Most of my clients experience intense anxiety and/or depression, and unfortunately, throughout their lives, they were made to believe that they were the problem as a human existence.
Parents who told them they were “too emotional” and “too much to handle.” Friends who said they were “not easy to be around” and “always ruining the fun.” Romantic partners scolded them for being “irrational, illogical, and crazy” and told them that they clearly “don’t care enough,” they’re “too lazy,” and will never be “good enough” as a partner.
By the time my clients contact me, it feels too late. Their fate is sealed. They genuinely believe to their core that they are the problem. Their identity is founded upon this seeming fact, and now they need my help radically accepting and living with this tragedy.
However, I challenge this core belief and offer a reframe: The person is NOT the problem; the problem is the problem, and we can fix it.
Most of our problems are not our fault; they were given to us by other people throughout our lives (mostly childhood), and unfortunately (and unfairly), it is still 100% our own responsibility to fix them in adulthood. Welcome to therapy!
The focus I work on with my clients is externalizing their problems. In the beginning, it’s often something like, “I have a lot of anxiety! I’m just a super anxious person, and I am very sensitive. I can’t deal with big emotions, and I shut down, and it’s just a hot mess. I am a hot mess. And I can’t control my anxiety at all. It’s embarrassing. People probably think I am crazy. I get upset over the littlest things, and I know I am just being stupid, yet I can’t get over it as easily as I should.”
Can you hear the self-deprecating language and defeated tone? Sometimes, we can get caught up in semantics; however, it DOES MATTER regarding self-talk and talking about ourselves to others.
Identifying our experiences and feelings as character flaws and poor core values makes challenging, correcting, and repairing them impossible. As much as we want to get better, our brain wants to be right more. If I believe and identify as an overly emotional and sensitive person who is a hot mess, then I will subconsciously seek out confirmation bias, defend it, and perpetuate it, even if intellectually, I want to work on better managing my emotions and reactions.
As hard as we try to logic our way through life, the emotional part of our brain will almost always override any logic, especially under distress, until we treat the underlying disease. Hence, we see many of our friends and family who talk about change yet never seem to. To be fair, they do want to change; they don’t realize the double bind they have put themselves in – “I am an anxious, sensitive person who acts crazy over the stupidest things, but I want to learn to manage my anxiety, so I try breathing exercises and meditation, but then when sh** hits the fan, I just lose my sh** anyway, but I really want to be more calm, but no matter what I do I still act crazy, but I’m really trying and I joined a yoga class and downloaded a mediation app, but I’m just too anxious of a person, I think.”
Externalizing our experiences as third-party thought and behavior patterns allows us to challenge, correct, repair, and eventually replace them with new, helpful patterns. We no longer struggle subconsciously with being right about our perceived factual identity.
Instead of, “I am an anxious person, and I always have been,” we replace it with, “I experience anxiety often when in social situations and am learning distress tolerance and interpersonal effectiveness skills to manage the social anxiety better.”
Instead of “I am depressed, and I can’t get myself out of bed,” we externalize it to “I am experiencing a lot of heavy feelings that weigh me down in the bed.”
The “I am…” is identifying as the problem, which we then internalize and becomes who we think we are at the core of our existence. I am what I am, and it is set in stone, and nothing and no one can change that, not even me.
The “I am experiencing…” helps externalize our identity from the problem itself, allowing space to attempt to problem-solve and manage it with newly learned skills because our brain no longer feels challenged regarding its identity.
A step further in externalizing is personifying or objectifying the problem, such as naming the depression after Eeyore from Winnie the Pooh or calling it a heavy boulder. “The heavy boulder is sitting on my chest right now, making it difficult to get out of bed this morning. I wonder what I can do to try to roll it off me so I can at least sit up.”
This is also helpful in relationships, “Eeyore seems to be sitting between us on the couch, making it difficult for you and me to connect. I wonder what Eeyore needs right now.” This allows the couple to address the depression in a third-party way that externalizes the depression from the person, preventing unintentional personal attacks and defensiveness.
Typically, in couples counseling, I hear, “Your depression is so draining, and it’s like you don’t even care anymore, and I don’t know what to do for you. You lie in bed constantly and don’t do anything while I care for everything.” While I can hear the partner for what it really is because I am a neutral third party, the other partner hears, “You are the problem. You suck. You are lazy. You do nothing. You are useless. It’s YOU.” This makes connection, understanding, intimacy, and vulnerability practically impossible. In the therapy world, we call this a barrier to treatment. This is why I try to externalize the problems as much as possible with my individuals, couples, and families.
Externalizing the problem into a third-party narrative allows the couple to work together and fight the problem as a team rather than unintentionally attacking and fighting each other.
It’s no longer “YOUR depression…” and it becomes “THE depression is taking up a lot of space in our bedroom.” It’s no longer a “you versus me” feeling and becomes an “us versus the problem” unification.
Our feelings are always valid, and they are not facts. We are not our thoughts and feelings. We are people who experience various thoughts and feelings at various frequencies and intensities, often based on past experiences, unresolved traumas, family of origin, and other complex contributing factors.
If you’ve been stuck with the same issue for a long time, pay attention to how you talk about it, think about it and feel about it, and then start trying to externalize it.
1. Recognize it – Awareness of the automatic thought or feeling occurring.
2. Name it – Give it a person’s name, a character’s name, an object’s name, or terminology.
3. Externalize it – Think and talk about it as a third party separate from yourself and your identity.
Many clients like to personify their problems with the infamous “Karen” and “Carl” names. Other clients will privately hold their parents responsible by identifying and personifying their automatic negative thoughts and self-talk as their mother and/or father. I have a couple who call their co-dependency issues “the stupid cat” that keeps sneaking into their house for free food. I have another client who loves Harry Potter and has personified his painful childhood trauma as Voldemort, the anger management issues as Draco Malfoy, the avoidance tendencies as Peter Pettigrew, the negative, hurtful self-talk as Petunia Dursley, and the learned victim-mentality as Moaning Myrtle. Other clients have used superheroes, others use their favorite TV show or movie, and others use literal terminology to externalize their automatic thoughts, feelings, and triggers.
The point is – Make it your own. And it’s okay to try on a few characters before finding the right fit for you. There is no right or wrong. It’s all about what works for YOU. So, give it a try and let me know how it goes for you.
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