Therapy

 

"Our worries are our 'Circle of Concern.' 

Our influence over those concerns - our 'Circle of Influence.' 

If you are worried about a test, then you shouldn’t waste time worrying about what is on the test, because you cannot control that (circle of concern). 

However, you can control how much you study for the test. (circle of influence)"

So with respect to this. My current situation now is ensuring everyone around me is safe and alive. 

Wow okay, I can do this.. I cant control how people want to take care of themselves but I can control how I want to assure them. 

What if I do it excessively?

Are you doing it excessively?

I don't know, do they think I'm doing it excessively.

How will you try to retrieve this information from them? By asking them?

How do you know if they're telling the truth?

I won't.

So then will you be able to know whether you're doing it excessively?

Perhaps when, they start to drift away by deciding not to share anything with me because I overact over almost everything.

Do you overact to everything people tell you?

I think I do, but I also feel like I react moderately to big issues and excessively to small issues. Because to me, if a person decides to share something big to me, its probably because they're really troubled by it and they really need help so if I were to react excessively, it would make them panic even more. But if they were to share only small things, I would think they dont feel like Im a good company and hence they cant share with me even if they wanted to and that makes me feel bad and so I react excessively so they know that I do care. But somehow, this sorta thinking is not serving me how it should serve me in a conversation with people.

Hmm this is where we're at a dead end.

Cause to me, I know if I do things differently, then it would make me feel unsafe. But maybe that's exacty what I need to do. 

So bring back what you have just told me earlier on and let's try your method of doing things differently.

Alright.. So instead of me reacting big to the small issues, maybe reacting big to big issues and small to small issues. So then the person would feel like they're being taken seriously. because sharing big things usually requires courage and if a reaction not big enough is displayed to the person, it would make the person feel like their issues are being thrown one side or are being generalized/dismissed as a typical thing. 

Hence, this is probably why people think you make their problems feel unimportant or insignificant when in actual fact, they doing the opposite effect on you, which is that you worry for them, catastrophize yada yada. It could also be that you fear being vulnerable to that person hence not truly expressing it at that moment would potentially scar the person.

Are you bringing yourself down when you constantly think about what people have said about you?

I don't think so because I feel like if I could take what they say into consideration it shows the effort to want to work on myself. But I'm very wary about who decides to tell me about my areas of improvement. I feel the safest with friends but if an acquaintance were to tell me those kinds of stuff, It would make me feel uncomfortable and think am I that easy to read. And then I blame myself for oversharing when oversharing initially begins from wanting to make everyone else feel comfortable. Everyone but me because I am literally giving them a token to judge me.

So then you feel like other people's comfort goes before your own needs to feeling comfortable? How has that served you so far?

It has basically made me feel like people could get bored of me because they have all the stupid information about me, even those they probably didn't ask for, and that would honestly make me feel like a hoe who doesn't respect herself enough to wait for questions before unraveling about me.

iT'S almost as if I'm trying so hard for people not to have the wrong image of me from the very beginning and at any one point when they start to stray from that image, it would make me feel exasperated because I would literally sell my entire journal to people in order for them not to think shit of me.

Or maybe I just need to come to terms with the fact that I'm just a shit person. Going south again, Catch myself.

Catch myself.

The reason why Im trying so hard to perfect my communication skills is that I want to be able to control my social anxiety and not have it control me. And somehow, it always wins.

Why do you feel like social anxiety always wins?

Isn't it obvious? I communicate about me even when I don't want to so others would feel safe. If that's not fear of being judged, I dont know what is.

I'm feeling worn out already. Is it okay if we take a break. 

Yeah, sure.

Thank you.