This past month has been mostly about focusing on settling into my new apartment. The first few days of the move were expectedly difficult and chaotic, but I’m gradually starting to feel like I’m home in my new place. While I’m still letting the dust settle it feels good that this particular life transition is now over.
But now the hard part is ahead of me.
I knew that once the move was completed that my next step in my emotional health journey was to start challenging myself by socializing more. It’s hard to believe that just a few years ago I was socializing with friends almost every single day of the week. Now it’s an effort just to socialize on Saturday mornings with my walking and running group which is pretty much my only exposure to socializing these days.
Ever since that abysmal low I hit last fall I’ve been trying to pick myself back up and to start engaging with people again. Yet, I’m still avoiding socializing to an extent. Even when I go to my Saturday walking and running group I pretty much only talk to two or three people at most. I can’t handle anything more than that.
I don’t want to keep avoiding other people, but I’ve felt as if I’m stuck. It’s like I get paralyzed when in a group of people, even though I know in my heart of hearts that these are good friends and good people. The problem isn’t them. It’s me.
For as long as I can remember I have always had this belief that there is something wrong with me in that other people will never connect with me because I am broken in some way. It’s as if there is some invisible force field around me that tells people that I am to be avoided at all costs. Because of this belief I feel as if I am doomed to watch as other people form connections while I am relegated to sitting on the sidelines.
I know this belief stems from my childhood. It’s impossible to know exactly what it was that was done to me to make me develop this belief, but nevertheless because it was implanted in my psyche at such a young age I have lived with this belief for what feels like every single day of my life. Every time I look at other people, couples holding hands, good friends laughing at an outdoor café, or a family strolling through a park, this belief tells me that I am never going to have any of these things because there is something wrong with me.
Needless to say this belief can make my life feel like a nightmare. I’m also painfully aware of the fact that this belief becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. When people try to connect with me I am completely perplexed, not because I don’t want their friendship, but because I don’t understand why they would want mine. This belief tells me that no one will ever connect with me, so when someone does try to connect with me I wind up acting aloof and uninterested. My brain tells me that this person isn’t really interested in being friends with me, so clearly I must be misinterpreting the situation.
And then I wonder why I struggle to make friends, to which this belief tells me that it’s because there is something wrong with me. Hence the prophecy is completed.
The same thing happens whenever someone flirts with me. I tend to freeze up whenever someone is flirting with me because my brain goes into a state of confusion. If I’m broken and unable to form connections, then how can this possibly be happening? Then I convince myself that clearly it’s not, that obviously this person isn’t really interested in me, so I once again act aloof and uninterested in them until they disengage.
And, once again, I wonder why I’m still single. The prophecy is again completed.
Even though I’m aware of the self-fulfilling prophecy aspect of this belief it doesn’t help me to combat it or lessen its influence on me. I’m also aware that I do have friends, yet this belief still persists. It is absolute. It is rigid. And it is unaffected by any evidence that is contradictory to its validity.
A few years ago I had a temporary respite from this belief. During that period I was so busy socializing and fraternizing with other people that the belief never had enough time to propagate before I’d have yet another social encounter that would contradict it. For a while I even believed that perhaps I had finally rid my psyche of this belief completely.
But man was I wrong.
Once the second half of 2022 hit, so did the litany of losses and betrayals, the worst of which being the sudden end of my relationship. As the losses started to pile up, so did that sense of feeling that the toxic belief was not only back, but that it was obviously completely true. Worst of all, not only did I feel broken again, but I also felt foolish for even thinking for one minute that the belief wasn’t true after all.
Ever since that time I haven’t been the same. Every time I felt like I was starting to recover something else would happen that would trigger that belief. I began to feel like an idiot for even trying to socialize and date because obviously I was never going to form relationships with anyone.
It all came to a head last fall. I had reached the breaking point. I felt as if I had two horrible options: to either keep trying and failing to have a life I would never have, or sit on the sidelines and watch as everyone else gets to have all of the things that I will never have.
And that’s when option number 3 suddenly arose.
I don’t want to write again about that horrible week which culminated in that dark night when I came within less than an hour of committing suicide, but sufficed to say it has been a rough road trying to recover from that entire experience. One of the hardest aspects is the fact that I am so terrified of socializing because my greatest fear is that I will get triggered again, and next time I may not make it out alive.
So yes, it’s been a really rough time of recovery.
I know that I want to combat this belief. I know that there is plenty of evidence that disproves it. I also know that the belief is completely illogical. Why would I have some mysterious “thing” that tells people that I’m not someone they should connect with? Why do I still have friendships if this belief is true?
But, as I wrote earlier, it doesn’t matter how much evidence there is or how much I try to contradict it. In my mind it is absolutely true.
I just got home this morning from my Saturday morning walking and running group. I barely spoke a word to anyone and left rather hastily afterwards. I know these people are wonderful people. Yet it still doesn’t make me any less terrified to talk to them.
I hate this feeling. When I was on my walk all I could think to myself was, “Why do I have to feel so triggered when seeing my friends? Why do I have to feel like this? Why can’t I stop feeling like this?”
And while I was pondering these thoughts something hit me like a thunderbolt.
I have spent my whole life trying to avoid the anxiety I have whenever that toxic belief gets triggered. It doesn’t help matters that it gets triggered so easily. All it takes is for me to hear about someone’s relationship milestone, or a party I wasn’t invited to, or even that two people that were just friends now suddenly are dating, and next thing I know I am flooded with anxiety because that belief has been triggered that says such things will never happen to be because I am broken.
What usually happens after this is that I go home, plummet into a deep depression, and then live like a comatose person for weeks at a time until I finally cajole myself into socializing again. But it’s inevitable that something else will trigger me and then the entire cycle repeats itself.
But now I’m understanding something: the depression is yet another way of avoiding the anxiety that comes whenever that toxic belief is triggered.
My avoidance of this anxiety doesn’t stop there, as even now I know I am avoiding any situation where I could possibly be triggered, which is why I have hardly attended any social events. Even when I show up at my Saturday group I only talk to the people who I consider “safe” because I am avoiding any possibility of being triggered again.
This avoidance is understandable, but the thunderbolt that hit me earlier made me realize that my avoidance of this anxiety is the problem, and that, ironically, feeling that anxiety is the solution.
My avoidance of this anxiety is understandable because it is so powerful. It wasn’t until a few years ago that I began to realize that these were actually anxiety attacks. I always thought that anxiety attacks were loud and obvious public displays, but because I am so adept at internalizing my feelings I turn that anxiety inward, which ultimately leads me to counteracting it by plummeting into a deep depression.
I think I’m starting to realize that the solution is to learn how to feel the anxiety instead of avoiding it. Right now I have such a low threshold for feeling the anxiety, and because the anxiety I feel whenever I am triggered is so huge, even if the triggering event is something seemingly trivial, this has led to my fear of being triggered again. But I also know that, unless I want to live a life with an incredibly limited social sphere, I need to learn to feel the anxiety so that I can eventually desensitize myself from it.
Whenever therapists treat people with certain phobias or irrational fears they do something with their clients called Exposure Therapy. Essentially they start by doing visualization techniques that cause their clients to feel the anxiety they would feel when facing the thing or situation they most fear, but in a safe and controlled environment. Eventually these sessions start to challenge the client to expose themselves to “riskier” environments or situations until they finally are able to handle the anxiety that these environments or situations generate in the client.
For me, I have avoided the anxiety caused by this belief of my “wrongness” my entire life. Prior to therapy I had no connections with anyone so therefore I had very little exposure to the types of scenarios that would trigger that belief. As mentioned I also had a reprieve from the belief, and subsequently the anxiety, during that first year and a half after the pandemic due to the near constant social encounters and dinners with friends.
Once the break-up happened and the social activities dwindled the belief reasserted itself as did my anxiety. And I’ve been on a rollercoaster of emotional ups and downs ever since.
But I know now that I need to treat this anxiety, not by avoiding it, but by processing it. This is a very scary prospect for me because the anxiety I feel whenever triggered is so overwhelming. While it’s understandable why I wouldn’t want to feel like this, I realize now that I need to start allowing myself to feel the anxiety so that I gradually am able to minimize it to a more manageable level.
For now my homework has been to do some visualization techniques to trigger my insecurities so that I feel the anxiety that these triggering moments produce. My first attempt at this was intense in that I thought I may pass out from the rush of adrenaline pouring through my body. Even just imagining triggering events or scenarios was enough to flood myself with anxiety. But I know now that this treatment is the step in the right direction for me.
It’ll get harder as I continue to challenge myself. I’m not quite ready to go to a party or mingle with more than just a few people, but I hope that using these techniques I will gradually see my anxiety diminish considerably. I know that this technique works with people with phobias, and if it can work for them then it can work for me too.
What gives me hope is the idea that it may be possible for me to stop having these anxiety attacks whenever I am triggered by something. Even if the anxiety doesn’t disappear completely, which I can’t imagine it would, at least if it’s a more manageable amount then that gives me more confidence that I can handle these moments. And if I can handle those moments then I’ll be able to finally start opening myself up to socializing with my friends again.
As someone once said, “You have to feel it to heal it.” I’m ready to feel it.