Exposure not making any difference

[recluse]

If they say exposure therapy is meant to cure or atleast improve social anxiety how come it does notwork for me?

I make an effort to go out and a do a job i really hate which involves social interaction, i go to a gun club, i try to make convo and smile to people yet my sa is if anything worse than ever! I don't completely hide away from people! It seems to me that no amount of therapy will rid me of this terrible disease (if you can call it that)

I'm just so fed up and depressed about my situation and i really can't bear to continue life this way. Every waking moment of my life is agony, and the only time i can truly escape is when i am asleep. I look at other people and hear about their great social lives which for them is no bother at all....It's just normal for them and i feel bitter and jealous....I'm not only talking about social lives i'm talking about simple everyday stuff like making phonecalls, going to shops.

 

[VirgoBlues]

Im sorry you are having a really hard time. If the forced social situations are doing more harm then good I would cut back.

 

[DarkSeeker]

From a personal point of view, I would say that's because you're still subconsciously suppressing your emotions. I know for sure that I can't allow myself to show up any kind of emotions when I am with people, and when I do I automatically feel very guilty and ashamed of it.

Staying connected with your emotions is not something easy when you have spent so much time trying to hide them away. It definitely takes a lot of courage to face them, may they be good or bad.

 

[Kustamogen]

I hear ya.....I did exposure therapy with 3 different therapists over the years and not once did it work/help.....guess it doesnt work for everyone

 

[kayelle]

In my opinion, exposure therapy can only work when you've really sorted out the mental and emotional way you approach an anxious situation. I mean, I moved into the middle of the city I live in and it made me absolutely awful, so in that sense exposure will not work. Then I started therapy and did that for months before I really got back into exposure, and for me it has worked. It's slow and it's really really hard, but if you get the right therapist it can be successful. It's about being persistant. Not doing something that makes you anxious once a week. That will make absolutely no difference whatsoever. It's about going into that situation once, twice, three times a day every day, and eventually it gets easier. As long as you've learned to approach an anxious situation like I have.

I wish you the best of luck, we all know the agony of this so I feel your pain Maybe you could get a new therapist? If exposure is having no results for you then it's not working and you're going to make yourself worse, not better. But exposure CAN work, and it can work for you. Try not to lose hope XxX

 

[Scrabbl]

Exposure therapy is not making a big difference for me either. THat said, I think personally, the problem is that I haven't been trying hard enough. As in having consistency and being persistent

Like someone else said, do you have a therapist to guide you with the exposure threapy? Because it's easy to do it wrong. An important thing to remember when you're forcing yourself into anxiety inducing situations is that you should be consciously trying to relax, focus on the external, calm yourself etc. Otherwise if you're still tense and anxious then exposure therapy will not do any good at all. In fact it may make it more difficult to face that same situation in the future. because your brain remembers the anxiety that you felt when you were in it before. I know I've had a lot of trouble with this before. It's still really hard for me to relax myself, especially if I don't prepare ahead of time or am caught off guard like say if someone on the street asks me for directions and then tries to small talk.

 

[Scrabbl]

I wonder if there's any one on here that has had success with this technique and would share their experience?

I really believe that exposure is the ultimate way / cure for SA. and I would love to see more living proof that it works / tips / advice!

 

[Elenwen]

Maybe you're at that stage where you get worse before you get better? I don't know, I don't have a lot of experience with exposure therapy, but I know with most mental issues that's the case.

 

[Day_Tripper]

I've seen that it's extra hard for people with aspergers. do you have it?

 

[kayelle]

I wonder if there's any one on here that has had success with this technique and would share their experience?

I really believe that exposure is the ultimate way / cure for SA. and I would love to see more living proof that it works / tips / advice!

I would say that I have had success with exposure therapy. The thing is my problem is not so much SA but agoraphobia and panic attacks, so I don't know if it would be the same thing?

 

[lyricalliaisons]

The more I expose myself to situations, the worse they get. It gets harder for me to be in the situations & harder for me to leave the house, the more I do something. I went to a group therapy thing a couple years ago & the more I went, the worse I felt, even though I liked listening to the things people were saying when I was there. The same goes for when I got my GED & when I started college last year. Even with the classes I really like, no matter how often I went, the anxiety never went away. In fact, it got worse.

 

[kayelle]

The more I expose myself to situations, the worse they get. It gets harder for me to be in the situations & harder for me to leave the house, the more I do something. I went to a group therapy thing a couple years ago & the more I went, the worse I felt, even though I liked listening to the things people were saying when I was there. The same goes for when I got my GED & when I started college last year. Even with the classes I really like, no matter how often I went, the anxiety never went away. In fact, it got worse.

But did you just exposure yourself to it or did you change first then expose yourself? The whole point of exposure is to change to way you approach an anxious situation and become prepared for the anxiety before you do anything. And that's why you then build it up slowly, like doing little things first, because just exposing yourself without being prepared would be counterproductive, as it has been for you.

 

[Noca]

Simply living life is NOT exposure therapy. The exposures have to be controlled anxiety provoking situations with the use of cognitive skills.

 

[recluse]

Im sorry you are having a really hard time. If the forced social situations are doing more harm then good I would cut back.

I can only describe the anxiety i get as pure agony and i wonder why i bother putting myself in the situation because i end up feeling very ill and panic ridden, the problem is i never learn that there's no reason to feel as anxious.

 

[recluse]

How long have you been trying exposure therapy, and do you have a therapist guiding you?

Well i consider going to work with other people as exposure therapy so most of my life, and i've been a member of a shooting club for a year now. I have no therapist and i quit my meds back in November because they only mask the problem.

 

[recluse]

I've seen that it's extra hard for people with aspergers. do you have it?

I don't think so, i mean i've seen the symptoms and they don't fit me.

 

[ripewithdecay]

Yep, Recluse I have to agree. I've tried so much 'exposure therapy' over the years and it has just made things worse for me. It doesn't work at all, unless alchohol is involved, and that's just not good enough.

It is to my knowledge that you must do CBT in conjuction with exposure therapy, so that you can pre-program yourself before you go out to socialize, otherwise the anxiety will reinforce itself. I haven't done it because i'm lazy, feeling sorry for myself, and doubtful, so I can't say if it works. But i'm going to try it.

Actually if you think about it, everyone with SA has had to been exposed at some point or another, some of us have daily jobs or go to school, it's obvious it doesn't help to just 'get out more'.

 

[Lorraine Manca]

I KNOW! i've thought about this alot. i deal with tons of people everyday, my sa is not one lick better than when i was a reclusive teenager that carefully avoided people. exposure obviously does not work. i really thought it would. its commonsense that exposure would get you used to it, but it doesnt! at least for me. i try to imagine having a good life without friends and family and try to hope for that, because the american dream of kids, successful career and friends aint gonna happen. maybe im doing the exposure thing wrong though! who knows

edit: when i do things that i consider "good exercise" for the sa thing, i usually come away thinking, that went alright, but i never want to do it again. i see that nothing bad happens, but the aversion is strong as ever. sorry this is so long.

 

[kayelle]

Well i consider going to work with other people as exposure therapy so most of my life, and i've been a member of a shooting club for a year now. I have no therapist and i quit my meds back in November because they only mask the problem.

That's NOT exposure therapy. Thats just exposing yourself over and over to your anxiety, without changing anything. Exactly like Noca said, exposure therapy is exposing yourself to the anxiety in a controlled, manageable situation so you can experience anxiety in a situation where you can be with the anxiety to which you've learned a new attitude and ways of coping, or retreat if its too much. It's not just going into situations that make you freak out over and over again.

If you do want to try exposure therapy you should get a therapist that will help you with it, it honestly is a million times easier than the agony you're describing!! I really hope you feel better soon

 

[kayelle]

I KNOW! i've thought about this alot. i deal with tons of people everyday, my sa is not one lick better than when i was a reclusive teenager that carefully avoided people. exposure obviously does not work. i really thought it would. its commonsense that exposure would get you used to it, but it doesnt! at least for me. i try to imagine having a good life without friends and family and try to hope for that, because the american dream of kids, successful career and friends aint gonna happen. maybe im doing the exposure thing wrong though! who knows

edit: when i do things that i consider "good exercise" for the sa thing, i usually come away thinking, that went alright, but i never want to do it again. i see that nothing bad happens, but the aversion is strong as ever. sorry this is so long.

But how would exposing yourself to these situations over and over again get better and easier if you don't change anything about yourself? In therapy I learned new ways to deal with anxiety and change how I react to a situation, and only then could start exposure.

Don't forget, this problem is inside us, not outside us, so if we don't do anything to change our internal reading of a social situation, then exposure therapy is going to be completely pointless, because we're going in with the same flawed reading of the social situation over and over again.