Disordered: Anxiety Help

Episoder

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  CBT For Anxiety Disorders Explained (Episode 172) 11.09.2026 48min

  Send us Fan Mail "I tried CBT and it didn't work" is a lot like saying "I tried food and it didn't work." CBT is a massive umbrella, and what you actually got depends heavily on which version of it you were given. This week we break down what CBT for anxiety disorders actually looks like, from the older, content-driven approach built around thought challenging and thought replacement, to the third-wave, mindfulness and acceptance-based approach we rely on most, which is also CBT. We talk abou...
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  Anxiety And The "Yeah But" (Episode 171) 04.09.2026 39min

  Send us Fan Mail "Yeah, but." Two words that show up constantly in anxiety recovery, right after a win. You did the thing, and before it can count, the mind adds a condition: yeah, but I had my water bottle with me, yeah, but I still felt anxious, yeah, but a real doctor might find something the others missed. This week we break down why "yeah, but" is one of anxiety's most effective tools, using misapplied logic, hypothetical scenarios, and stories that have nothing to do with you to keep th...
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  Anxiety, People Pleasing, and Self-Esteem (Episode 170) 28.08.2026 50min

  Send us Fan Mail Not everything is an anxiety disorder, but people pleasing and low self-esteem feed into it constantly. This week we talk about why the two overlap so heavily, and why learning to desensitize almost always requires putting yourself first, which can feel like the least safe thing in the world if pleasing people is how you've kept yourself safe. We get into what people pleasing actually looks like, from constant scanning of other people's moods to guilt as a baseline feeling, w...
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  Common Anxiety Recovery "Mistakes" (Episode 169) 21.08.2026 48min

  Send us Fan Mail This week we go through the most common mistakes people make while trying to recover from anxiety disorders, the ones that feel intuitive in the moment but end up keeping the cycle going. We cover minimizing your own wins, thinking a place or situation is the actual exposure instead of the feeling underneath it, overestimating anxiety's importance while underestimating your own ability to handle it, and treating a thought that feels true as if it is true. We also talk about w...
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  Anxiety, Distraction, and "Running From Feelings" (Episode 168) 14.08.2026 37min

  Send us Fan Mail Is distraction the same thing as running from your feelings? This week we answer a listener question about where that line actually is, and why the answer isn't as simple as always sit with it. We talk about why attention plays such a big role in anxiety disorders, why getting caught up in your life is not automatically avoidance, and why the real question isn't am I distracting myself but what am I actually running from. We also get into why every emotion, not just anxiety...
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  Popular But Dangerous Anxiety Advice (Episode 167) 07.08.2026 45min

  Send us Fan Mail Anxiety recovery attracts an entire industry, and not all of it is safe. This week we talk about popular but dangerous anxiety cures, the methods and trends that get recommended constantly but that our community says actually made things worse. We cover the trauma narrative that convinces people their panic and OCD are rooted in trauma stored in the body, nervous system regulation and vagus nerve claims built on debunked science, tapping and EFT marketed as evidence based w...
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  Anxiety Questions and Answers (Episode 166) 31.07.2026 41min

  Send us Fan Mail This is our anxiety latest questions and answers episode, where we go straight to the community and tackle real listener questions about panic disorder, OCD, GAD, and health anxiety. We get into what to do when anxiety symptoms show up all day without fitting a specific diagnosis, why worrying about something you live with, like an aging house, does not count as exposure on its own, and how to tell the difference between doing real exposure work and quietly avoiding it. We ...
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  Anxiety Always Has A Strategy, and Its Nonsense (Episode 165) 24.07.2026 40min

  Send us Fan Mail Anxiety always seems to have a strategy for you, doesn't it? Check it, prepare for it, watch it closely so nothing bad happensStay on top of things so you can be the fixer, the predictor, the protector, the engineer of experiencesDo not take your eyes off the worry because worry is proof of how good you are and how loving you are. This week we're picking that strategy apart and showing why it almost never holds up. We're talking about: The nocebo effect and why anticipating ...
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  Anxiety And Releasing Tension (Episode 164) 17.07.2026 38min

  Send us Fan Mail Everyone tells you to release tension. But if you live with panic disorder, OCD, or health anxiety, that advice can backfire fast. This week we're digging into why chasing relaxation as a goal often makes tension worse, and what actually helps instead. We're talking about why physical tension is a normal response to stress and fear, not a problem to fix. Why techniques like jaw stretches, massage, and meditation can turn into more monitoring and checking. And why sometimes ...
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  When Anxiety Says You're The Exception (Episode 163) 10.07.2026 38min

  Send us Fan Mail Anxiety has a favorite move. It doesn't argue that acceptance and exposure don't work. It just convinces you they don't apply to you specifically. This thought, this sensation, this situation, is the one exception to every rule you already understand. This week we break down what fuels that exception: possibility, intensity, and importance, plus the urgency that makes an unlikely outcome feel like it's already happening. A 1 in 5,000 chance means nothing until anxiety puts ...
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  Anxiety Recovery PROCESS vs CONTENT (Episode 162) 03.07.2026 35min

  Send us Fan Mail It's your heart. Or the dizziness. Or the one thought you can't get to leave you alone. If you could just solve that specific thing, you'd finally be okay. This week we push back on that. The subject of your fear, the heartbeat, the health scare, the intrusive thought, the situation you're avoiding, is the content. What's actually running underneath it, the same threat response, the same doubt, the same physical symptoms no matter what story your brain attaches them to this...
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  Anxiety Recovery: Bring ALL Versions Of You (Episode 161) 26.06.2026 34min

  Send us Fan Mail You want to do the acceptance thing. You've read the books, you've listened to the podcasts, you intellectually get it. And then you get triggered, and suddenly the version of you that's anxious, scared, or doubting gets the door slammed in its face. That version of you is broken. That version shouldn't be here. That version needs to go. But that's the version of you that actually has to learn the lesson. In this episode we dig into one of the most common ways people unkn...
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  Anxiety: It's All About Attention, Baby! (Episode 160) 19.06.2026 42min

  Send us Fan Mail This week we're talking about attention. Specifically, how where you place your focus directly impacts your anxiety and your recovery. We discuss how an anxiety disorder naturally hijacks your attention, pulling it inward to scan for threats inside your own body and mind. While checking in on how you feel might seem like the safest thing to do, it actually feeds the sensitization process. We look at the role of the locus coeruleus and the cognitive attentional syndrome, exp...
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  Improving .... Or Optimizing Your Health and Wellness (Episode 159) 12.06.2026 38min

  Send us Fan Mail Improving vs. Optimizing in Anxiety Recovery In this episode of Disordered, Drew and Josh tackle a topic suggested by the community: the hidden trap of the "optimization culture" and how it intersects with anxiety and OCD. There is a distinct difference between wanting to improve your health and falling into compulsive, perfectionist territory where every metric must be flawlessly managed. For an anxious mind fixated on certainty, the modern wellness industry’s obsession ...
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  Anxiety Recovery ... When You're Calm (Episode 158) 05.06.2026 36min

  Send us Fan Mail What do you do when your anxiety finally quietens down for a few days? For many of us, a calm day triggers a completely new set of anxious habits. We treat the absence of panic as a fragile victory, freezing in place so we do not ruin it, or constantly checking around the corner to see if the fear is returning. In this episode, we address why the work of anxiety recovery continues even when you are feeling calm. When we spend our quiet days monitoring our internal state or sc...
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  Is Distraction a Compulsion In Anxiety Recovery? (Episode 157) 29.05.2026 40min

  Send us Fan Mail Can distraction be a compulsion in anxiety recovery? It is a question that comes up constantly in the anxiety community. Many people are told to simply "distract your mind" when they feel anxious, but if you are doing it specifically to escape a feeling, it can quickly turn into a safety behavior or a compulsion. In this episode of Disordered, the guys break down the crucial difference between using distraction as an urgent escape mechanism and choosing to intentionally shift...
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  Asking For Anxiety Help (Episode 156) 22.05.2026 38min

  Send us Fan Mail Asking for help can be difficult, especially when you are struggling with anxiety, panic disorder, OCD, or agoraphobia. In this episode, Drew and Josh break down the nuances of asking for anxiety help. There is a fine line between asking for genuine support and looking for compulsive reassurance or soothing to make the discomfort disappear. Drew and Josh discuss why so many people feel like a burden when asking for support and how anxiety often twists the desire for help into...
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  Taboo OCD Themes (Episode 155) 15.05.2026 47min

  Send us Fan Mail OCD is a difficult condition to navigate, but it becomes significantly more challenging when obsessions center on taboo topics. Themes involving harm, pedophilia (pOCD), sexual orientation (HOCD), or moral and religious failure often carry a heavy burden of shame. This shame frequently drives people into silence, preventing them from seeking the help they need. In this episode, Drew is joined by Jess Marriner, an OCD specialist based in the UK. They discuss why the human brai...
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  Anxiety Recovery: When You're Trying To "Win" (Episode 154) 01.05.2026 41min

  Send us Fan Mail In this episode, Josh and Drew discuss a common hurdle in anxiety recovery: the desire to "win" against your anxiety. For many, especially those with perfectionist tendencies, anxiety is viewed as an adversary that has taken something away. This leads to a constant, habitual checking to see if the anxiety is gone, which inadvertently keeps you stuck in a cycle of monitoring and frustration. We look at why defining recovery as a "win" can be counterproductive. The Lack of Cl...
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  Let Me Tell You How I Feel (Episode 153) 24.04.2026 40min

  Send us Fan Mail Let's start with a success story from the UK. While being medically monitored for four hours, our listener realized how much attention she was giving to her physical symptoms. Her story highlights the difference between noticing a sensation and compulsively monitoring it. Which leads us to a conversation about the urge to ALWAYS talk about how you feel - either out loud or silently in an internal dialogue. We discuss the "telling compulsion," which is a common behavior for th...