Areas › Worry and anxiety › Facing it a step at a time
Say out loud, before you start, that there will be bad weeks. Then when one turns up it is a thing you expected rather than proof the whole plan was nonsense.
Setbacks get read catastrophically when nobody warned you: back to the beginning, all that for nothing. Agree in advance what happens instead. You look at what changed, you drop back a rung or two, you carry on. Tell everyone else involved, parents included, so that a hard fortnight does not become a household emergency.
Facing a fear in steps works, and it works best with someone guiding the ladder. Read this as an explanation of how it works, and take the steps themselves to a therapist.
Qur’an and Sunnah
after hardship, God will bring ease (Quran 65:7). The sequence is given in the order people actually live it, hardship first and ease following.
لِيُنفِقۡ ذُو سَعَةࣲ مِّن سَعَتِهِۦۖ وَمَن قُدِرَ عَلَيۡهِ رِزۡقُهُۥ فَلۡيُنفِقۡ مِمَّآ ءَاتَىٰهُ ٱللَّهُۚ لَا يُكَلِّفُ ٱللَّهُ نَفۡسًا إِلَّا مَآ ءَاتَىٰهَاۚ سَيَجۡعَلُ ٱللَّهُ بَعۡدَ عُسۡرࣲ يُسۡرࣰ ا
and let the wealthy man spend according to his wealth. But let him whose provision is restricted spend according to what God has given him: God does not burden any soul with more than He has given it- after hardship, God will bring ease
Qur’an 65:7read it in the library
Translation: M.A.S. Abdel Haleem, The Qur'an, Oxford University Press, 2004.
What the research says
Extinction research shows the original fear association is not wiped out but competed with by new learning, which is why fear can return when the context changes and why practice has to happen in several settings before it holds. Return of fear is built into how the learning works rather than being a sign of failure. This comes largely from laboratory and animal work, so treat it as an explanation and not as a forecast of your particular bad week.
Craske MG, Hermans D, Vervliet B. (2018). State-of-the-art and future directions for extinction as a translational model for fear and anxiety.. Philosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological sciences doi
Strength of evidence: one line of research. A single study, or a theoretical account.
Why it works
A setback you were told to expect costs you a few weeks, and one you were not can cost you the whole attempt.
This one is still a draft. It is waiting on a scholar and a clinician to read it before it is published.
Near this one
Years of avoiding people leave real gaps, not only fear. How to start small talk, how to join a group already talking, how to get out of a conversation. Those can be taught, and being taught them is not an insult.
If you are helping someone with their sleep and eating, ask rather than instruct. The moment you sound like their mother you have lost the part of you that was useful.
Rather than taking on someone else's routine, ask what actually makes you feel ready for a day, or better looked after. The answers tend to be specific and slightly odd, and they hold up better than anything prescribed.