curing yourself

[suzycello]

right thought id come on here after pretty much feeling cured for a long time now. I just wanted to share a few things becasue im sure alot of you are thinking your life is terrible, that you are an exception and that maybe you even want to die. I have been there from the age of 17 - 21. Im now 22 and i still get the old 'red disease'from time to time as me and my sister like to call it but it really is how you look at it that firstly makes you feel better and then eventually cures you.

I have seen counsellers, taken drugs, hypnotherapy, read books, worn makeup. The list goes on and nothing worked. My life was hell i couldnt go out, hold down a job (i worked 2 days a week), coudlnt go to any social gatherings sober. Symptoms would be blushing all the time, sweating profusely at the stupidest things. But yeh obviously it all goes on but the point im making is i have felt how you have and really didnt think there was hope for me.

Then i did CBT. At first i thought hang on this is a load of crap this will not get rid of of my blushing etc and at first no it doesnt but all the things i learnt within it really have helped me so much. So if you have a chance to do it..do it and do everything by the book. Its not a load of wishy washy crap. To sum up CBT i would say its just common sense being knocked into you. Going red sweating shaking is not the end of the world. Half the time you are making up in your mind that people are satring at you in a negative way, you probably dont look at bad as you are seeing yourself, you are not the only one this is happening to. All the above statemnts are true believe me. Now i can say all this and it can mean nothing to you. It may even make you angry as i did when i used to read things like this as you prob think well thats no good i just want a cure straight away and to never have had this thing in the first place. But maybe the biggest piece of advice i would like to give is for goodness say ACCEPT YOURSElf. Accept that this is and has happened to you and if you really do, it will go away and you will start to enjoy your life. I did and I am now doing a diploma to become a drama teacher- surely this is proof in the pudding as it were

anyway to sum up I made a promise to god that when i was cured I'd write something here and try and to my best to help anyone who thought their life was as hideous as mine was. So please ask me anything. If there is anything i can do to help just fire away.

xxxxx
lots of love
suzycello

 

[Nabu]

Hello suzycello.

I know that the solution would be self accepting. But it is not easy to accomplish this and to beat the subconscious.
Do you have some practical advice from your CBT therapy, which we can easily repeat ?

Nabu

BTW: It's great that your overcome the anxiesty

 

[suzycello]

no i understand. I did find it very difficult at first. Its hard to give advice from my perspective now as i just find myself thinking in a different way. But yeh if i list a few practical things

when you find a situation hideous ie sweating going red that whole panic wave just comes over you. Stick it out. sit there and wait for it to pass over you. It will go away as if you think about it adrenaline cant constantly last. This then teaches your mind that you can survive it and you probs will find this difficult for a while but gradually just by sitting there and sticking it out you teach your mind to think differently. The lady that i did cbt with told me( which is very effective when you fear everything) make a list of things say 10 that you fear and rate them from 1-10 ie least scary and most. my least was sitting having dinner with my own family with no make up on and most was making a speech in front of people. I then had to do the first step so many times that it stopped being scary . It sounds like hard work but its worth it. the hardest things are often the right things as they say. and each thing is transferable so once you have taught yourself ooo i can sit and have dinner with my family and that gets comfortable you realise there are loads of other things you can do.

The worst thing possible and sets you back is to give in to your fears and run away (avoidance techniques as they like to say) like pretending you have to go to the loo, growing your hair long so people dont see your face so much all these kinds of things that make your fear win. I mean i suppose its common sense really but as much as we can all see it i know it doesnt make it any easier to do.

I have also found honesty has really helped me in the sense that if i go red i might either make a joke out of it or if a panic gets so bad i just tell someone what is going on. I spent years of my life lying to my friends family about what was going on at the fear of obviously being ridiculed/ notunderstood, but people are surprising. I have found out that lots of people have the same sort of problems and that they can be very understanding even if they dont actually understand if you get my meaning.

I think a big thing for me was hating the word shy and i hated the thought that people would think im shy, but im starting to accept the word and that yes i can be confident doing drama but maybe i am a little shy on the side and its good to accept that. People do not hate shy people or think they are lesser people (which sadly is what i thought) i mean to be honest , i would like someone who had flaws and was a little shy and embarassed rather than some know it all arogent person who thought they were on fire.

oo and going back to the list thing. i did have so many things that i feared that she just told me to break one thing down so say my fear was going to the supermarket i started with going in for a short time, with make up and a mirror and going to the chekout with no cue up to doing a full shop with no make up, seeing someone i knew. etc so basically just start with what you can do and work up.

But yeh cbt really was the answer.

hope that helps
xxxxx