Anxiety Recovery - Am I Doing Too Much (Episode 115)
Disordered: Anxiety Help
Josh Fletcher and Drew Linsalata
4.9 • 665 Ratings
🗓️ 27 June 2025
⏱️ 39 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Am I Doing Too Much Recovery/Exposure?
This week Drew and Josh tackle a common question in anxiety recovery: "Am I pushing myself too hard with exposures?" The guys explore the nuanced balance between challenging yourself and recognizing when you might genuinely need rest.
In this episode:
- How to distinguish between being genuinely depleted versus being scared
- Why feeling anxious after successful exposures doesn't mean you've done "too much"
- The difference between active, reasoned decisions to rest and anxiety-driven avoidance
- Special considerations for people with OCD and chronic health conditions
- How to balance recovery work with other life priorities like family time
Featured listener stories:
- Nicole shares her experience flying to Munich for a Champions League game and wondering if she's overdoing exposures
- Tyler's victory over health anxiety by choosing the gym over Google searches
- Matt's success working an 8-hour shift without his "safety person"
- Chris's inspiring story of dating while tapering off medication
While you can't actually "break" your recovery by doing too much, it's important to allocate your resources wisely and remember that feeling scared doesn't mean you've made a mistake - it means you're doing exactly what recovery requires.
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Struggling with worry and rumination that you feel you can't stop or control? Check out Worry and Rumination Explained, a two hour pre-recorded workshop produced by Josh and Drew. The workshop takes a deep dive into the mechanics of worrying and ruminating, offering some helpful ways to approach the seemingly unsolvable problem of trying to solve seemingly unsolvable problems.
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Want to ask us questions, share your wins, or get more information about Josh, Drew, and the Disordered podcast? Send us an email or voicemail on our website.
Transcript
Click on a timestamp to play from that location
| 0:00.0 | Hi, Drew and Josh. So first of all, I want to thank you so much for everything that you do. |
| 0:08.4 | Especially, I want to thank you for all your juvenile jokes because the way you talk about this topic with such lightness really helped me change my mindset also around my anxiety and my panic so please keep those |
| 0:25.0 | juvenile jokes coming and second I want to share my did it anyways I was diagnosed with panic |
| 0:32.5 | disorder with agoraphobia a few years ago but since I started doing exposure since a few years I've |
| 0:39.3 | been getting much better I have a completely I would say normal life I take flights I do |
| 0:45.7 | everything but from time to time I get resensitized last week I flew out to Munich I went to |
| 0:53.9 | a Champions League game I came, I was very proud of |
| 0:57.6 | myself because I'm doing it. I take the anxiety with me and we both have a blast. The thing is, |
| 1:06.6 | I think I'm doing so much exposure lately that yesterday I have a few waves of adrenaline coming my way. |
| 1:15.6 | They were coming and going, coming and going, coming and going. |
| 1:18.9 | And I felt completely scared and depleted. |
| 1:21.6 | And now I'm on this hyperarousal states that I'm stuck on. |
| 1:27.1 | And next Monday, I am traveling again. So I'm going out on a |
| 1:32.8 | flight for eight hours alone. And now I feel like, oh, I don't know if I can do it. |
| 1:43.6 | Welcome to Disordered. This is episode 115 of the podcast entitled Anxiety Recovery. Am I doing too much? |
| 1:51.2 | I'm Drew Lin Salata. I am the co-host, one of the co-hosts of Disordered. I am a therapist practicing in New York State under supervision, specializing in the treatment of anxiety and anxiety disorders. |
| 2:01.1 | I am also a former sufferer of the very problems we talk about on this podcast, but much better now. |
| 2:06.3 | A three-time author on the topic, guy with a microphone, social media dude, and yeah, happy to be here. |
| 2:12.1 | Joined as always by... |
| 2:14.0 | I'm Joshua Fletcher, also known as Anxiety, Josh, and I'm a psychotherapist based in Manchester |
| 2:19.5 | in the UK, specializing in anxiety, anxiety disorders, previous sufferer, author, content creator, |
| 2:27.0 | podcast co-host, etc. |
... |
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