Therapy for Anxiety, help needed?

[Aarron]

Hi,

Many thanks to those that read this. I have suffered with anxiety for most of my life and finally feel in a position were I can fight against it. I'll post the question first so that it doesnt get buried in all the information provided. I have given a brief history of my life and condition to help you in giving any help or advice.

Help need with ::
I am currently in therapy for Generalised Anxiety Disorder which is going well. I struggle in many social situations, one being returning items to a store (this is just one that my therapist knows I can test myself with easily). So my therapist has asked me to go into a few different stores and buy an item, she will then accompany me during our next session whilst I return the item. She has asked me to make a list of questions that I would want the store employee who I deal with to answer about their interaction with me. Then, after I return the item, she is going to approach the employee and ask them the questions.

Reasons why I dont like taking an item back: I feel cheap, I feel that they will get confrontational, I feel they will judge me and look down on me, I feel I will not come across as a nice person, I feel like I'm lying about why Im returning the item even though its the truth, I feel embarassed, feel I look uncomfortable, I feel my speech is different (slurred or I sometimes stutter when anxious)

Reason for help ::
I don't have enough questions below and need help in figuring out some more. Part of me is not sure why I feel the fear/anxiety, so I am struggling to come up with questions that I want the person I will be dealing with in the store to answer about me. I need to think of open questions that my therapist can ask the employee, so far I have:

How did he look
How was his speech
How did he come across

Brief history of me ::
Apologies if this seems all over the place.

My childhood was pretty poor. My father beat me from the age of 5 to 16, he beat my mother also but not sisters. He did drugs and drank heavily, and in doing so he would constantly call me names, belittle me, argue with me and try to find a reason to hit me - there was no love or bond with him at all. The mental abuse was as bad as the physical, and I put the anxiety I feel down to this. I never did drugs or drank alcohol despite him offering me it when I was around 13. My refusal embarassed him in front of his friends and although he never beat me in front of them it would come later.

My mother was the only person I could turn to, she was there for me on most occasions after I was beaten. Despite her understanding what I was going through, several of my fathers beatings came because of her. Any bad behaviour I displayed to her, she threatened to tell my father and obviously she did which resulted in me listening anxiously in my bedroom, waiting for him to walk up the stairs to my room. There are several severe beatings which I wont go into but it lasted until I left home and have not spoken to my parents since. I have no friends or other family apart from my partner and 3 children.

If i mak friends during college, university, work etc. After I leave or it finishes I never keep in touch, and if I go out in public and see them, even though we had a great relationship, I get very anxious and will do everything I can to avoid them.

As a young adult, I lived with a girl from 16-19, its at this point I realised I had a problem. As her friends and family would come round, I would stay in our bedroom. I would feel very uncomfortable around them and then knew I was home. As I began to feel this I just thought it was shyness, I later believed it was because I was introverted, it wasnt until I was 30yrs old that I disocovered it was a form of anxiety. We broke up and ive been with my current partner since. I have avoided most situations that have made me anxious, this includes changing jobs, dropping out of university in my last year. The anxiety has seemed to take over my life. I am not afraid to go out doors or anything like that, but I have stayed at home for sometimes weeks on end without going out, and that feels good.

Face to face conversations with strangers worry me alot, especially when I cant rehearse the conversation as I dont know how it will go. I get really anxious at work, I cant relax and get intimidated around every employee who is in a superior role than me. I feel emotionally and mentally weak, like I have not matured. I am 32 but feel in my mind that emotionally especially, I am that of a teenager.

I get easily intimidated, especially by men - aswell as having my father abuse me, his brother sexually assaulted me. Not sure how all these events relate to my anxiety but thought best to include then anywhere to give you a better understanding of me. My therapist does plan to send me for a mental health assessment as she believes my past may have created other issues.

I appreciate and am thankfuly for anyone who was able to read this and relate. If you feel you can offer any support, especially with the questions my therapist has asked me to come up with, I will be grateful.

Thanks,
Aarron

[Anne1221]

Just remember you are another person in a long line that the clerk will face that day..probably one out of 60 or something like that.
Here's what they are concerned with: when do they get off work, what do they need to do in way of errands, chit chat with co-workers, etc. You're just another number in a long string of person and they are PAID to assist you and you deserve that.

[Aarron]

Many thanks for the reply, My mind seems to expect confrontation but I know what you mean,

[Nowuccas]

Hey Aarron,

It seems to me that your current form of therapy is not directly addressing the core issue; that of the abuse you suffered until you were 16. "I am 32 but feel in my mind that emotionally especially, I am that of a teenager". You may quite possibly remain psychologically frozen at age 16 until you address it.

I suggest that at some stage, preferably soon, you have a course of EMDR therapy to reduce the intensity of the negative emotions associated with memories of that abuse. A previous post follows, modified for you:

Google: "therapists; EMDR; (your location)" or use the phone book, and/or various associations for psychiatrists and psychologists, to find the nearest one using EMDR (Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing therapy). In EMDR, a therapist will ask you to revisit a traumatic event and remember the feelings, negative thoughts, or memories associated with it. While you are doing this, the therapist may (or may not; methods vary) hold up two fingers about eighteen inches from your face and move them from side to side. You may be asked to track the movement of the therapist’s fingers with your eyes. As you concentrate on the traumatic event during therapy, you are trying to bring its memory to life. The mental imagery you are able to conjure up during the therapy session is then processed, aided by your eye movements, facilitating the processing of painful memories, enabling some of the powerful emotional states involved to be discharged to some degree, and helping to achieve resolution and a state involving less painful emotions.

EMDR has 8 stages. Professional EMDR is always much preferable. Sometimes, a beta blocker, such as propranolol, or atenolol is administered prior to being asked to recount the traumatic event, reducing the emotional charge associated with it, as it is re-recorded in your memory (which has been shown to be plastic, at least to some extent, with many people). The clinical use of MDMA (colloquially termed "ecstasy") is just beginning to be trialled in some areas in EMDR.

Ordinary "talk therapy" is often unable to access the deeply seated emotions associated with memories of trauma, but EMDR therapy has proved effective.

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Following EMDR, view my post about self esteem at http://your-mental-health.weebly.com/1.html I have my doubts that it would help you much right now.

One other thing that may help is to undergo a "rite of passage" once EMDR has concluded. Google: "rite of passage; (your location)". Ask your EMDR therapist about it, and also about the importance of sincere forgiveness (you may not be ready for this for some time) as a way of moving on. A post on it is below.

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View my post about Generalised Anxiety Disorder at http://anxietyforum.net/forum/showthread.php?33964-New-to-the-site-and-looking-for-help&p=223989#post223989

I also suggest learning and employing progressive muscle relaxation ( http://www.drcoxconsulting.com/managing-stress.html ) or acupressure tapping / EFT.

Give the Meridian Tapping Technique / EFT a good tryout, to see if it helps you. It is free via mercola.com or www.tapping.com (13 free videos), or www.eftuniverse.com or www.emofree.com or one of the many YouTube videos. Google: "YouTube; EFT videos".
Professionally instructed is generally preferable (Google: therapists; EFT; [your location] ). - There is a version for use in public places at http://eft.mercola.com (if you like, you can claim to have a headache, as you employ the acupressure massage / tapping on your temples, but you would then be restricted to subvocalising: saying it to yourself in your mind: "Even though I have anxiety, I deeply and completely accept myself)."

Use whichever works best for you.

Hypnosis is merely a heightened state of suggestibility, in which you are better able to communicate with your subconscious mind; view http://myfavoriteinterests.com/hypnosis/ about what it is, and isn't. 85% of people are suggestible to some degree; 15% - 20% highly so, and 15% - 20% aren't much at all, so you could either preferably seek professional hypnotherapy, or, if not an option, hypnosisdownloads.com has: Overcome Fear of Confrontation.

[Nowuccas]

"We achieve inner health only through forgiveness - the forgiveness not only of others but also of ourselves" - Joshua Loth Leibman.

View http://www.wikihow.com/Special:GoogSearch?cx=008953293426798287586%3Amr-gwotjmbs&cof=FORID%3A10&ie=UTF-8&q=forgiveness & http://search.about.com/?q=forgiveness such as:
"Five Strategies for Discovering How to Forgive" &
"The Many Benefits of Forgiveness - Stress Management".
Also http://www.ehow.com/search.html?s=forgiveness&skin=corporate&t=all such as:
How to Forgive, &
How to Forgive, Forget and Let Go.

Books: Forgive for Good by Fred Luskin, & Choosing Forgiveness: Your Journey to Freedom by Nancy Leigh DeMoss, & "The Twelve Steps of Forgiveness by Paul Ferrini and Pia Mackenzie, & Forgiveness: How to Make Peace With Your Past and Get on With Your Life by Sidney B. Simon and Suzanne Simon, & "Forgive and Forget: Healing the Hurts We Don’t Deserve” by Lewis B. Smedes. Get through your fear of forgiveness, from your bookstore, or amazon.com.

"How does one know if she has forgiven? You tend to
feel sorrow over the circumstance instead of rage, you
tend to feel sorry for the person rather than angry
with him. You tend to have nothing left to say about
it all."

"Makes me think that truly forgiving someone who has
wounded me is an incredibly difficult task. No rage
or anger, not evenly occasionally? Nothing at all
to say about it anymore? Ever?

Just another reminder of how hard it is to truly
detach from ego and forgive those who we feel have
intentionally hurt us. But we have to keep trying,
I think".
- Clarissa Pinkola Estes.

Hypnosis is merely a heightened state of suggestibility, in which you are better able to communicate with your subconscious mind; view http://myfavoriteinterests.com/hypnosis/ about what it is, and isn't. 85% of people are suggestible to some degree; 15% - 20% highly so, and 15% - 20% aren't much at all, so you could either preferably seek professional hypnotherapy, or, if not an option, hypnosisdownloads.com has one about forgiveness.

Some things we can forgive without much difficulty; others, not. Some sooner, some later; the important thing is that it be SINCERE forgiveness, not just the feeling that you OUGHT TO forgive. Ask yourself if you have done things for which you would like to be forgiven? Assume, for the present, that the same situation applies with others.

Some quotes on forgiveness:

When you forgive, you in no way change the past - but you sure do change the future.
Bernard Meltzer.

We must develop and maintain the capacity to forgive. He who is devoid of the power to forgive is devoid of the power to love. There is some good in the worst of us and some evil in the best of us. When we discover this, we are less prone to hate our enemies.
Martin Luther King, Jr.

The weak can never forgive. Forgiveness is the attribute of the strong.
Mahatma Gandhi.

The stupid neither forgive nor forget; the naive forgive and forget; the wise forgive but do not forget.
Thomas Szasz

Holding on to anger, resentment and hurt only gives you tense muscles, a headache and a sore jaw from clenching your teeth. Forgiveness gives you back the laughter and the lightness in your life.
Joan Lunden

It's one of the greatest gifts you can give yourself, to forgive. Forgive everybody.
Maya Angelou.

It's not an easy journey, to get to a place where you forgive people. But it is such a powerful place, because it frees you.
Tyler Perry.

"To forgive is to set a prisoner free and discover that the prisoner was you." - Louis B. Smedes

“Forgive others, not because they deserve forgiveness, but because you deserve peace.” – Jonathan Lockwood Huie

"To forgive is the highest, most beautiful form of love. In return, you will receive untold peace and happiness." - Robert Muller

"Forgiving does not erase the bitter past. A healed memory is not a deleted memory. Instead, forgiving what we cannot forget creates a new way to remember. We change the memory of our past into a hope for our future." - Louis B. Smedes

"Anger makes you smaller, while forgiveness forces you to grow beyond what you were." - Cherie Carter-Scott.

"Forgiveness is me giving up my right to hurt you for hurting me." - Anonymous

But also view: "6 Reasons Not to Forgive (Yet)", at
https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/is-psychology-making-us-sick/201409/6-reasons-not-forgive-not-yet

Being aware of when it is time to forgive, can be as important as developing the capacity for forgiveness.