# Visualization



## Pinzelhead (Mar 14, 2007)

Anyone ever tried visualization in confronting fears. I am quite good at visualization but chicken out as soon as my anxiety starts to go up. Any way around it ?


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## yeah_yeah_yeah (Mar 27, 2007)

Use meditation for relaxation. Allow yourself to get to the stage where you feel afraid AND STICK AT THAT POINT.

The fear will PEAK - and then subside. This is called EXTINCTION. Stick with the fear and it will roll away.

If it does not go after 10 seconds or so, go back to medutating.

What are the images you are visualising, if you are ok to tell me?


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## Pinzelhead (Mar 14, 2007)

have a conversation with an attractive woman


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## yeah_yeah_yeah (Mar 27, 2007)

Ahhhh the big one.

I dont know if you saw my post to Saaaave lately, but for me this has been the peak of my anxiety ladder - the hardest thing for me to do. I took a roundabout route to it because I realised that my troubles were not purely related to SA. This may help.

I found that I feared ACTUAL HARM happening to me. That I would be hit, beaten up, smashed with a glass or otherwise hurt. These are issues of Paranoid Ideation - which is different to SA. I also indentified significant emotional difficulties in my relationship with my mother. She was very critical, demeaning and subjugating. My sister left me feeling that I was digusting for having sexual feelings by humiliating me for doing normal 14 year old things. In schema terms, I had defectiveness, subjugation, mistrust and abuse, and as an overcompensation - entitlement. You rmother is the basis for what you find familiar in women - and hence are attracted to. On this much it seems, Freud was right.

These caused me to act in ways that actually made me get rejected, so making my fear even worse. Once I had begun to work on the underlying schemas, I found that the visualisation worked much much better.

Then I began by simply talking to ANY woman. Polite conversation with checkout girls. Waitresses and so on. I did this for a month, to prove to myself that I am not inherently rejectable by ALL women everywhere. Then I moved onto women I did not know, in bars and clubs. Again just polite conversation - being friendly and treating them as an equal. I do find that its very mood dependent - and so if you try to make yourself do it before any of the psychologivcal preparation, you will put yourself into a state of anxiety by saying "I must get a result here"

For most people, dating is the peak of their anxiety experience. IMO if you have a history of SA that affects every area of your life, then using only simple methods to approach dating is going to be a frustrating journey. I concentrated on overcoming anxiety in a number of other situations first (to the point where I no longer have SA) and THEN thought about dating. 

A relationship whilst you are still emotionally disturbed is very often furl to the fire - as opposed to something that heals. Work on your overall recovery as a priority over dating, and the dating will then be far easier. If you cannot handle normal everyday conversations with folk round and about you, then trying to push yourself into the dating realm is going to be a very steep hill to climb.

If you feel there are no childhood roots to the issue, then try as I said - talk to ANY WOMAN you can for a good couple of months. Just start with "Hi" and a smile. Then maybe say a little more. ANYTHING. The old weather thing is fine - "oh wow its hot out there". This will always get a good response - "oh yeah I wish I wasnt stuck in here" is a usual. You can stop there if you like, or continue. Build gradually. Do not push yourself too hard, otherwise you will find yourself overstrateching and then getting anxious, babbling and underestmating just how well you relly did. Build slowly.

Ross


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## Pinzelhead (Mar 14, 2007)

The problem with me isn't really just approaching and talking with them. I posted a large list of symptomolgy several months ago describing me in a large way during interaction with women. I am looking more into schema therapy into trying to understand it but first must understand how to put it to good use.


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