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.