Anxiety that you can't 'push through'

I used to experience a lot of anxiety and panic attacks not long ago. I believe they stemmed from the delusions that people could see inside my head– and the paranoia that accompanied this belief.

The delusions and paranoia developed because I experienced horrible auditory and visual hallucinations and was so fearful that people might be able to get inside my head and see them that I started to believe that they were able to doing so.

I was taught in therapy sessions that all I needed to do was push through the anxiety or panic and once I’d reached the other side I would see that there was nothing to fear to begin with.

The only problem with this reasoning was that the situation itself didn’t bother me – it was the belief that people could see my thoughts that was the problem; and that’s not something that you can disprove.