A key component to recovery from anxiety disorders is desensitization and exposure therapy.

All anxiety levels are created by a thought projecting fear into the future.  Whatever the situation we are thinking about becomes distorted.  It is impossible for our anxious driven thoughts to think about a trigger situation without distorting the facts.

For instance, as a bridge phobic, I could not think about driving over a bridge tomorrow, without applying fear to the thoughts.  Therefore, my image of the bridge and my prediction of what driving it would be like are both going to be clouded with fear.

So it is important to know this when planning on going to a trigger situation.  My counselor always told me, “figure it out when you get there”.  Being unable to think about the future with a positive, happy result, just get there and see what it is for real.  Not our imagination; see the reality of the situation.

In 100% of the cases, our futuristic thoughts of a trigger situation will be worse than the actual experience.

Even if we have levels or a panic attack, the distorted anticipatory images will always be worse than the actual experience.  This is because our imagination knows exactly how to manipulate our fear to create the absolute worst case scenario.  Reality is never as bad as what we predict it will be.

By exposing ourselves to the trigger situation, in small manageable steps and with using tools, we start to learn that our trigger situations are less frightening than we make them out to be.

The other benefit to desensitization and exposure therapy is that the only way that we can actually learn to manage our thoughts and behavior in a trigger situation, is being in the trigger situation.  For people with generalized anxiety, there is no shortage of opportunities to practice.  But for people with phobias and that are avoiding situations, it is necessary for them to actually go to the trigger situations, be exposed to the situation and the feelings, and learn to work through it in the actual situation.

Everything needs to be done in “small, manageable steps”.  This is very important.  We are not trying to scare ourselves or reinforce our anxious behavior.  What we are trying to do is feel a small amount of fear and work through it using tools.  This is how we learn to empower ourselves.  In time increasing the exposure as we are able to, and eventually creating a full recovery.

It is using desensitization and exposure therapy that we teach ourselves that reality is not as scary as the image we created in our own minds.  And by working through the levels of anxiety with the use of tools & techniques, then we create empowerment.

Once we realize that the actual trigger situation is not as bad as we originally thought, and we can manage our levels in the actual situation, then recovery sets in.  This breaks the cycle of “fearing the fear”.  We fear our panic more than the actual situation.  As a bridge phobic, it is not the bridge I do not like, it is the way the bridge makes me feel that I do not like.

Through desensitization and exposure therapy we can change our behavior and change our response to the triggers that cause us to have higher levels of anxiety.