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Belongs to: BMTH - Can You Feel My Heart - Therapist Reacts
The line “im scared to get close and i hate being alone” is also a great line to say how i feel with sozial angxiety…
So well put, indeed. It catches clearly this contradiction that can exist when we experience wanting to be seen yet also wanting to remain invisible at the same time. This longing for a place that isn’t met with loneliness, and simultaneously the deepest need to feel safe in this world, to know that you couldn’t be hurt from where you are. It’s hard to compose with the lack of predictability that connection with others implies. There’s a part of us that needs to surrender to the fact that we can’t control everything, and we can’t fully control the very possibility of being hurt by someone… but at the same time, when you feel paralyzed with fear, it leaves you with feeling like you can’t be an integral part of this world, that you’re doomed to be outside of it and only look from the window… which feels like a curse, or even worse a punishment for a fault you never did in the first place.
I have been struggling with social and performance anxiety for a long time, although am now in a place where I can finally say: it can get better, even if it takes an insane amount of time, energy, and constant care for ourselves. But oh gosh, the amount of opportunities I missed, the times I had to lie because in reality I wasn’t able to show up to a certain place at a certain time because in my mind I already failed before even truing… School felt awful - the working in group, the speeches in front of other classmates, the oral exams when you have to appear confident saying whatever your teacher needs to hear… Anything implying others presence would make me feel like being scrutinized, evaluated, tested. Being stuck in this cycle costs so much energy over time, and it’s hard to not feel disappointed by yourself over and over… Deep inside, I longed to feel connected to others, to have this seemingly spontaneous ability to socialize with others, without asking myself all these questions all the time, without feeling fear in my entire being. Just wanted it to feel natural, and good.
I resonate personally with your words, so very much. It’s hard when your heart deeply wants something that gets constantly challenged by fear and self-doubt. Even more when you see the pattern at play, that you know it’s unfair, while also feeling like you can’t have a full grasp on it, as if you were just meant to endure it over and over. It’s hard to keep hope and to not feel like life does what it wants of you, instead of you making the best out of it.
For what it’s worth, I can assure you that it can get better, even when it feels like it doesn’t. I thought I would have to be conditioned by social anxiety all the time, and I couldn’t envision a life in which I would feel more confident. I thought “recovery” story when it comes to anxiety where just good for fake, inspirational posts on Instagram. But with time, support - professional and personal -, unexpected life events too - but even by more learning to be an ally for myself both through the good and bad moment, I have been learning for a couple years now to extend my comfort zone. It feels more like a choice when I decide to step out of it, like a personal challenge and an opportunity to grow - less like an awful trial that I would have to endure anymore. It’s definitely not perfect. Some days are freaking hard, but I can tell that what we learn when we suffer from social anxiety - or better how we learn to cope and live in avoidance - , we can also unlearn it progressively, and enlarge what our comfort/safe zone is made of. Mine was stupidly thin and little about ten years ago. Probably even more as a little kid. Thankfully this is not something we have to endure for a lifetime, even if it seems to have no ending or possibility to progress the right way.
I wholeheartedly believe in you, and wish with my entire soul for you to have a life that feels both fulfilling and safe at the same time. Where the choice between solitude and connection doesn’t have to be a choice anymore, but where the two can actually be intertwined depending on your needs at the moment. Where you can take a step towards others, and they would also make one in your direction - to understand you, hear you and respect you when times to withdraw are necessary. You deserve the best, truly. 
It’s so weird, I keep getting better in therapy and making leaps to put myself out there, but every single time after one or two meetings that go well with a new person, I distance myself. Not really… consciously… but I just withdraw.
It seems I’m stuck in some odd loop of quitting while I’m ahead, from the fear of being abandoned by someone who I care for again, after having had 8 relationships and every time being the one who was dumped.
Now, I’ve not dated for 10 years (and 5 months) and I feel I don’t deserve love or know how to find friends or love after a decade of anxiety that made me lose all my past life, and I have no idea how to regain all of that.
@heartsupport I’d appreciate advice, but… if too busy I understand.
Music is my therapist in so many ways.
Same for me!..
@HeartSupport this is so beautifully stated. I ended up reading again a few days after I saw it the first time. The algorithm is a weird thing as it introduced me to you through a song that I had avoided due to its explicate content, but somehow, I had to see what you would do with it. You had me with 3 minutes by the sensitivity and pure vulnerability you showed your viewer. Because of this, it was obvious you weren’t making content just for the clicks or shock value. It was so healing to feel the rage that song brought out in me, the quiet pain of long forgotten hurt, and in the backdrop of all the emotional noise to to her your words and feel the assurance and understanding that only true empathy brings. There was no text book quick fix that so many therapists that I’ve personally experienced tried to trust onto me as if there was some magical thing to take all the pain; something with the power of a mother’s kiss to a child’s booboo. You are rare, I hope the people who encounter you cherish what they find in you. Therapy is hard enough to do for a client without getting someone who is there to fix a problem as opposed to guide you through troubled times and give you direction to help you navigate a better path so as to avoid the pitfalls of following the same rut crested from the belief that this is how you are fated to be. I know this from personal experience. Growing up in foster homes, I had a mom, dad, various siblings, and a therapist who usually had no idea who I was. Because of this, I believe in informed consent and cooperation between client (in as much as they are capable of understanding and the medical or therapy team. This is a long way of saying thank you for some of the best content I’ve watched.