speaker 2 12:34 Yeah. Oh yeah. No,
Speaker 3 12:36 wait. We prefer things to be served and we like to have a sense of control. And you know, there's definitely times where I think, okay, well I could say no to that media interview or talking with John and I will have less.
Speaker 2 12:50 Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 3 12:51 Rarely. But then I also don't get to help people or I don't get to help bust up some stigma and share, you know, my story and be part of something. And so, um, you know, one of the things that happens for people who have kind of, we call it sort of similar to an allergy to uncertainty is that we will often fill in the blanks with something negative rather than just to have uncertainty hanging there.
Speaker 2 13:15 Yeah. Yeah. For sure.
Speaker 3 13:17 Um, and so again, you know, being aware that that might be one of your tendencies and then, you know, being strategic in your actions and you know, what you're doing. And also trying to balance out those, you know, anxiety, promoting thoughts with some more balanced, realistic thoughts is, is, you know, those are some of the things that you can do, um, with cognitive behavioral therapy and also that you can do on your own. Um, anxiety. Canada's mind shift CBT app actually has, uh, parts of it where you can work on balancing your thinking, um, trying to figure out if you're falling into any thinking traps and setting behavioral challenges for yourself.
Speaker 2 13:58 Yeah, yeah, definitely. I want to ask you a little bit, um, you know, in your, in your, um, experience as a therapist, um, how often do you, like, how often is going back and talking to people about previous experiences or relevant pursuit with you?
Speaker 3 14:15 Well, so that's a great question. Um, so my primary orientation is cognitive behavior therapy, which is a, you know, kind of present moment here inL a therapy. You know, usually when you're setting goals like, Oh, you know, I can't leave my house with like to be able to leave my house, you know, um, where were your folks from getting people to be doing the things that they want to be doing to lead a valued life and exploring current thought patterns? Um, but I definitely think it's worth exploring previous experiences and in cognitive behavior therapy we, we call 'em. We usually go at it in a kind of a different way that week. We call it exploring core beliefs or schemas. So those kind of organizing principles that would give rise to, um, some of that, you know, kind of in the moment chatter that we have going on in our brain. So I think it can be very useful.
Speaker 2 15:10 Yeah. I, I, the reason I ask is because, um, one of the things that I've found that I learned about cognitive theory, cause I, I didn't get into cognitive behavioral therapy until more recently and I got into it. Uh, I experienced it with a psychologist, psychiatrist, one-on-one, and it was very, um, it was very clinical. And I, and I understand that, but I'm also a very kind of emotional person. And to be honest, sometimes I just need to go into therapy and cry, uh, because I did Arctic to do that and out in real, real life. But, um, but what I did find interesting about CBT is this is the, the concept of thought patterns and thought patterns that are established from a young age. So, because I, I had sort of a traumatic thing happen when my parents split up when I was young, you know, it, I was like five, it came out of nowhere. A, I wasn't expecting it and that was really hard and that, and I, and I think that that led me, that led my thought patterns to get entrenched the wrong way. Um, so I, I guess I'm wondering how, like in that circumstance, how often do you, do you utilize that in terms of retraining or can you talk a little bit about the, how you retrain thought patterns in that, in those terms?
Speaker 3 16:21 I, I, I think that's a good example sometimes. Um, you know, it's hard to go back and, and you know, be in the mind of a five-year-old, you know, it's just the example that you shared. You know, it's common in, in situations like that that people might pick up beliefs. Like, you know, I'm not going to have any warning when bad things happen. So I, you know, something bad could be around every, any corner. Right. And so let's just say that that was something you didn't realize, your five year old.
Speaker 2 16:53 Oh, well no, I, I can tell you, I don't think I did
Speaker 3 16:56 it picking up, but you know, with somebody and then, and then, you know, those kinds of things can stick with you, you know, for longer periods of life. And you know, there are common, um, you know, underlying beliefs that definitely drive, um, some anxiety disorders. And there's a technique in cognitive behavior therapy called the downward arrow tech technique. And so, you know, one of the things like, okay, so I won't use you, but I'll use my myself. So Melanie, you're, you're anxious that you're going to be doing this live interview with, with John Bateman, and you have two sisters who were art teachers and you know, you, you're, you, who knows what you're gonna say, and you're the board director and you may make a fool of yourself and then then you would ask yourself, okay, so what would be so, so bad about that? Yeah. The worst that can happen. Yeah. Okay. So you do make a fool of yourself. You say something stupid in front of John and whoever else listening. Thanks for listening to the <inaudible> stories podcast with John <inaudible>. Pat about that. Check out the anxiety candidate down for more anxiety racehorses intending to the core of what people are like right here.
Speaker 3 18:11 My listeners, like you have a ball, people are until next time, stupid. You know? And so there's definitely ways to explore that in cognitive behavioral therapy as well. Yeah,
Speaker 2 18:26 maybe I'm wrong, but I, I'm, I'm curious about the, the brain a little bit. I mean, I'm curious about the brain a lot. Um, as much as one brain can be curious about itself. Um, but, uh, but yeah, I'm curious about how are there, do, do within our thought processes and our thought patterns. Do they get entrenched and can they be re programmed?
Speaker 3 18:48 I think that's a great question. So, uh, Donald hug who, um, I don't think he was born in Canada, but he worked at a McGill university for years. He was known for saying that neurons that fire together wire together so that the more you have the, you know, similar thought patterns, the more they're going to form a neural network. Um, and there's also some research that shows that attention density, so how much attention you're paying to something can make those pathways stronger. So if anybody has ever studied for a test or learned a new instrument and you know that you need to practice, right, or you know, if you read something once, you're probably not gonna remember that as easily if you read it and write notes or if you read it, write notes and do flashcards and then are tested on it. Um, and so the, the idea is that, um, you know, our brains are w we have neuro-plasticity which is a super cool thing basically means that, you know, our brains can change every time.
Speaker 3 19:49 If you've ever learned something new, you've changed your brain. It's super cool. So, um, you know, while you're learning the new pathways, it's like if you are building, you know, building a new pathway through the woods in a, in a forest, you know, if there's already one pathway that's well worn, that one's going to be easier to walk down and maybe a new one that you're building, even though that new one is going to be maybe a better route with a nicer view and, and faster while you're still building that and before the other one kind of grows over. Yeah, it's a, you know, it is going to be less automatic. And that's why if you can get some tools, like, you know, CBC is one of them, but you know, maybe get a friend to walk that new path with you.
Speaker 2 20:33 Yeah,
Speaker 3 20:33 yeah. Um, you know, you can, uh, definitely I think changed your automatic thought patterns and not all of them. Some of them are just split. One way to think of them is like, popcorn thoughts are just, they're just going to pop up, but you don't have to pay attention to everyone. The more you pay attention to them, some more that the stronger they're going to get.
Speaker 2 20:55 Yeah. Yeah. Uh, I'll just tell you in closing that I've got, I've got a lot of art teachers in my family and you know, I certainly understand. Um, but, uh, you know, I really appreciate you talking to me, Melanie. Um, it's been incredibly informative and very, of course, as you know, important that people out there watching and listening, uh, understand that there's many people out there like you to help. And then there's people out there like me who sometimes seem like I'm silently suffering, but I'm, I'm here and I'm open and there's a whole community waiting to help people. I appreciate you again,
Speaker 1 21:31 Melanie. Take care. Bye.
Speaker 0 21:34 <inaudible>.
Speaker 1 21:38 Thanks for listening to our anxiety stories. The anxiety candidate podcast with Jon Bateman. Check out anxiety canada.com for more anxiety resources, including our app mindshifts CBT. And if you like what you hear, please consider making a donation. This podcast is made possible by listeners like you. Until next time,
Speaker 0 21:57 <inaudible>.
