One of the reasons I find this round of counselling helpful is that it gives me a chance to reflect on why I struggle to work out what triggers my social anxiety in particular. I struggle to know why I am able to cope sometimes and feel comfortable enough around bigger groups of people. Then other times, it is difficult to motivate myself to even try. I have recently been making progress on working out some of these triggers. It does however bring mixed feelings as I am happy to start to get to the bottom of it but there isn’t quite a simple solution to it that I can see yet.

Social anxiety can be a complicated thing to live with. It can make you feel uncomfortable in social situations, and you can find relief in having time on your own. On the other hand, this is not the long-term cure, as the longer you avoid these situations, the more daunting approaching them in the future, and the less likely it is to overcome your fear.

I have found this to be my experience. Often when I have been at home myself most of the day then go out to a social thing in the evening, the more likely I am to struggle with it. Therefore, I realise it is something I need to keep practising and exposing myself to in order for it to be less anxiety-provoking. Almost like how starving yourself all day in preparation for a big meal doesn’t always help you to eat more and you need to keep having small amounts throughout the day.

There is a balancing act to this for me though. As an introvert, I need to have time to myself in order to re-charge and process things. There are small ways I try to even out this balance. I try to look for any interaction I can have whether that’s in the supermarket and picking a human cashier rather than a self-one, on transport, saying hi to the bus drivers or just saying hi to a passer-by. It is still a work in progress as I suspect there are other triggers unrelated to this for me, personally. That being said, it has helped days to feel less lonely and completely shutting myself off.

Thank you for taking the time to read this and hope you find it helpful. As always, feel free to get in touch with any questions/feedback/comments, I always love to hear them. Stay tuned for the next instalment.

Until next time

K