Farryn Stock, who spent years hiding from social situations due to anxiety, says two simple questions from her therapist have transformed her life. The questions, "What's the worst that could happen?" and "And then what?", have helped her navigate everything from university introductions to moving abroad.
Struggling with Social Confidence
Throughout her school years in the early 2010s, Stock dreaded new social situations and often lay awake at night overthinking the day ahead. She dismissed what she now recognizes as social anxiety as mere nerves. Sharing a friendship group with her twin sister allowed her to hide behind her sibling, but as they grew older, her sister's flourishing social confidence magnified Stock's lack of it.
By her late teens, Stock often built up social situations to an unbearable point. The false narrative of embarrassing herself socially overshadowed her desire to be around other people, so she hid away a lot. Her mother found her a therapist, who helped her understand emotions she didn't fully grasp.
The Two Questions That Changed Everything
As therapy sessions neared their end, Stock voiced her concern about going out into the world and practicing what they had discussed. Her therapist asked: "What's the worst thing that could happen?" Stock replied with her usual fears: being embarrassed, not knowing what to say, making an idiot of herself. Then her therapist asked: "And then what?"
Stock stopped and thought. "Well, then I'd just go home and go to bed," she said. Her therapist replied: "Exactly, and then you'd wake up tomorrow and start the day again, and that would be over." In that moment, even her spiralling brain couldn't catastrophise the situation further.
Putting the Questions into Practice
Those questions saved Stock on her first day of university, when she had to introduce herself to a room full of strangers. Asking herself "And then what?" made her realize that even if it were the most embarrassing day of her life, she could still go home and never go back. It wasn't the most embarrassing day; she graduated three years later with a first-class degree.
Dates, which used to lead to last-minute cancellations or blackout drinking, became manageable. On one of her first dates after therapy, she reminded herself that even her worst-case scenario meant she could go home, put on pyjamas, and watch a film. Since then, the questions have helped her through job interviews and moving from the UK to Australia with her boyfriend. Now, if her social anxiety spikes when bumping into an old school friend in Tesco, she knows what to do: these questions bring her back to reality and calm her down.
