(no subject)
Sep. 4th, 2003 01:31 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
jayBorrowed from a friend...
"If I believe that I am unworthy of being loved, then I can prevent my feelings of total devastation when I am rejected."
Yes, that's it exactly. Rules to live by. But I think if one lets go of those defenses, every oncoming rejection would be like being the proverbial deer in the headlights.
I needed to prove myself to the world in order to have value, in order to be worthy of love.
Check. Over-achievement at work, external praise, competency outside. Then see if it wins anyone's favor. Another fundamental SOP. Doesn't work in the personal realm because there's no way to prove myself worthy, no awards or merit badges. (ref: my Jekyll/Hyde thread 2 weeks ago)
Thanks tocircusscreamer for the quotes (and stimulus of these insights)...
"If I believe that I am unworthy of being loved, then I can prevent my feelings of total devastation when I am rejected."
Yes, that's it exactly. Rules to live by. But I think if one lets go of those defenses, every oncoming rejection would be like being the proverbial deer in the headlights.
I needed to prove myself to the world in order to have value, in order to be worthy of love.
Check. Over-achievement at work, external praise, competency outside. Then see if it wins anyone's favor. Another fundamental SOP. Doesn't work in the personal realm because there's no way to prove myself worthy, no awards or merit badges. (ref: my Jekyll/Hyde thread 2 weeks ago)
Thanks to
circusscreamer for the quotes (and stimulus of these insights)...
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2003-09-15 09:00 am (UTC)In any case, I am most definitely not a trained psychologist, but from observing you and knowing you, my best educated guess would be that you would benefit greatly from the kind of therapies people use to treat social anxiety disorder. It looks to me like you have a number of irrational beliefs about yourself and the way other people feel about you. Furthermore, since you pride yourself on being a rational being, it also looks like you've become quite an expert at rationalizing those irrational beliefs, and when other people point out how they are irrational, you dig your heels in further. You've commented that those beliefs are protecting you, but from an outside perspective, they sure look pretty debilitating. I think social anxiety therapy of the sort that my friend underwent would eventually free you of those beliefs, and give you the chance at having stress-free, happy social interactions. It's not something you could do on your own, though -- it's something you would have to work on with a qualified therapist.
I'm not expecting you to respond positively to this -- everything I've observed about you so far indicates that you'll tell me that you were declared perfectly healthy by a therapist so why bother going back, or that it wouldn't be worth the time or money, or even that these beliefs I'm calling irrational are in fact perfectly rational. If you're planning on responding by saying any of those things, don't respond at all, because I've heard it before. If, though, you decide that you're interested in hearing more about the kind of therapy I'm describing, I can put you in touch with my friend. (She's someone you've met, in case that matters.)
-J
no subject
Date: 2003-09-16 08:51 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2003-09-19 06:47 am (UTC)-J
no subject
Date: 2003-09-20 12:19 pm (UTC)I'm the person Jae was talking about who just 'graduated' from intensive social anxiety therapy. The course of therapy I went through was a pretty traditional cognitive-behavioral approach that was tailored specifically to address social anxieties. The group essentially broke down into 4 types of activities:
1) Role plays in group to practice anxiety-provoking situations. This included mingling practice for everyone as well as role plays designed on an individual basis, according to people's needs.
2) 'Experiments' outside the group (at least one/week). We started off with the easiest ones and worked up to the difficult ones. They're called experiments because some failure is expected. The key thing when we got together each week to discuss our experments was that we focused on (a) what we learned (b) what we were proud of and (c) what we would do next time. Often what people would do is that one week they'd role play something and get feedback on how they handled it and then they'd go off and do teh experiment and come back and talk about it. Sometimes they'd role play the same thing several weeks in a row, until they felt able to tackle it in 'real life.'
3) We learned strategies for dealing with negative automatic self talk. Those are the negative things that we say about ourselves in situations and the negative interpretations we plce on people's actions. When I read descriptions of your social ventures and your life in general, I see these scattered throughout. This is something I really struggle with. You know how you argue with people when they contradict you? I was just as bad for a very long time. My ex-girlfriend and then Jae started breaking me of the habit of arguing out loud but I still *thought* the negative things. And I still argue sometimes and then Jae ends up beating her head against the wall. 90% of the reason I went to therapy was to make my life happier and better. The other 10% was to make life happier and better for people who love me. The sheer repetition and the practice of the techniques I learned helped me somewhat with my problems but it's the last part of the therapy that made the big dent.
4) Attacking core beliefs. Core beliefs are exactly what they sound like, the basic, essential beliefs that we hold about ourselves and the world. Some people believe that the world is unfair, others believe that they are socially inept, someone else might believe that they aren't worth loving. The therapy sessions I went to worked on attacking those beliefs overandoverandover again in many (like a dozen or so) different ways so that we could all find something that helped. The cumulative effect of all of the techniques was that I actually started to believe my 'new' healthy core beliefs that I wrote with teh help of the group almost all of the time. I can't begin to describe how it felt to slowly feel myself begin to belive that I was a fun person who had a lot to offer and who was worth loving.
----
TBC
no subject
Date: 2003-09-23 08:48 pm (UTC)it's the last part of the therapy that made the big dent
How would you rank 1-4 in terms of their contribution toward addressing your long-term social anxiety? Given your quote, I would suspect that #4 would have had the most profound effects, but perhaps #1 - #3 were needed to get to the point of attacking the core beliefs?
My ex-girlfriend and then Jae started breaking me of the habit of arguing out loud
I don't understand this... they wouldn't argue with you? What happened if you each wanted to go to different restaurants for dinner, or disagreed about politics? Did they try to shut you up? That sounds... controlling.
Negative self-talk has its uses...
with. You know how you argue with people when they contradict you?
Sure... (puzzled look) what else would one do? Unless I thought the other person was correct, and I'd been oblivious...
they'd role play something
Practicing introducing themselves, and the like?
no subject
Date: 2003-09-24 04:19 am (UTC)4 is definitely responsible for the long-term effects. 2 & 3 were definitely required both to get me ready for success at #4 and because they gave me something immediate and practical to work on so I could see results. 1 (role plays) weren't at all helpful to me in the format the therapist used. I knew they wouldn't be and warned him in advance. He didn't really believe me until we were well into the group. Towards the end I found ways to make the role plays more useful for me and because of my experience, he's changing the options for role plays in the future for people who find them too easy.
---
Re: the arguing thing. I don't mean they never argued with me about anything, I mean that they worked to break me of the habit of automatically defending my negative automatic thoughts. What would happen is that I'd say something negative about myself (or something more subtle) and KB would conntradict it, often with evidence that I was wrong or exaggerating. I'd keep arguing my position. This reinforced all of the negative thoughts that I held because I sought out evidence in support of my position and *totally ignored any evidence that supported a more positive view of myself*. Eventually I realized that they very act of KB arguing with me made things worse. Jae takes a different tack and tends to stop responding when I get all negative about something (there are some areas, like writing, where I'm still dealing with the negative automatic thoughts) and eventually says, "I'm not arguing with you about this. It isn't accomplishing anything." For me, it's exactly what I need. I don't have something to fight against so I'm less locked into my position, completely unwilling to listen to any alternative. Also, it points out to me that I'm arguing, possibly irrationally, and I can rethink things with the tools I now have.
We still discuss/argue/whatever things like politics or restaurants. And Jae has never tried to control my behaviour, she's controlled her reaction to it and that's more than allowed. Plus, as it happens, the way she controls her behaviour gives me cues I can use to reassess my thoughts.
Negative self-talk has its uses...
You know, I sat down and made a list of pros and cons of my old attitudes and thoughts and my new attitudes and thoughts and you're absolutely right. Negative core beliefs and negative self-talk totally have their uses. That's how come they develop. But I looked at that list and all of the pros of my old attitudes were short-term gains and the cons were long-term, severe losses. And it wasn't worth it to me to hurt myself so badly for the benefits I was receiving. I saw the other people's lists, too, and they came to the same conclusion.
-----
You know how you argue with people when they contradict you?
Sure... (puzzled look) what else would one do? Unless I thought the other person was correct, and I'd been oblivious...
The thing is, Brian, that what I always did was argue automatically without even registering what other people said or discounting it entirely. And I've seen you do the same thing. Arguing is one thing, blindly sticking to your position is another.
---
Practicing introducing themselves, and the like?
Oh, all kinds of things. We picked out own. A popular role play was to pretend to approach a stranger in a bar or at a party. One guy had to fire his realtor during the course of the group and role played it in group first. One guy gets freaked out by reading out loud and he read out loud things a couple of weeks. One guy had wanted to share his story at an AA meeting for 20 years and never had the courage so he told it to us for practice. We picked out role plays that were relevant to our life.
no subject
Date: 2003-09-20 12:19 pm (UTC)I had full confidence that the therapy would help. I'd done my research on methods of therapy and on the therapist and everything and I knew it would help. I didn't anticipate that it would make so much of a difference. There were some things that I hadn't even realized were difficult for me until they became easier. It amazes me almost every day.
You and I have some similarities in our problems. Just like you, I functioned perfectly well in work-related situations but faltered in purely social situations. I had insecurities relating to the 'cool kids' that dated back to my youth. I had issues with believing in my attractiveness to other people. I love social contact but didn't feel competent at it. I believed fully that I was seriously flawed and unlovable. Any of that sound familiar? I really think you could benefit from some kind of similar therapy- specifically the attacking automatic thought and the core beliefs parts, although the successes in experiments really helped cement in good thoughts about myself when I did them. The thing is, though, that success in this kind of therapy requires effort. You only get out of it what you put into it. If you're actually interested in pursuing it, I'd be glad to talk more with you about it and to ask my ex-therapist for recommendations for a therapist in your area. I'll answer questions here, in email, or even by phone or in person next time you're in the area. And if you go ahead, I'll listen and be supportive as you attempt the therapy. But I have absolutely no patience for arguing or listening to you being self-defeating. Just to warn you up front. Because my reaction to you when you are self-pitying or self-defeating is to say (to my computer because I didn't feel like saying it to you would make any difference) "I just worked my *ass* off for 5 months to make my life better! Do something about your life or shut the fuck up about it already!" I think I'm like an ex-smoker- I have less patience than someone who was never in your position. I am more than willing to help you out, though, if you actually want help.
no subject
Date: 2003-09-23 09:41 pm (UTC)Most of it, sure... I don't feel that I'm unlovable, but most of the rest of it is true.
chatted happily with people I had never met before.
(smile) that's great! Especially since you sound like you could do so while relaxed.
The lack of it was such a relief!
Excellent, and reassuring... but I don't understand the connection between social anxiety and the strength of your relationship with Jennie... unless by doing the therapy, you gained her approval, and hence felt more secure afterward.
I hadn't even realized were difficult for me until they became easier
Okay... hard to imagine, but I'll take your word on it.
You only get out of it what you put into it.
My own experience with therapy is that even that is optimistic... if I could convince myself that it was actually likely to show results, I'd be doing it now. If I could find someone in the area that took Blue Cross...
or shut the fuck up about it already!
At others' behest (mostly Jennie ;), I've started putting my more emotional, introspective or whiny posts behind warning tags... I hope that that has helped a bit. Thanks...
no subject
Date: 2003-09-24 04:29 am (UTC)At its heart, social anxiety is often about the fear of rejection. The same insecurities about myself that made it difficult to meet someone new made me worry that Jennie would leave me. Being able to believe that I was fun and attractive and interesting meant that I could more easily believe Jennie wanted to be with me. Bascially it stifled the little doubts that cropped up from time-to-time. Made it easier for me to interpret tension on her part as not meaning she was at the end of her rope and ready to walk away.
You only get out of it what you put into it.
My own experience with therapy is that even that is optimistic...
Cognitive-behavioural therapy works if you actually try it with an open mind and put in full effort. It isn't sitting around for years talking about what the root of the problem is, the focus is "Here's where I am now, what can I do about it." The behavioural stuff changes how you do things and the cognitive stuff changes how you think about things. I found I made more improvements more quickly if I incorporated the techniques and beliefs into all of my life. Relegating it to 3 hours every Monday evening would have done absolutely nothing.
I saw the difference between people who were putting in the time and people who were actively working. One guy coasted along for the 1st month, doing his homework but not actually trying to change and nothing happened. He started actually trying and he made some of the most dramatic improvements of anyone. He was a non-believer in the power of therapy but the therapist convinced him to give his full effortfor a couple of weeks and once he saw the improvement, he was convinced.