Says who? Where is that "should" coming from; was there a test you and I deliberately did poorly on?

I did not have much social practice as a child, did not make many friends, was a good wall flower (except when I was "talking when she should be listening" as my teacher put it on my report card), etc.

Think of one of your daily habits. Does it make you anxious? Why not? Because you started doing it when you were little and did it everyday and it did not change or criticize or talk back or have a mind of its own that you weren't familiar with. Talking to other people can become a daily habit, even though it changes, some people criticize or talk back and they all have minds of their own, most of which we are not familiar with. It's all just education, experience and familiarity. Some things are harder for us to learn and some things easier; just like math or other school subjects.

I don't like stepping forward and introducing myself, I feel like I almost always say my name too softly, like I'm ashamed of it So, I have to practice that. If I practice that, eventually it will become second nature and I won't mind so much. So it's very very very scary; that's not illness, it's just scariness for us. Most of my anxiety is being afraid of being afraid. It's darned uncomfortable. Well, the only way I know of to make the feeling of anxiety go away or become less uncomfortable is to become familiar with whatever thought, feeling, or action is making me feel that way.

Sure there are a lot of outgoing people out there that have no anxiety about meeting others or even just thinking about meeting others. But they may be afraid of being alone or talk too much because they're afraid of silences or be "shallow" without enough sense to be afraid because they're thinking of themselves and not anything at all about others; we all have our individual fears and foibles and that's not illness.

But I need my T to practice with, to see what happens in me when I say ______ or what she responds when I say _________ and how that makes me feel and what thoughts that brings up. Or how to proceed when she says _____ and I feel like ________.