Listener Emails & Sunday Scaries

could read your email on air. You can ask me anything to do with this podcast and anxiety. If you want advice, if you want clarification of something, and if you have any tips and tricks and coping mechanisms and skills and inspiration from your experience with anxiety recovery, please share it on the podcast and I will read it

and you will inspire all of the listeners. Okay, let's just get to some emails where people are saying thank you, and then we'll get into the two topics today, which is the Sunday scarys and finding a therapist and what's the difference between counselors therapist psychologists? All that kind of thing. I'll answer both to the best of my abilities. This is an email from someone named Heather who wanted to tell me about a weird dream she had about a pool. Jen.

Thank you so much for your Anxiety Bites podcast. It has really helped me out when I've probably needed it the most. I'm recovering from a head injury and I'm still dealing with it. I was in speed therapy, occupational therapy, physical therapy, and also talk therapy. Lost my insurance, no longer able to get any further treatment, and just trying to pick up my pieces. On your last listener email episode, there was a woman that wrote regarding her sixteen year

old daughter going through anxiety with high school issues. You mentioned to her to get a cognitive behavior therapy work book. Well, I had no idea that even existed. I looked one up and found a book for myself and ordered it from Amazon. I'm barely into chapter one, but I see that it will be very beneficial for me. I know this email is pretty long already, but I just wanted to share with you my experience, and you can use my name if you read it on this podcast. I

don't mind. Good thing that she said that because I did say her name, But don't worry, I had already read this email before I knew it was okay. I've had a continuous recurring dream where there's always a pool. However, the situation is always different, but the premise is always the same. There's a pool in the distance, and I try to avoid it at all costs. I feel very

anxious around this pool and to be near it. I had one person say I should just jump in at the time, and until recently, there was no way I was going to be near the pools in my dream. The feelings I got from the pools in my dreams a great dread, anxiousness, laundry list of things I have to do to take care of this pool, making sure that it was clean, able to use, and sanitize. I didn't have the ability to cope with this pool in

any way. When I used to have these dreams, I would wake up not feeling the best, and I hated that pool. But since I've gotten this cognitive behavioral therapy workbook, the first night, after reading just a few pages, I have the dream, and I was able to see this pool and be in it and be okay. With it. I was wearing a swimsuit in my dream. I've never been able to be next to or near the pool, but this time I was okay with it. I don't know exactly this representation of the pool and what it means.

Maybe I'm coming to fruition with myself. I don't know, but I feel like I am on the right path for once. Thank you so much for using your platform to help others. I've given you five stars on Spotify and I tell everyone about your Anxiety Bites podcast. Heather, you are an exemplary listener. Thank you everyone. You can give this podcast five stars on Spotify. Now they do allow reviewing, and of course on Apple podcasts. Why is it?

Because I want attention and love. No, to be honest, I try to stay away from reviews, positive or negative, because honestly, it's just it's best to just do the work and not worry about what people think, unless you know I'm doing something so egregious that I need to make a change. But what the reviews do is they

help more people find this podcast. If you think about if you're on social media and a million people respond to someone's tweet, that tweet gets a lot of attention, you suddenly can see it, Whereas if everyone just ignored it but thought to themselves, that's an interesting tweet, it would probably never make its way into your timeline. So this way, the more people that review five stars five stars only please, the more it gets pushed up in the algorithm, and so it climbs the charts on Apple

Podcasts and Spotify and more people find it. And I would love to do another season of this podcast, but I think they will only want to do another season with me if enough people are listening, So let's keep it going. We do have a lot of listeners, and it's worldwide, which is so exciting. I realized every podcast is worldwide. I'm not trying to, you know, brag here or say we're doing something different, but let's kick it

up a notch. So thank you have there. You know, I know that most people get very board annoyed when people talk about their dreams, but I'm hoping, because this is an anxiety podcast, that we can understand. We're talking about the dreams we've had in a way to sort of explore our subconscious and what might be going on with our anxiety in real life. Hopefully it's different than when your friend goes, oh my god, the dream about you last night. Wait, I can't remember was it last night?

Oh god's like slipping from my mind as I'm talking about it. I was at your house, but it wasn't your house, you know what I mean? It was like and then um, who was there? It was like you,

but it wasn't you. You know, we're not doing that hopefully, but um, it's interesting that how theyre sent this email because I I put it together in you know, my preparation for today, and I had this dream last week that was so intense and looking at how there's dream you know, I don't know what the representation of the pool means. And I'm sure maybe a therapist, a psychiatrist, a PhD, a dream analyst could analyze the dream. And if you want to write in with your analysis, please do.

But using everything I've learned about anxiety so far, for me, a lot of times I don't need to know what anything means. I just need the anxiety to stop. I mean, when you have a dream like this, yeah, it's not pleasant during the dreaming hours, but it does follow you when you wake up. You feel different when you've had a dream that really affects you, good or bad. Have you ever had a dream that you're in love with someone and you wake up you feel like you're in

love with them? But the negative side is if you have a terrible dream, it can kind of stay with you all day. And a lot of times dreams mean nothing, and a lot of times they might be the key to something. But in the sense of anxiety, dread, anxiousness, feel, you know, feeling like you have this laundry list of things to do just to cope. If in your dream you conquer that, it will change the way you feel. Dare I say, maybe a little neuropathway in your brain.

I can't prove that, but it does change something inherently inside of you, and then you wake up and you feel different. I mean, here she is looking at some cognitive behavioral therapy stuff stuff I'm so eloquent, and then she has a dream, and in this dream she's has what she needs to deal with the pool, including a swimsuit. I mean, I don't know, so in other words, do we do we need to know what the pool represents?

Maybe it just represents this that blob of thing that we have, you know, where you feel overwhelmed, but you don't know why you If you were to sit down and list everything you had to do and get done, it would be a manageable list, especially if there is no deadline exactly on anything. But you still feel this overwhelmed. That's that's a lot of how I feel a lot, but you sort of handle it in a dream. I I think that's something, But I think we don't need

to know exactly what the pool represents. Does it represent your mother or your boss? I mean, I don't know what figuring that out does, but it seems like she did the most important thing, which is figure out I'm going to come to this problem with just some basic tools, and the problem is going to shrink. So I thought that was cool. But my dream that I'm now looking at in a different way was this dream that I adopted a child. Now, if anyone knows me, I don't

have children. I've never wanted children. I don't regret it at all. I'm forty seven. I don't even want to adopt. I hope I don't sounds like I'm being a cold person. I just it's not for me, and it's definitely not something I could fit into my schedule, my lifestyle where I don't even live in one place, and my constant sense of overwhelm. And yeah, obviously I love children. I have a niece and a nephew. I have two nephews

and a niece. But one of my nieces and one of my nephews have had babies in the last few months, and so I've become a great aunt twice. And I have been doing a lot of shopping for baby clothes online, which is really fun because it's like real outfits, but they're ten dollars. So great aunt Jen, great aunt Jen, as we say in Massachusetts, I just been shipping baby clothes all over this country. Oh my god, and little

baby sunglasses don't get me started. So I've got babies on the brain right in the sense of I'm loving unconditionally these babies I haven't met, and I'm excited for my nieces and nephews. And I'm not, um someone who gets excited when people have kids. I don't want to go to your baby shower, but you know I'm related,

you know how that goes. And so I have this dream that I'm on some kind of Facebook page and this woman is complaining about this baby that she just adopted and saying it's really hard to take care of and she never knew it would be so hard. And I wrote in the comments, I'll take it, you know, as a joke. And then I was going about my life and my doorbell rang and there was a child at the door. But it wasn't a baby. It was

like a four year old. And long story short, the four year old had the vocabulary and the attitude and the language skills, the verbal skills of a fourteen year old. So I have this little four year old boy and I forget his name, and and who had a fourteen year old, you know, verbal skill suddenly in my home And I said where did you come from? And he said you left that comments saying you'll take me, so here I am. And somehow, within the reality of this dream,

that was a binding contract. It was as though I had gone through the adoption process. And I was so overwhelmed because I thought he was going to be a baby, and I didn't have any of the supplies you would need for a four year old, and every single thing I was about to do, I thought, well, actually I have an appointment right now, and something in my brain went well, you can leave him here, and then something in my brain went, no, you don't ever leave a child. Okay,

I have to take him with me. Okay, well we need to get soap and things for the bath and clothes, and I guess I need to start telling people in my life. And I was completely overwhelmed. And I I was visiting my family last weekend in Massachusetts, and I remember thinking in the dream, I have to bring this kid with me and suddenly just throw a child into this visiting of my parents, and but they're gonna be overwhelmed. I mean, it was completely overwhelming, and yet the love

I felt for this kid was truly profound. You know, he made a mistake. I think he said a swear word to me. He said, you're fucking idiot. I'm sorry. This dreams almost over. And I said to him, you don't talk to me that way that and I explained why you don't talk to your mom that way or anybody, and he started to cry and I said, why are

you crying? And he said I'm ashamed, and I said that's okay, and he said he was sorry, and I said, it's really brave of you to tell me that you're sorry, and he said it is, and I said yes, because you're admitting yours. And know, it was this whole deep conversation that parents out there listening are like, yeah, right, Like like you'd ever have a conversation like that with the four year old or even a fourteen year old.

I know, again it was a dream. But I was too overwhelmed to um keep this child that had shown up, And so I went back to the message boards of the Facebook kind of thing, and I said, if anyone who really has always wanted to be a mother, this is an amazing child who you will love and you know, contact me and and I figured something out and he went to a better home. But what I'm realizing the dream is about is that a child, to me represents

the ultimate overwhelmed in terms of it's always there. And for me, what's always there is is my fear around money, and my fear around career and and having the kind of job as a TV writer and a performer and a podcaster, or that I always have to do three jobs at once. Sometimes it's it's a seventy year work week. Sometimes there is no social life most of the time. In the last six months, there hasn't been and it's unsustainable, right.

I don't want to live this way, But there are periods in my life where it looks like this, and then there are periods where it looks like there's absolutely nothing and it's not enjoyable because you need to work, but there's just nothing coming in. And so you've heard the expression feast or famine, and it's hard to live that way. The other hand is that I don't get to work in the fields I work in at all,

I guess. So there's three choices. I am so successful that I like have five million assistants who do everything for me, and I don't have to take every job that comes along, and I'm worth millions and millions. That would be great, but that's just not what's happening. I don't think it's overly realistic to get upset that that's not happening. That's not however, that's not how most people

in the entertainment business end up. It's like two, So the and then the other option would be not to work in it at all, which I think would make me feel really bad. And then the middle version is exactly what it looks like, which is, yeah, it's overwhelming. At times, it's amazing. At times there's so much to be grateful for a lot of times it's overwhelming, but I can totally handle it. And then a lot of

times it's like what am I even doing? And I'm not saying that that's what it's like to have a kid, but I'm saying that where the kid represents this for present responsibility, so does the notion of taking care of my own self in my own life. And sometimes I'm just overwhelmed, you know. To me, the whole point of the dream is when I wrote to the message board and described the wonderful qualities about the kid, that was me reframing the wonderful qualities of my life, and that

I don't know. I just I had a whole new view of it after reading this email, and it really is about I'm stressed and overwhelmed and I need to do something about it in my life. If anyone wants to analyze my child dream, you can accept um. Please don't tell me that I secretly want a kid, because I promise you I make things happen. If I wanted a kid, but get one, I'd take yours at the grocery store we'll be right back. Okay, Hello Anxiety Bites podcast. Jen.

My name is Ian. I'm twenty three, and I fundamentally had no clue how anxious I was until I listened to episode twenty. For a while, anxiety was always a bad word in my household. I don't think it was intentional on my parents parts, but that's how it resolved. Anyway, I would use anything else to describe myself. I'm not anxious. I'm just hired, or I just need to eat and

I'll feel fine afterwards, stuff like that. So I found your TikTok recently, or you can all follow me on TikTok at Jen Kirkman, and you posted a highlight about having an anxious attachment style. And that is from my episode with therapist Katherine de Fatah when we talked about all of the different love attachment styles that may identifying them. They help you realize where you've gone right and gone wrong for yourself in love relationships. And again that is

episode twenty, and it's called anxious and Love. If for some reason, you haven't heard that one yet anyway, Ian says, I had never heard of that before. So I listened to the clip and it was like you put a bucket on my head and hit it with a hammer. I immediately went to listen to the full episode and it really connected with me. I had never realized that constant overthinking and paranoia when people don't respond isn't a typical response. That's the specific moment that got to me.

Normalizing talking about mental health is super important, and I'm thankful that I came across your podcast. It's been a process to relax a bit when texting with people, especially a new friend or whatever. On top of everything, I am truly worried about blowing up their phone to the point that they don't want to talk to me anymore. And I assumed everyone had that in them, and just knowing that there's an alternative is enough, at least for now.

I recently moved across the United States by myself, and it's been an adjustment for sure. I've got a lot of time on my hands and that lends to more time overthinking, especially with the move. I'm happy to be finding my footing as an adult. That and I have a new podcast to check out. Thank you for the hammer, Jen best Ian, This is an amazing email. This is exactly you know social media makes me cuckoo and putting clips of this podcast on social media so that people

can find it. Thank you, Ian, you just proved to me that it does or and yeah, I mean I would suggest you go back and listen to every episode because there's little nuggets of things and everything you've said in this email that I'm thinking, Oh yeah, that reminds me of the episode I did with Dr Lauana Marquez. Oh that reminds me of Dr what Dr Angela Neil Barnett said. So I think you will get a lot of bread crumbs and you can follow your own path

down whatever seems to resonate the most with you. Okay, so let's talk about the Sunday Scary's. Hey, Jen, I have to say I've identified with so many things most of your guests have had to say, but the thing that resonated with me most recently was when Chelsea Handler talked about reactivity. Yes, I think that's an episode from the week of Valentine's Day called it um. I think like Reactive and Love or something. Do I even know the name of my own podcast? Could I look it up?

I guess I could. But if you're listening on your favorite podcast app. Right now, you can scroll back and see the name of that episode. But as long as I brought it up and got it wrong, let me correct. Um. It's episode nineteen Love and Reaction with comedian and my friend Chelsea Handler. Um. Anyway, that's been my m O for such a huge chunk of my life, reaction reactivity, and it's probably kept me from getting out of my

own way more than anything. Can't tell you how many times I've sent an email that I should have waited to send, or not sent at all, or made a phone call I shouldn't have made too whine about something that I was more than likely blowing out of proportion. Instead of taking a beat and waiting for the impulse to pass. Reacting in the moment has very rarely led to the sort of results I was hoping for, and

usually ended up digging a deeper hole for myself. I've fortunately gotten much better coming to terms with the fact that it's a big behavior that completely intertwined with my tendency to catastrophize UM to amplify modest to moderate problems into full blown crisis. I also think the old search real and prescription has helped a great deal search real

and I don't know that drug, so I will mispronounce it. Recently, I've been amazed at the number of reactive emails I've written or partially written, and then deleted before I had the chance to hit send. That's progress, as far as I'm concerned. I don't really have a point other than to say thanks for continuing to shine a spotlight on anxiety related behaviors in such a relatable way. One more

unrelated issue. Has anyone ever conquered the Sunday scarys? This is probably one of the most irrational psychological phenomena that exists, but it's incredible how it continues to persist in my life and the lives of just about everyone else with a Monday through Friday work schedule. There's this shroud of dread that hangs over me every Sunday, and it's so pronounced sometimes that I'm reluctant to get out of bed on Sunday morning because I know how much it's going

to dominate my day. I actually hate Sunday more than I hate Monday. The rational part of me knows that no week has ever turned out to be merely is bad or even bad at all, as the level of dread would suggest. But even though I know that from my experience, this scaries continue to rage on. I just don't get it. Keep doing what you do, Jeff, Well, Jeff, I do think I may have some advice to offer about even though you know not to dread Monday and it never turned out as bad as you think, but

the Sunday scary still get you. I'm going to get to my advice, but let's discuss these Sunday scaries. So, y'all, I had I had felt this phenomenon, especially as a kid. You know, sometimes I would dread going back to school on Monday, especially if I had I don't know, a test or some kind of homework that I did do, but it probably didn't do that well, you know, a

book report that i'd faked a little bit. But it's really just about if you work, then normal Monday through Friday week and the weekend is some sort of time where you have more freedom. All Monday represents going right back to the grind. And so I I know, I used to think of Sundays when I was a little kid is sort of a depressing day because more often than not we would drive up to visit my mom's mom, my grandmother, who I loved and still love that she's

just no longer with us, Nana Jeanette. But I had this sort of melancholy vibe. You know. We'd make tea, we'd watch Star Search, and then we'd drive home as the sun was setting, and then it was time to have dinner at home and watch what did I watch on Sunday nights? The Thiglight Zone Amazing Stories, which honestly had kind of a bizarre melancholy vibe too, and then go to bed and get ready for the week. And

so there was always melancholy feeling on a Sunday. Oh and then you know, I used to have to go to church in the morning, so Sunday was like sometimes Monday didn't even feel better, was like church driving at Nana's. I mean, I'd rather take a test. But then I got older and I didn't have to do what anyone

told me on Sundays anymore. And then social media comes around and I see people start talking about this thing called the Sunday Scaries, and I realized that as adults, we still have this sort of Sunday dreading Monday feeling because right, a lot of times our work week will mimic the the hours in a school week, at least in the sense of the Monday through Friday things. So there is a website called Sunday Scaries dot com. Now I don't know who these people are, not vouching for them.

I just googled it and and it came up. Um. I actually think it's a cb D company, And I'm not trying to promote them. I know nothing, but they just did a good job of sort of summarizing what the Sunday scaries are. They're real, You've experienced them. They're one of the most common ailments in modern society. Multiple studies suggest over Americans suffer from the Sunday scaries on

a regular base. This the Sunday scary start between three and five pm every Sunday, when your fun weekend vibes start to transform into anxiousness for your impending Monday work responsibilities. Sunday scaries are known by numerous other names, like the Sunday blues, Sunday syndrome, and Sunday dread. The Sunday scaries has even transformed into Monday scaries, and some circumstances when it takes longer than a Sunday night to fully recover

from your weekend. One LinkedIn study found that eight percent of professionals get the Sunday scaries before Mondays, which is linked to workload balancing to dues, and agonizing over projects you didn't complete the previous week. One Sleep Judge study found that of their participants experienced Sunday scaries and anticipation of the Monday doom. The top symptoms were anxiety, poor sleep,

depressive mood, increased irritability, and insomnia. What's more, almost half didn't even have a drink of alcohol on Sunday and

still felt anticipatory anxiety for Monday meeting. I'm shared a Sunday Scaries article based on a study which found that eight percent of the two thousand participants felt anxious Sunday night before Monday morning, and that caused scent of the study participants to admit that the Sunday scaries caused them to stay up later than they should Sunday evening and said their sleep schedule was derailed by the end of the weekend. There is something called um like sleep defiance syndrome.

I've read about it. It's like you stay up late for no reason, You're defying something even though it's only going to hurt you. So back in the early nineteen hundreds, there used to be something called Saint Monday and Sunday scaries originated from the evolution of our modern day weekend. The weekend didn't always start on Friday evening, and Sunday was historically the start of our work week, not day three of our weekend. It was only two years ago

that the weekend was only Saturday. So there's this whole thing about, you know why, how the weekend came about, which we don't really need to get into. But during the Industrial Revolution, St. Monday was the term adopted from Monday absentee is um after a Sunday of debauchery, so St. Monday simply meant workers took another day of leisure to recover from their drunkenness and relax. They also referred to St.

Monday as the People's holiday. But in the new factory system, workers could also work extra hours to earn enough money to take extra days off. And in addition, new railroads and technological advances and entertainment like music halls and theaters provided exciting new incentives for indulging Sundays and taking Monday off. Notably, major industries became accustomed to workers saving st Monday, and in general it was well tolerated until Henry Ford came along,

and he did not tolerate that. So when Henry Ford was making his cars, he began giving his employees to day weekends Saturday and Sunday. Blah blah blah. So the cause of the Sunday scaries can be biological, societal, generational, drug related, and personality related. N y U psychoanalyst and neuropsychologist Dr Suzanne Cooperman states that the biological causes Sunday scaries are rooted in anticipatory anxiety. We've talked a loud

about that on this podcast. Anticipatory anxiety is a type of increased anxiety where you get significantly worried about an event or situation in the near future. But a lot of times, I'm adding this in that event is not guaranteed. It may or may not happen. I mean, yes, your Monday will happen, God willing, you're lucky enough to wake up on Monday in the world still here. But whatever you're really worried about that may or may not happen.

So here's my advice to you, Jeff. You said, the rational part of me knows that no week has ever turned out to be nearly as bad or even bad at all, as the level of dread was suggest But even though I know that from my experience, the scaries continue to rage on. I just don't get for me.

Whenever I know something in my head and yet I can't get my anxiety or my body or my subconscious to get on board with what I really know, I have to write something down because when I look at something on the page, it's almost as if someone else wrote it, and my brain perceives it differently. When I think a problem and then the other part of my brain that is ruled by anxiety tries to solve it, I'm going to start ruminating, which is like a tire

spinning in the mud. You have to actually get something to remove the car out of the ditch that it's in, and for me, that's writing things down. So this is my I know I'm giving an assignment, but this is my idea, and you can find anything that works for you. But maybe this suggestion will get your wheels going and you'll find the right thing for you. But what I

tend to do. I have a journal where I write at the top of the new page my fear or my belief that isn't true, something like that, a fear that limits me, and I will write it out and it could be as specific as or I'm dreading I'm dreading Monday because I have no free time. I will be overwhelmed and I just don't like how it feels, and blah blah, you know, the whole thing, and I will write it all out and let it go as far as it goes. It can go as far as why do we even have to have a society where

we earn money? I mean, it can go. You can be just existentially anxious about the fact that you don't control the concept of the work week goes all the way back to Henry Ford. You know, you can just keep writing because usually it is some existential thing that just sort of dissipates once we get to what's really going on, which is it always comes back to we

are not in control of anything. From how we're born two a lot of things that could happen to us in life, and there's little things that amplify that, like having a boss, having a work week that you didn't come up with, getting on a plane. You know that kind of thing. So right down with the fear is and then right down under it some thoughts that could counterbalance that fear or that dread, which is, I do

not know what will happen this week. I can decide that this will be a really exciting work week filled with leisure time as well, whatever your little affirmations are, and then at the end of the week you can write down if any of your fears came true and where you were wrong about what you dreaded. So it's

sort of like a two part writing exercise. You'll do one on Sunday night, and you'll do one on Friday night or Saturday morning, and you will just keep your Sunday Scary's journal, and I swear after two weeks you can look at it and it will form you. You're really bumming yourself out on Sundays for no reason. And for someone who has the Sunday Scary's you probably love leisure and you're being the bummer here. The work week

isn't cramping your style, You're cramping your own style. And so if there's a fun way to look at it. It's like, okay, now let's do some practical things. You know, let's get out of the anxiety realm and all that. Let's do some practical things. I know nobody wants to sit and do a guided meditation. I know that already you're turning the podcast off right now. But at some point on Sunday, I don't know when. Whenever works for you, Like, just know you're gonna do it at some point, but

pick a fun time. You can do it laying in bed, Like maybe you set your alarm and then once you are ready to wake up, before you just get up, you do a little guided meditation while ying down your eyes closed. There's plenty of those. Or maybe you could make one up and you just think those affirming things to yourself that you wrote down in your notebook. I don't know whatever it is, but is some kind of guided meditation for physical anxiety on a Sunday? Or do

progressive muscle relaxation. Just do that on a Sunday. What you're going to be doing is just helping your body not cling to the anxious, dread feelings so much. Do your writing exercise now, let's move into the fun and let's well, I mean, let's take a look at stuff like alcohol. I mean, alcohol is a depressant. If we're going to drink on a Sunday, it's like, you just have to know that that could cause more anxiety and depression.

Um and if that feels like a cause of a bummer, like Ussie, I can't even have a drink on a Sunday, my day off because a Monday, it's like, okay, well then you have to learn how to have a drink without it spiraling you into why can't every day be like this? Like you probably wouldn't enjoy it if every day was like that, right, So getting into that perspective of weekends are for this and the work week is for that, and they both exist in a yin and yang,

so we can appreciate the there. You might even want to make a list of things you love about your job or the way you work your job, or the people at work. Make a list of ten things you're grateful for that happened between Monday and Friday, or that happened on a Monday. Let's just say that. Okay, So now I think in the back of everyone's mind people look at Monday's they don't even know they're doing it. But it's this constant loop we're in of self improvement,

which is really shaming ourselves and perfectionism. I know that I do this too. Monday seems like a good time to start over, doesn't it. Oh I don't like the way I handled everything last week. I slept late, I never worked out. This week will be different. Oh my god, no,

wonder you're bumming out about Monday so much pressure. It's like we're treating it like a many New Year's Day every week, and New Year's Day the dumbest day to begin a whole new life when the night before is a night where you stay up past midnight and get drunk. Why the hell if we decided that the next day

begins our new habits. I mean, it's just counterintuitive. So if you can look at Monday not as this day that you're supposed to be, you know, doing all this stuff, maybe you do the least on Mondays as much as you can control that. So let me put it this way. I work a writing job where I have to be there from just including commute seven. Okay, but I still have this podcast, and I have another podcast that I do a lot of times, I would schedule I'm going

to record my podcast Monday morning before work. Now that's doable on other weekdays. But oh my god, I'm laying in Vincent and going someone to do tomorrow. I moved that I don't record podcast on Monday anymore. I used to if I work out a lot, I will take a day off. And I used to take Friday's off of working out because I thought, well, it's the beginning of the weekend, and and I would work out Mondays. No Monday is Now I don't work out on Mondays because I want to do the least. I want to

ease back into the week Friday. Why wouldn't I work out on a Friday morning get rid of a lot of the stress from the end of the week. I worked out Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday. Yeah, work out Friday, get ready for the weekend. Whatever that means. Maybe you think of something fun like so I buy flowers every Monday morning on my walk to work and I put them on my desk. Is there a new thing you can do?

Can you drop some of the because I guarantee anyone with the Sunday scar e's it's not just your job. It's all this other crap that you think you have to do on Mondays. But can you also prepare yourself like I do part of Sunday is some grocery shopping and some mild preparing of food so that I have it in the fridge for the week. If that's something you enjoy, you could do that. Like, the more we prepare,

the less we feel overwhelmed on Monday. So can you drop things you don't like doing from your Monday and just let work be the one thing, you know, within reason? I understand we have all kinds of responsibilities that aren't just our jobs, But can you add fun things and or like, if there's a cheat day on your diet, can it be Monday. Can Monday be the day that you eat a really big breakfast as though you're you know, um,

having brunch at a restaurant. Can you do something like Monday is the day that I get up early, not to work out, but to make a fun breakfast. I make pancakes on money. Just something that you can look forward to, you know. Or Monday morning is the day that I get up early and I lay in bed and watch an hour of stupid TV before I get

out of bed. I'm reading this great book and Monday mornings are when I don't work out, but I make a cup of coffee, I sit fifteen minutes of my favorite chair and I read the book like just something to look forward to. Just reframe Monday as sort of this transition day. You know, as much time as you have to yourself in the morning before the job starts, can that be completely just made to be fun. You're cushoning yourself in bubble wrap. You're treating yourself well, it's

your spa day. You know, it's the day that that needs the most care. You have it tough enough on Monday. Don't ruin your Sunday dreading Monday. You can carry that Sunday feeling over into Monday. These are just my little suggestions because I think not everything is now. Let's talk to a therapist, you know, sometimes we just have to have fun solutions. Anxiety Bites will be right back after

a quick little message from one of our sponsors. All right, as we wrap up this episode, somebody wrote to me, Jen, As far as I know, I don't have clinical depression or generalized anxiety disorder. However, I think I experience situational anxiety during these times. I have trouble getting out of bed, trouble sleeping, and constant thoughts of what I'm stressing about, mainly work, that impact my ability to do basic tasks

throughout the day. That my friend is some rumination doesn't mean you have an anxiety disorder, but you're just ruminating, which is, like you said, a type of anxiety. It's a little different than situational though, because situational anxiety is usually task or performance space or you know, you go on a date, you're feeling nerves. But if you're thinking about something and it's going on and on throughout the day,

that's going to be ruminating anxiety. And you might want to really listen to my episode with Joshua Fletcher, who is a therapist in the UK, and we did an episode called the Three d S. But he talks a lot. It's episode eighteen. He talks a lot about rumination and and how that's a different kind of anxiety than just our basic you know, all I'm nervous I'm about to, you know, walk over this bridge or go on a date. So anyway, she continues on a separate note. I'm attracted

to both men and women. I have known this for some time, but the opportunity to be with a woman never presented itself and I never sought it out. I've decided that I'm going to put more of an effort into trying to date women, i e. Signing up for dating apps. I recently tried one of the counseling apps

services that offers telephone and zoom counseling. The reason for seeking counseling was to work through the workplace anxiety and also addressed the fact that I feel some guilt about the fact that I don't have any fear of being rejected or not being supported by the people in my life if I start dating someone of the same sex, when I know that is the case for so many people, including some of my friends. Oh yeah, you don't need

to take on that guilt. They want that for you. Um. The counselor was nice and I really liked being able to have the session be a zoom. However, the counselor I had did what they called patient led sessions. They would ask me what I wanted to talk about and didn't ask any probing questions. They would just respond saying why it was okay for me to feel the way I feel, or tell me why the decision I was

making was acceptable. I did not find this helpful, and it just felt like talking to a friend about my life. What I was hoping for was someone that would lead the sessions, ask me questions, provide insight into why I am feeling certain ways, and provide suggestions on how to deal with the feelings I was struggling with. I was wondering if you have any tips for sorting through all

of the options out there for counseling and therapy. And she didn't leave her I mean she left her name is said to leave her name off, but yeah, I mean, I've been in therapy long time. I've had different therapists. I'm not sure they're supposed to give suggestions on how to deal with feelings in the sense unless they could give cognitive behavioral suggestions on how to stop that rumination,

the constant thoughts. They can give you actual it's not suggestions like um, their actual techniques, if that makes sense. So it would be more like akin to a trainer saying, do five reps of this dumbbell weight on your arm. It wouldn't be someone saying, well, maybe you should try thinking of it this way. It's it's it wouldn't be that, and that wouldn't necessarily be that appropriate. You know, there is something called analysis where you talk and they they

kind of analyze what you're saying. But the best way is this. I mean, I think you have two different things going on, like the rumination and the anxiety. Cognitive behavioral therapy is really good with that. The fact that you want to date women. If I'll label you your bisexual and if you come out to your family, you know other people's families would disown them, and you don't have any fear of that in your own life. Now.

I don't know if you mean it's because you know your family wouldn't disown you or you just don't care um. Either way, that's one of an unnecessary guilt of something you're carrying on behalf of your friends that have to deal with that stuff. I don't know. To me, that sounds like a little bit in the codependency area. So there's a few different areas and I don't know if

we can. You know, it's not like you have a therapist for each little thing, but there might be things that work better outside of therapy, if that makes sense. So you know, analyzing where does this deep guilt come from? Is one going to therapy but then saying I need some tools to deal with these thoughts that are ruminating all day. That's another kind of therapy. So I will just take you through what I have looked up, because I don't take my word for anything. This is the

Northeastern dot e du website. So basically, the term counselor is used to broadly refer to a professional trained in the fields of psychology, counseling, social work, or a range of medical field such as nursing. Mental health counselor specifically,

are professionals working in a mental health capacity. Now, mental health counselors perform many functions responsibilities, and those duties can include conducting patient evaluations, providing education and informal resources to clients, and making suggestions that the client or patient can use

to solve the problem they are seeking counseling to address. Often, mental health counselors will specialize in addressing a particular issue, such as substance abuse, sexual abuse, marriage relationships, family counseling, and others. A therapist is an individual that has been professionally trained to provide some form of therapy to a

patient that can address a mental disorder. Examples of therapy used in the context of physical medicine can include physical therapists and occupational therapist, but in the context of mental health, the term mental health therapist and psychotherapists are common. They address particular client issues um such as marriage and family issues, substance abuse, et cetera. But the difference between a therapist,

a psychotherapist and a mental health counselor. They occupy the same professional space, but there is some difference, and the key is in the approach to the treatment. So counseling often addresses specific problems, challenges, or behavior in a patient's

life in a practical way. A counselor working with a patient who suffers from anxiety might provide the patient with tactics they can use to ward off a pending panic attack, or they might give an alcoholic patient a set of steps to follow when they feel a crave coming on. It's problem solving approach UH Counseling therapists work with their

patients on similar issues, but the key differences. It might go deeper to help the patient understand why and how they have these challenges, and that's really, you know, something that's up to you. For me, I realized through trial and error that a therapist asking me to go back into my childhood and what was my first anxiety had nothing to do with helping me in the moment when I'm having an anxiety attack, and it kept my recovery

from happening for a long time. Because for me, once I conquer anxiety and panic, once I get through a situation that used to cause anxiety and panic, and I do it enough times, I have now built my own self esteem, my own receptacle, my own history of overcoming it, and I can just simply look back to, oh, well last week when I was on the subway, I did this, so it's possible. I don't have to believe that this

is going to kill me. But if we sit there and focus on what happened I was a kid, I'm never going to get the tools I need to start building my life. I mean, if you think about it, it's honestly like there's a problem at your house. Are you going to call the cops? Are you're gonna call the fire department? Is the house on fire called the fire department. Is someone breaking in? Call the cops. Are

you having a heart attack called the paramedics. You know, So you have to get clear with yourself what do I want help with? And if you're like, I don't know, I just want someone to tell me something, I think you still have to. As you said, you got very clear. I want help with ruminating thoughts and I have this weird guilt and a therapist might say, oh, that guilt, that's actually this you know. Um So I think when meeting with therapists you can you know, because you you

might be able to her this advice and giving. You might be able to narrow down who you want to speak to. But I feel like you have to say to them, hello, I am here to work through these issues, and I would like to know if this is something

you specialize in. And I would also like to know your treatment plan and what our goal is going to be, you know, And they might wrangle you back a little bit and say, well, you know, you don't really understand It's that's fine, but I think you can get You just have to gauge is someone trying not to turn you away or someone really saying no, I do know how to deal with this, and if you're not getting what you want, you have to say it in the session and they might be able to explain why you're

quote wrong about that. Don't worry, it's coming, or they might say, okay, I don't do that. So it's it's like anything else. It's a relationship and it takes some time of an effort, so it's like it's first about. Most therapists will do a fifteen minute phone consultation or something to let you know if they're the right match, but so that you're at least going down the right path.

These are the questions you asked. Another common job title is psychologist, where therapists and counselors may be considered more like than different. It's more pronounced for a psychologist. A psychologist uses different techniques and frameworks. They're more likely to treat patients with with more severe mental disorders, and that requires a higher level of education, such as earning a

PhD in counseling psychology. And then, of course there are psychiatrists, and they're more akin to a medical doctor in the sense that they can prescribe medication. Nobody can prescribe medication except a psychiatrist. The thing with that is, usually psychiatrists see you on a fifteen minute half hour basis to talk about how your medication is working for you. They are not the people you bring your problems to. Although they are qualified to help you, that's just not their purpose.

And so you would usually have a talk therapist. And a lot of times your talk therapist and your psychiatrist could even be in contact with one another, which would be up to you. So these are the things to consider when you're looking for a therapist. And I'm getting this on the very well mined website. A therapist could have really good skills, but their work is only going

to be effective if you feel connected to them. So the you know, a therapist might have done something that worked really well for your friend, it doesn't mean it will work out for you. So you have to be an agreement on the goals of therapy and the methods used to teach those goals. And it's called a therapeutic alliance, and it was named by someone named Edward Borden. He's a researcher. And the relationship between a therapist and patient

that's essential to good treatment. So an ap a task force found that the type of therapy mattered less than this therapeutic relationship. Regardless of whether the therapist used cognitive behavioral therapy or psychodynamic therapy. Patient improvement depended on how well the therapist and the patient got along. Now, this

is what researchers saying. I have a slightly different opinion, which is that getting the right kind of therapy is just as important, and then from there the relationship is important. So consider who you want to work with. Is gender important to you? Do you want to work with a man, a woman, or a non binary person? Do you want to work with someone older, younger, or around your age?

Does religion matter if they have a certain affiliation with a religion In your case, do you want to work with an LGBTQ therapist that might no how to answer specific things about your new journey or these feelings of guilt? I mean to me, I would just say if I were you, I would search out therapists that that are l g b t Q themselves or they are um expert in that area. And then also who can do

anxiety cognitive behavioral therapy work. You can start your search by checking your insurance, doing online therapy programs, but I find for me UM, I always recommend the A D A A dot org, the Anxiety and Depression Association of America. They have something on their website where you can find a therapist and they have a directory all over the country. But you could also just google LGBTQ therapists in your area.

Just I mean literally put the name of your city or town and LGBTQ therapist, hit Google and see what you get. There are credentials that therapists have. L c s W means Licensed Clinical social Worker, l m f TEA means Licensed May Origin Family Therapist, NCC National Certified Counselor, l c d C, Licensed Chemical Dependency counselor, LPC Licensed Professional counselor, l m HC, Licensed Medical health counselor p S y d Doctor of Psychology, pH D, Doctor of Philosophy,

m D Doctor of Medicine. You might want to ask your therapist about how they conduct treatment, how they help people who are looking to reach goals similar to yours. Some therapist, again, they will offer a brief free consultation

over the phone prior to scheduling your first appointment. During an initial session, a therapist will likely explain how therapy works, provide you information on confidentiality, you might have designed some forms, and then usually they interview you about the problems or symptoms you're experiencing and the goals for treatment. The answers you give obviously helps them gain an overall view of you, but remember that the first appointment is a great time

to ask any questions about the process as well. If you're not feeling it, you can talk to therapist about the fact that you're not feeling a connection. This can be awkward, but therapists are trained for these kind of conversations. They might also be the person that could help you find someone better suited to your needs and actually refer you to that person. So I hope that at all helped. I know it's a lot that I'm throwing out, but the basics are. I will put the links in the

show notes to these articles, but the basics are. There will be sometimes a little trial and error, and don't be afraid to ask your therapist about their process and to tell them exactly what you think you need to the best of your ability today and see what they say.

And don't be afraid if you are in your first your second session and you don't think they're doing what you need them to do, you can say something to them that's sort of kind of want The whole therapy process is about is learning to feel comfortable enough to advocate for yourself and letting them react how they're going

to react, which will never be bad. But they might say, oh, yeah, this is part of the process, blah blah blah, we're going to get there, or oh, you know what, I think you need someone who does more of this and I actually don't do that. Thanks for bringing it up. And if they react terribly, well, then there you go. You have found a therapist that is not a good match for you and might not even be a good therapist. Oh my god, have I babbled enough in this episode?

I think I have. Thank you all for participating in my listener email episodes. I will do about one a month, and season one of this podcast ends in mid August, so there is still time. Please do email me. I love hearing from you all, and again, you can always ask me to keep the email confidential. I won't say your name, of course, I will never say last names.

I will never give out email addresses, and somebody screens these emails for me and just gets it to me, so do not worry about me accidentally doing that on air or anything like that. Please write Anxiety Bites weekly at gmail dot com and again send me any questions you have or if you have any recovery insights that you would like to share, and you can follow me personally on social media. I am on Twitter at Jen Kirkman, where I post a lot of audio grams and clips

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