Resiliance is the ability to cope with the inevitable adversity and challenges that come our way. When we focus only on happiness, we push away pain and it can feel shameful to struggle.
But when we focus on how we manage difficult situations; are we able to be compassionate and firm with ourselves in the midst of struggle, do we show up when we need to (and let ourselves off the hook when we don’t), do we hold ourselves steady inside ourselves, have we good social support…? Then we can develop pride in ourselves even when things are tough.
I have been thinking about what would be the most useful continuation of my blog, as I haven’t regularly posted in a number of years, and I got to thinking about the things that I often say to clients in the therapy room, and why.
(If you’re a client of mine, you’ve likely heard this one!)
‘How does that sound when you say it out loud?’
Sometimes I ask this when someone has voiced something shadowy and unclear from inside themselves, a self-critical thought or something that is perhaps emotionally true but not necessarily actually true (eg they will leave me if I am not perfect).
Other times I ask this when someone has said something important or painful; she left me, it wasn’t my fault, Itried.
It is both a way of calling attention to whatever has been said, and inviting reflection.
Sometimes the only way to know we have been operating on an out of date belief is to hear it and not let ourselves follow those familiar and painful tram lines. Sometimes the way that we really take in something painful or true is to say it out loud, to ourselves or (importantly) to another human being.
Try it. Take a shadowy half truth, bring it into the light, and make it solid. Is it true?
There’s a particular ache that comes with wanting to create and feeling unable to. The blank page, the unopened sketchbook, the half-finished idea gathering dust. For many of us—especially those who’ve internalised high expectations, shame, or the need to “get it right”—creative blocks aren’t just frustrating. They’re deeply personal.
And often, perfectionism is sitting quietly at the root.
What Perfectionism Really Is
Perfectionism isn’t about having high standards. It’s about fear.
Fear of being judged. Fear of not being good enough. Fear of what might surface if we let ourselves be truly seen.
It’s a protective strategy—one that often begins early, especially for those of us who’ve had to perform safety, competence, or likability to survive. For queer folks, neurodivergent folks, and anyone who’s lived under the gaze of marginalisation, perfectionism can be a way of shielding ourselves from harm.
But the cost is steep. It can silence our creativity, disconnect us from joy, and leave us feeling stuck in cycles of self-criticism and avoidance.
The Anatomy of a Creative Block
Creative blocks aren’t laziness. They’re often a nervous system response.
When the stakes feel high—when we fear failure, rejection, or exposure—our bodies may freeze. We procrastinate, distract, or spiral into overthinking. The inner critic gets loud. The body tightens. The impulse to create becomes tangled with dread.
And yet, creativity is a birthright. It’s not about producing masterpieces. It’s about expression, connection, and aliveness.
In Therapy, We Might Explore…
The stories and beliefs that fuel perfectionism
How shame and fear show up in the body
The impact of trauma, identity, and internalised oppression on creativity
Ways to gently reconnect with play, curiosity, and self-trust
We might use somatic tools to notice where tension lives. We might explore early relational dynamics that shaped your sense of worth. We might sit together in the discomfort of the blank page—and learn that it doesn’t have to mean failure.
Reflective Prompts
Try journaling with these:
What does “getting it right” mean to me—and where did that story begin?
What sensations arise in my body when I think about creating?
What would it feel like to create without needing it to be good?
What am I afraid will happen if I let myself be seen?
A Different Kind of Creativity
Healing perfectionism isn’t about lowering your standards. It’s about shifting the goalposts—from “impressive” to “authentic,” from “flawless” to “alive.”
It’s about letting your work be messy, tender, and true. It’s about making space for the part of you that longs to speak, even if your voice shakes. It’s about remembering that creativity isn’t a performance—it’s a relationship.
And like all relationships, it needs care, patience, and permission to evolve.
Women in (or after) abusive relationships are frequently told ‘you have no boundaries’, ‘you need better boundaries’. This ignores the simple truth; that your boundaries are not welcome in an abusive relationship.
People who abuse others don’t want to hear that they are at fault. They make you believe that it’s your fault they hurt you. Or that you’re over-sensitive, a nag, or too critical. Or a few really sadistic abusers will actually enjoy causing you pain. Either way, the abuser wants to treat you exactly how they want to treat you. They don’t want to be challenged.
So, you either fight, or submit, or a circling combination of the two. This is a normal response to living in a dysfunctional or even dangerous system. It is a trauma adaptation. You are normal.
In this article, I explore what happens to your boundaries in an abusive relationship, and things you can do that will help you heal.
HOW IT HAPPENS
We are habitually treated in ways that hurt or harm us. We are violated. We are repeatedly controlled, critisized, undermined, ridiculed, demeaned, humiliated, or verbally, physcially or sexually assaulted.
These are all boundary ‘violations’. They hurt. We hurt. It is painful to have a boundary that is repeatedly violated.
We are then silenced and blamed when we challenge how we are being treated.
The abuser has created an environment where it is not possible or permissable for us to protest about how we are treated. We are blamed for any painful feelings that we might have in response to their abuse, and then systemically silenced.
This can look like: punishment, name calling, violence, stonewalling, justification, excuses, turning the responsibility back on us, blaming or suggesting that we have done the same / something just as bad / are not so perfect ourselves. It can be dangerous to express our hurt or anger at how we are treated, or even to show it. Conversely some abusers enjoy causing pain, and so we might shut down our hurt in order to deprive them of this satisfaction.
Nothing we do ever seems to have an impact. Whether we say something, say nothing, try and keep the peace, we are told this is ‘wrong’. We cannot ‘win’, whatever we do. Because the only way for the relationship to change is for the abuser to cease their relentless campaign of coercive control.
Turning the blame on us actually helps them to stay in control. If we are always looking inwards, then we are always off balance, busy searching for the solution to their treatment of us inside ourselves. (It may or may not be a conscious strategy on their part, but that doesn’t diminish the impact on us.)
We lose touch with our own boundaries and feelings, and we turn the anger on ourselves.
We might become numb to the abuse, believing that it doesn’t matter, or that we deserve it anyway. We might stop noticing it, or minimise the impact it has on us. We might start to hate ourselves for hurting.
Horrifyingly, we start policing ourselves. The abuser has trained us well.
THE PROCESS OF RECOVERY
STARTING TO LISTEN TO YOURSELF
Because you have had to shut down in order to survive, it will be important to begin listening to yourself. Your inner wisdom is right there, in your body. You. You matter. Your voice, yourself, your feelings; they matter.
Start to listen to your feelings. Practice checking into your body: are you scared, angry, disappointed, sad? Where do you feel it? Can you allow it to be, just as it is, just for a moment?
What choice would you make, if you were free to?
Watch what the abuser does to disempower you. How do they hook you into feeling guilty, ashamed, like you’re doing something wrong rather than the target of abusive, shaming or controlling behaviour?
How can you support yourself in the moment. Sometimes a mantra can help; ‘It’s okay to feel hurt/angry’, ‘I hear you’, ‘I love you’.
How can you diminish the power of their words in the moment. A mantra can help with this too; ‘It’s just a tactic’ (to control me), ‘they’re wrong’, ‘there’s nothing wrong with me’, ‘I’m not the problem’, or whatever helps you feel steadier in yourself.
Practice working out what you think, rather than allowing the story to be defined by the other. Allow yourself the space for your own opinions.
Find ways to be around people who do listen to you. This is immensely important. We ‘take in’ how we are treated. This will make an enormous difference to your experience of yourself.
If you’re finding it hard to get in touch with yourself, feel intensely self-critical, or find yourself overwhelmed, dissociative or it feels too big or frightening, stop, take a breath and allow yourself to do something comforting. It’s fine not to press through. The trick is to find a way to feel without becoming too overwhelmed. If you are struggling, becoming repeatedly overwhelmed or having shame or panic attacks, you might want to seek professional help to support you in your journey of reconnection.
RECOVERING ‘RELATIONALLY’
Firstly, do be thoughtful about becoming more assertive in a relationship that is, or your fear may become, physically or sexually abusive. It can be very unsafe to challenge a dangerous perpetrator, so please do seek specialist help if you are at all worried.
Even if your relationship is emotionally rather than physically/sexually abusive, it is likely that the abuse will escalate if you find more of a voice. This isn’t a reason not to do it, but it is important to be prepared for some push back.
If setting boundaries is likely to put you at risk, you might practice ‘small rebellions’. Create pockets in your life – safely, privately – where you are completely in charge. Practice making decisions yourself, trusting yourself, do the things that you are not ‘allowed’ to do safely out of sight of your abusive relationship.
Always, always prioritise your physical safety. You might find that you want to practice your boundary setting skills outside your abusive relationship.
TIPS FOR SETTING BOUNDARIES
Play around with boundaries in your imagination for a little while, think about what you might like to say, how you might say it and how that might feel.
Plan what you may need to increase your skill at setting boundaries: read books about boundaries, look for people who deal skillfully with other and see what they do. Try on their way of relating, see how it fits.
When you’re ready, start with the easy relationships, the ones that feel safest. Work on this, and increase your levels of difficulty slowly. Even if you need to start by saying ‘no’ in the supermarket, every boundary is a win.
Or, start with what hurts most. Sometimes we need to start at the point of most pain in order to feel our way back to the subtler pains. You’ll know best where you need to start.
When it doesn’t work out how you wanted it to, evaluate what went wrong, learn what you need to learn and move on.
Celebrate your achievements! It takes enormous courage to change old patterns, particularly ones developed in such difficult situations. You are doing amazingly just to engage in the process.
Setting boundaries with people who do not listen can be infuriating, saddening and crazy-making, so it is fine to find this challenging and also to reach out for support if you need it.
Remember that people who use abusive tactics will tend to respond defensively, so don’t judge your boundary by their reaction. They will try every trick they have to dismiss you and your feelings, and are unlikely to concede the point (and will probably punish you afterwards anyway) but what matters is how you feel about yourself.
Again, your safety is paramount, and so please, please keep yourself safe as you first priority. It is completely valid not to speak up if speaking up puts you in danger, or you or your children will be punished for it. Complying is a completely valid response, and an important one to have in your toolbox.
HOW THERAPY CAN HELP
You don’t need to be overwhelmed to seek therapy; it is completely okay to seek support just because you want support. That said, if you are finding that trauma is resurfacing in a way that doesn’t feel manageable, or that you’re finding your feelings big and overwhelming, don’t hesitate to get in touch with a specialist.
Sometimes it helps just to have another set of eyes on the task. It can be hard to change patterns, particularly those that are trauma related (they can have a lot of emotional ‘charge’ to them). A therapist will: be in your corner, know (hopefully) some of the right questions to ask, be non-judgemental as you grapple with your inner experience, help you sort through what it actually is you feel, and help you develop yourself to meet the particular challenges that you face.
REMEMBER
Getting ever closer to our authentic selves is a lifelong journey for most of us. Even situations that don’t go the way that you wanted them to will teach you a lot, about yourself and the other.
There will be missteps, and ‘mistakes’, but there will be life in all it’s messy gloriousness too. You can be in your own corner. Your own best friend. Decide for yourself what you think, and feel.
You’re recovering the most valuable thing; your relationship with yourself.
Good luck, and take care.
RESOURCES
If you’d like to speak to someone, call the 24-hour National Domestic Abuse Helpline for free on 0808 2000 247 and they will be able to direct you to resources in your local area.
Wherever you are on the scale, it can be hard to resist the desire to drink, so here is a list of useful tips and suggestions (although it is by no means comprehensive), that may help if you are trying hard not to drink, but are finding that you want to.
Make a plan
It can help to have a plan for when a craving hits: make a list of things that might help, and carry it with you or put it somewhere easily accessible to you for when you want to drink. For example, if you usually drink at home alone, you could leave it in a drawer, or if you’re a pub drinker, you might want to have it on you so you can look at it when the thought or feeling hits.
Know your danger zones, when do you usually want to drink. Include this in your plan.
For example, we are creatures of habit; if you always have a drink when you sit in your favourite chair in front of the telly after a long day at work, when you do sit down at the end of the day in that chair, you’ll probably want a drink. Shake it up; sit somewhere else, call someone instead of watching television, read a book, do out to dinner with a friend, ask someone over. Just changing the pattern can help disrupt the desire to drink.
In the moment:
Get busy! Clean something (even if it’s only your shoes), go for a run, a brisk walk, do something creative, do your accounts. Anything, as long as it gets you out of yourself.
Call someone safe – choose someone who is supportive of your desire to not drink, and who doesn’t trigger difficult feelings in you.
Eat something sweet. There’s a lot of sugar in alcohol so sometimes this can help.
Think of the craving as a wave. And just like a wave, when it is at it’s strongest is usually when it’s just about to break.
Remember: The feeling will pass, whether you drink or not.
Just don’t drink today. If you can’t do that, just don’t drink this hour, this ten minutes, this minute, this second.
If you can’t just not drink, can you put it off? Can you promise yourself that if you still want to drink this intensely in an hour, later that day, or tomorrow, that you will have one? Usually the feelings will have passed by then, and you’ll have another day under your belt.
Longer term:
Have a physical reminder of why you are not drinking to help you ride the wave: a photograph, a diary entry, write yourself a list of consequences/costs/things you want to achieve by not drinking. Anything will do, as long as you can take it out when you’re feeling the desire to drink.
Connect/re-connect with the things that drinking prevented you from doing. Build something in alcohol’s absence that is worth hanging on to.
Notice how much money you’re saving by not drinking. If you can afford it, treat yourself to something nice.
Build a network of supportive people around you, even if ‘just’ online. You will have moments of weakness, that’s normal and to be expected, so you need your network.
Don’t beat yourself up if you do slip; analyse what went wrong, and what you might do differently next time.
Look for patterns
You can look for emotional patterns: trace back to what happened in the moment you started to want to drink, look for thoughts and feelings that seemed to trigger or coincide with the desire to drink. These can be uncomfortable, like anger, fear or sadness, or happier feelings; excitement, connection and joy. You may want to hide from a feeling, or make it stronger or stay longer.
It might be that you need to take action: to set a boundary, make an apology / amend your behaviour, do something that you’ve been putting off. Or it may be that you need to sit with yourself while you feel that uncomfortable thing that you’ve been avoiding.
Longer term work
Is there anything longer term that you need to tackle? Some people really struggle in social situations without alcohol, for example, or lack confidence or self-esteem. Some people find intimacy difficult, or are in an unhappy situation that they are drinking to avoid facing. If so, this might be where therapy could be useful, to help you find your way forward and to give you support as you do.
And finally
If you are really struggling, either drinking again and again when you don’t want to, or finding yourself really adrift once you’ve stopped, it may be that you need other help. If you’ve experienced trauma, for example, you might find this resurfacing when you stop drinking or using, which can be really hard to deal with alone.
There are plenty of low cost charities across the country that provide support to those struggling with alcohol and substance misuse. Your GP can be a useful resource too, as can the anonymous fellowships, such as Alcoholics Anonymous. Therapy can also be a useful source of support.
Note: if you are physically addicted to alcohol, it can be dangerous to go through physical withdrawal and you should seek medical advice and supervision for this. If you’re not sure whether you’re physically addicted but suspect that you might be, please do go and see your GP.
We know the importance of healthy relationships intuitively. When we feel connected in our communities and with our friends, we feel happier, experience less depression and anxiety and find greater joy in living, even when we are on our own. We have lower blood pressure, are less likely to develop stress related illnesses and recover better from grief and trauma.
One study, for example, found that lack of close relationships in later life increased the risk of premature death by 50%, a rate comparable with smoking.
Our closest relationships have the biggest effect on our happiness. So how do we know that we are falling in love with someone that is good for us? Or whether our friendships are nourishing and strong?
Here are some signs that you are in a healthy relationship:
You like yourself
Someone very wise once asked me; “But do you like you when you’re with them?” It is easy to focus on what we like about the other person, but how do they make us feel about ourselves?
You feel good (mostly) after you connect with them
Watch how you feel after seeing them; do you feel happy, energised, sad, peaceful, ashamed, depleted?
You have your own space
There is room for you to pursue your own life, interests and relationships outside of the the main relationship. And even more than that, it is actively encouraged; both of you understand that your lives ‘outside’ draw nourishment into the relationship and keep it, and you, healthy.
You both prioritise the relationship
Togetherness is important to you both. You like spending time together and take care of each other’s feelings.
You can say ‘No’
Your partner respects your boundaries. You can say ‘No’ without being coerced, threatened, shamed or manipulated.
You can talk about the difficult stuff
It is ordinary to need to have conversations that are tricky; in a relationship, you are navigating two people’s different experiences, wants and needs. Life can be complicated, with children and parents and finances and work, and all the other various complexities that we experience as we go along. You need to be able to have the difficult conversations in a way that is constructive.
There is room for both of you in the relationship
You both, reasonably speaking, should ‘count’. Although of course there will be times of stress where one partner needs more, there should ordinarily be room for each of you to draw on the supportive presence of the other.
You can argue
This follows on from the last two points; you should be able to argue, or at least disagree, knowing that this will not break your relationship. And you do this (mostly) in a way that is not destructive. And if you do err, there is space for you both to apologise and move on.
You feel/are safe
This is a big one. There is no room for physical, psychological or sexual abuse in a loving relationship. If you are, or you fear you might be experiencing any of these, seek more information and specialist support if necessary. A good relationship is one where you feel safe. Where you feel kindness, rather than contempt, both for and from your partner.
(This is said with the caveat that sometimes, when we have experienced abuse in a previous relationship, we can experience current relationships as more threatening then they are. We become wired for protection rather than connection. It might be appropriate to seek specialist support if you feel that this is the case so you can unpick what is past and what is present.)
To conclude
The above is not to suggest that we should be perfectly happy and perfectly balanced at all times in our relationships. Life can be hard and wearing, and inevitably, these times have an impact on our closest relationships.
But despite that we should know that when the chips are down, those closest to us have our backs.
Sometimes, we might have a behaviour that we want to change, but never quite manage to actually do it. It could be that you have never taken actual action, have tried repeatedly but keep ‘relapsing’ or that you manage to change for a while but it doesn’t stick.
You might have a habit of people-pleasing, or struggle to give yourself a rest from working too hard. Maybe you find that you don’t reply to your correspondence in a timely fashion, or repeatedly don’t do a particular task Or it may be something bigger; smoking, over or under eating, or drinking too much.
If so, read on.
The Good
It can be easy to focus simply on how good it will feel when we do finally get around to doing that thing, how free we will feel, how light. How competent. How clean. How much time or money we might have. How we will feel better.
Now, I’m not saying that all of those things will not be true. If you smoke and you want to give up, for example, there will likely be a myriad of benefits when you finally do; you’ll feel healthier, your lungs will start to recover, you’ll reduce your chance of getting a number of cancers, your clothes won’t smell, you won’t have to plan your day around smoking, you’ll be able to go out for dinner without sneaking off to have a sneaky fag (or wanting to). And so on.
In fact, it is important to know these things. Being able to imagine them gives you a powerful incentive to change.
List these. Hang onto them. REMEMBER them.
The Costs of Change
However, chances are, there will also be a hidden cost to giving up that you might not have spent so much time considering. If this is the case, it might help to look at the following too:
What might I lose if I give this up / do this thing / don’t do this thing?
What will I need to face if I do change?
Make a list: it might be that all your friends smoke, and you’ll miss their company. Or that you’ll miss the break and the silence in the noise of socialising, the opportunity to dip out for a moment and collect yourself. It might be that you smoke to curb your appetite, and you’ll need to face your hunger, or you’re frightened you’ll put on weight.
List them all. Every one.
Make a plan
So now you know what you’re frightened of, avoiding, or worrying about. You can make a plan, or sit with the grief of whatever it is you’re losing.
You might find that you don’t smoke with your friends, but that you find other ways of connecting with them, over coffee or dinner. You might find you need to factor in time out into your socialising, if you’re an introvert, or that you need to find another way to de-stress. You might need to enlist specialist support around your fear of putting on weight.
Some questions to ask yourself in this stage are:
What skills might I need to learn in order to get where I want to be?
What support might I need to enlist?
Are there other changes that I can make that will make it easier to achieve my goal?
Can I break it down into ‘mini’ goals?
It’s fine to fail
This might seem a funny thing to say, but I mean it. Sometimes, we can’t quite know what we are avoiding until we actually stop the thing we want to stop.
So you don’t need to give up, or beat yourself up for not doing it this time. You can use it to learn more about what you’re struggling with, and adjust accordingly. It can take repeated attempts to change, particularly if it’s something really big or difficult.
When to get professional help
You don’t have to be at rock bottom to seek help. It is valid to reach out for support if you’re finding something tricky, or you’d like a professional opinion. Or indeed, it is fine to go the self-help route if that’s what appeals.
However, if you find whatever you’re struggling with is causing you serious unhappiness, distress or worry or is escalating badly, it is worth considering getting some more specialised help. Particularly if it is beginning to get in the way of you living your life; going to work, having close relationships with families and friends, etc.
There are lots of brilliant resources out there; therapists and the like, groups, charities, internet forums… seek out what meets your needs practically, emotionally and financially. It’s fine for this to change as your needs do too.
My most recent article for the the Counselling Directory. So many of us really struggle with our inner critic, click here for some tips to help you soften yours.
One of the hardest things about emotional abuse, I think, is that the campaign of blame, undermining, criticism and gaslighting causes you lose trust in your own self.
This is true evenif you are aware of what is happening. I have met many people who were aware of the tactics their other was using, but because of the drip, drip effect of emotional and psychological abuse (and the isolation that often co-exists with an experience of abuse) it affected their relationship with themselves in deep and profound ways.
In this article, I am going to unpick how the power dynamic of an abusive relationship damages our relationship with ourselves. (Of course, it also damages our relationships with others, but that’s a post for another day). I will also look at some ways you can learn to trust yourself again.
Abusers dominate. They control. Often emotional abuse is supported by other kinds of abuse, like physical, or sexual, but it does not need to be to have a profound and disturbing effect on us. Where other kinds of abuse are present, emotional abuse always, always is.
In many ways, emotional abuse can be more complicated to heal from because you can’t see the bruises. I frequently hear people saying; ‘but it seems so petty’. But they are not hurting because their loved one said or did something awful once (which would be enough), emotional abuse is a sustained and relentless campaign of awful things, over and over again, until you can no longer believe that this is not normal. It is a pattern. Not an event.
The pattern of abuse does something profound to us; it alienates us from ourselves; we are social creatures who are excellent at adjusting ourselves in order to relate with lots of different people, in lots of different ways, all of whom will be different in their personality, background, and culture. We need to be good at this to move about in the world with any kind of ease.
In an abusive relationship, we do what we do well; we adjust, but then we adjust again, and again, and again… until we entirely lose ourselves.
You might see this manifest in a few key ways:
You lose trust in your feelings and perceptions, because they have been so frequently invalidated or dismissed. Equally, it may actually have been dangerous (emotionally or physically) to express certain feelings, such as anger.
You feel overly guilty / responsible. This is because you have been blamed so often for things that you couldn’t reasonably be held accountable for.
You internalise the idea that you are ‘less than’ other people, and automatically take the ‘one down’ position in relationships.
Regaining trust in yourself
We move through the world using information from those around us, as well as our own inner sensing. When we’ve been dominated, controlled, belittled and dismissed, this balance can become disrupted, leaving us either overly reliant on others (either other’s perception of us, or we think they know best), or reliant only on ourselves (because it seems that nobody else will ever reliably be there). Or we may switch between the two, stuck between a shame filled rock and a lonely hard place.
In my experience, healing happens in two stages: We learn to hear our inner wisdom, and then we learn to trust it. Below I explore some things that might help. As you go through, I invite you to listen to your body wisdom; which ones speak to you?
Get creative
A private, creative space – however that looks for you – can be the perfect way of learning to trust that wise, inner voice. Draw, write, collage, sew, sing. It doesn’t matter how it looks, what matters is the leap into the unknown. You can’t fail at this.
Get to know what it’s like to be in your body
Feelings are in our bodies, so reconnecting with our bodies can help strengthen and stabilise us. If you’ve learned to disconnect / dissociate this can be enormously challenging.* Therefore, go slowly, ease yourself in.
Start with kindness, good sensations. A hot shower or bath, exercise (however that looks for you), a soft jumper, a good pair of socks, running your hands through your hair, ice cream, the wind on your face, an ice cube on your tongue on a hot day… whatever feels good for you in your body will help you reconnect. And when we reconnect through one avenue, we deepen our whole connection with ourselves.
Experiment! Be playful, and creative.
* A note about trauma; if you find yourself becoming flooded or overwhelmed, or if you begin to dissociate, stop, regroup, and steady yourself as a priority.
Trust yourself in the ‘small things’
Start by making what feel like small decisions, but really listen for what you want. It might be just asking yourself what you would like for dinner, or whether you would like to read a book or watch TV in this next moment. Then, when you think you have an answer, try it out.
Watch your process. Do you feel scared to commit yourself to the decision in case it is ‘wrong’, or that judgement will rain down on you for it? Or does it feel unbearably vulnerable, or do you feel guilty, ashamed, or do you second guess yourself. Practice breathing through the feelings, letting them wash over you. Sometimes it can help to speak reassuringly to yourself as you would a small child; ‘it’s okay sweetheart’, ‘it’s fine to do x or choose y’, ‘whatever you choose will be right’ or ‘you can’t do this wrong’.
Let yourself experiment. It’s about getting to know yourself as a decision maker, how you like to make decisions, and what it brings up for you. And it gets easier with practice, I promise.
Cultivate non-abusive relationships
Wherever you can find them, cultivate relationships with people that listen to you and want to know what you feel and what you like. People who treat you as an equal. We ‘take in’ how we are treated, so if we surround ourselves with people that treat us as an equal, who don’t judge, criticize, undermine or gaslight us, then we internalise – on a deep, implicit level – that we are worth listening to. We heal by osmosis.
This can be where therapy is particularly useful, as it gives us a chance to practice in a safe relationship. One where we are (hopefully) in charge, listened to, where it matters what we think and feel. And we can work through all the feelings, the grief and the anger and the everything, that this brings up, as we go, in the safety of the therapeutic relationship. (For guidance on how to choose a counsellor when dealing with issues of abuse, please see my post here.)
If you can’t afford therapy, there are often low cost services that will be able to help.
Finally
It is important to note that if you are in a dangerous situation or relationship, please act in the way that best ensures your safety. There are places that can offer you specialist support to deal with what you’re experiencing, or help you to find a way out if you want that: please call the National Domestic Abuse Helpline on 0808 2000 247.
Ellen Hendriksen writes in her book on Social Anxiety, ‘How to Be Yourself’, that part of what drives social anxiety is a kind of social perfectionism.
Perfectionism. Well, it’s all about being perfect; impossibly high standards that one rarely manages to quite meet, leaving you in a cycle of unsteady highs followed by shame, self-criticism and depression, all against the backdrop of ever-increasing anxiety.
Hendriksen contends that Social Anxiety is insecurity in social situations in part because you experience particular social situations as a sort of test, or a performance. This, combined with the expectation that you will ‘perform’ perfectly; be witty, charming, perfectly attuned, graceful, and never, ever make a social faux pas, or be boring or boorish, creates an impossible double bind.
The pain of this is twofold, how we feel about ourselves (shame, self-hatred etc), and how incredibly, heartbreakingly lonely it can be to feel disconnected from our fellow humans.
How we (unwittingly) keep ourselves stuck
We make our anxiety worse for ourselves in a number of ways; we over-prepare, rehearsing late into the night to the point of insomnia, and imagine catastrophic outcomes (thinking, of course, that all of these things will help us).
Actually, research shows that for social anxiety, instead of helping us prepare, thinking about all the ways that things can go wrong actually causes more anxiety. Which in turn, causes us to be even less okay in social situations, causing more shame and self-criticism and then again, more attempts to prepare and cover up our awkwardness, leading to more anxiety, and so on..
Some tips; release the pressure
Social anxiety is something that can be healed. It is not a life sentence. That doesn’t mean that you will reach a point that you will never feel anxiety (I believe that is called a ‘psychopath’!) but that you can reach a point where you are not ruled by your fear. Where you can tolerate, manage it, and where it also reduces to a manageable level.
You could start by Daring to be Average (thanks again Ellen Hendriksen!). I appreciate this might sound odd, but where perfectionism is keeping you stuck, you could begin to experiment with letting yourself off the hook a little. Reducing your expectations by half, maybe. Allow spaces to happen in the conversation, allow yourself to be boring, self-absorbed, quiet, imperfect; whatever it is you’re scared of. You could even try to be boring!
The most skilled socialisers don’t socialise flawlessly, they are just not thrown when they make a ‘mistake’, if they say the wrong word or can’t find what they mean, if their story meanders, or their joke doesn’t land as they thought it would. They can smile, maybe joke about it; “that was longer than I thought; phew!” or “haha, it was definitely funnier in my head!”. They dare to ‘fail’, and usually, people like them for it.
What you will probably find, by daring to be average, is that you are more natual, and that people will like you more, not less.
Another tip is; Stay Out of their Heads. Whatever you think other people are thinking, it’s probably not true. And it’s likely to be a lot more positive than you think it is.
For example, when you think about the last time you met someone who was visibly anxious, what was your response? I would imagine it’s somewhere on the empathy spectrum; you might feel sympathy for them, knowing how hard it is when you’re anxious, or you might feel a desire to put them at ease or help, you might be rooting for them to come through it. You are unlikely to be thinking they are an idiot, or weird, or disgusting, or whatever it is that you think that people are thinking of you.
Fourthly; Don’t go down the Rabbit Hole. (Whatever your particular rabbit hole is.) Whether it’s an unrelenting post-mortem of all the things that you said or did ‘wrong’, the conviction that you have nobody, that everyone thinks you’re strange, that you have no friends; whatever it is, try not to go there. Anxiety drives anxiety. The more you worry, the more anxious you’ll get, and the more you will therefore feel you need to worry. It starts with the first thought.
Or before you do something difficult try and remember a time (or more than one) where you were authentic, strong, spoke from your values. Research shows us that much more than affirmations, remembering a time when were stood up for something we believed in (even if it’s entirely unrelated) helps us to be more ourselves in social situations.
And lastly, increase your feelings of general security and connectedness and think of three relationships, be they people (fictional, imaginary or real), or animals that exemplify nurture to you, warmth and joy and love, and think about those. Think on each in turn. Allow yourself to luxuriate in the feeling of love and connection, allow yourself to feel what it would feel like to be accepted, treasured, you could create an imaginary person who would be your perfect support. If it brings up sadness or loss that is overwhelming, try a different attachment figure. Do this repeatedly, and not necessarily when you’re already shaky. It’s likely to be easier to settle your system when your feelings are heightened if you practice first when you’re in a calm place.
If you find yourself stuck, it can be worth enlisting support on your journey; a therapist, a therapy group, a support group, an internet forum. Whatever it looks like for you. Good luck. Go well.
a space to reflect 