Coaching practices for I Get Through the Hard Situations but Only with My Little Crutches Over Rehearsing Every Word Hovering by the Door Gripping My Phone and Afterward I Tell Myself it Only Went Okay Because of Those So Deep Down I'm Still Sure I Couldn't Handle it Without Them
Describe almost anything you are working through and IX Coach finds the practices whose real-world fit is closest. For I Get Through the Hard Situations but Only with My Little Crutches Over Rehearsing Every Word Hovering by the Door Gripping My Phone and Afterward I Tell Myself it Only Went Okay Because of Those So Deep Down I'm Still Sure I Couldn't Handle it Without Them, these are the strongest matches in the current practice library.
Does this sound like the set of challenges you might be facing?
- I only get through hard moments by clutching my little crutches
- I can only handle the scary situation if I’ve got my little crutch
- I get through the hard situations, but only with my little crutches
- I can get through the scary thing now, but only with my little crutches
- When I picture the hard thing going well, the version in my head is always smooth and easy
Practices that may help
- Run exposures without safety behaviors
Do induction exercises while deliberately leaving out the coping props you normally rely on.
Interoceptive Exposure for Panic - Gradually drop safety behaviors
Safety behaviors (a phone, a companion, a pill) reduce distress in the moment but prevent the learning that exposure is meant to produce.
The Fear Ladder: Graded Exposure Made Practical - Dropping Safety Behaviors Within Experiments
Remove the subtle avoidance strategies (safety behaviors) that prevent experiments from genuinely testing the belief.
Behavioral Experiments: Testing Beliefs in the Real World - Eliminate safety behaviors
Identify and drop the subtle actions that reduce anxiety but prevent learning you don’t need them.
Exposure Therapy: Facing Fears to Shrink Them - Rehearse the full scenario in vivid mental imagery
Walk through the difficult situation in your mind — including the hard moments — and watch yourself cope.
Cope Ahead: DBT’s Method for Preparing for Difficult Situations - Review what happened after the event to refine the next cope ahead
Compare how you actually coped to your plan — the gap is your next training target.
Cope Ahead: DBT’s Method for Preparing for Difficult Situations - Identify the strengths the hardship revealed
Name capacities you discovered in yourself only because the situation demanded them.
Benefit-Finding: Locating Meaning and Growth in Adversity - Domain 3 — Personal strength
Surviving what you thought you couldn’t can leave a durable sense of "I am stronger than I knew."
Post-Traumatic Growth, Made Practical - Prepare coping self-talk in advance
Script what you will say to yourself at the trigger, during the peak, and afterward — before you need it.
Stress Inoculation Training - Create a brief cope ahead card to take into the situation
Write a pocket reminder of the scenario, the emotions, and the skill — so you have it when you need it.
Cope Ahead: DBT’s Method for Preparing for Difficult Situations
Related concerns
- When Interoceptive Exposure Drop Safety Behaviors Exposure
Do induction exercises while deliberately leaving out the coping props you normally rely on.
Run exposures without safety behaviors
- When Scaffolding Learning Fading Support
Plan from the start how support will be withdrawn, and execute that plan deliberately.
Systematically fade the scaffold as competence grows
- When Exposure Therapy Drop Safety Behaviors
Identify and drop the subtle actions that reduce anxiety but prevent learning you don’t need them.
Eliminate safety behaviors
- Drop Safety Behaviors Exposure
Safety behaviors are actions people take to prevent feared outcomes during anxious situations — sitting to avoid fainting, avoiding eye contact to seem less socially threatening, checking repeatedly to prevent disaster. Paul Salkovskis identified them as a central maintenance mechanism: they prevent the person from learning that the feared outcome would not have happened anyway. Fading them — systematically reducing their use — is an evidence-supported component of CBT for anxiety disorders, with the strongest evidence in panic and social anxiety.
- Dropping Safety Behaviors Exposure Therapy
Identify and drop the subtle actions that reduce anxiety but prevent learning you don’t need them.
- Exposure Without Safety Behavior
Enter the feared situation without the safety behavior and observe what actually happens.
Run a disconfirmation experiment without the safety behavior
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