Fahrenheit
12-02-2015, 08:35 PM
I wanted to throw a question out to you all. I'm curious: What kind of of social support do you need/want for your anxiety? Do you have friends/family members/therapists/cats/online communities that you can reach out to when you are anxious? If so, what is the best way for them to help you? What are the worst ways for them to try to help you, i.e. what well-intended things actually make it worse?
I find that the first thing I am looking for is just an understanding ear. Someone who will validate my feelings no matter how big or small the cause - not someone who will tell me I am right or wrong to feel how I feel, but just understand that the feeling is very real for me. Nor do I want someone to be falsely reassuring, but for someone to listen to what I feel, sit with it without diminishing it or telling my how I SHOULD feel (because I do so much or that myself. I feel anxious, and then I blame myself for the way I feel) Advice is always helpful and welcome, and I often ask for it, but I like my advice to be delivered from a place of understanding why I struggle with anxiety in the first place, and not advice that offers a 'solution' to my 'problem' - more, advice that offers a way for me to manage a situation and/or the way I feel about it - if that distinction makes sense? Mostly, I think I just want to feel heard, understood, and accepted. I am still building trust in my relationships so I have the courage to reach out for that. I sometime feel a lot of guilt about bothering people with my anxiety, especially if I feel like I am being oversensitive, or it isn't a 'real problem', or other people have it worse, etc. and people who don't feed that thinking in me, but just let me be as I am are invaluable.
I also struggle with when to reach out and when to self-soothe. I feel I have relied on self-soothing all my life, and have only recently begun to reach out - but I still don't know when to just talk things out with someone, and when to say 'I can handle this myself and so I won't take up anyone's time' and just hunker down and get to it.
How about you? What are you looking for from your support system, if you have one? If not, what would your idea support system look like? What are you doing to build that support system. Feel free to talk about what you need for yourself as well, because that should be a huge part of anyone's support system.
I find that the first thing I am looking for is just an understanding ear. Someone who will validate my feelings no matter how big or small the cause - not someone who will tell me I am right or wrong to feel how I feel, but just understand that the feeling is very real for me. Nor do I want someone to be falsely reassuring, but for someone to listen to what I feel, sit with it without diminishing it or telling my how I SHOULD feel (because I do so much or that myself. I feel anxious, and then I blame myself for the way I feel) Advice is always helpful and welcome, and I often ask for it, but I like my advice to be delivered from a place of understanding why I struggle with anxiety in the first place, and not advice that offers a 'solution' to my 'problem' - more, advice that offers a way for me to manage a situation and/or the way I feel about it - if that distinction makes sense? Mostly, I think I just want to feel heard, understood, and accepted. I am still building trust in my relationships so I have the courage to reach out for that. I sometime feel a lot of guilt about bothering people with my anxiety, especially if I feel like I am being oversensitive, or it isn't a 'real problem', or other people have it worse, etc. and people who don't feed that thinking in me, but just let me be as I am are invaluable.
I also struggle with when to reach out and when to self-soothe. I feel I have relied on self-soothing all my life, and have only recently begun to reach out - but I still don't know when to just talk things out with someone, and when to say 'I can handle this myself and so I won't take up anyone's time' and just hunker down and get to it.
How about you? What are you looking for from your support system, if you have one? If not, what would your idea support system look like? What are you doing to build that support system. Feel free to talk about what you need for yourself as well, because that should be a huge part of anyone's support system.