Overcoming Anxiety For Dummies, 2nd Edtion

by Smith, Laura L.

  Similarly, most people have assumptions (or schemas) about food. They assume that the food sold in the grocery store is safe to eat — in spite of occasional news reports about tainted food showing up in stores. On the other hand, food sold on a street corner in a third-world country might be assumed to be less safe to eat. Many tourists would avoid such food even if was actually fine. So, while people act on their schemas and assumptions, they're not always correct in doing so.

  As you can see, sometimes schemas fail to provide useful information. They may even distort reality so much that they arouse considerable distress. For example, before giving a speech, you may tremble, quiver, and sweat. You may worry that you'll stumble over your words, drop your notes, or even worse, faint from fear. Even though these things have seldom happened when you've previously given speeches, you always assume that they will this time. That dread of embarrassment comes from an anxious schema.

  Anxious schemas assume the worst about yourself or the world — and usually they're incorrect.

  When activated, agitating assumptions cause anxiety and worry. Unfortunately, most people don't even know they have these schemas. Therefore, agitating assumptions can go unchallenged for many years, leaving them free to fuel anxiety.

  Sizing Up Anxious Schemas

  Perhaps you're curious as to whether you hold any anxious schemas. People usually don't even know if they have these troubling beliefs, so they don't question them. Challenging agitating assumptions has to start with knowing which ones you have. In the following sections, we identify five anxious schemas and then provide a quiz to help you determine whether you suffer from any of them.

  Recognizing schemas

  In our work with clients, we've found that five major anxious schemas plague them:

  Perfectionism: Perfectionists assume that they must do everything right or they will have failed totally, and the consequences will be devastating. They ruminate over minor details.

  Approval: Approval addicts assume they must win the approval of others at any cost to themselves. They can't stand criticism.

  Vulnerability: Those afflicted with the vulnerability assumption feel at the mercy of life's forces. They worry all the time about possible disasters.

  Control: Those with the control assumption feel that they can't trust or rely on anyone but themselves. They always want to be the driver — never the passenger.

  Dependency: Those with the dependency assumption feel they can't survive on their own and turn to others for help.

  These anxious schemas have a powerful influence on the way you respond to circumstances. For example, imagine that the majority of comments you get on a performance review at work are quite positive, but one sentence describes a minor problem. Each schema causes a different reaction:

  If you have the perfectionism schema, you severely scold yourself for your failure. You won't even see the positive comments.

  If you have the approval schema, you obsess about whether your boss still likes you.

  If you have the vulnerability schema, you believe that you're about to lose your job, and then your house and car.

  If you have a control schema, you focus on how working for someone else makes you feel out of control and helpless.

  If you have the dependency schema, you look to others for support and help. You ask your coworkers to intervene on your behalf with the boss.

  Various individuals react completely differently to the same event, depending on which assumption those individuals hold. Just imagine the reaction of someone who simultaneously holds several of these schemas. One sentence in a performance review could set off a huge emotional storm of anxiety and distress.

  You may have one or more of these anxiety-creating schemas or assumptions to one degree or another. Taking the quiz in the following section helps you find out which, if any, anxious schemas you hold.

  Assessing your agitating assumptions

  In Table 7-1, place a check mark in the column marked "T" if a statement is true or mostly true as a description of you; conversely, place a check mark in the column marked "F" if a statement is false or mostly false as it pertains to you. Please don't mark your statement as "T" or "F" simply based on how you think you should be; instead, answer on the basis of how you really do act and respond to events in your life.

  Most people endorse one or more of these items as true. So don't worry too much if you find quite a few statements that apply to you. For example, who doesn't hate being embarrassed? And most people worry at least a little about the future.

  So how do you know whether you have a problem with one of these assumptions? You start by looking at each assumption one at a time. If you checked one or more items as true, that raises the possibility that this assumption causes you some trouble. Just how much trouble depends on how much distress you feel.

  Ask yourself what makes you feel especially anxious. Does it have to do with one or more items that you checked as true? If so, you probably struggle with that anxious schema. We cover each schema and ways to overcome it later in this chapter.

  If you have a number of these agitating assumptions, don't get down on yourself! You likely developed your anxious schemas for good reasons. You should congratulate yourself for starting to figure out the problem. That's the first step toward feeling better.

  Coming Down with a Case of Anxious Schemas

  If you have too much anxiety, one or more agitating assumptions undoubtedly cause you problems. But it's especially important to know that you're not crazy for having agitating assumptions! People acquire these schemas in two completely understandable ways:

  When experiences in childhood prevent the development of a reasonable sense of safety, security, acceptance, or approval

  When shocking, traumatic events shatter previously held assumptions

  The following sections explain in more detail how these experiences lead to anxious schemas.

  Acquiring assumptions in childhood

  You may have been one of the lucky ones who glided through childhood feeling loved, accepted, safe, and secure. Perhaps you lived in a home with two loving parents, a dog, a station wagon, and a white picket fence. Or maybe not. You probably didn't have a perfect childhood. Not many people do. For the most part, your parents probably did the best they could, but they were human. Perhaps they had bad tempers or ran into financial difficulties. Or possibly, they had addictions or failed to look out for your safety as well as they should have. For these and numerous other reasons, you may have acquired one or more agitating assumptions.

  The following example illustrates the most common time in life for anxious schemas to develop: childhood.

  Harold developed his agitating assumption as a child. Harold's mother rarely gave him much approval. She harshly criticized almost everything he did. For example, his room was never quite clean enough, and his grades were never quite stellar enough. Even when he brought his mother a gift, she told him it was the wrong color or size. He felt he could do almost nothing right.

  Slowly but surely, Harold acquired an agitating assumption — "I must be absolutely perfect, or I will be a total failure." Being perfect is pretty hard. So you can imagine why he now feels anxious most of the time.

  Notice that Harold's anxious schema about perfection didn't come about from a massive, single event. Rather, a series of criticisms and corrections built his schema of perfection up over time. Unfortunately, his schema continues to plague him as an adult.

  If you have agitating assumptions, you don't question them. You believe in them wholeheartedly. Just as Harold assumes the sky is blue, he believes that he's either perfect or a complete failure. When Harold undertakes a project, he feels intense anxiety due to his morbid fear of making a mistake. Harold's agitating assumption is that of painful perfectionism, and it makes him miserable, but he doesn't know why.

  Shattering your reasonable assumptions

  Anxious schemas most often begin during childhood (see the preceding section),
but not always. Sometimes, what seems to be a common, though unfortunate, occurrence can lead to an anxious schema. The following example illustrates how present-day life can create an agitating assumption.

  Bill had always assumed, like most people do, that working hard and saving his money would assure him a safe, secure financial future and retirement. He has worked at his family's auto parts and service store for 25 years. He follows his financial advisor's advice and, at the age of 50, has half of his money in the stock market. The economy takes a horrible hit and his shop lays off most of its employees. Bill reluctantly puts a substantial part of his savings into buoying the business. Then the stock market tanks and Bill sees that his hard-won gains have virtually evaporated. Eventually, the store closes its doors and Bill looks for work.

  At the age of 50, he sees that he's not likely to find something that pays what he used to get from the family business. Instead of looking at ways to develop new skills or options, he sits hopelessly watching the stock market on television for many hours every day.

  Bill, formerly confident and self-assured, feels insecure, worried, and obsessed about his financial status. He has formed a new assumption — a vulnerability schema focused on money. He worries constantly about how he'll get by financially.

  Bill had a very good reason to form that assumption, and like most agitating assumptions, Bill's schema contains some truth — you can never know with certainty what the future will bring. However, as with all agitating assumptions, the problem lies in the fact that Bill underestimates his ability to adapt and cope. Therefore, he now spends his days engaged in unproductive obsessing rather than changing his goals and lifestyle while developing new skills or possibilities.

  Cars: A dangerous mode of transportation?

  Although many people overestimate the risks of driving, you should know that driving does involve significant dangers. The National Safety Council has compared travel on buses, planes, trains, and cars. Deaths from automobile accidents far exceed deaths from all of these other modes of transportation combined. Sounds scary, doesn't it? However, the odds of dying in your car don't look all that bad. For every 100 million miles driven, there is less than one fatality.

  Perhaps you consider yourself immune from inordinate amounts of anxiety, but don't be so quick to jump to that conclusion. In fact, many people who read our books are therapists or counselors who have skills and tools that keep them on an even keel most of the time. Nonetheless, anxious schemas can pop up for anyone at any time. The following true story about Dr. Laura Smith (coauthor of this book) is a case in point.

  One evening Dr. Smith sat in the hair salon. Suddenly, a thug stormed in, demanding that everyone lie on the floor, face down, and hand over their money and jewelry. He brandished a .44 magnum pistol to emphasize his point. Not long after the incident, Dr. Smith realized that she had acquired the agitating assumption of vulnerability. She found herself worrying about safety much more than she had in the past. She began to nervously scan parking lots and jump at loud noises. When she found herself waking up from nightmares, she knew the vulnerability assumption was creating trouble and that she needed to do something about it. So she used some of the techniques described in this book, especially Chapter 8. These strategies included gradually returning to the scene of the crime, talking about the crime, and relaxation. Soon, her vulnerability schema began to fade. By the way, it's now almost ten years later and she still goes to the same hair salon.

  Anxious schemas may begin when you're quite young — perhaps only 4 or 5 years old — or they may emerge much later in life. Either way, they cause problems.

  Challenging Those Nasty Assumptions: Running a Cost/Benefit Analysis

  After taking our quiz and finding out about anxious schemas in the previous sections, you now have a better idea about which ones may be giving you trouble. In the old days, many therapists would have told you that insight is enough. We disagree. Pretend you just took an eye test and found out that you suffer from severe nearsightedness. Wow, you have insight! But what does that change? Not much. You still walk around bumping into the furniture.

  You're about to get a prescription for seeing through your problematic assumptions. It starts with a cost/benefit analysis. This analysis paves the way for making changes.

  Perhaps you think your perfectionism assumption is good and appropriate. Maybe you believe that you have profited from your perfectionism and that it has helped you accomplish more in your life. If so, why in the world would you want to challenge or change it? The answer is simple. You wouldn't.

  Therefore, you need to take a cold, hard look at the costs as well as any possible benefits of perfectionism. Only if the costs outweigh the benefits does it make sense to do something about your perfectionism. After looking at the examples in the next five sections, see the "Challenging your own anxious schemas" section for directions on how to conduct a cost/benefit analysis for your personal problematic anxious schemas.

  Analyzing perfection

  Knowing which problematic anxious schemas lurk in your mind is the first step toward change. However, just knowing isn't going to get you there. You need to feel motivated to make changes. Change takes effort, and frankly, it's downright hard to change. The story about Prudence shows you someone who has the perfection schema and how she finds the motivation to change her assumption through a cost/benefit analysis.

  Prudence, a successful trial attorney, works about 70 hours per week. Her closet is full of power suits; she wears her perfectionism like a badge of honor. Prudence works out to maintain her trim figure and manages to attend all the right social events. At 43 years of age, Prudence stands on top of her profession. Too busy for a family of her own, she dotes on her 9-year-old niece and gives her lavish presents on holidays.

  Prudence is shocked when her doctor tells her that her blood pressure has gone out of control. Her doctor wonders about the stress in her life. She says it's nothing that she can't handle. He inquires about her sleep habits, and she replies, "What sleep?"

  Prudence is in trouble, and she doesn't even know it. She believes that her high income is due to her relentless standards and that she can't let up in the slightest way.

  Prudence has little hope of changing her anxious schema of perfection if she doesn't face it head on. Her doctor suggests that she see a counselor, who tells her to run a cost/benefit analysis of her perfection assumption.

  A cost/benefit analysis starts with listing every imaginable benefit of an agitating assumption. Including every benefit your imagination can possibly conjure up is important. Then, and only then, should you start thinking about the costs of the assumption. Take a look at Table 7-2 to see what Prudence sees as perfectionism's benefits.

  Prudence's fondness for her perfectionism is no small wonder. Filling out the benefits in her cost/benefit analysis is easy for her, but what about the costs? Prudence will probably have to expend much more effort to complete the costs, and she may even have to ask other people for ideas. Now, review in Table 7-3 what she writes after she works at the task and consults others.

  The cost/benefit analysis helps you to know whether you really want to challenge your agitating assumptions. You would probably agree that Prudence's example shows more costs than benefits. But wait, it isn't finished. The final step is to examine carefully whether you would lose all the benefits by changing the assumption.

  For example, Prudence attributes her high income to her dedication and long work hours. Perhaps she's partly right, but would her income evaporate if she worked just a little less? Most likely, if she worked less, her income might drop a bit, but with less anxiety, she might increase her efficiency enough to make up the difference. If she were less irritable, she would be able to retain her secretarial staff and gain efficiency there too. And would Prudence actually start making more mistakes if she relaxed her standards? Research suggests that excessive anxiety decreases performance. With respect to her niece, Prudence isn't really getting the benefit that sh
e thinks she is, because she's not around enough to serve as an effective role model. Finally, more people fear Prudence than admire her. So you see, many times the perceived benefits of an assumption evaporate upon close inspection.