[Sila]

As the title says, it's my first time in therapy. I'm seeing a therapist initially for social anxiety as I mentioned to my PCP, but I really just don't even know what to focus on. My social anxiety is just one of a bunch of things that I've been trying to get help with for years now. I've been seeing her now for only 4 or so sessions, 50 mins once a week. But I really just don't know what to be doing. We got one major thing done last week, which was discuss the possibility of ADHD and see if I could benefit from an official evaluation- which we determined is a yes, and I'm setting up an appt with a psychiatrist soon.

But because of the ADHD, I can't focus on one or two major things to work on. I also feel like I impulsively answered the initial screening questions, before I thought about the proper answers, and so I didn't really get to show/tell her what I actually meant. Like, she asked about depression, and I immediately answered that I hadn't really felt depressed much- But that's not entirely true because I sometimes (sometimes even frequently) hit a rough patch emotionally out of nowhere, and get depressed for days on end. It's not to the point where I can't get out of bed or do anything, but I just feel "down" for days. One of the depression screening quizzes showed that I scored moderately high for major depression and highly for dysthymia. So trying to say I don't deal with depression is kinda inaccurate. And I just hit one of those rough patches 2 nights ago and emailed her about it, but nothing could really be done because it was very much so situational and out of my control.

I kinda need some guidance here, and I don't know how to really go about this whole therapy thing. I know I would benefit from it, especially to lower the anxiety around every day situations, and even possible future situations (like asking for help from teachers, dealing with authoritative figures in general, etc).

She wants me to start working on prioritizing things, but that's part of my problem too- I don't know what's a priority and what's not. I just know I want to stop feeling like this. "This" being a mixture of depressed, nervous, anxious, out of it. I want to get back into college, but I can't even start until this semester ends and registration opens back up again.

I'm also very hesitant because I have a hard time trusting people, yet I also tend to open up very easily to people and then lead myself to getting hurt. I've done this so many times but I don't know how to NOT do it.

My mind is a mess and disorganized and I don't know what to do. :/

[CantExplain]

Therapy doesn't tie you down to a fixed agenda. Talk about what you want, when you want.

[Sila]

I know, but I have a bad tendency to trail off into the most random conversations and avoid the important issues at hand. Inside, I'm afraid to open up, so it's easier to reflect the topic back onto something less intense- But that doesn't work toward solving any of the issues at hand, so I can't let myself really do that for long.

I want to work on stepping stones, baby steps, whatever you call it. Small things I can do to improve my self esteem, gain the ability to trust a bit easier, and handle the anxiety around talking to people face to face. But I don't really know how to give the specifics she asks for.

[Wren_]

All of these things you shared are really good things to share with your therapist. it's ok to mention not answering the initial questions the way you now think you should have and to mention goals and what gets in the way. therapy seems to grow and change shape as you go along and sometimes what seems random can end up leading down important pathways let your t know you aren't sure how to give specifics; even knowing that will help her to help you more effectively