You're cooking dinner, monitoring the kids, and you catch yourself mid-thought-rehearsing what you'll say to your mum about therapy. Again.

Here I go again, you think. Overthinking everything.

Or maybe you're imagining scenarios about the school transition in September, planning how you'll handle the drop-off anxiety, and suddenly you stop yourself: Why am I still doing this? I thought I was getting better.

Here's what makes this particularly cruel: Your anxiety is down 50%. Your health anxiety has dropped 69%. Your OCD symptoms have improved 58%. You're enjoying motherhood again in a way you thought you'd lost forever. At that recent wedding, you only checked the camera for 10 minutes before relaxing-something that would have been unthinkable months ago.

By every objective measure, you're thriving.

And yet, every time you catch yourself in internal dialogue, you feel that familiar spike of doubt. Maybe I'm fooling myself. Maybe I'm not actually better.

If you've experienced this paradox-achieving genuine progress while simultaneously questioning whether that progress is real-what I'm about to show you will change how you see your entire recovery.

The Meta-Anxiety Nobody Talks About

Most people who make significant progress in therapy eventually encounter what I call the "meta-anxiety trap." It works like this:

• You catch yourself having an internal conversation or rehearsing a scenario
• You immediately think: "I'm overthinking again"
• This thought creates anxiety about the fact that you're thinking
• You interpret this new anxiety as evidence that you're not actually improving
• The anxiety about your thinking maintains your overall anxiety

When most people experience this, they assume the problem is the internal dialogue itself. If I could just stop having so many thoughts, I'd be fine.

But here's what research on metacognition reveals: In the vast majority of cases, the real culprit isn't the thinking-it's your judgment of the thinking.

This explains why criticizing yourself every time you catch yourself "overthinking" doesn't make things better. It's not a protective strategy. It's creating a second, entirely separate anxiety problem on top of the one you've already largely solved.

Let me show you what I mean.

Was the Mental Rehearsal Helping or Hurting?

Think about that recent wedding you attended. You mentioned you'd been mentally rehearsing how you'd handle it-imagining what you'd do if you felt the urge to constantly check the camera, planning how you'd stay present.

Now think about what actually happened: You watched the camera for only 10 minutes before relaxing. A massive change from your previous pattern.

Here's the question: Was the mental rehearsal part of the problem, or part of the solution?

Most people assume it was part of the problem-evidence of ongoing anxiety, more "overthinking" to eliminate.

But the evidence suggests something completely different.

The Truth About Internal Dialogue

According to 2023 research published in Trends in Cognitive Sciences, inner speech is a cognitive tool that allows you to manipulate mental representations and enhances performance in various cognitive tasks. Translation: The internal dialogue you're experiencing isn't a malfunction. It's your brain doing exactly what it's designed to do.

Studies on mental rehearsal demonstrate this even more clearly. Research shows that mentally rehearsing challenging interpersonal interactions improves actual performance almost as effectively as physical practice. This is why mental rehearsal is used in medical education, aviation training, and elite sports performance-it works.

When you're cooking dinner and rehearsing what to say to your mum about therapy, you're not "overthinking." You're preparing for a challenging conversation with someone whose skepticism matters to you. That's not pathological-that's adaptive.

When you're imagining scenarios about the September school transition, you're not spiraling. You're mentally simulating a significant life change so you can navigate it more effectively.

But here's where it gets interesting: The same cognitive process can be functional or dysfunctional depending on a specific set of characteristics.

What Nobody Tells You About Overthinking

Research on what's called Repetitive Negative Thinking identifies the actual features that make thinking problematic:

• Repetitive - The same thoughts loop without progression
• Intrusive - The thoughts force their way in regardless of your intention
• Difficult to disengage from - You can't shift attention even when you try
• Perceived as unproductive - The thinking doesn't lead anywhere useful
• Captures mental capacity - It interferes with other cognitive tasks

Now compare that to what you described about rehearsing the conversation with your mum:

• Can you stop that internal dialogue when you choose to? "Actually, yes. If one of the daughters asks me something, I can switch to that."
• Does it feel trapped and uncontrollable? "It's not like before when I'd be stuck in a loop about health anxiety and couldn't get out of it even when I tried."
• Does it serve a function? "This is different-it's more like I'm working through something."

You've just described the difference between normal cognitive function and pathological rumination.

The health anxiety loops you experienced before-those were intrusive, uncontrollable, and trapping. They met the clinical criteria for problematic thinking.

The conversation rehearsal and scenario planning you're doing now? Those are controllable, functional, and serve a clear purpose.

They're not the same thing at all.

The Self-Criticism Mistake Hurting Your Recovery

So why do you criticize yourself so harshly when you catch yourself in normal internal dialogue?

You identified this yourself during a recent conversation: "Maybe I'm afraid that if I don't stay vigilant about my thinking, I'll slip back into the bad patterns. Like the self-criticism is supposed to keep me safe from returning to where I was."

This makes complete sense as a protective strategy. But here's the logic test:

Does criticizing yourself for controllable, functional thinking actually help you avoid intrusive, uncontrollable thinking?

No. It doesn't prevent the pathological type at all. It just makes you anxious about normal cognitive processes.

According to recent research on metacognitive therapy for OCD, this kind of self-criticism-the judgment of your thoughts-is itself a metacognitive belief that maintains anxiety. A 2024 study published in the Indian Journal of Psychiatry found that helping patients become "meta-aware" of their thoughts without judging them as abnormal is as effective as traditional exposure therapy for OCD, with particular benefits for changing thought fusion beliefs.

The problem isn't the thought itself. It's the belief that having the thought means something bad about you.

What Research Shows About Recovery

Now let's address the other doubt: the belief that having any residual symptoms means therapy isn't really working.

Your mum is skeptical about therapy. You've achieved a 50% reduction in anxiety, 69% reduction in health anxiety, and 58% reduction in OCD symptoms. You described being emotional when you realized you're enjoying motherhood again. But you still have some anticipatory anxiety about September. You still mentally rehearse conversations.

So maybe she's right to be skeptical?

Here's what almost no one tells you about anxiety treatment outcomes:

According to 2024 research, between 50% and 60% of patients respond clinically to anxiety therapy, but only one-third to one-half attain full remission during the acute phase of treatment.

Read that again: In successful anxiety treatment, residual symptoms despite major progress isn't the exception-it's the expected outcome.

You're not failing at recovery. You're actually in the majority of highly successful treatment outcomes.

The belief that successful treatment should mean being completely symptom-free is itself a cognitive distortion-all-or-nothing thinking applied to your own recovery.

When you go from 14 to 7 on anxiety measures, that's not "still broken." That's transformative change. When you go from constant overwhelming stress to genuinely enjoying time with your daughters, that's not "fooling yourself." That's your actual lived experience.

Residual anticipatory anxiety about a major life transition like your youngest starting school? According to a 2023 clinical guide on anticipatory anxiety, that's a transdiagnostic feature associated with virtually all anxiety disorders-not an indicator of treatment failure, but an expected feature that can continue to improve with targeted strategies.

Your Progress Is Real

Let's bring this back to your actual life:

When you catch yourself rehearsing what to say to your mum, that's not overthinking that needs to be criticized. That's your brain preparing for a conversation that matters, using the same cognitive tool that helped you succeed at that wedding.

When you imagine scenarios about September, that's not evidence that you're "still anxious." Mental simulation of future events is a fundamental cognitive process for planning and problem-solving. The question isn't whether you do it-most people do-but whether it remains controllable and functional rather than becoming intrusive and uncontrollable.

Your progress is real. The 50% reduction in anxiety is real. The return to enjoying motherhood is real. The successful wedding experience is real.

The residual symptoms aren't evidence against that progress. They're a normal part of the recovery trajectory.

How to Assess Your Thinking

Here's a practical framework you can use immediately:

When you catch yourself in internal dialogue or mental rehearsal:

1. Pause instead of immediately criticizing yourself

2. Assess the quality of the thinking:

• Can I disengage from this if I choose to?
• Is this serving a function (preparation, problem-solving, planning)?
• Does it feel like the old health anxiety loops (intrusive, trapped, uncontrollable)?

3. Respond based on the assessment:

• If it's functional and controllable: Acknowledge it might be helping you (like it did with the wedding). Allow it without the judgment.
• If it's becoming intrusive and hard to disengage from: Recognize this as a signal to engage your anxiety management tools-not evidence that you're failing, but information about what you need in this moment.

4. Remind yourself of the actual evidence:

• Your symptoms have improved dramatically by every objective measure
• You're enjoying experiences that were previously overwhelming
• Residual symptoms are expected and normal in successful treatment
• The judgment of your thoughts creates more problems than the thoughts themselves

How to Explain Your Progress

As for that conversation you've been rehearsing:

You could tell her that therapy hasn't made you stop thinking-it's helped you distinguish between thinking that serves you and thinking that traps you. The numbers prove it's working: You're enjoying being a mother again, you handled that wedding completely differently, you're not overwhelmed daily.

You still have some anxiety, but research shows that's normal even in successful treatment. Only 33-50% of people achieve complete symptom elimination, which means the majority of people who respond well to therapy-like you-will have some residual symptoms.

The question isn't whether you still have any anxiety. The question is whether your life is better, whether you're functioning in ways that matter to you, whether experiences you'd lost have returned.

And by those measures, the answer is clear.

What Becomes Possible Now

Once you stop creating secondary anxiety about normal cognitive processes, something shifts.

You can catch yourself in mental rehearsal and think, "I'm preparing for something important" rather than "I'm overthinking again."

You can experience anticipatory anxiety about September and recognize it as a normal response to a significant life transition-not evidence of treatment failure, but an opportunity to apply the strategies that have already reduced your anxiety by 50%.

You can hold both truths simultaneously: You've made transformative progress and you still have some symptoms to work with. These aren't contradictory-they're the expected reality of successful anxiety treatment.

The self-criticism loop that was maintaining anxiety can be replaced with accurate assessment: Is this thinking controllable or intrusive? Functional or trapping? Normal preparation or pathological rumination?

And when you can make that distinction without judgment, you stop fighting against your own cognitive processes and start working with them.

Which raises an interesting question: If you can distinguish between functional and dysfunctional thinking patterns, and you know that residual symptoms are normal even in successful recovery, what specific strategies might help you continue building on the 50% improvement you've already achieved-especially during high-stress periods when old patterns might feel more accessible?

That's worth exploring.

What's Next

Stay tuned for more insights on your journey to wellbeing.