This is the second of a two part post (because my computer hates really long texts apparently) It does not contain the theory or explanation of how avoidance and being already triggered. If you have not read that one, please feel free to find it here .
So what do we do when our safety is also a trap?
This is where I spend the most time. Because Dr Fisher was speaking to therapists specifically: professionals who are focused on specific skills but also have the environment, structure, and stamina to engage with the client in specific ways. So what follows is my own reverse-engineered steps for people to use personally. These are mostly untested; it’s just been me trying it out. So please read and consider before trying them. Observe what your automatic reactions are to these ideas. I am happy to discuss this in the comments. Some of these seem counter-intuitive and like going backwards but that a common result of the state-dependant story.
Please read at a pace you can handle. Reddit's servers are nothing to to lose this, you have time to go as slow or as fast as you need. I'm also still here (or will be when I get back from buying kitten food. OMG they eat so much....)
Understant that avoidance is creating that small space of controllable safety. Acknowledge this is how you survived. Attempt to accept that this is what these patterns are all about and that it is ok to not want to leave this space. Its even ok to actually not leave it until you can.
Acknowledge you are experiencing an implicit memory not a current event. Use whichever phrase helps you hold this idea: such as emotional flashback, body flashback, remembered feelings, body memory, or whatever your mind or parts understand. My phrase is "This is not a feeling, this is a memory of a feeling." This is the most reliable spot to break the feedback loop.
Acknowledge the memory but do not explore the memory. The phobia is in there and verbalizing it or bringing it to conscious awareness is often the opposite of regulating ourselves out of the activated state. Exploring the memory will often worsen reliance on avoidance behaviors in this moment. It’s ok to stay on the shore and not dive deeper. Just acknowledge the ocean exists and is “over there.”
Acknowledge this story you are telling about reality right now is being written by the trauma memories to maintain the avoidance styles. Patterns such as catastrophizing, all or nothing things, doomerism/fatalist perspective and helpless/hopeless self-perspectives are all signs that our past is telling us what today is and blocking what today really is.
Start in the present moment. Attempt to identify what phobia is being poked but the actions or tasks you are attempting to do now. This may not be immediate clear and lies at the end of several connecting steps. But implicit memories are specifically built of quickly move through those connecting steps as part of memory functioning, so even if you can’t see how the phobia categories and these tasks are connected now, acknowledge that its in there somewhere even if you cant see it yet.
Ask how this view or beliefs helped you survive back then. If you can’t find that connection, don’t push too hard. Acknowledge that it helped you survive even if you can’t see how yet.
Work with the body before emotions, immediate space before body. Observe the sounds around you, feel the air as it moves, touch textures and objects that feel tolerable, move the body in ways that be be tolerated.
Accept intrapsychic blocks are ok. They are sign we don’t yet have the skills, knowledge, or internal tolerance to work with what is on the other side of this block.
Don’t force yourself to sit with more emotions/body states/or memories than you can manage. Start noticing where you limits are and hold only as much as you can. You can use mental images, somatic, or sensory tools to deal with that bit and reminders that you don’t have to address the whole right now. This is the individual steps that make up the journey of a thousand miles.
Personal step I found for neurodivergants: Acknowledge when your avoidance isn’t avoidance. In testing out the steps above, I discovered about half of my avoidance was actually the difficulty task shifting in ADHD. Where the stuckness came was in state-dependent stories I had been forced to internalize as a child struggling with task-switching. When I was able to see those to as separate things, I felt a lot less avoiding and only the grinding feeling of my ADHD brain trying to shift gears and was able to grant myself the extra time and grace I needed to get through that. (I also realized I need a good refresh of the ADHD tools cupboard.)
I realize this is a lot of info and possibly complex. It took me just under 3 watches and 6 pages of notes to turn this into something usable so if your head is spinning, welcome to the club. Please ask questions if you need to. What I overwhelming came away with is that addressing avoidance is not fast and requires a lot of small steps done repeatedly to finally deal with the underlying cause. Including that some people may not wish to change much or at all. For some the small circle of control is still very much required. And Dr Fisher says that’s ok. Therapists can only ask clients to be where they are, and we can only ask ourselves to be where we are. If if we want, we can get better about understanding where "here" is.