Calmdown
Bronze Member
I have been in therapy many times, starting with age 16. Most therapies weren't helpful at all, especially the therapies I did when I was younger. The issue was that
1. Therapists mostly didn't want to work on the stuff I carry from childhood.
2. They were focusing on the social anxiety instead.
No therapy that focused on the social anxiety helped ever. Not even a little bit. I know very well how CBT is supposed to help and I don't question that but in my case this approach was too dogmatic. Depending on the setting it worked the opposite, I felt worse because I could not do what the therapists expected from me in group settings.
The realization is that if I describe my problems to a therapist as "social anxiety" they will get it wrong. It is more than social anxiety. That low and broken self-worth goes way deeper than that. For example: Even if I held the perfect presentation in front of a group, with everyone supporting me there, I would still feel like a piece of shit with so much self hatred for putting myself in front of these people.
I had a time between 2016-2020 where I successfully worked on my self esteem, I felt good, optimistic and like nothing could bring me down. Even at that time I knew deep down that my self-worth was still broken. That self esteem on the surface is important too but it is not sufficient to work only on that. I'm already much nicer and caring to myself than when I was younger, because at that time I felt open self-hatred. But even that is not enough.
I think it is essential for a therapist, especially in a clinic with group settings etc. to understand that confrontation should not be the focus alone because it is important to handle the underlying emotions first. However the first thing a therapist thinks about when he hears a patient has social anxiety will be exactly that confrontational approach. I will not use the term social anxiety anymore to explain why some group settings are impossible to handle for me. I will focus on the self-worth issues instead.
I hope this might help someone in a similiar situation. I have that "surface level" social anxiety too, like blushing, trembling etc. when I'm in the focus of the attention but working on the self-worth helps with both issues.
1. Therapists mostly didn't want to work on the stuff I carry from childhood.
2. They were focusing on the social anxiety instead.
No therapy that focused on the social anxiety helped ever. Not even a little bit. I know very well how CBT is supposed to help and I don't question that but in my case this approach was too dogmatic. Depending on the setting it worked the opposite, I felt worse because I could not do what the therapists expected from me in group settings.
The realization is that if I describe my problems to a therapist as "social anxiety" they will get it wrong. It is more than social anxiety. That low and broken self-worth goes way deeper than that. For example: Even if I held the perfect presentation in front of a group, with everyone supporting me there, I would still feel like a piece of shit with so much self hatred for putting myself in front of these people.
I had a time between 2016-2020 where I successfully worked on my self esteem, I felt good, optimistic and like nothing could bring me down. Even at that time I knew deep down that my self-worth was still broken. That self esteem on the surface is important too but it is not sufficient to work only on that. I'm already much nicer and caring to myself than when I was younger, because at that time I felt open self-hatred. But even that is not enough.
I think it is essential for a therapist, especially in a clinic with group settings etc. to understand that confrontation should not be the focus alone because it is important to handle the underlying emotions first. However the first thing a therapist thinks about when he hears a patient has social anxiety will be exactly that confrontational approach. I will not use the term social anxiety anymore to explain why some group settings are impossible to handle for me. I will focus on the self-worth issues instead.
I hope this might help someone in a similiar situation. I have that "surface level" social anxiety too, like blushing, trembling etc. when I'm in the focus of the attention but working on the self-worth helps with both issues.
