Disordered: Anxiety Help Forgiving Yourself In Anxiety Recovery (Episode 121)
When you're struggling with anxiety disorders, you often do things that don't reflect who you really are - avoiding social gatherings, canceling plans, or making demands on loved ones that you normally wouldn't. As you start to recover, it's common to feel overwhelming guilt about how your anxiety affected the people around you.
In this episode, Drew and Josh explore the complex journey of self-forgiveness after anxiety recovery. They discuss why anxiety disorders can make people appear self-centered while emphasizing that the disorder isn't who you are as a person.
- Understanding that anxiety disorders are incredibly common and not your fault
- Why trying to achieve absolute certainty that you didn't hurt others keeps you stuck
- The difference between healthy regret and destructive self-criticism
- How to practice willful tolerance of difficult feelings like guilt and shame
- Why some people need to apologize while others don't - there's no universal approach
- Recognizing that feeling bad about past actions reflects your values, not your failures
[2:45] The Reality of Anxiety's Impact: Drew and Josh discuss how anxiety disorders make people do things against their nature and why this creates lasting guilt.
[6:50] You're Not Responsible for Having a Disorder: "We'd have to rent the city of Denver to fit all the people with panic disorder" - Drew explains why anxiety disorders are common medical conditions, not personal failures.
[12:15] The Impossible Standard: Why seeking absolute certainty that you never disappointed anyone is both unrealistic and counterproductive to healing.
[14:30] Drew's Personal Story: A vulnerable moment where Drew shares his ongoing regret about not visiting a dying friend, and why he doesn't want to "get over" this feeling completely.
[17:45] The Meta Problem: How the same tendency that creates anxiety disorders can turn against you when processing guilt about the past.
[27:40] Josh's Compassionate Reframe: "Would you rather be someone who doesn't feel bad when they act against their values?" - A powerful perspective on why guilt reflects your moral compass.
This episode offers practical wisdom for anyone struggling with self-forgiveness while maintaining the hosts' signature balance of professional expertise and lived experience. Drew and Josh remind us that healing often means learning to sit with difficult feelings rather than trying to eliminate them entirely.
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Disordered Roundtables are here! Think of it as "Disordered Live", a way for members of our audience to spend time with us in an intimate virtual setting (attendance is limited) to engage in real time sharing and discussion on specific anxiety disorder and recovery topics. To be notified when new Disordered Roundtable sessions are scheduled, visit our homepage and get on our mailing list.
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Struggling with worry and rumination that you feel you can't stop or control? Check out Worry and Rumination Explained, a two hour pre-recorded workshop produced by Josh and Drew. The workshop takes a deep dive into the mechanics of worrying and ruminating, offering some helpful ways to approach the seemingly unsolvable problem of trying to solve seemingly unsolvable problems.
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Want to ask us questions, share your wins, or get more information about Josh, Drew, and the Disordered podcast? Send us an email or voicemail on our website.