My answer to "Can you recommend a therapist to help with my anxiety?"

Last weekend, I got the following text from a friend of mine. She had recently moved in with her boyfriend of a year and she needed advice:

"[Boyfriend} I talked about his anxiety. We both think it’s time for him to start talking to someone. Any suggestions on a therapist? Need advice."

What a challenge!

Though I’m honored when people reach out in a pivotal moment, I feel extremely ambivalent about recommending therapists. It's so easy to find the wrong one. (As I've written about before, I went to numerous therapists who never diagnosed me with anxiety.) It's not that I'm against therapy. It's just that I think it's only one part of the equation.

So before I continuing down the therapy route, I started with this question to get her thinking:

"Does {Boyfriend} have neck or back pain? Is he weird about schedules and a little Type A?"

She said, "Not sure. Yes. Yes. How did you know?"

I told her that his symptoms sounded very familiar. I suspected he was a fellow member of the overthinking tribe.

I told my friend: "Getting to know the self you’ve been pushing away is an uncomfortable, messy process. If seeing a therapist feels like it can help with clarity, your boyfriend should do it. But therapy is one of many changes that will probably need to happen, and it might not even be the most important one." I told her that he should focus on finding a cognitive behavioral therapist who, sadly, tend to be even more expensive than regular therapists. 

Then I shared this reading list with my friend, as well as an in-depth interview from Like-Minded Magazine that described my early path to anxiety awareness to help spark her thinking. I told her that she and her boyfriend were embarking on a new journey together that would take many forms. Medication, meditation, and communication were the treatments I found that worked best for me right now. Here was my list of action items:

• explore meditation immediately
• begin reading the book on the list that appealed to him
• experiment with trying to describe what he was feeling in simple sentences to her. Anxiety makes us even worse at it than humans normally are.
• research cognitive behavioral therapy and see what he thought
• accept the following, because it's true:

"Finally, I want to share the good part of this news," I said to my friend. "By realizing something’s wrong — by knowing there’s a disconnect — your guy is already partway there."

"And he’s very lucky to have you at his side."

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This post first appeared in the BV newsletter. Subscribe here.

I Don't Usually Post A Single Tweet as a Blog Entry

But after I wrote this one, I realized I needed to share it here, too.

Survey Says

A couple of weeks ago, I ran a survey on The Beautiful Voyager newsletter and Facebook page to get to know what everyone's needs were. I told you that I would share the results when they were in. The time for that sharing is....now.

Since I have nothing to hide from you, fellow voyagers, I will tell you exactly what people said and how I interpreted it. It's always interesting to get feedback and try to understand it. Even moreso when it's about a topic like stress and overthinking! See what you think.

Survey Sent: July 19, 2016

Number of Responses: 13 (More qualitative than quantitative information, in other words)

Level of appreciation I have for every single person who responded: Very high.

#1: How did you hear about the BV?

Responses, and my read on them: How could I have forgotten to include Anchor in the list? We had 4 write-ins for Anchor, almost as many as "I know you Meredith, you crazy cat," the top response. One person found the BV through FB and one through Medium. One from a friend and one from "I can't remember but something on the Internet let me to you."

My read: People find the project in lots of ways. The strongest bond will be people who have heard my voice, prolly.

#2: Do you ever seek out the site or FB page?

Answers: This one happily surprised me! 76% DO seek out the BV. 24% say I stalk them, hahaha. I love all of the responders.

#3: What feelings do you associate with the BV?

Answers: This one really intrigued me. Since I am trying to do the Reverse Buzzkill en masse, I had no clue how this was going to go down. Here are the results: Joy came in first with 63%, Pressure or Anxiety second with 45%, then Excitement with 36%, and stress and boredom just had one response each. People could answer more than 1 (we are an ambivalent bunch).

My read: I am mostly accomplishing my aim! YAY!

#4: Do you know what you'd like from the BV, in terms of information or experience?

Answers: Tips was the big winner here, with 66%. Resource ideas was a close second. Blog Posts came in with 50%, Interview 41%, 3 darling responders said it was perfect as it was, and just one person said events.

My read: The events thing is interesting, because on Facebook I have people signing up for possible events. You can rest assured that the event I am thinking of doing is very, very, extremely low-pressure. No one would have to make small talk with anyone else. It would kind of defeat the point right? It was helpful to see how much people want tips. I love bite-sized info too and will keep scouring for it.

#5: What's your favorite thing you read or learned from the BV? Or an experience you had?

Answers: This was an open form answer, and I loved, loved what people said, so I'll share here:

• I love the tongue in cheek humor. Also that there's a community here.
• That there are others like me out there.
• seeing an article or blog where the feelings I feel were described - realizing it's not just me!
• I think just the sense of community, that I'm not alone in these struggles
• Lighthouse map -- feeling of community
• It makes me feel more "normal" - whatever that means. It associates anxiety with other qualities, like overthinking or being highly sensitive, which makes anxiety feel less like a singular way to define myself.
• Article shares
• How to interview well
• Anxiety
• I love connecting with others in the BV community. It has been a great resource to feel part of a community that understands me.
• Just knowing others are out there, and that there's is a community, is pretty awesome!
• The Slack channel is nice for connecting with others.

What can I say? I love you guys!

#6: Do you know what the term "overthinker" means?

Answers: All but 2 people said yes. Those who said no responded: "Truthfully, no. But I know people who are prone to anxiety and worry are part of it." and "In my mind, it's someone others might call "sensitive." Always analyzing everything to the point of exhaustion, often involving self doubt."

My read: Relieved. I rely on this word to fill the gap between all of the other things we are...to try to simplify the concept to find others...so knowing that most people get it meant a lot to me.

#7: What words do you use to describe yourself ("overthinker," "I have anxiety" "I am a highly sensitive person" etc)

Answers:

• empathetic, bleeding heart, jumpy, tense; my brain is hurting me.
• Anxious, hyper-sensitive.
• focus-challenged, anxious, and sometimes introverted
• Sensitive, "too nice" (thanks mom), anxious
• I have occasional anxiety and an overthinking kid
• Anxious, highly sensitive, stressed out
• Highly sensitive
• I have frequent bouts of social anxiety
• Sensitive person
• Im an overly anxious person.
• overthinker and anxiety
• Anxious, sensitive
• Highly sensitive person. I actually find overthinker a little confusing/offputting because I've worked really hard to not think so much and feel/intuit instead.

My take: I'm really aware of the words we use to describe ourselves, and I can see the power of not using any words at all. Ultimately, we're verbs, not nouns. But this was helpful and insightful to see. I hope reading this list doesn't bum anyone out too much. You're all pretty awesome in my book.

#8: How likely is it that you would recommend The Beautiful Voyager to a friend or colleague?

Answers: This is a question I included out of curiosity because it is an official question called The Net Promoter Score. It's a score that someone (who??) has said determines the health of a site. Here's how it works:

The Detractors cancel out the Promoters, and the Passives are neutral. You're given an ultimate number on a scale of -100 to 100. If you got all detractors, you'd have a -100. If you got only Promoters, you'd have a 100.

The first response I got was a Detractor. I took an audible intake of air when I saw it. I just didn't expect it. But then I remembered, "It's only data, Meredith. You are here to learn." So I just waited. Here's how it all played out: I got 54% Promoters, 38% Passives, and 8% (that one response) Detractors. My final number was 46. 

Here are some industry benchmarks:

Depending on where we place the BV, with this small qualitative data, it's doing just fine.

Have I said thank you enough to each of the 13 respondents of the survey? I will be doing these every 6 months or so and sharing the results.  Let me just say it one more time:

A Curious Case of SIBO

FS is a Beekeeper in her free-time. FS has a high stress job. Who doesn't tho?

In writing the Beautiful Voyager, I dig into how stress affects our bodies, sharing the hard-won discoveries about my own lifelong migraines and nausea.

I've wondered how people in my life are struggling with confusing physical symptoms at any time. The journey to diagnosis can be an uphill and silent battle. Sometimes it's just a matter of getting lucky and reading a blog post at the right time.

To that end, I'm sharing a little Q&A with a friend of mine, who I'll call FS. After years of trying to figure out what was wrong with her, FS was diagnosed last year with SIBO.

SIBO's a confusing condition that mimics Irritable Bowel Syndrome in many cases. It's actually a result of a bacterial overgrowth in the lower intestine. When she first told me about it, it was the first time I had heard of SIBO. I immediately had a feeling it wouldn't be the last. Indeed, just last week another friend was diagnosed with it.

---

MA: How long did you know something was wrong before you were diagnosed?

FS: A little over 3 years.

MA: What do you tell people when they ask what SIBO is?  

FS: I always tell them it's "digestive issues."

MA: Were you ever misdiagnosed?

FS: Yes, I was misdiagnosed with IBS. I don’t have IBS.

MA: Does anyone else you know have it?

FS: No, not by formal diagnosis. (Except the friend of yours you connected me to).

MA: It feels to me like SIBO is one of those things that a lot of people suddenly are finding out about. Has your doctor mentioned an uptick in cases?

FS: You can find articles and knowledge of SIBO only 6 or so years back on the internet.  It's something that doctors have started paying attention too the past couple years, and only GI specialists really know about it.  You’ll find that primary care docs and nurses don’t know about it, and as a result they misdiagnose it. You can be given medications that will actually make it worse.

MA: What do you have to do differently?

FS: I've had a full revamp of my diet and how I think about meals. It's helped.

MA: How are you feeling now?

FS: Still having symptoms but better, emotionally more so than physically, because I at least know it’s not just “stress." It’s a thing that I have and I'm dealing with it.

---

I'd love to hear more from others who have successfully dealt with confusing physical issues and who are starting to make progress. What steps did you take? What got you feeling better?

Feeling better, in dance form

How to Catapult Yourself Out of Caveman Brain

My brain, as played by Buster Keaton in Joseph M. Schenck’s The Three Ages.

I have a hard time recognizing brain spin as it happens. 

Even now, though I’ve been aware of my own overthinky tendancies for years, I still find myself randomly carried away by my negative thoughts. It’s understandable. Getting abducted by thinking is the way my life has always been. My brain is habituated by years of caveman practice.

Evolution = standing up to the brain.

To get away from a possible clubbing, it’s clear what I need to do:

Evolve quickly.

I need to recognize when the caveman brain gets overly active. Then I need simple, useful tools to get set free.

There’s another word way to describe the technique I'm about to share: redirection.

Redirection comes down to realizing when you need to change course, then knowing how to do that.

---

The dismount

Every person goes about this differently. For me, Tight sentences, short phrases — even cliches — help greatly. They pop me off the caveman’s back, like a tiny but powerful redirection catapult.

Mass = me

Here are some of my favorite catapult redirections:

• What someone else thinks of me is not my business.
• You gotta be gawky to get to graceful.
• Don’t let the perfect be the enemy of the good.
• Small stakes, cupcakes.

To that I add today’s tip. It's very simple. One new 5-word catapult redirection.

• When in doubt, get out.

Try to get to the nearest place with the biggest sky.

Feel free to give my catapult redirection a try the next time you feel your shoulders start to constrict and your head start to throb.

When in doubt, get out. Where is the place nearest to you with a lot of sky? Go to that place.

The caveman feels very uncomfortable in vast, open spaces. He’ll usually be gone before you reach your destination.

The Overthinker's Emoji

I've thought about this so you don't have to.

Snapchat

For when you need to tell someone, "I've been overthinking my way into insomnia."

The easy way to say, "I'd rather stick my head into a sandy pit than think about this for one more minute."

The official emoji of The Beautiful Voyager.

When you want to tell someone that yes, you're an overthinker, but you're soft, fluffy, and pretty chill, too.

Facebook

Finally! The emoji that allows us to express, "These 3 thought bubbles could be hanging here for a long, long time."

A favorite of the overthinker. Who doesn't want to hide in the pages of a great book? Beware tho, recipients of this emoji. Too much research can cause adverse effects for your overthinking  loved one.  

An easy way to answer the question, "Whatcha doing?" without having to actually say the words out loud.

The emoji for people who feel like no one gets them exactly. An overthinker's emoji if ever there was one.

iPhone 

This is grinning???? Either way, a safe emoji for overthinkers. We use, and others think we mean grinning, but we know it's actually teeth-clenching while trying to smile cause not think 10 steps ahead of the conversation at hand.

How else are you going to say overthinking detective?

We would never use this. Way too literal.

Use Color to Stop the Spin

It's today's tip!

My friend Molly and I were discussing our internal spinning loops of repetitive thought.

Have you ever experienced these loops? They’re the ones that keep us from reaching our goals. Instead of solid ground, we pace in place, or even worse, slip around, like contestants in a log-rolling competition.

I asked Molly about her loop cutting tricks, since anyone who experiences the spin has them. She said:

Years ago, someone shared this trick for stopping brain chatter. It’s very simple. You look around and name the colors you see out loud. That’s all.

Black. Red. Purple. Pink. Fuschia. Taupe. Grey.

Your goal is to get out of the loop and into the present.

This simple exercise does it. And I’ve found it works especially well when you’re traveling.

As she said that, we began to name the colors surrounding us.

Soon enough we found ourselves noticing the birds overhead.

We smelled the evening breeze as it arrived.

We felt the moment as it rushed around us.

Don't Go Spelunking Without a Flashlight

I’ve had this nauseated black hole feeling in the pit of my stomach.

It’s coincided with looking down at my belly and saying “Oh hey, you again. I really wish you didn’t look like that.”

Tonight I decided to turn it around. And I don’t mean panic-embarking on 2:55 AM workout session. I realize that for the last couple of months, I’ve been fixating on the middle third of my body, ramping up the internal fight. No more. It’s time for a truce.

Making friends…with a part of your body.

How do you make friends with a body part? It starts with sending mental love beams down into the black hole. You follow behind, wading into the darkest fear, peering around. Your eyes adjust to the darkness, and you realize, “Fuck it, this isn’t so bad. Is that a moonbeam I see over there?”

There are answers in there. This is where the fear lives. There's a reason it's as dark and hidden as it is. The only way to get to the answers is to use the love beam flashlight in my pocket.

If you're reading this, and you have no clue what I'm talking about, let me say this in a different way. Have you ever gone swimming and allowed yourself to zone out? Did you find that something new popped into your mind that surprised you? Or have you ever meditated and had new piece of information bubble up? Spelunking comes in lots of different forms.

Remembering that I can conjure up a flashlight whenever I need it is one way I stop fighting and start getting ready to find answers.