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Hey everybody, welcome back. I just wanted to take a few seconds today before we get

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into it and say thank you for viewing, watching, whatever. I've noticed a fair amount of people

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have found the podcast already. I haven't shared it anywhere. I don't really post it

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on any socials or anything. It's sort of more something you can really look for if you sort

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of need it. I haven't really got that many places to share it. A lot of the groups, the

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Metaphobia ones, don't really let you promote anything. So it's basically just what it is.

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It's whatever. I don't want to have like, you know, like, I don't want to like make

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a thing out of this. I just want it to be like a little thing, little community. I just

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want to give my advice and help whoever I can. But yeah, thank you for watching and

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listening. Thank you for any ratings or views or anything. I do really appreciate it. Yeah,

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thanks. So what I wanted to talk about today was how avoidance can negatively impact a

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Metaphobia. So, or your recovery, at least. So I've dealt with this for a while. It's

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something I've been dealing with pretty consistently over the years, is avoiding things. I can

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avoid, it can be like avoiding certain foods, social events, like people's birthdays, like

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a wedding, fucking lunch with a friend, whatever. It can be like crowded shopping centers. It

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can be going to the grocery store earlier on in the day when everyone's there and just

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going at nighttime. It can realistically be anything. And I find a lot of the time we

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give ourselves excuses as to why we do these things, instead of acknowledging that it is

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avoidance. We see it as, you know, sort of a quick fix. It's like a bandaid, almost.

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It makes us feel a little more in control at the moment, makes it feel like a little

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more manageable. But in reality, it's actually damaging us more than it would benefit us.

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And I know that firsthand. I know a lot of us are self-aware enough to know that, you

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know, it's something you sort of take a while to realize. Because what else are you supposed

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to do? Like, I get it. You know, as soon as this sort of phobia hits people, like I know

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most of us had moments where it sort of just hit, it didn't just gradually build up over

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time. It sort of just came out of nowhere and just like hit us. It can be very challenging

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to do anything else but avoid. Like, we don't want to put ourselves in our perceived danger.

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So when we are afraid of something we see, it's like it might seem a bit silly. But it's

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a real fear to us. That's real. That's real danger. Our bodies see that as something really

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scary, even though it's not. It's not in reality. But to us it is. So we will pretty much avoid

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anything that could happen or like that could have that happen, whether it's us, someone

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else or, you know, anything that has anything to do with sickness. And like I've been there.

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I've been there for a while. I've been in that. I still do have a tendency to do that

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occasionally. I'll try my hardest not to and I'll acknowledge it and try my best to be

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like, no, I know what I'm doing here. I need to stop this and sort of get out of that cycle.

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But it can take a lot of effort to do so. But we all know what avoidance is. And we

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all do have a tendency to do it. I'd like to say like pretty much all of us do have

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a tendency to do that. But how do we stop that? So for me, to stop like 95% of it because

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I really don't do it that often unless I'm in like a really bad space, I'm having a bad

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luck month or something bad, few weeks out of the year, whatever. Obviously, I've been

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pretty open that I'm not doing the greatest at the moment. Just previous times just tells

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me that I have done the right things to sort of break that cycle of avoidance in that timeframe.

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But obviously, I needed to do something different this time. So gradual exposure to those things

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is pretty key. It's pretty obvious. I feel like I sort of waste time making episodes

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about these things sometimes because it's pretty much 99% of it is gradual exposure

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to things. But specifically, yeah, gradual exposure to the scary situations. So you don't

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have to dive into things head first. Like you don't have to just jump straight in and

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go to like a hotel in fucking, I don't know, Sydney or something, and leave your house

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for two weeks, you know, and just put yourself in like the most panic inducing situation

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you could possibly be in. But gradually exposing yourself to a point where you can have lunch

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with your friends or you don't want to call out of every time you go out to dinner, or

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you don't want to go to dinner and not eat anything or you know, you're scared of that

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certain food, you know, whatever it may be that you are avoiding, you can get to a point

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where you don't have to do that anymore. And you don't have to be so afraid of that. And

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it takes a lot of fucking work. I'm not gonna lie, it takes a lot. It takes a lot of energy.

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It's gonna cause you probably a little bit of pain, it's probably going to cause you

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some stress, some anxiety, it's probably going to give you panic attacks. Hopefully not.

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But it might, you know, it gave me some panic attacks. But then again, I probably didn't

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do it the right way, at least the way you should do it, you know, at least 100%. Whatever,

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you know, we're past that point now. So I'm going to share my advice with you guys. I

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hope that didn't give you like a little bit of doubt or anything. It's all good. Like

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I didn't do anything drastic. I just you know, gradual exposure is just the key. So if for

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instance that you are trying to go out to lunch with your friends, let's say you can

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go to lunch, but you can't eat anything, we're going to start off with something small. You

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know, your safe food, if it's on the menu, if there's something on that menu that you

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think will cause you the least distress if you eat it, suggest ordering that and just

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explaining that you may not eat all of that. You know, you might feel rude to not, you

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know, eat all the food, leave it on the plate, but you can take it to go in most places.

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Or you know, just it's whatever, you know, maybe you can give it to someone else after

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you've eaten what you want to eat, or maybe you just want to eat a little bit and you

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don't really care what people think. It's okay to just have bread. If you go from not

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eating at all when you go out to lunch or dinner to having a little bit of bread, you've,

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that's a win. That's gradual exposure. And continuing to do that on a consistent basis,

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trying to arrange something with your friends, family, whatever that you do go out to dinner

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once a week. And you gradually try to eat a little more each time. And soon you'll realize,

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maybe not soon, it'll take a while, but you'll realize eventually that it isn't so scary.

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You know, you might have a few hiccups along the way where, you know, that piece of bread

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might make you bloated a little bit or that salad might, you know, the dressing on it

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just didn't hit right and something about it is making you feel a little weird. That's

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probably going to happen, but it's going to be okay. You've got your coping mechanisms

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and if anything fails, you've got your mints or your gum or whatever. You've got that.

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So you've got that there. You've got your backup. You're going to be okay no matter

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what, as long as you just try. And same thing if you can't go out to dinner, for example.

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Like this is all just an example, you know, you can utilize this in like, like you can

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use this in any situation, like gradually exposing yourself. You just have to make your

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own steps for it. It's sort of hard to judge where you want to put those steps, but it

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is solely the key to beating basically anything like this. So if you can't go out to dinner,

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for example, you're going to gradually drive closer and closer each time where you're going

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to meet friends closer at a closer coffee shop or down the road or at your house. Have

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them come over and cook dinner for them. You cooked it so you know it's a hundred percent

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safe. You can get them to check the chicken or whatever or the steak or do whatever they

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need to do. And if they need, you need them to leave, I'm sure they'll understand because

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they're your friends, you know? So there's always ways around what you need to do and

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how you can break it down the smaller steps that are a little easier. So you don't have

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to throw yourself directly into the deep end because you really do not want to do that.

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Apart from that, another thing I found that was sort of hard was having my mindset be

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the way it was and trying to change it into a slightly more positive one. Because I was

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downright negative a lot of the time. Like I was pretty defeated most of the time. Especially

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if I couldn't do something that day, I would completely just ruin myself. You know, like

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if I was like, I need to go to the supermarket, but I'm avoiding it because I don't want to

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get sick. Like I'm perfectly capable of doing it. I did it yesterday, but today for some

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reason I can't do it or like whatever it might be that I was trying to do. And my mindset

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was pretty broken around that. Like I was, you know, just being so negative for literally

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no reason because there was no one that was benefiting. It definitely wasn't helping me.

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In fact, it was making me worse. You know, like I tried to sort of, instead of seeing

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it as like something really scary, I tried to view it as a natural response to something

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that I couldn't necessarily control. I tried to not take it as like I'm just like paralyzed

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with fear and more like I am like scared of something that doesn't quite make sense to

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me, but that's okay. It's okay that I feel this way right now. Like I'm probably going

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to feel this way again, but I am strong enough to deal with these symptoms. I don't need

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to listen to the voice inside my head that tells me that I'm going to get sick every

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time I do anything. You know, I'm just not interested in that. And it's hard, you know,

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sometimes you are going to listen to it and you're going to take your eyes off the road

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or whatever, metaphorically, and you're just going to get stuck talking to yourself, that

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little monster inside your head more like it. And you're going to be like just having

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a conversation with something that's trying to keep you home and keep you safe in quotation

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marks, keep you certain, but you can't be. It's just not that, it's just not something

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that can exist. You can't be a hundred percent certain. It's just life, you know? And the

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more you disengage the conversation with that monster and you do not take everything that

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happens as a major negative thing or treat it as the worst thing that's ever happened,

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the better you will be at dealing with those things when they come in the future. It'll

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take a while to sort of expose yourself to that even, to a better way of thinking. Like

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I'm not even completely there yet. I know it's working, it's slow and I fuck up sometimes

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and I have conversations with that monster and I sit there and I, these symptoms, I'm

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like, fuck, why me? Why me? I can't believe this is happening to me. Why won't it stop?

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Like all that negative shit, it's not helping anything. I've got to be strong. Even if I

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don't fully believe I'm strong enough, I'm going to sit there and tell myself that I

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accept the symptoms that I feel and I will be okay. Because I've been okay more times

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than I've been sick. And I know that. And sometimes that just gives me enough edge to

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do the thing I need to do and sometimes it doesn't. But the more you do that, the more

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practice you have, the better you're going to get at realising that and recognising the

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signs because every time you feel sick, you probably feel the same. Like I'm at the point

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where I can tell that I'm not going to get sick but I definitely feel sick. You know,

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like I know that I'm not going to, you know, nothing's actually going to happen but this

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feeling I have inside me is not good. And it's sort of, I'm sort of more scared of the

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feeling of it rather than the actual action, you know, and I'm sure a lot of people probably

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could actually, I don't know, I really don't know if anyone could relate to that but I

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know for me, I'm more scared of the actual nauseous, like the nauseous feelings rather

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than anything else. But aside from that, yeah, it's like the mindset we all probably need

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to work on. I know we are pretty hard on ourselves. We like to blame ourselves a lot. We like

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to be really mean to ourselves and we like to sort of catastrophise everything. Is that

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how you say that? Let me know. I don't know. I don't know if I pronounced that right.

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Whatever. But we all like to make things a lot worse. And it's hard not to do that, especially

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when you have an anxiety disorder and you have a phobia and those two mixed together.

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It's pretty much a recipe for overthinking and making everything worse than it is. But

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if you can sort of pull yourself back to reality, if you can use your mindfulness, you can use

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your deep breathing, you can use all the skills that you've learnt over this time because

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I know you've learnt things. Okay, you might feel like you've gotten nowhere but you have.

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Every day you get a little closer, even though it's only a little bit. So use those skills

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you've built, the healthy ones, to remind yourself to bring yourself back down to earth

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just enough. You might even be able to do that thing that you were trying to do. Take

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a minute, take 10 minutes. It doesn't matter what you do. But as long as you're being nice

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to yourself and you are like, but as long as you're being nice to yourself and you are

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trying to change that mindset just a little bit. And if you find yourself, you know, not

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sticking to that positive mindset or that not so negative mindset, then pull yourself

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up on it. If you catch yourself doing that, make sure to hold yourself accountable. Hang

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on, I know what I'm doing right now. I need to stop this. I know what I need to do. And

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you should be right going from there. I know it's really confusing. I know I'm confusing.

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But I promise you, putting those things into practice and doing those things for yourself

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will do nothing but good. Some other things that helped me were celebrating my progress.

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So I've talked about this before, but writing my small wins down or my wins doesn't have

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to be small, big, whatever the fuck, it doesn't matter. Any type of win you have. And as I

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said, I've gone over those in another episode. So so be sure to check that one out. I think

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it might have been the one before this one. I don't remember the title. Sorry. But yeah,

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definitely try to do that. I know it can be a bit like weird to sort of write down those

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things or acknowledge those things like you had a shower today and it might feel a little

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weird, you know, like everyone has to show it's normal, but it can be a step. It is a

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step. It is most definitely a step and it's a step in the right direction. Anything like

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that. Doing the dishes, taking the dog for a walk, just going outside for a few minutes.

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If you know you couldn't do that yesterday and you did that today, or even if you did

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do that yesterday and it's hard today, still it's going to get easier. You just have to

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keep going. I promise. Another thing is definitely be patient with yourself. You are the person

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you are trying to heal. It's you against you. So you need to be okay with that. And you

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need to be okay with yourself taking the time that you need to do these things. You are

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not going to get out of this in a week. You can make progress in a week. It's going to

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be slow progress. It's not probably not going to feel like much or it might feel like a

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lot. I don't know. It depends on your situation. For me, progress is always pretty slow. It

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always seems to feel like it takes a while for me to get to a different point with my

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metaphobia like with the things that I do, the exposure, everything. With enough repetition

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and enough just doing it, everything I've talked about today, it does improve. And definitely

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seek out support with a therapist or someone that you can talk to, whether it be a friend,

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family member, partner, anyone you can. It is definitely a good idea to reach out for

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help when you need it. Never be afraid to do so. There are people out here that can

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support you and your family, friends, whatever they do love and care about you. And if you

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don't have many friends, neither. I don't really either. But I do have a few. There

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is one or two good ones there that I really can depend on and trust. So definitely look

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for support and seek it out when you do feel like you need the help or you do need someone

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to talk to. There is places that provide a service where you can call, text, come in,

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whatever. I don't know how it goes for your country specifically, but I know here there

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is things like that. So I'm sure that goes for everywhere. But most importantly, just

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keep your head up a little bit. I know it might be a hard time for you right now. I

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know shit might just feel like it's not getting any better. You know, every day might feel

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like a repeat of the last day. It might feel like you're in a cycle even. It might feel

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like you have some good days, but then you have some bad days and it seems like it never

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ends. Trust me, I've been there. I know. But it does end and it does get better. But you

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just got to keep your head up. Keep fighting. Keep strong. You'll be okay. Okay. You will

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beat this. We all will. But that'll do it for this episode. It's like three o'clock

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in the morning here. I did start recording this earlier, but I had some things come up

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weirdly. So it is what it is. I'm going to go to bed, but I will just let you guys know

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you can find my socials at the bottom if you do, at the bottom of the app you're using,

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I guess. If you do want to hit me up for any reason, like if you want to come on the show

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or you've got some questions or anything or I've said something that you don't quite agree

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with, feel free to tell me why. I'll hear you out. I'm not going to argue with you about

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it. I'm more than happy to hear other people's opinions. So it is what it is. Please leave

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a rating and a review if you can. And I will see you in the next episode. Until then, keep

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safe. See ya.