Testing the Water
Once you’ve got the hang of using the anxiety beating skills, you’ll be ready to start Testing the water. This involves training yourself NOT to run away but to stay and control your anxiety.
‘Testing the water’ means practising the things you find difficult until you stop feeling anxious. But you do this very slowly, taking small steps towards getting over your fears until you’ve overcome your fear.
Imagine someone climbing into a cold pool. First they dip their toes in, it’s a bit cold and uncomfortable but they slowly walk further into the water bit by bit.
They’re letting their body get used to the cold before they go deeper until they are up to their neck, then their body has got used to the cold and it’s no longer uncomfortable.
Testing the water and goal setting are very closely linked. Part of the reason why people achieve their goals is because they practice situations that make them feel anxious.
Alice’s experience of facing her fears:
Each time I ate in public I felt sick with anxiety, so I stopped going out with friends and family. But they still went out so I was left on my own at home and I got lonely without my friends. So I have been forced to face my anxiety – over and over again until I’m used to eating in public because I want to be with friends and family. This has not been easy but it’s getting much easier now.
Learn how to Test the Water
The idea of Testing the Water can be quite frightening. Don’t worry; you won’t be dropped in at the deep end! Testing the water is a slow and long process, first you’ll only be asked to start thinking about facing your fears or take the easiest steps towards beating your fear.
Once Face IT has given you a chance to practice testing the water safely, you’ll feel a lot more confident about trying some situations yourself. If you remember what you’ve learnt throughout Face IT, and use the hints and tips given, testing the water is simple. But remember to take it slowly. Rushing won’t help you at all, and may make you feel worse!
Fear Ladders
Just like when you set out to achieve your goals, when you start to test the water it’s a good idea to have a plan of action.
Fear ladders are like action plans. They work by rating the situations you find scary on a scale from 1 (not at all scared) to 10 (so scared you want to run). You can then work out which situations are the easiest to start with.
Amanda works with people with visible differences.
If it’s somebody’s goal to go swimming we would ask them to work out a fear ladder. ‘Going swimming’ would be put at the very top. At the bottom would be ‘trying on a swimming costume in their own bedroom’, then gradually other smaller steps would be added, working up to ‘going swimming’. I encourage them not to go up the ladder too fast. They have to be really comfortable with each step and work on getting their anxiety levels down on each step before they go up to the next one. Otherwise they might come sliding down again!
Fear ladder examples
Anxiety Level: Highest
10. Holding a Tarantula
9. Holding a small spider
8. Touching a small spider
7. Removing a spider from your house using a glass & a coaster
6. Getting close to a spider but not touching it
5. Going to see a Tarantula at the zoo
4. Remaining in the room whilst someone removes a spider from a cage
3. Watching the film Arachnophobia
2. Watching spiders on television
1. Holding a picture of a spider
Anxiety Level: Lowest
From this example, you can see that each rung is slightly more scary than the last. By following the ladder in this order it’s easier to get used to each situation before moving on to the next rung.
Millie has very large patches on her back and legs as a result of a skin condition.
She felt very anxious about other people seeing them because she thinks they will ask questions about them and she won’t have an answer. She was so anxious that she always covered up her skin. Millie spent her first few sessions working on answers to questions people might ask about her skin. When she felt happy with these answers she wrote her fear ladder.
Millie’s Fear Ladder
Anxiety Level: Highest
10. Wearing shorts and a vest top whilst out with friends
9. Wearing a vest top whilst out with friends
8. Wearing shorts whilst out with friends
7. Swimming in a swimsuit on holiday
6. Wearing shorts and a vest top on holiday
5. Wearing a vest top on a beach on holiday, where there was no-one she knew
4. Wearing shorts on a beach on holiday, where there was no-one she knew
3. Wearing shorts and a vest top around the house
2. Wearing shorts around the house
1. Shopping with her friend
Anxiety Level: Lowest
At the top of the fear ladder, Millie has put the scariest situation which is ‘wearing shorts and a vest top whilst out with friends’. Millie has then broken down her fear into much smaller and more manageable steps, with the least scariest situation at the bottom of the fear ladder. This is ‘buying some shorts and a vest top with her friend’. She then began working to overcome her fear by starting at the bottom of the fear ladder and working her way up bit by bit.
Millie asked her family for support and told her friends what she was trying to achieve. Before she started working up her fear ladder, she practiced deep breathing and relaxation techniques in the morning before work.
She then began working up her fear ladder practicing each step before she moved up.
After getting used to wearing shorts and a vest at home in front of her family, she choose places where she didn’t know anyone to practice walking around with only shorts. She began on a beach in another country on holiday. Everyone else was wearing shorts so she fitted in rather than stood out, she found that most people didn’t stare or comment. Most questions came from children and she answered these using her prepared answers: ‘It’s a skin condition, it doesn’t hurt and isn’t catching’.
This worked very well and so she carried on to the next steps on the ladder including swimming. She was nervous about this and had to use her relaxation exercises to control her anxiety.
Millie now feels she can do lots of activities that she hadn’t been able to do in the past.
When you ‘test the water’ don’t miss out steps and don’t move up the ladder too quickly. For each step on your ladder, try the situation at least 3 times before moving up. You might have to practice one step a few times for the anxiety to completely fade, and it’s important that this happens before you move on to the next.
When you start to test the water in situations you find scary you’ll need to use those anxiety beating skills we showed you (like deep breathing) to reduce your anxiety and stop you running away! Make sure you’ve practised them and can remember what to do before you start Testing the water!
More tips on climbing the fear ladder
1. Watching Others
Try watching other people doing the thing you’re afraid of.
- What are they doing?
- What social skills are they using?
- This will also help you to get used to the situation.
Watching someone else do the thing you’re frightened of is likely to make you feel anxious, but it’s still good practice. If you need to, use muscle relaxation, deep breathing, positive association or imagination techniques to reduce your anxiety.
2. Taking Notes
When you are planning to face your fear or when you’re watching others, make notes.
Make a note of all of the things that you think you might need (like a bag for your cinema money so you don’t need to worry about it, a book to read on the bus to keep your mind busy) or any social skills that will help you in that situation (like smiling, speaking clearly and slowly).
Although you won’t necessarily be able to look at your notes when you’re actually in the situation (notes are no good in a swimming pool!), you can at least use them to prepare for the first few steps on the ladder.
3. Support from friends
Try asking a close friend to come with you when you test the water. This’ll give you some added support and will give you someone to turn to if you have problems.
As you move up the different steps of your ladder it’ll become easier to face your fears and you may find that you don’t need any extra support. But to begin with it’s a good idea to get a bit of help.
Remember to do what you feel most comfortable with. If you would rather just have a friend on the phone to talk to once you’ve finished testing the water, or before you start, then that’s fine. Your friend doesn’t have to be there to give you support if you don’t want them to be. Once you’ve got used to a level on your ladder using support from a friend, try doing it alone.
Keep a record of your progress
Record how well you’ve done after each step on the ladder. Anxiety makes it more difficult to concentrate, so you might forget a lot of what’s happened very quickly – so write it down. Use your diary to:
- Write down the thoughts and feelings you had when you were testing the water.
- Write down anything that went wrong, so you can think of ways to stop it going wrong next time. What lessons have you learnt?
- Write down what you did well. Is there anything here that can help you with the next step?
When you successfully climb a step on the ladder it’s good to have a record of your achievements!
If you don’t have a friend you feel happy talking to about testing the water then keeping a diary can be a good way of helping you to feel better about what you’re doing, because there are times when it can be really hard work!
Keep a record of your anxiety
Journal
Title: My Anxiety
This is a way of recording your levels of anxiety during and after each step on the ladder, it can show you if you’re ready to move up a step.
Record your anxiety like this:
- Before you start each step of your fear ladder rate your level of anxiety on a scale from 1 to 10 where one is very mild and ten is so extreme you can’t bear it.
- Rate your level of anxiety during the situation.
- Rate your anxiety once you have left a situation.
Each time you repeat the same situation your anxiety ratings should be slightly lower than the time before.
Try to remain on each step of your ladder until your anxiety score is 3 or below. You don’t have get your anxiety down to a rating of 1 each time. Maybe between 2 and 4 is an ok score for you? But if your fear is above 4, the chances are that you’ll struggle if you move up a step.
Spend some time thinking about how low your anxiety score has to be before you would feel confident enough to move up to the next step of your ladder.
Remember progress can be a bit up and down. If you feel you didn’t do very well don’t let that bother you. Just think about why you didn’t do so well this time and learn from it, rather than feeling as though you’ve failed.
Examples of Testing the water
The following examples are interactive so that you can get a feel for how to test the water in real world situation but with much less anxiety. It’s hoped that these examples will help you when you’re asked to do testing the water for yourself.
Please start by selecting the video 1: “The restaurant”. Once you have viewed all three exposure videos please continue below to carry on with today’s session.
Example 1: The restaurant
In the following scenario you will be playing the part of the person in the film. Please try to put yourself in their shoes throughout the film.
In this scenario you will be trying to go to a restaurant. This may or may not be something that you have a fear of.
If you are frightened of eating in restaurants, try to imagine it is really you in that situation. If you are not fearful of this, try to imagine how you would feel if this were one of the situations on your own fear ladder.
Example 2: The bus
Example 3: The shop
Congratulations on completing Session 6
If you’re ever in a difficult situation which is making you feel anxious, try to remember the Anxiety Beating Skills and the Testing the Water examples.
It’ll take time to overcome your fears and become less anxious. But if you break your fear down into smaller steps using a Fear Ladder, and gradually work through it, slowly life will become a lot easier.
