@anita

Very true! I would add that as children and sometimes as adults we experience magical thinking.

You have mentioned before that even children try to control their surroundings to protect themselves.

Assuming responsibility is part of this magical thinking.

I used to go over the day every night and figure out how I could behave perfectly to avoid the bad things that happened.

As a child I believed that my mother abused me because of something I did.

But the truth is no matter what you and I, or any abused child did abuse would occur regardless.

It gave me great comfort when I realised that I was abused because of who I am. Who I am is irrelevant. Any child living in that house would have been abused. It was a matter of circumstance, an unlucky lottery if you will.

Another great comfort is realising that other people and even yourself can provide the love that we missed out on with our parents.

Hi Anita!

I was wondering when you would make a thread of your own! I didn’t realise there was one around from many years ago. Thank you for bringing it to my attention. I very much appreciate the care and attention that you put into your posts.

I am wondering, say imagine that you had no anxiety at all. What would you like to do that you don’t do at the moment because of anxiety?

I think it’s good to work on things that you need to do. But if you could work on things that could enhance your life, that could bring you a lot of happiness.

It sounds like your anxiety levels are quite high on a daily basis? Is this assumption correct?

My therapist explained that PTSD is very much related to avoidance. The more you try to avoid the memories of what happened, the more they insert themselves into your day.

As I have shared before, also something I learned  my therapist, the more you avoid activities that induce anxiety, the more fear of them is reinforced.

I’m going to be honest, based on my experiences it can take 6 months to adjust to a new activity that triggers anxiety. Each new activity you add can start the process all over again, though sometimes it can take less time to adapt the more practice with this you get.

Some things that you might want to research. Distress tolerance and exposure therapy. You don’t necessarily have to go to a therapist to practice exposure therapy, you can create your own goals and follow the guidelines at your leisure.

How do you feel when you are very very anxious?

Hi Lea!

You could try Google to look for adhd study tips there might be something useful! I wonder if you have tried speech to text for writing reports and essays. My husband was a fan when he had a lot of essays to write in a week.

You mentioned that you are scared of failure. Have you failed classes before or is this a hypothetical fear? Do you have any reasoning behind why you are afraid of failing?

Hi Lea!

Practicing assertiveness can help with the people pleasing because it is about politely setting healthy boundaries.

It is a fine line to balance being social while disagreeing with people. There are subtle ways to do it. First of all you don’t have to approve of anything you disagree with. Sometimes no response can be more tactful. Assertiveness can also help politely redirect someone. Failing that, walking away works. You can always jump back into a conversation when the topic changes to a more pleasant one.

What helped me to do things that I don’t enjoy is to regularly focus on the reasons why I benefit from doing them. For example, tidying up rubbish. I have pets, if I left it, they could chew on it or try to eat it. I don’t want them to do that. Making the bed, I have allergies and pets. To relieve my allergies I must change the sheets!

What are the subjects you don’t enjoy? Any reasons why?

Taking regular breaks is important when studying to maintain concentration. Perhaps you could do your best to enjoy your breaks? Or some people like to make studying a bit nicer by putting on music or nibbling on some treats. Try some different things and see if you have any preferences that make it a little more bearable.

Hi Lea!

It’s nice to meet you! I’m sorry to hear about your difficulties with bullying and social anxiety.

I think aside from the usual advice and therapy what helped me the most is exposing myself to positive experiences and kind people. When people support you it starts to turn that negative internal narrative around. You start to believe what they say and that you deserve better.

Believe me, you do deserve better! You are very hard on yourself, it is hard when you are anxious around others yet also fighting yourself. It feels like you are defeated before you even try. Perhaps practicing self-compassion is an area to work on?

Would you like to work on meeting kind people?

What are your interests and hobbies?

I’m also curious about your relationship with your family. What is it like since I’m assuming that you only have contact with people at work and your family? Is this assumption correct?

I would also like to provide a little information about anxiety and avoidance. Avoiding things that cause anxiety tends to reinforce fear. When we avoid it we feel relief which internally confirms that we were correct to be afraid. Only by gradually and safely confronting our fears do they begin to lessen.

Learning about the communication skill assertiveness was very helpful for me when I was learning to set boundaries. There is a good website called skills you need that might be helpful.