By A Content Team Contributor

I’ve recently had cause to seek counselling as a result of a significant bereavement in my life. The bereavement followed a long, drawn-out illness, the witnessing of which was hard, and took its toll on my mental health.

The run-up to the funeral ended up being even more fraught than might ordinarily be the case, because first, logistical reasons meant we had to wait several weeks to hold it, and secondly, a matter I will describe in an understated manner as ‘family politics’ left me genuinely anxious about the people I would encounter at the event. This was all on top of the fact that preparing for a funeral of a loved one is fairly horrendous at the best of times.

Someone who doesn’t ordinarily suffer from anxiety would probably have found themselves anxious anyway – but I found my anxiety spiralling in this period. What I didn’t realise until I discussed this with my counsellor was the extent to which my mind was fixated on the extremes; I had entirely concocted in my mind what a ‘worst case scenario’ and ‘best case scenario’ might look like, and it was as though my body was continually in fight or flight mode working out how to respond to these.

Extremes like these are a massive part of suffering with anxiety. Even if it’s anxiety about, e.g. being late for something, our minds continually try to pre-empt that, and prepare our reactions for dealing with the worst case.

It was discussing the above with my counsellor that led her to point out that, statistically, and being realistic, the most likely outcome of something you are anxious about probably isn’t the worst case. It may not be the best case either; in fact, it’s probably somewhere in between those two ‘extremes’.

Sounds obvious and a bit like common sense when you put it like that, then? Well, yes. However, until she had presented my anxious brain with that proposition in those bald terms, I had never considered there might be an alternative, and suddenly it felt as though I had something of a shield against the anxiety. I used it as a mantra to help me face the day – and as it turned out, the counsellor’s prediction about the outcome being somewhere in between turned out to be spot on. The thing I was most anxious about turned out to be not as bad as my anxiety had made me believe it would be.

So, what are the takeways here?

First, if you are going through a bereavement, counselling can be a huge help and I would highly recommend it. While I had specific reasons for seeking counselling, even when circumstances changed the extent to which I relied on those sessions surprised me. Grief is one of those emotions where you can be fine one minute, and bawling your eyes out the next – and having an outlet for the latter is a tremendous relief.

Secondly, even outside of a grief scenario, if you find your anxious brain jumping to extremes, try and remember exactly that: it is an extreme. Chances are, the outcome won’t equal the extreme; that old devil anxiety is playing tricks on you again. Use your defences –  and don’t let that devil convince you otherwise.