Worried about consequences. What do you think?

My best friend struggles with anxiety as did my Father so I agree that the response to someone who suffers with anxiety needs to be different to be helpful. When not does not have anxiety like me who is the other extreme it is very difficult to understand how true anxiety feels we have to be taught because it’s a total different way of thinking. Anxiety is not just normal worrying it’s getting stuck on thoughts and letting them rule your life.

When it comes to recovery from an addiction it is of course important to recognize the consequences that your addiction has had on your life. But overly focusing on potential consequences for past behavior that you can’t change is counter productive and can take someone with anxiety down such a deep rabbit hole that they will never crawl out of the “what if’s” are endless. My answer was that from a practical standpoint nothing you were thinking of was likely to happen at all so don’t focus on that focus on going forward. Many people sext with partners send pictures and exchange them with strangers on dating sites that behavior on its on does not mean you are an addict or unhealthy for that matter. Of course if taken to the extreme it can be.

You will find tough love on this site. There will be many things that will make you angry but that’s part of being supportive calling out addictive behavior and thought processes . I am the first person to call out addicts so I would call you out if need be. You will also find some on here that are very religious and to the other extreme on sexuality. If those are not your views as they are not mine you just gotta tune that out. Finally I presume you are female? And we are definitely judged more by men for doing the same things they do. Hey send me a naked pic and then wow girls that send naked pics are sluts!

 

Spoiler

I have something to say.
So I once took some provocative photos, for a modeling shoot... I didn't know that later those photos would be used for a video on YouTube.
A friend found one of them. It's a still picture while a famous song plays behind it. My picture stays on screen for the whole several minutes.
Ouch.
It's got 100,000+ hits last I looked.
Now.... I am in costume and it's professional photo shopped... But it's me.
Online...
I showed my husband back in the day in fear his friends would show him as they listen to the same music.
What he said?
"That's not you"
Ha!
Relief!
Totally me.
Later... I asked why he said that.. He said the nose.
I laughed.
But.... My point is this...
You aren't going to look like you did in that moment.
I now have tattoos, I'm older... I have a nose job...
The chance of someone recognizing you in exactly that fashion, is very slim.
It's ok to relax about it.

 

Seeing as you mentioned finding a new therapist, I can recommend looking into someone qualified in acceptance and commitment therapy. It's worth a look to see if you might get something from it. All I can say is this approach has helped immensely with my anxiety.

All these scenarios are just stories your 'chatting mind' will make up because that's its job. Very helpful in the days when big cats were very likely to kill us, and okay it's still great when crossing the road. But now it mainly has us scared to talk to each other, or say go for that job because someone might use something against me in the future etc.

Just bare in mind these stories become all too convincing during withdrawals. So I voted 'you'll be fine', but you likely won't feel fine, at least not to start off with.

Do stick around if you like the forum, we're all a bit different but I have found overall it's a hugely supportive environment