But it seems that as soon as I started to acknowledge and accept, the dizzy symptoms got a lot worse.

My question is, is it normal for a symptom to get worse once you acknowledge the fear,

even though you have been terrified of that symptom for years already?

A lot of anxious people want to feel neutral.

They're so sick and tired of feeling anxious, despondent, alone.

So they strive towards a feeling of neutrality.

It feels more. Not worse, you feel more. You don't feel worse, you feel more.

So you wouldn't say it's raining worse. It's always been raining, just that now you've decided to go and stand in it.

And of course, then you feel it. So it's not that the rain is new. The rain has always been there.

You've just been hiding from it. Part of anxious recovery, a big part of it is allowing yourself to feel more.

Welcome to Disordered. This is episode 46 entitled Anxiety Recovery, Worse Before Better.

My name is Joshua Fletcher, also known as Anxiety Josh, and I'm a psychotherapist, an author,

a previous sufferer of anxiety, contact creator, and happy to be the co-host of this podcast.

I am Drew Linzalata. I am a therapist in training in the U.S. State of New York, specializing

in anxiety and anxiety disorders, also an author, a podcaster, content creator in this lovely

community of ours and a past sufferer of anxiety and depression

for many, many years. And the other co-host of Disordered. What are we talking about today?

Like any spicy curry, does it get worse before it gets better? Yes, absolutely. That's a great analogy.

You tolerate the initial heat and the sweat and the discomfort. But if you persevere, have your glass of milk with you. Yeah. You know, you get halfway through. You know what? I think I could finish that right now. And that's what we're going to talk about today within anxiety recovery. Sure. Should we talk about our own stories first? Yeah, we could do that for sure. Or, you know, should we start by celebrating the community a bit? We'll do some did it anyways. Yeah, let's not wrap it on about ourselves and actually give attention to the people who are way more important. What we've got today? We have a couple. Here's a good one. We'll do an audio one and we'll, let's person has to say. We don't want us to say her name because she didn't want us to do. So here we go.

Hi, Josh and Drew. I just wanted to share and I did it anyway. I've been afraid of making

commitments for a really long time now because it's just like, oh, how am I going to feel or I might

not feel, I might not feel I might be

...