Five Myths About Anxiety Treatment in Maryland: Myth #4 (Reassurance)

How do we best support an anxious egg/person/friend/loved one? Ok, not an egg. Read on for guidance from a Maryland anxiety therapist.

We’re back with anxiety’s greatest hits. Not great as in good, wonderful, yay! “Greatest” as in among the most frequently played tunes. And this myth has been a chart topper for years and years. This one goes out to not only all the folks with anxiety out there, but for all the people that love and support them too. This one’s for all y’all. If you’ve missed Myths 1-3, check those out in earlier posts about anxiety, the role of avoidance and myths about clean living.

Myth 4: Constant, unconditional reassurance is the best way to help someone (or yourself) with anxiety.

Back in Myth #2, we debunked the myth that avoidance is a wise way to deal with anxiety. This myth has a little bit of the same rhythm, different lyrics. The motivation to avoid or to seek reassurance is understandable. Anxiety can feel horrible and we want to stop feeling horrible (or help someone we care about to stop feeling horrible).

What Reassurance Seeking Might Look Like

When people hear the word “reassurance,” they often think of something kind and supportive. And sometimes it is. But when anxiety is involved, reassurance often turns into something else entirely.

Reassurance seeking happens when anxiety pushes you to look outside yourself for certainty or relief over and over again. It might look like repeatedly asking a loved one if you made the right decision, googling symptoms late into the night, or replaying conversations in your head and needing someone else to tell you you did not mess up. You might even feel calmer for a few minutes once you get reassurance, only to find yourself needing it again shortly after. Many people will spread their reassurance seeking around, polling a number of people about their concern and getting opinion after opinion.

If this sounds familiar, you’re in good company. This is a very common anxiety pattern, and it makes a lot of sense once you understand what anxiety is trying to do.

Anxiety tries to demand certainty

Anxious brains hope there are answers and certainty just around the corner.

You know that old saw about how the only certainties in life are death and taxes? Anxiety hasn’t gotten that memo. Anxiety still thinks it has a shot at this so will try to demand certainty over and over and over again, often coming in the form of seeking continuous reassurance (sometimes from people, sometimes from information or data). When we are anxious we may get an answer to something but need to ask 5 more people (and then still maybe secretly feel like we haven’t gotten all the information). If we are anxious, we might be told that the likelihood of a negative outcome is low in a situation, but we’re likely to grip on to the idea that it could still be possible and spin up in worry about it, thinking, “If it can happen to someone then it’s probably going to happen to me”. Anxiety doesn’t want to step down until there is a guaranteed 0.0000% chance of the bad thing happening, so it keeps seeking reassurance and we keep believing the myth that if we can just get the right reassurance or information, then we can finally settle down and relax. Sometimes, when we get frustrated with the lack of certainty, we’ll jump into Myth #2, avoidance.

for all you loved ones out there

If the anxious person in your life isn’t you, but is your kid or your partner or your friend or some other loved one, you might notice that you’ve done a whole lot of reassuring of them over time, out of care and not wanting them to suffer with the discomfort of anxiety. Nobody wants to see a loved one suffer and will usually think nothing of doing a small thing, like offering repeated reassurance, to help them. Unfortunately, this doesn’t actually solve the problem. It can help in the moment, but anxiety is never satisfied and will always return for more reassurance because there is no certainty. It’s a fine line to walk about wanting to be actively supportive of someone you care about who is anxious but not get caught in the repeated reassurance trap. A seasoned professional can help provide some guidance, if you are stuck.

Why Reassurance feels helpful but keeps anxiety stuck

Reassurance seeking is what we call a safety behavior. Safety behaviors are things anxiety convinces us to do in order to feel less uncomfortable in the moment. They work temporarily, which is exactly why anxiety loves them.

The problem is that every time you rely on reassurance, your brain quietly learns something unhelpful. It learns that anxiety is dangerous and that you cannot handle it on your own. So the next time uncertainty shows up, anxiety gets louder, faster, and more convincing.

In other words, reassurance does not teach your nervous system that you are okay. It teaches your nervous system that you need rescuing. And that keeps the anxiety cycle spinning, even though your intentions are completely reasonable.

We can learn to surf the emotional waves, instead of trying to make the sea still.

tolerating the intolerable—uncertainty

Learning how to tolerate uncertainty is the exit door from the endless, ineffective rounds of repeated reassurance seeking. Very few people like this idea. It means having to learn to sit with and manage discomfort when all we really want is to end the discomfort. But it is an essential part of treatment for anxiety disorders and can make a big difference in reclaiming some of your time and energy in your life. When we were looking at the issue of avoidance in Myth #2, I was pointing out that it’s not necessary or helpful to go with a sink or swim model. The same applies here in learning how to tolerate uncertainty. Effective anxiety therapy will help you work on this step-by-step, with appropriate levels of support along the way. Many of us learn best when we work at our “edge”—where there is definitely some challenge but we are not completely overwhelmed by it. The edge is the place where if you push any further, it’s way too much; but if you back off, it’s not really all that challenging. We’re going to explore this idea more in a future post about yoga in the Moving Into Healing blog series, so stay tuned if you want to hear more about working at our edge.

What Actually Helps Instead of reassurance

The goal is not to rip reassurance away or force yourself to “just stop asking.” That usually backfires and adds shame to an already anxious system. What helps is learning how to relate to uncertainty differently, in small and compassionate ways.

In anxiety therapy, including the work I do as an anxiety therapist in Maryland, we focus on helping people build tolerance for uncertainty and confidence in their own internal signals. That might include practicing sitting with anxious thoughts without immediately responding to them, learning how to calm the nervous system without external validation, or gently challenging the belief that anxiety means something bad is about to happen.

Over time, this approach teaches your brain something new and much more helpful: that discomfort is survivable and that you are capable of handling it. That is when anxiety begins to loosen its grip.

“If uncertainty is unacceptable to you, it turns into fear. If it is perfectly acceptable, it turns into increased aliveness, alertness, and creativity.” — Eckhart Tolle

Looking for more Anxiety Therapy Support IN Maryland?

Ready to leave myths behind and find relief from anxiety? I offer anxiety therapy appointments in-person, located in College Park, MD. Online therapy appointments are available anywhere in Maryland. Click here to schedule a free 15-minute phone consultation and get some more support on your side.

Other services I offer include hypnotherapy, mindfulness-based therapy, life coaching, and support for LGBTQIA+ clients. Additional information is available on my home page.

About the author:

Beth Charbonneau, LCSW-C, is a Maryland therapist, specializing in anxiety therapy and treatment. With over 20 years of experience, she brings a holistic approach to calming the mind and body, and encourages her clients to feel empowered to find more joy in life. More information about her practice can be found on her website.