Episode #20: Managing Anxiety When The News Is So Scary (A message from me to you)
Your Anxiety Toolkit - Practical Skills for Anxiety, Panic & Depression
Kimberley Quinlan, LMFT | Anxiety & OCD Specialist
4.9 • 882 Ratings
🗓️ 3 October 2017
⏱️ 17 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
For anyone in Las Vegas or Puerto Rico or any other place where there is destruction and pain, please know that I am praying for you and I hold you in my heart.
These scary events can trigger our already high anxiety, so please listen for some tips and tools to manage your anxiety about the current events and affairs in the news.A couple of important points:
Anger Sadness and Anxiety/Fear are all very human responses to these horrific events. Obsessions to look out for:- "Will this happen to me, or a loved one?"
- Intrusive Imagery (Mental images of people suffering from traumatic events, shootings, hurricanes, earthquakes etc)
- Intrusive sounds (Gun shots, people crying, sobbing, screaming, sirens etc)
- For those with Harm OCD: "Am I capable of doing such an act?"
- Mental Review or Mental Compulsions about the event or possibility of this happening to you or a loved one
- Reassurance Seeking (checking news, checking phones, asking a loved one if they will be ok etc)
- Avoidance (future vacations, work, school, thought blocking, etc)
- Increase in physical behaviors/compulsions.
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Hi there. This is Kimberley Quinlan and this is your anxiety toolkit. |
| 0:16.9 | Today was not a planned podcast, but today is the 2nd of October and we've had so much |
| 0:26.4 | frightening news that has been so devastating for us all over the last few weeks. |
| 0:32.5 | And I really got to a point today where I felt like the only thing I really can do to help |
| 0:37.4 | from a |
| 0:38.1 | distance is just to send some support and hopefully some helpful tools for those who are |
| 0:45.2 | suffering from these events mostly through the secondary anxiety that we feel when these events |
| 0:53.2 | have happened. You know, such such a painful experience for these events have happened. |
| 0:58.9 | You know, such a painful experience for us to have to go through. |
| 1:06.6 | So today, I mean, all I can do is really reflect on some of the things that I heard today, and I wonder if they resonate with you, comments like, I'm freaking out, I'm so out of control, |
| 1:13.1 | or I need to find a way to take control, |
| 1:16.7 | or I can't handle this anxiety. |
| 1:19.8 | And when I hear those things, |
| 1:21.6 | that's fairly typical for someone with anxiety, |
| 1:24.8 | but when these real live events happen, I think it's heightened for all of us, |
| 1:29.7 | and I think we all experience these types of thought processes. So the main points I wanted to make here, |
| 1:38.9 | I've written some notes just because I didn't have a lot of time to prepare. But for those of you who are experiencing severe anxiety since these events, |
| 1:50.0 | I think the most important thing for you to remember is that |
| 1:55.0 | sadness and fear and anger are all very normal responses to these types of events. And I think sometimes when we |
| 2:08.0 | experience it, particularly if you're prone or if you have an anxiety disorder, when we experience |
| 2:14.4 | these, it triggers off all of our old behaviors, our old compulsions, |
| 2:19.2 | our old fears, and everything kind of rises. |
... |
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