Things learned in therapy

[Ebbe]

I have been talking to a therapist for a few months now (although I've only had 4 sessions in total), and I thought it would be nice to share insights with you that I haven't read or heard anywhere before. I will try to word them in such a way that it reflects the way they became insights to me, but since I am really bad at expressing my exact thoughts, I might not always succeed in getting my point across. Please ask me to explain something if I am not being clear. These Insights are of course very personal and might not apply to you at all, but I hope they help someone.

Okay, here goes:

Breathing
On the first day we talked about small talk and how difficult I find it. She wanted to see what happened to me when someone initiated small talk with me, so she started with some random remarks. Of course my mind went blank immediately and I started panicking a little. She was monitoring me closely and she said that it seemed like I had stopped breathing for a while. So insight no.1: I should focus on my breathing when my mind goes blank.

Getting back to reality
At that moment I was still feeling panicky, so to bring me back to the here and now, she made me do the following exercise:
-First I should name 5 things that I heard.
-Then I should name 5 things that I saw.
-And then I should name 5 things that I felt.
Afterwards I had to go over all these things, and see which ones made me feel most in touch with reality. To me those were the things that I felt, and in particular the way I felt my feet touching the ground. Insight no.2: After I have my breathing under control, I will focus on what I am feeling physically to get back to reality.

Change in viewpoint during childhood
I really can't remember what we discussed during the second session, but the third one was very helpful. We talked about what events could have triggered my SA in childhood.
I remembered the following as a very powerful event: When I was 9 or 10 I was telling my mother an enthusiastic story about something trivial. I was yapping of about it and I suddenly saw in my mother's expression that she thought my story was silly and childish. At that moment I felt embarrassed about not having told my story in a more grownup way and the feeling of happiness that I had during my story telling had suddenly changed into shame. Around that time I started to overly monitor people's facial responses for rejection, and I started overanalysing everything I said, and I started to become labeled as shy. Insight no. 3: I can pinpoint the exact difference between how I felt before I started to develop SAD and after. I should think about the happy feeling I had before SAD kicked in and try to re-experience that feeling whenever I am starting to feel embarrassed in a situation.

Leave the SAD at the door
My therapist gave me an even more concrete insight, namely that it is impossible to be socially active and at the same time monitor people for any sign of rejection. So insight no. 4: Whenever I go to a place were I shall be socially active, I try to imagine leaving the part of me that overly monitors everyone at the door.

Try to reason with other SAD self
In the fourth session, we talked about what my relationship was with this part of me that wanted to overanalyse everything. I realised it felt like something that had been placed on top of my fun, happy self. It feels a bit like a blanket that covers the real me up. So my therapist asked me to have a dialogue between the 'real' me and the 'SAD' me. She suggested that the real me should tell the SAD me to go away. During the dialogue in the session I totally froze up, so I had to do this again once I was on my own. Insight no. 5 I should repeat to my SAD me that she should f*** off. Or kindly ask her to do something more constructive.

I will leave it at that for now. If this is helpful for any of you, I will try to summarize what happens in my next session. I really hope all my future sessions will be as fruitful as these ones have been.

 

[Hellhound]

Not bad... not bad I'm glad it helped you. Maybe i should try some of the stuff you mentioned...

 

[Ebbe]

Not bad... not bad I'm glad it helped you. Maybe i should try some of the stuff you mentioned...

Thanks I hope it will help me in the long term. For now, it is just helpful to have methods to grab on to when I am panicking.
I hope you try some of this stuff. Who knows, it might help.

 

[reslo]

thanks for the post!! it's hard for a lot of us to get into therapy just because of the obvious nature of social phobia, so it's nice to kinda live vicariously. im glad to see that there's a therapist who will actually work through these issues- i thought it was very interesting that they noticed a change in your breath when it came to small talk.

it is impossible to be socially active and at the same time monitor people for any sign of rejection.

i think that's very interesting & i'll have to keep it in mind- and that's probably a part of why alot of us struggle... and probably why i always feel like i'm missing out on something. it's like we can't control other people, just like they can't control us... i think your insights are helpful!

 

[Ebbe]

thanks for the post!! it's hard for a lot of us to get into therapy just because of the obvious nature of social phobia, so it's nice to kinda live vicariously. im glad to see that there's a therapist who will actually work through these issues- i thought it was very interesting that they noticed a change in your breath when it came to small talk.

i think that's very interesting & i'll have to keep it in mind- and that's probably a part of why alot of us struggle... and probably why i always feel like i'm missing out on something. it's like we can't control other people, just like they can't control us... i think your insights are helpful!

That is great!
I think a lot of us don't realise that we will be perfectly fine if we just speak without thinking or analysing.
If you are thinking of a subject (or are replying to an email) you don't have to search for separate words in your brain, and then put them together in the right order in a sentence. On the contrary, if you think of a subject, a sentence will just pop up. It might not be the perfect sentence, but it will probably be a reasonable reflection of what you think of the subject.
But when I am in the company of others, I will take such a sentence and go over it again and again to decide if it's good enough. And usually it will make me so anxious that I just don't say anything at all.
So I should trust my subconscious sentence constructing thingy more and just be spontaneous Of course in practice this is not so easy to achieve. But I'll work on it.

I think there are a lot of therapists out there who will work on these problems. There are (at least in my area) a lot of therapists who specialise in CBT or anxiety.

 

[Ebbe]

I am going to a dinner party now where I hardly know anybody. I will try to use all of this stuff and see if it helps. I'll let you guys know if it does.

Bye for now.

 

[Dean]

the reason why we feel the way we do is because we choose to see it that way, if we look at it like this, that human behavior is nothing more that a set of expressions on shuffle, then we can step out of the box and see situations for what they are, and if we can step out of the box in any situation we are then free. all emotions run the same weather we feel afraid fearful hurt, shy, we have gone there in mind, at times i am all so afraid, and sometimes it feels even instinctual, that is the problem will all negative patterns, they are beyond our control, and this is not down to anything else except how you programed you mind, it was you who chose to be the way you are, one way to change is to tell your self that you no longer want this any more, another way is affirmations, another way is accessing you subconscious as you sleep by may be recording a tap, but personally i feel if you can change something that you dont want in your life then it is a problem, but this is our mistake if it was i friend and we refused to have a problem with it it wouldnt occur. the problem with people now adays is as soon as they see another person they become dis empowered, we automatically feel threatened because its a dog eat dog world, we have to fight for our selfs and some people choose not to fight at all, but what i am saying is you can pass a man in the street without a problem, but the second contact is made our minds run riot, but it is down to us whether to choose to empower that person or not, the reason why we fear people is because we feel that they are impure, they are not innocent and there for we react, may be a case of, speak no dis empowerment hear no dis dis empowerment, see no dis empowerment, or fear etc

 

[Ebbe]

the reason why we feel the way we do is because we choose to see it that way, if we look at it like this, that human behavior is nothing more that a set of expressions on shuffle, then we can step out of the box and see situations for what they are, and if we can step out of the box in any situation we are then free. all emotions run the same weather we feel afraid fearful hurt, shy, we have gone there in mind, at times i am all so afraid, and sometimes it feels even instinctual, that is the problem will all negative patterns, they are beyond our control, and this is not down to anything else except how you programed you mind, it was you who chose to be the way you are, one way to change is to tell your self that you no longer want this any more, another way is affirmations, another way is accessing you subconscious as you sleep by may be recording a tap, but personally i feel if you can change something that you dont want in your life then it is a problem, but this is our mistake if it was i friend and we refused to have a problem with it it wouldnt occur. the problem with people now adays is as soon as they see another person they become dis empowered, we automatically feel threatened because its a dog eat dog world, we have to fight for our selfs and some people choose not to fight at all, but what i am saying is you can pass a man in the street without a problem, but the second contact is made our minds run riot, but it is down to us whether to choose to empower that person or not, the reason why we fear people is because we feel that they are impure, they are not innocent and there for we react, may be a case of, speak no dis empowerment hear no dis dis empowerment, see no dis empowerment, or fear etc

I am not sure how to respond to that.
Do you suffer from SA yourself? Does your fear stem from thinking that people are impure? My SA has nothing to do with that, it stems mainly from being afraid of embarrassment.

 

[Richey]

i went to a therapist for a while, the actual meeting itself was more beneficial to me then the actual content mentioned by the therapist. i had already read about cbt and alot of the advice was common sense and i was already aware what i needed to do to help myself. so really it was having someone to talk to that helped more then the advice given to me. the advice made sense and i took it on board but i already knew my behaviour was irrational and that i needed exposure and ways to change my inner thinking.

next time i wont be seeing a therapist (waste of money), instead i'll just find someone to talk to who will listen.

 

[Ebbe]

i went to a therapist for a while, the actual meeting itself was more beneficial to me then the actual content mentioned by the therapist. i had already read about cbt and alot of the advice was common sense and i was already aware what i needed to do to help myself. so really it was having someone to talk to that helped more then the advice given to me. the advice made sense and i took it on board but i already knew my behaviour was irrational and that i needed exposure and ways to change my inner thinking.

next time i wont be seeing a therapist (waste of money), instead i'll just find someone to talk to who will listen.

That's too bad. If the therapist couldn't give you any information beyond what you had already read, it was probably not a very good therapist.
Are you getting a lot of exposure? I find it hard to get the right kind of exposure. Either it is too much at one time, or it is too little.

By the way, I love your avatar

 

[Ebbe]

In case people are interested, the dinner party was okay. I spoke a little in the beginning, but it was a large group of people and there was a lot of discussion going on. I don't think I have said anything above two words in the last two hours, but at least I felt reasonably comfortable. There was no alcohol served, so I had no help there.

I didn't get a blank mind once though. Which is definitely an improvement! Whenever there was a discussion going on, I thought of things to say and at a few points I almost dared to say them. Maybe next time I will.

The only bad thing was that at the end of the night one of the guys there said goodbye to me with the words "You have to talk next time". That made me feel a little lousy, but I guess people just say stupid things without thinking. Maybe one day I will be one of them.

 

[Ebbe]

It sounds to me as though your therapist is a highly competent professional. Thank you for sharing this information with us. This has certainly given me something to think about. I always love posts that incite my curiosity which in turn gets me thinking.

Honestly, I never used to think that monitoring people's faces, reactions and body language was a negative thing. I actually enjoy doing it to some extent. It's interesting to watch people's reactions and to try to figure out what they're thinking. I'm inquisitive by nature and I want to know how and why people feel, think, and behave the way they do.

I believe that this analyzing and monitoring has actually made me a more perceptive individual. There could have been times when I would not have been able to tell that a friend, acquaintance or family member was troubled by something had I not watched them. Could this not be a tool necessary for nurturing? Now, I don't want to over analyze or think irrationally, but I do not think that this behavior is necessarily pejorative if it is used wisely. Isn't this what therapists do in order to understand their patients? Maybe I can work on not being so obvious about it so that I won't make others uncomfortable, but I see how this trait can be valuable.

Thanks again!

I agree that analysing and monitoring can also be a very positive quality. In my case though, I tend to monitor mostly for rejection and negative vibes and when I see them, I inflate them in my head and they make me panic.

But your way of analysing and monitoring seems very healthy.

I do monitor in a more positive way as well at times, and it makes me feel like more of an observer then part of the group. So in my case it would be wise to turn off the analysing now and then. If you are able to combine analysing and socialising, then of course I wouldn't advice you to change anything there!