I have had a few sessions with a psychologist over the last few months, to deal with social / performance anxiety. While the whole process makes me very uncomfortable, I think it has also helped me identify some unhelpful thought patterns that I hadn’t even considered.
I’m new to all of this, and was hoping some of you may be able to give me your perspective on my concerns so far.
I find it really hard to honestly tell someone how I am feeling. Sometimes, I even find it really hard to quantify and describe feelings adequately to myself. So, each time she begins the session with; “how have you been feeling since you last saw me”, I stare blankly at the ground. After some silence, I’ll chime in with something along the lines of “Yeah, OK. I guess. X happened last week”. I have the overwhelming desire to tell her that it’s been great – even if it hasn’t. Sometimes I want to say that I haven’t been particularly happy – but I don’t want to deal with the follow up questions. Does that even matter, if all I want is some helpful tools to deal with the anxiety? Are any of you comfortable with being open with your feelings? How do you go about sharing them if you’re not?
She repeatedly says stuff like “It doesn’t sound like you like yourself very much”, to which all I can say is “I suppose not”. Truthfully, most of the time I hate myself, although I’ve never directly said it. Usually when people say stuff like this, they want the other person to coo false affirmations about their worth and ability. All the while, the other person believes the lies less than the original person believes that they’re worthless. I don’t want someone providing me with any feel-good affirmations that carry no weight. That’s not helpful at all. Any improvement in self esteem has to be internal, I want it to come from me.
How much of your personal history do you give to them anyway? I shy away from offering really personal stories that shade me in a bad light. During the first couple of sessions with all the history stuff I’d admitted that I was bullied at high school, and that I’d continued to feel flat and apathetic throughout my time as an undergraduate (rather than admitting that perhaps I was a bit depressed). I also told her about a horrible situation I’d had a couple of years ago with an old boss that really shattered my (already low) self-esteem. Not that I worded it like that – I stuck to a factual recount of the situation: I was in a strange country on the other side of the world where one of the two people I knew (and lived and worked with) would hurl abuse in my face from morning to night. Apparently I need to work on my assertiveness.
One thing that she didn’t specifically ask about, and I would never offer voluntarily, is my history with self-harm. While it isn’t something I currently do, I still get really strong urges to, and I’m very self-conscious of the scars it has left. Is it something that I need to tell her, even if it’s not a current problem? Does it matter? I can’t even fathom how I would bring that up, or what benefit it would possibly have. I mean, I’m trying to positively deal with the underlying cause of the reason why I want to do it . Like, why treat the symptoms if you can deal with the cause?
I feel like so far all we've given attention to is issues around perfectionism and self esteem, rather than the main reason I wanted to see her which was being able to deal with anxiety in performance / social situations. Does one have to be dealt with before the other?
Sorry for the waffling post. I guess my main questions are:
I’m new to all of this, and was hoping some of you may be able to give me your perspective on my concerns so far.
I find it really hard to honestly tell someone how I am feeling. Sometimes, I even find it really hard to quantify and describe feelings adequately to myself. So, each time she begins the session with; “how have you been feeling since you last saw me”, I stare blankly at the ground. After some silence, I’ll chime in with something along the lines of “Yeah, OK. I guess. X happened last week”. I have the overwhelming desire to tell her that it’s been great – even if it hasn’t. Sometimes I want to say that I haven’t been particularly happy – but I don’t want to deal with the follow up questions. Does that even matter, if all I want is some helpful tools to deal with the anxiety? Are any of you comfortable with being open with your feelings? How do you go about sharing them if you’re not?
She repeatedly says stuff like “It doesn’t sound like you like yourself very much”, to which all I can say is “I suppose not”. Truthfully, most of the time I hate myself, although I’ve never directly said it. Usually when people say stuff like this, they want the other person to coo false affirmations about their worth and ability. All the while, the other person believes the lies less than the original person believes that they’re worthless. I don’t want someone providing me with any feel-good affirmations that carry no weight. That’s not helpful at all. Any improvement in self esteem has to be internal, I want it to come from me.
How much of your personal history do you give to them anyway? I shy away from offering really personal stories that shade me in a bad light. During the first couple of sessions with all the history stuff I’d admitted that I was bullied at high school, and that I’d continued to feel flat and apathetic throughout my time as an undergraduate (rather than admitting that perhaps I was a bit depressed). I also told her about a horrible situation I’d had a couple of years ago with an old boss that really shattered my (already low) self-esteem. Not that I worded it like that – I stuck to a factual recount of the situation: I was in a strange country on the other side of the world where one of the two people I knew (and lived and worked with) would hurl abuse in my face from morning to night. Apparently I need to work on my assertiveness.
One thing that she didn’t specifically ask about, and I would never offer voluntarily, is my history with self-harm. While it isn’t something I currently do, I still get really strong urges to, and I’m very self-conscious of the scars it has left. Is it something that I need to tell her, even if it’s not a current problem? Does it matter? I can’t even fathom how I would bring that up, or what benefit it would possibly have. I mean, I’m trying to positively deal with the underlying cause of the reason why I want to do it . Like, why treat the symptoms if you can deal with the cause?
I feel like so far all we've given attention to is issues around perfectionism and self esteem, rather than the main reason I wanted to see her which was being able to deal with anxiety in performance / social situations. Does one have to be dealt with before the other?
Sorry for the waffling post. I guess my main questions are:
- Do you feel comfortable with expressing your real (negative) emotions? If not, have you discovered any tips or tricks for being able to at least talk about them?
- Do you need to have full disclosure about your past, even if they didn’t specifically ask about it? Does it matter that I used to engage in self-harm, if I don’t do it now (even if I seriously consider it sometimes)?
- Is there a tactful way let her know that while I appreciate the tools / methods she's provided so far, I find it hard to translate into dealing with the intense fear i feel when speaking to others in authority and talking in front of more than one person?
via Social Anxiety Forum http://www.socialanxietysupport.com/forum/f26/talking-about-feelings-372977/
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