How Anxiety Tricks You into Believing You’re Not Good Enough
Anxiety is just as common of an emotion as happiness, sadness, and anger. Anxiety is the body’s natural response to stress. While it can be beneficial to experience feelings of nervousness, worry, or uneasiness in challenging situations, anxiety can be an uncomfortable emotion.
Experiencing different emotions is normal. But when the body and brain get stuck in one emotion or when an emotion starts to interfere with someone’s day-to-day life, is persistent, or is excessive, it can be a sign that there’s a larger issue at hand.
Anxiety can cause emotional, physical, and mental symptoms. It can even cause a person to experience negative thoughts and feelings regarding self-esteem.
This is how anxiety tricks you into believing you’re not good enough.
Cognitive Distortions
A lot of anxiety comes from worrying about past or future events. It can cause a person to focus on negative life events or anticipate future failures. Cognitive distortions can reinforce a negative self-view and make it even more difficult for a person struggling with anxiety to challenge the negative thoughts they’re experiencing. These are some of the most common cognitive distortions that a person with anxiety may experience:
All-or-Nothing
All-or-nothing thinking, or polarizing, involves putting your own thoughts into either/or categories. With this type of thinking, there is only black or white, but this leaves little room for any grey area. This type of thinking can lead to unrealistic expectations and standards for yourself and others.
Catastrophizing
Catastrophizing means that a person is expecting the worst-case scenario, no matter the situation that they’re in. This type of thinking is often irrational, and can even lead to fixating on potential failures moving forward.
Jumping to Conclusions
Jumping to conclusions is another distortion where a person forms a conclusion based on limited information or without sufficient evidence.
Overgeneralization
Overgeneralization occurs when a person experiences negative thoughts and feelings about themselves, someone else, or the world based on a singular or a series of negative events.
Personalization
Personalization is when a person takes ownership, blame, or responsibility for events that are out of their control.
Negative Self-Talk
Negative self-talk is a common occurrence with anxiety. This can turn into a vicious cycle that can become difficult to break free from. When a person experiences negative thoughts, they’re more likely to develop a pattern of self-talk followed by self-criticism, which can lead to even more negative self-talk.
Fear of Being Judged
Even though anxiety can cause you to feel negative or down about yourself, a lot of individuals feel fearful of someone else judging or rejecting them. When an individual with anxiety is involved in a situation where they feel like someone doesn’t like them, their negative self-view can become worse. This fear of judgment can also lead to avoidance, withdrawal, and isolation.
How to Break Free
Acknowledge It
When you’re able to acknowledge your emotions, you’re more equipped to allow yourself to feel, which can help you process them. When it comes to anxiety, it may feel easier to dismiss or ignore how you’re really feeling. Try not to do this as it can lead to worsening symptoms. Instead, recognize that you’re struggling with anxiety, and you will start to understand that your perception is affected.
Give Yourself Grace
Treat yourself like you’d treat a friend. You are worthy, capable, and valuable. Try not to be so hard on yourself. Give yourself grace during this time. Make sure you’re giving yourself a decent amount of kindness and understanding.
Seek Professional Support
If you’re struggling with anxiety, you don’t have to just sit with it and let it take control. Consider reaching out to a mental health professional to address your anxiety and implement healthy coping techniques. Contact Integrative Psychotherapy Group today to get started.
