Quote:
Originally Posted by lunarpariah
Oddly my T and I discussed this in our session today. I have really bad social anxiety. For the past three years I've only left my house for work (when I was able to) and for household shopping when it was absolutely necessary. I haven't made a friend in so long I can't even remember.
She wants us to explore this and do some CBT. I am terrified of it but I trust her as a professional so if that's what she thinks we need to work on I am willing to try.
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As an individual who is recovering from agoraphobia, I have employed much CBT to deal with my own anxiety. Much of it IS from my thought processes. For example, I put myself into hypnosis the other day for 5 minutes and visualized myself at the laundromat (I had avoided going last Tuesday, even though I had planned on going) and my mentor told me to imagine what I was really afraid of having happen. Immediately, I imagined me dropping my bag of dirty clothes, bumping into people there, people laughing at me. This was my worst fear: appearing foolish; my thoughts had been, "What if I make a complete fool of myself and can't handle myself?"
Of course it was cognitive distortion.
I took myself out of hypnosis, ended up laughing out loud at the ludicrosity of my thinking.
I was able to do my laundry on Friday, by the way.
None of the stuff that I was afraid of even happened! LOL
Billi