33 - Pursuing my reading of cognitive therapy...

In Post 27 I detail my reading of Cognitive Therapy ; although it dates from 1976 it still seems relevant. I now share a few ideas that come mind during Chapter 4 on cognitive patterns in emotional disorders.

First, I know intellectually misinterpreted painful events in my complicated past, and that among the consequences, my social phobias developed.






Let us head back to that past. I was a teenager, my parental authority removed me from the other one and  raised me during over a decade, with very strict and depriving rules, with many psychological and physical abuses. I lived with prohibitions, including that of me creating friendships with my classmates, just as with the absolute deprivation of romance and flirtations that any teenager should be able to develop and improve on his normal life path ...

Finding no real solution to these obstacles and repeated punishments during rare attempts at rebellion strongly inhibited me socially and I was developing at that time of my life a lack of confidence in my abilities, locked within myself without the possibility of expression and maturation.
Automatic prohibition thoughts henceforth became associated with any social situation. I walked through life with fears of appearing ridiculous, stupid, uninteresting, not knowing the normal social etiquette.

Admittedly, I had classmates with whom I conversed at times and had a best friend among them; but unable to open myself properly to my best friend, firstly, and secondly installed fears, I isolated myself and became increasingly a marginal nerd.
I'd go away during recreation, reading books or followed birds with my binoculars, instead of participating in classmates' games.

Gradually, I became a lone wolf and grew to like it ... and my cognitions sank without my consent or my conscience.

I thought that I was just ''like that'', a different teenager but didn't mind it ; that since I do not have any right it must be thus everywhere ... for all other kids.

Fom my case, I made a general assumption that other families were like that and that I wasn't all that different ... (yes, cognitive disorders are illogical by nature, otherwise they wouldn't be disorders!).
And now, years passed and as an adult, I'm worse than before, because I was not even diagnosed with these social phobias, so I did not risk having help let alone a cure!

In this ''condition'', There are several very difficult issues : they are not seen.  (condition because I am conditioned myself followinhg the conditioning my abusive caregiver had ).

Indeed, with people I know, I'm comfortable and exchange without particular concerns; I smile, I listen and speak ... but, upstream, I had difficulty linking and forging friendships ...
Two years ago , I had an almost total change in my friendships: I cut ties or people did with me at about the same time, whilst a few friends I had before still are now...

I have new friendships, local ones instead of just online and distant ... and that's certainly a step forward in my so long and difficult path, but these new people learn with time and through meetings and discussions that I have social phobias which they didn't suspect necessarily at the beginning ...
It is also through invitations I had to decline by explaining my current situation of social phobia to prevent my friends misunderstanding my reasons, because I know how it is easy to think that the other doesn't care, did not say what he or she thinks, so to compensate in advance for the unpleasantness, and the whole time that I explain, I hope that ''later'' when I feel better , I'll have other invitations and opportunities, because I want these new people in my life and fears of losing them and becoming a depressive recluse constantly haunt me these past few weeks.

It's hard to live with automatic and autonomous thoughts who have a life of their own and fall on me even when I know intellectually that they are not  or no longer true, so let me tell you my new and older friends and especially to my wife: you are great and thank you for your ears, and your patience!