[music playing]
Candace: Exposure therapy is repeated exposure or gradual exposure to something that makes you uncomfortable or terrifies you so that you can overcome it.
Abebriel: That's actually a way to help someone who has anxiety. And slowly exposing a person step-by-step to try to help get over whatever is causing the anxiety.
My son and I were in a car accident just before he turned one. It was on the freeway in the rain. And ever since then, I couldn't even be in the car while it was raining. So step-by-step my therapist, at first, we started it was just me sitting in the car in the rain with the car turned off. And then the second step was to actually turn the car on. And this went on for months.
And I'm still not up to the point where I can drive on the freeway in the rain. But I can drive in the rain, but I'll only take surface streets. Because I'm still not to the point where I can drive on the freeway.
Candace: Public speaking would be one thing that I used to be quite afraid of. I used to be afraid to be in a room around people. As I started college and everything, I took some speech classes, got more confident. Then I went to the public speaking competition, and I started doing more and more public speaking. And now, I'm moderately comfortable speaking around people.
Abebriel: My little sister is deathly afraid of dogs. It started when-- I think-- she was three, she was attacked by a dog. And from then on, she couldn't even handle, like, hearing a dog bark. So when she was 10, my dad bought her a puppy. Slowly he had her petting the puppy. And then, she had to train the dog to be potty-trained so she was building a relationship with a dog, rather than having everyone else do it.
Now she's afraid of dogs, but not to the point where she was before. I think this was a great step for my sister, using exposure therapy to help her get over her fear of dogs.
Candace: A personal example I would give would be my Uncle Mike. He was in a motorcycle accident when I was a little kid. And when it first happened, he was unable to be around cars that were moving at all. He would freak out, and have panic attacks.
Over the course of a couple of years, he was able to sit in a car, not with it moving, though. And he was able to walk along the street near cars that were going. And eventually, he was even able to get on a bicycle, and ride a bicycle down the street with cars around him.