Anxiety and depression: How to challenge your negative self-talk

No one carries the burdens of anxiety and depression for a long time without a robust spine. You are strong!

I dare say I was right when I wrote this in my article Leaving anxiety and depression behind: how to get started.

(Featured image: You’re not weak! Start challenging your negative self-talk. AI-generated illustration.)

My advice #9 out of 40 was: Stop flogging yourself for being weak. Because:

Suffering from anxiety or depression is not synonymous with being weak

I’d say, on the contrary.

You and I may agree (rationally) on this, but we have powerful opponents: our own minds in the grip of anxiety or depression. Those opponents aren’t rational at all and hard to argue with.

The rational us: “We’re not weak!”

Our anxiety and depression: “Oh, stop it! You are useless. Worthless. Pathetic. Weak.”

Please remember what we’re up against: 

Anxiety and depression are automatic emotional responses to situations we find difficult on the whole spectrum from the uncomfortable to the life-threatening or worse. I have some bad news and some good news for you.

The bad news is that you and I carry our fear and sadness because our genes, cultural environment, and personal experiences have programmed us to respond this way to what we have been through.

The good news is, I said “programmed”, not “hard-wired”.

This is mostly software, and software can be reprogrammed.

I won’t say it’s easy! I say it’s possible!

Remember the difference between what you feel and who you are

As I wrote in my article Anxiety and depression: something you FEEL, not what you ARE, it’s possible to train ourselves to observe our thoughts and emotions to a certain degree.

If we can observe our thoughts and emotions and listen to our self-talk, we can challenge them when they are irrational. And I can guarantee that your anxiety and depression will try to fob you off in the start, whatever you do to challenge them. They will scream at the top of their voices, “No, no, you are weak, you are worthless, you are disgusting and unlikeable.”

These automatic emotional responses are thousands of years old, perhaps millions of years old, and sometimes totally misaligned with the current reality. Still, they keep pestering us as if they were always right. If you’ve ever had a needy, upset, or scared two-year-old child, that’s how our automatic emotional responses often behave.

So, how can we approach them?

With patience and empathy, my friend

Just how you would have handled an upset toddler.

There’s no point telling yourself to snap out of it. There’s no point in being angry and shouting at yourself. You must be the calm, rational, responsible adult every time you stand eye-to-eye with your emotional responses. You must repeatedly explain that being scared and sad is okay and that things aren’t always as bad as they seem.

Let’s look at:

A few of the things you can explain to yourself (again and again)

No, you aren’t weak

We wouldn’t call them weak if someone broke their leg and still kept walking. Foolish, perhaps, but not weak. They would be admired by many. Look at that tough guy! Walking along despite the pain!

For some of us, anxiety, depression, or both make every day a battle. Perhaps for years and years. And still, we carry on. We fake a smile when necessary and continue with education, work, raising children and whatever life demands.

Don’t you dare call that weakness!

No, a fault in your personality wasn’t the reason why you got anxious or depressed in the first place

You are you. The total sum of the genes you were born with, the social environment you’ve lived in, and your personal experiences have shaped you. Somewhere along the road, you got hurt. It happened but didn’t happen because something was inherently wrong with you.

I know. You probably compare yourself to others and say, “They wouldn’t have got hurt, so there must have been something wrong with me.”

There is no point in comparing yourself to others because you will always compare apples and pears if you do.

No, you’re not lazy if you need a time-out

Even as strong as you are, you might need a time-out now and then. This doesn’t make you lazy. It takes a lot of energy to control anxiety, and depression will, by definition, leave you with a flat battery.

Sometimes, you may need to allow yourself some rest, solitude, or whatever is necessary. Being too ‘brave’ and pushing yourself too far can make you worse and delay your healing.

No, suffering from anxiety and depression is nothing to be ashamed of

True, there are still people out there who think so. Don’t let ignorant and (sometimes) stupid people shape your opinions about yourself.

Neither is needing help something to be ashamed of

Sometimes, we can’t fix everything on our own. If you need help, you need help. If someone suffered a heart attack and needed an operation, we wouldn’t expect them to do the surgery themselves. People suffering from toothache won’t insist on drilling their own teeth. They leave this job to the dentist.

Sometimes, we need help with our anxiety and depression, too.

No, you can’t just…

Fill in whatever people say you can just do to get better. Snap out of it, think positively, be more social, take this pill, do that exercise. If someone claims they have a blindingly simple solution to a complex problem, as anxiety or depression usually are, there are generally two possible explanations:

1. They have no idea what they are talking about but are still talking.
2. They are trying to sell you something.

The only thing you just cannot do is to give up. There is always something you can do. Please be patient and walk all the steps your journey requires. And if you’re like me, one of the first steps should be that you:

Decide to stop negative self-talk

I don’t remember now which year it was, but at some point 10-15 years ago, I suddenly noticed how I was talking to myself. One early morning on a cold and snowy day, I was out walking the dog. I don’t remember exactly what happened. Perhaps I had forgotten to bring a dog-poo bag or suddenly remembered a mistake I’d made in the past.

Anyway, I caught myself inwardly shouting my favourite mantra to myself:

Idiot! Idiot! Idiot!

Probably for the 2,446,984^th time, and I suddenly felt so tired of it. I knew, of course, deep down, that I was no idiot and had never been. I made a decision that morning to stop talking to myself that way.

Looking back, this was a crucial moment on my journey.

So, if you’re still flogging yourself for being weak, decide to stop doing that. You know by now you’re not. And decide to stop all the other negative self-talk as well!