Abdi - CBT for Social Anxiety

1. How would you describe CBT?

I see CBT as a tool, a tool to get my life back together, I wanted to take control of my life and improve my quality of life as I avoided new people due to my social anxiety, Social anxiety had affected all facets of my life, leaving me to be depressed due to my circumstances but having a very understanding therapist helped me share my problems and what we could do about them, first we started with small tasks that I thought would be easy to do but still challenging and doing this weekly helped me challenge harder and harder tasks that I wouldn't imagine doing before CBT.

2. What did you find most useful?

I found the homework that the therapist set really helpful , it showed reasoning to my problems and every week I would go out and challenge myself in different settings such as a crowded place, and to sit down the following week and discuss how it affected me showed me things about my social anxiety that I did not know, which I took to improve myself.

3. Was there anything you would have changed about it?

If there was one thing that I would have changed when I started CBT is having more confidence in it and that it could truly help me in the long run, I would have made bigger goals to aim for rather than the small ones I made that wouldn't take me out of my comfort zone too much

4. Did it make any difference to your life? If so, what was different?

I am much more confident and I have learned not to run away from my anxiety but to challenge it as much as I can, I am less afraid of failing when I know I can apply what I learned in CBT to my life in the future, I can go out and do what I want to do and accept how my anxiety affects me.

5. What would you say to someone considering having it?

Before CBT I was lost on what would help me deal with my Social anxiety but I have seen my life improve week by week and my confidence grow day by day to the point where I don't think I'm gonna be chained down by my anxiety in the future. It's taught me techniques that would help me in life when my anxiety gets out hand I can recall what I learned of CBT and apply it to myself, if you want a tool to use when you have not much confidence in anything else I would say CBT is a pretty good tool to use.