Reply To: PSTEC during/before triggering situations ?
Peter BunyanHi Nakhan
In addition to Pauls comments. Would it have made a difference if the people you were presenting to were all your friends or family, or all male or all female, or all older or all younger than you? Would the group size be important would it feel different if the group was only 3 or 9 or 30 or 300 etc? If any of these make a difference this might be a pointer to the underlying cause. You knew about this event in advance, would it have felt better or worse if you knew about it even earlier or were thrown into it a couple of minutes beforehand?
Social anxiety is about things you expect to happen even if subconsciously. Because this expectation make you feel anxious everytime you notice or think about the expected happening you feel even more anxious, a loop of thinking and feeling that builds up, sometimes very rapidly.
You are expecting a loss of self esteem/worth something that makes you feel bad. You might feel that others are laughing at you, or think that you are stupid, or weak, or ugly or all sorts of less than complimentary things. Worse they might even say it, rude or insulting words, worse still in front of others. If any of this resonates with you then again they clues as to what the original situation was. This might suggest more accurate targets to CT or the construction of a more accurate worst case to CT.
Peter