This week on The Anxious Truth, we're going to talk about how for an anxious person,

it will feel like they've developed a very long and growing list of fears and triggers,

except that's not true because all those fears and triggers are really indicative of just one fear.

So let's get to that right now.

Hello, everybody. Welcome back to The Anxious Truth. This is episode 335 of the podcast. We are recording in January of 2026 in case we're listening from the future. I am Drew Lynch,

a lot of creator and host of The Anxious Truth. I am a therapist practicing in the area of

anxiety and anxiety disorders in New York. I'm a former sufferer of the very things we talk about here on this podcast, a three-time, four-time author now on the topic. Social media guy, psychoeducator, advocate, guy with expensive microphones that spends a lot of time talking about anxiety and anxiety disorder. So welcome. If you are new to the anxious truth, you've just stumbled upon the podcast today.

I hope you find what we're doing here today in all of the other episodes, helpful in some way.

If you are a returning listener, welcome back.

I'm certainly glad that you're here spending some time with me, and I hope you get something out of what we're talking about today.

Today we're going to talk about the fact that

what feels like a very long list of fears and triggers that may have started small, but is getting

bigger and bigger over time, is really only one fear. But before we get into that, I want to

remind you really quickly that the anxious truth is more than just this podcast episode. There's way more resources on my website at theanxioustruth.com. So I would urge you, if you've never been there before, to go check that out. There are the books that I've written. There are very low-cost workshops. There's all the previous podcast episodes. And of special note also, especially if you want to be able

discuss what you hear on this podcast, is the Disordered podcast that I do with Josh Fletcher. You can find that at Disordered.fm. We do that every Friday. We will be launching the disordered community very shortly. That's where I'm going to be hanging out online. So if you want to talk about what you hear on The Anxious Truth, and you want to check out another podcast anxiety disorders called Disordered. Go to disorder.fm got on our mailing list and we will be happy

to keep you posted as to what's going on there. All right. So let's get into today's topic. I used to have

the worst anxiety problem ever, or at least it felt that way to me, and it made me afraid of pretty

much everything. Here's a short list of

things that I used to be afraid of. Being the first person to open a new container of orange juice,

or open maybe a new bottle of Tylenol, I used to be afraid to be home alone for even a couple of

minutes. I was afraid to leave my house. I was afraid to drive. I was afraid to go too far from my

house. I was afraid of any change that I could notice in my body. I was afraid of my own heartbeat. I was

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