Help needed with Stage 2 please

[jellybean]

Hiya guys thanks for all your help with my previous posts. I think I may have moved into the second phase of my "recovery". Ive now come to realise that if I am ever going to be happy I have to decide that my happiness is more important than what other people think of me, in a nut shell I have come to realise that happiness comes from within and for me to be happy means me deciding to react differently internally to external events. Anyway the penny has dropped on this but I have another question. I have all these feelings of inadequacy. I feel I am rubbish company and that I am not fun or interesting or enjoyable to be around. I amen't sure whether these feelings are even true to be honest but they are huge and I am finding it very difficult to let go of them. At the moment I have avoided any sort of social interaction and am living in a cocoon. I realise I am socially phobic and I realise this can't go on. My question is what should I do with these feelings when they come up. Should I just squash them away and put my attention somewhere else or is that just ignoring the issue, I just don't know what to do with them when they come up??? any advice would be great, thanks x

 

[sabbath92001]

My question is what should I do with these feelings when they come up. Should I just squash them away and put my attention somewhere else or is that just ignoring the issue, I just don't know what to do with them when they come up???

Great question. In acceptance and commitment therapy (ACT) we learn to just notice these thoughts, feelings and memories . Also we learn to not take them literally, in other words, realize that they are not facts written in stone. We distance ourselves from these types of thoughts by saying to ourselves "I'm having a thought that I am inadequate", and pretty much leave it at that. ACT teaches that it's not so much what we think and feel that matters but what we actually do.

There's an ACT therapist from New Zealand that has written a book called "The Happiness Trap", I think he's gonna release it here in the states soon too. With ACT, anxiety suppression and happiness are not really the goal, the goal is just living a full life with minimal avoidance.

www.actmindfully.com.au

Oh well oh well so here we stand
But we stand for nothing
My heart calls to me in my sleep
Now can I turn to it
Cause I'm all locked up in this
Dark place -- and I do not know
I'm as good as dead
My head aches -- warped and tied up
I need to kill this pain

My head won't leave my head alone
And I don't believe it will
'Til I'm dead and gone
My head won't leave my head alone
And I don't believe it will
'Til I'm six feet underground

How long I'm tied up
My mind in knots -- My stomach reels
In concern for what I might do or
What I've done
It's got me living in fear
Well I know these voices must
Be my soul
I've had enough
I've had enough
Of being alone
I've got no place to go

My head won't leave my head alone
And I don't believe it will
'Til I'm dead and gone
My head won't leave my head alone
And I don't believe it will
'Til I'm six feet underground

"In my grave
Lying wired shut and quiet in my grave

Leave me here
Leave it to me to waste here"

So young here I am again
Talking to myself
A T.V. blares
Oh man oh how I wish I didn't smoke
Or drink to reason with my head
But sometimes this thick confusion
Grows until I cannot bare it all
Needle to the vein
Needle to the vein
Take this needle from my vein my friend

My head won't leave my head alone
And I don't believe it will
'Til I'm dead and gone
My head won't leave my head alone
And I don't believe it will
'Til I'm six feet underground

"In my grave
Lying wired shut and quiet in my grave

Leave me here
Leave it to me to waste here"

Reason -- my reason
Take my head off this terror
I'm fearing I'll come back
I'll see
My mind's all wiped clean
The Needle
Make my great escape
I'll see the cold in time
My head leaves me behind
Let me fade away

I seem caught in time
My head leaves me behind
Body falls cold
And I see Heaven