# Does your Social Anxiety keep you from therapy?



## neverbeenright (Apr 8, 2007)

Hi everyone - my apologies if I've posted something similar before - I'm having a hard time finding people who relate and can give advice about this.

I'll try to keep it brief. Basically I have a lot of issues - the biggest problems are my anxiety and social phobia, rock bottom self-esteem, fear of intimacy, etc. Needless to say, I'm not particularly happy and occasionally go into depressions. I'm a terrible mother and my marriage is at risk. I need therapy bad. I've lived with these symptoms for 30+ years and have never been able to do anything about them on my own. 

I've been in and out of therapy a bunch of times in my life, and have recently started back again. Here's the problem - my fear of people and inability to trust is a real barrier to therapy. What a Catch-22! I don't have any problem talking about my feelings to the therapist, but I'm so scared of going - so uncomfortable while I'm there - and feel so horribly humiliated afterwards, that I'm at risk of quitting at any time. It occurred to me the other day that I could probably be in therapy for the rest of my life and not touch on all of my issues. And yet, as soon as I start to feel a bit better, my first impulse is to duck and run. "All better now - thanks!".

I guess, since I've never felt comfortable with a therapist, and never really feel like it's done anything for me, it's pretty easy to convince myself it's not worth it to go. But this is a fight or flight response. When I'm calm and alone, I know that I desperately need help or nothing is ever going to change.


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## VCL XI (Jan 19, 2004)

Yes, but time/money as well.


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## User (Mar 20, 2004)

neverbeenright said:


> Basically I have a lot of issues - the biggest problems are my anxiety and social phobia, rock bottom self-esteem, fear of intimacy, etc.


This sounds exactly like me except you left out clinical depression.



> Needless to say, I'm not particularly happy and occasionally go into depressions.


There we go.



> I'm a terrible mother and my marriage is at risk. I need therapy bad. I've lived with these symptoms for 30+ years and have never been able to do anything about them on my own.


You lost me here: I'm a 20 year old male :lol .

I've been in therapy since March, 2006. My first therapist was unhelpful and I didn't make much improvement (and I'm reluctant to attribute the improvement I did make to this therapist). The second one was much better, and I've been seeing him continuously since June, 2006. The most important part of therapy is finding a therapist that you can trust and bond with.

It took me about 9 months to begin to see significant improvement in myself and my interactions with other people. That time frame is just a guess (there's been lots of improvement along the way), but my point is that therapy is a long term commitment that doesn't work overnight. It also took me about that long to become comfortable with and trust my therapist. (And I'm still not 100 percent comfortable.)

Over a year later, I'm nearly a completely different person. I'm doing things that were impossible for me to do before. I've never been so open and uninhibited in my relationships with other people. My anxiety and depression are weaker than they've ever been. In short, the therapy works (that is psycho-dynamic therapy, for me).

I recommend that you tell your therapist everything you've said here. Heck, if you can't communicate it verbally, then print up your post and give it to him/her to read. This is exactly the sort of thing you should be working on in therapy. SA is a difficult disorder to treat because simply showing up to therapy is a life and death struggle. It sounds like you need more help getting to and staying with the therapy, and your therapist is being paid to help you through this (literally :lol ).


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## Fragmntedsilence (Jul 4, 2007)

User said:


> I recommend that you tell your therapist everything you've said here. Heck, if you can't communicate it verbally, then print up your post and give it to him/her to read.


 I agree. Sometimes once I would tell my therapists my fears about opening up to them I would start feeling better about it. Good luck! Stick with it.


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## neverbeenright (Apr 8, 2007)

Thank you so much for the responses. I did tell the new therapist about this right off the top - and realized later that I don't think I've shared it with a therapist before. Strange. So much for honesty - no wonder therapy failed in the past. I'm thinking now that although I talk plenty about my problems in therapy, I unconsciously hide things about myself that I feel are particularly embarrassing or twisted. Not that I'd lie...but if they didn't ask, it would just never come up. Nobody ever asked me about that.

I must say though, that this is what worries me:



> The most important part of therapy is finding a therapist that you can trust and bond with.


I've read this in many, many places and I seriously wonder if it's possible for me. I find it impossible to believe that a therapist actually cares about me - they're just doing their job. How can I place trust in someone that doesn't care about me? So I can tell them my troubles and take their advice . . . but bond? Maybe I don't even know what that means.

Still, I'm hopeful. The therapist is nice. I'll just try to keep going, and try to watch for things that I might be hiding. Thanks all.


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## ardrum (May 13, 2007)

*Re: re: Does your Social Anxiety keep you from therapy?*



neverbeenright said:


> I must say though, that this is what worries me:
> 
> 
> 
> ...


Think about it like this... Have you ever had a job where you had to deal with other people? Did you ever care about their well-being, or take actions that you sincerely thought would help them out? Just because someone is doing a job doesn't mean they are incapable (or unlikely) to care about the people with whom they interact.


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## neverbeenright (Apr 8, 2007)

Fascinating, ardrum - I'm thinking hard about that - and I can see your point. Hope you don't mind if I print that off and tape it to my dash to read on the way to therapy! I'm serious - thank you.


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## ardrum (May 13, 2007)

*Re: re: Does your Social Anxiety keep you from therapy?*



neverbeenright said:


> Fascinating, ardrum - I'm thinking hard about that - and I can see your point. Hope you don't mind if I print that off and tape it to my dash to read on the way to therapy! I'm serious - thank you.


No problem! It's all too easy for people with SA to dismiss others' good intentions. People don't tend to be as bad as we might tell ourselves they are.


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## daniz023 (May 29, 2012)

*I feel the same way*

Glad you are finding a way to stick with it. I've been to one therapy session and am terrified to go back. HATED it with every fiber of my being. I think I have similar issues to you re: anxiety in therapy and not being able to trust the therapist or want to be honest with them. I'd love to hear more about your progress and anything that's working for you. Thanks!


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