Anxiety Isn’t Something You Can Confront, And That’s Okay

You may have heard people telling you that in order to get over your anxieties, you need to face your fears. You may have even felt there’s some truth to this and that by facing your fears, you can squash your anxieties. The thing is though, when we talk about anxiety in such a way, we’re reducing a complex illness to a single emotion. We’re saying that anxiety is the same as fear, but it’s not.

Now don’t get me wrong here, no one is denying that fear plays a massive role in how people experience and understand their anxieties—but to treat the illness as the same as an emotion is just plain irresponsible.

You see, when we think about anxiety as the same as fear, we tend to assume that we can overcome it in a really cliche way: by confronting it head on.

By “facing our fears” we take the control back, we conquer the problem, we win. In this way, we’re setting ourselves up for failure before we even try. We’re putting the expectation on ourselves to feel better simply by deciding to do something. If only it were that easy…

So while confrontation can be a good tactic of dissolving the emotion of fear, we need to remember…