Bullying in Childhood Led Sandy to Social Anxiety in Adulthood

<cite>Speaker 1:</cite> <time>0:06</time> <p>Welcome to 90834. It&#39;s the weekly podcast where guests share the biggest lessons they&#39;ve learned in therapy. In each episode, i&#39;ll pose two questions What were you looking to resolve by going to therapy, and what did you really end up getting out of therapy? I&#39;m Shannon Miller, a licensed clinical social worker and private practice who has the privilege of spending every day watching the therapeutic process lead to unexpected and beautiful places. Today, we have the pleasure of speaking with Sandy. She&#39;s a 25-year-old woman from India living in Minnesota for her graduate studies. Sandy was in therapy for seven months. She went to therapy because, as she says, things were going all wrong. Seven months of therapy, sandy learned how everything is connected and healing one thing can change a lot. Why don&#39;t you tell me a little bit about why you went to therapy? </p> <cite>Speaker 2:</cite> <time>1:00</time> <p>So because I came to the United States for my studies and because it was a new place, I kind of realized like everything was kind of going wrong. </p> <cite>Speaker 1:</cite> <time>1:11</time> <p>What was going wrong Like? can you describe what was going wrong? </p> <cite>Speaker 2:</cite> <time>1:15</time> <p>Yeah, so I had like a lot of like noise steam and like procrastination because I didn&#39;t have my parents here with me, i didn&#39;t have anyone to just like kind of force me to get out of bed, i think, and that is what was happening when I was back home, yeah. So I decided something has to change and that&#39;s why I decided I had to go to therapy and I also had a lot of alcohol problems or like borderline addiction or like at least dependent on alcohol, for a lot of things like just hanging out with friends, I needed alcohol. but like if I had to meet someone new, I needed some alcohol. So if I had to do something tough, like maybe I had like a presentation, I kind of needed it to soothe me. So that is another thing that was happening. </p> <cite>Speaker 1:</cite> <time>2:06</time> <p>So then you started therapy. And tell me what started unfolding once you were in therapy. </p> <cite>Speaker 2:</cite> <time>2:11</time> <p>Yeah, so I actually tried therapy before I joined it. consistently I tried therapy like once or twice a year before. </p> <cite>Speaker 1:</cite> <time>2:21</time> <p>Okay. </p> <cite>Speaker 2:</cite> <time>2:21</time> <p>And so what ended up happening was that I didn&#39;t really like my therapist, so I just thought therapy wasn&#39;t for me. But I think it&#39;s really important to understand therapy, like it&#39;s very, it&#39;s very important to get someone, or like, get a therapist that suits you, and I think that&#39;s also another aspect of therapy that is not very well understood. But yeah, that&#39;s what happened with me. I did try therapy. I did like go to two, three sessions before And it just felt like it wasn&#39;t for me And I felt like it was kind of forced almost, or like I was forcing myself to open up and it wasn&#39;t yeah, organic. </p> <cite>Speaker 1:</cite> <time>3:05</time> <p>So can you tell me what was it about the therapist that you didn&#39;t like, or any of them that you had tried, that it just didn&#39;t fit for you? </p> <cite>Speaker 2:</cite> <time>3:13</time> <p>They were trying to be a lot like my friend, or like they were trying to be like, or more like a friend than a professional, i would say. But then I felt like I needed someone which is fine, i think that works for a lot of people as well A therapist who is more, who talks like a friend, who&#39;s like open, like a friend right. But for me maybe I needed someone who was a lot more professional or like maybe a little distant. Yeah, yeah, that&#39;s probably right. Yeah, i think all therapists are professional, at least. But I like with my therapist, what was different was that she, whenever something was happening, she used to explain the science behind it or like the psychology behind it, and I felt like I needed that kind of realization or like that kind of extra information for me to actually believe what she was saying, like I didn&#39;t, i didn&#39;t just want someone to hear me out, if that makes sense. </p> <cite>Speaker 1:</cite> <time>4:14</time> <p>Right. So you needed a therapist that appealed to your intellectual side as well. </p> <cite>Speaker 2:</cite> <time>4:20</time> <p>Yeah, I guess Yeah. </p> <cite>Speaker 1:</cite> <time>4:22</time> <p>Okay, and so you found that therapist. And then what did you start discovering was behind the dependency on alcohol or not wanting to get out of bed, like where, where was that stuff coming from? </p> <cite>Speaker 2:</cite> <time>4:37</time> <p>Yeah, so I grew up in, i grew up in like a dysfunctional household, you can say. My parents were kind of like always fighting and, because I come from an Indian background, there was also like physical abuse in terms of punishment on kids, not really in between my parents, but with me and my brother. Yeah, so it wasn&#39;t. Maybe I didn&#39;t have like a place that I could trust. I guess I did have like a lot of perfectionism, and perfectionism that kind of went into procrastination, because it&#39;s always like when you&#39;re trying to do something really perfect, you don&#39;t want to start it because you don&#39;t want to ruin the black slate or like the white canvas, the perfect canvas. So that&#39;s how it was with me for a lot of years, basically all my years, all my life. I guess After going to therapy, first of all, i realized that everything is connected. Every little thing that has happened in my life has been connected, but I just didn&#39;t realize how or and I think my therapist did a good job and like kind of connecting the dots for me and explaining that to me and like just knowing that this is why I am this way, or this is why I behave this way, kind of helped me start the process of, like, unlearning that behavior, unlearning that pattern. </p> <cite>Speaker 1:</cite> <time>6:13</time> <p>Can I stop you for a sec? Can you give an example of something that happened and how it shows up today? </p> <cite>Speaker 2:</cite> <time>6:20</time> <p>Right. So when I was nine years old I basically had like a bullying incident that was borderline sexual abuse, i think. But because it happened with my peers or like because the kids that did that were my age, i kind of blame myself a lot for it, because I was always under the understanding that I should have done something better or I should have done this, i should have done that. Because of that I had like a lot of anger issues and I kind of like kept all of that inside And again I didn&#39;t tell my parents because I didn&#39;t really trust them, because I think I thought they would blame me again because I was already blaming myself. So I didn&#39;t, i didn&#39;t really feel like going to them and that kind of gave rise to social anxiety. Before that I was, it was really easy for me to make friends, but then after that I just like kind of believed everyone kind of hated me or there was a lot of self-hatred and like lowest team that rose up after that incident. Yeah, so like that anxiety, like that social anxiety led to drinking problems and like that, as you go with they go ahead with life, that kind of leads to another thing that isn&#39;t in your favor and like it&#39;s like a domino effect that just it feels like bad things just keep happening to you. Because I think it&#39;s just because you don&#39;t really know how to function as a normal human being, or like you haven&#39;t learned the tools that you should have been taught when you were younger. And I kind of like learned in therapy to just be kinder to myself. And there was this one thing that my therapist like made me do was like write a letter to the nine-year-old self me and it was basically forgiving her for not doing the things that I thought she should have done because she was a kid. It took me a long time, or like it took me just until very recently to realize that it wasn&#39;t my fault, or like I couldn&#39;t have done anything at that point. It was the adult&#39;s fault, the teachers, the parents, who didn&#39;t really do anything about it. My parents didn&#39;t know, but the teachers who did know they didn&#39;t really do anything about it, so it wasn&#39;t on me. Also, maybe I should mention that this was in Singapore, so there was a bit of racist anger as well with this, because I was the only Indian kid in that class. Yeah, it took me a lot of time, a lot of therapy, to kind of realize that. </p> <cite>Speaker 1:</cite> <time>8:45</time> <p>That&#39;s a long time to carry around that kind of well anger. That then turned to social anxiety. That turned to drinking. I mean, that&#39;s the chain of events that all come from that one incident. </p> <cite>Speaker 2:</cite> <time>8:56</time> <p>Yeah, I just wish I did tell my parents about like I felt safe enough to tell my parents at that time. I think that particular incident or like that bullying incident, like bullying kind of stays with you. Even if it&#39;s a small thing, even if it&#39;s not as big as what happened with me, just it&#39;s horrible. It stays with you your whole life until you know there&#39;s someone to support you or like tell you it wasn&#39;t really your fault. </p> <cite>Speaker 1:</cite> <time>9:21</time> <p>So once you&#39;ve come to accept that it really wasn&#39;t your fault, that the adults around you had let you down and had failed you tremendously, what started to change? </p> <cite>Speaker 2:</cite> <time>9:32</time> <p>for you. It didn&#39;t actually change immediately. It took me it took my therapist a lot of persistence to actually make me believe that this wasn&#39;t actually my fault, and my understanding of this whole situation was that like yeah, like I was really angry at myself for not doing the things I should have done. I think journaling, like writing letters like she told me to, like I wrote a few letters to myself and just journaling and understanding. Oh, like I. Another thing about self-esteem was that I constantly called myself stupid for even the smallest things that went wrong, and this again was like related to the perfectionism of it. I just felt stupid all the time. </p> <cite>Speaker 1:</cite> <time>10:20</time> <p>Even through grad school, i felt like I wasn&#39;t doing the right things or I wasn&#39;t smart enough or like So your therapist really had to work to convince you, one, that you&#39;re not stupid, and two, this was not your fault. </p> <cite>Speaker 2:</cite> <time>10:35</time> <p>And that also took a lot of journaling. And she used to do this thing where, like an exercise, where I used to tell her about this incident that like is like a random incident that happened during the day and it was about, oh, like I did this really stupid thing and this happened and that happened, and I used to feel really guilty or like constantly be fixated on it, or like for days. So basically, like if it happened on Monday and my therapy was on Thursday, i would fixate on it, fixate on it, fixate on it for like days and days and days, like hours, or why did I do this stupid thing? Like this is so dumb, i don&#39;t know why I&#39;m like this, all of these things. And then my therapist would come and she would make me do this exercise where she would make me like write down the incident and then what the other person did and then what I could have done and what would be like a kinder way to say this to myself. And this took a lot of months but, like, slowly I realized that the way I talked to myself was also changing through these exercises. I do that even now I don&#39;t go to therapy anymore. I still use these tools to kind of like soothe myself or like soothe incident in my head at least. </p> <cite>Speaker 1:</cite> <time>11:50</time> <p>Okay. So even though therapy ended, you&#39;re still writing out the interaction and going through the process yourself. So, essentially, you&#39;ve become your own therapist Right. </p> <cite>Speaker 2:</cite> <time>12:01</time> <p>Okay. </p> <cite>Speaker 1:</cite> <time>12:01</time> <p>Yeah, and since you&#39;ve started implementing these skills. you said that change has taken a long time, but now that change has happened, how is life different for you? </p> <cite>Speaker 2:</cite> <time>12:13</time> <p>I feel a lot more calmer. I feel like there isn&#39;t a lot of anger in me, which was the case all the time. Like all the time there was like something just like brewing in me, like I used to get thinking, oh, like people hate me, people are out for vengeance, or like people are out to get me. My relationships with people like improved a lot because I didn&#39;t come from a place of insecurity or I didn&#39;t come from a place of like lowest team and just like I was like really dependent on my friends or dependent on my romantic relationships to kind of like fill me on or like constantly tell me oh, like you&#39;re good enough, you&#39;re good enough, you&#39;re like you are smart enough, or like you know all of that. And after therapy I&#39;ve just kind of become my own person, like I have my own hobbies, i have my own stuff going on and I&#39;m like really comfortable with just being myself And being alone as a person or like hanging out, just like with myself, and I don&#39;t feel the need to get validation from someone else. Yeah, so when that happens, the burden on the other person kind of decreases And we just even in my friendships we just exist with each other and just enjoy each other&#39;s company, and there&#39;s no trust issues, i guess, between people, between me and the other person. </p> <cite>Speaker 1:</cite> <time>13:48</time> <p>Did you lose any friendships in this process? </p> <cite>Speaker 2:</cite> <time>13:51</time> <p>or Oh yeah, i did, but I would say they weren&#39;t the greatest friendships. So I guess that&#39;s a good thing, because I think during the process I kind of realized the people that were actually kind to me they kind of stayed. But then the relationships where I was kind of holding on to people or like I had this like avoidant attachment thing going on, those kind of people I did lose. </p> <cite>Speaker 1:</cite> <time>14:19</time> <p>The reason why I ask that question is because a lot of times when we heal and change, it can be very threatening to the people around us, and so then friendships just sort of don&#39;t last. </p> <cite>Speaker 2:</cite> <time>14:31</time> <p>Like one thing I did notice with not necessarily friendships but like acquaintances, i learned to stand my ground a lot. So people who were like treating me a bit mean or like they were, they treated me like a doormat or something. They kind of stopped. They were treating me with a lot more respect because I had a lot more respect for myself. That is one thing I noticed, because I could stand my ground and just be like a lot more confident and a lot more secure, i guess, like I was able to tell them. I was able to have like boundaries where it was like I will not tolerate this, but like You can&#39;t treat me that way. and yeah, i think boundaries is another thing and not so therapy has your relationship with your parents changed? Yeah, i have become a lot more kinder to them. I have been a lot more vocal with the things that happened in the past and, and my parents, who are like really apologetic. Yeah, i think our relationship has increased, like it&#39;s become better. I would say it takes a lot of patience and I think I think, because they have gotten a bit older as well, they don&#39;t really want to lose the relationship with the kids. </p> <cite>Speaker 1:</cite> <time>15:49</time> <p>So, yeah, It has improved. Yep, what happened with the alcohol dependency as you were going through the process? </p> <cite>Speaker 2:</cite> <time>15:57</time> <p>So with the alcohol thing, i it wasn&#39;t. It wasn&#39;t like an immediate process. There were a lot of days where I did go back to it, even even after I, i felt like I was doing really good, like I&#39;ll come and tell to my therapist that all like I didn&#39;t drink for like This whole week and like she&#39;ll be like great and no, i didn&#39;t everything. And The next week I would have like Two drinks for that week, which is actually not not that bad considering it was a lot more like was. So I think it slowly decreased. It&#39;s it&#39;s never like a linear graph, you know, it&#39;s always like a zigzag kind of graph and like that. That is what was happening. But that is really, did you know, go down again? because I did. I became a lot more comfortable with myself. I didn&#39;t feel the need to have alcohol and become this other person or like become this more Exuberant or like like loud person that I was and I did, did have alcohol And I became more comfortable with the, with the more silent and the shy person that I&#39;m, that I generally am, and I felt like I&#39;ve made a lot more meaningful Relationships because of that, or like meaningful friendships with people that I met outside of like alcohol, like before even I Had to drink, even for like a small event, and I should attract people who were kind of, who kind of needed that Exuberant lifestyle, you know like the the fun, like all the fun all the time, kind of people. But when I kind of stopped drinking alcohol and I met a lot of people who were very intellectual and, yeah, the friendships were more fruitful. </p> <cite>Speaker 1:</cite> <time>17:46</time> <p>I would say. A final question for you is Looking back over the process. Why was it worth it for you to do it? What&#39;s different about your life now? </p> <cite>Speaker 2:</cite> <time>17:58</time> <p>Yeah, i think I think the quality of life has definitely improved. I think just for that it is So worth it. Everything has changed in my life. I don&#39;t procrastinate anymore. I&#39;m not scared of the result that might come. My friendships are a lot nicer. Yeah, like everything in my life has just taken a 180 and changed and I Was the kind of person who didn&#39;t really believe it or believe in therapy. I used to think my friends were enough, or like people around you are enough, like they should be able to Be that person for you and just like hear you out and all of that. But then I think you need that, a princess, because they, they have the education, they know what actually goes on with these kinds of things and they like really understand. That&#39;s really important. </p> <cite>Speaker 1:</cite> <time>18:50</time> <p>You started out thinking you should just have friends that can support you through this. But yet the first couple therapists that you tried you didn&#39;t like because they were too friendly. </p> <cite>Speaker 2:</cite> <time>19:01</time> <p>Yeah, oh, so Yeah, coming back to that, another thing is that like don&#39;t I would say To people is that don&#39;t give up on therapy just because it&#39;s not great. The first few sessions also, even with the therapist that I didn&#39;t like did like it took me a few sessions to get over that awkward phase, because in those sessions you&#39;re just trying to give them like a little bit of background About you and it&#39;s it&#39;s not the most fun, but then let&#39;s just start opening up to them, and it takes a few sessions. After that It&#39;s like really eye-opening, it&#39;s great to like understand yourself, and I think that just being self-aware and like Self-actualization is a very important thing for just being human, i guess. </p> <cite>Speaker 1:</cite> <time>19:52</time> <p>Thank you, sandy, for taking the time to talk to us today. I know it was important for you to share your experience because you wanted to encourage others in your situation or situations similar to yours to get the help that they need. Hopefully, we&#39;ve accomplished that today. If you or someone you know wants to share your experience with therapy, please email me at Shannon at 90834podcastcom. In today&#39;s fast-paced and transient world, taking care of your mental health has never been more important. Epricity expat therapy is your gateway to healing and self-discovery from the comfort of your home. With Epricity, licensed therapists are just a click away. Experience the convenience and flexibility of online therapy sessions tailored to your unique needs as an expat. There is no cumbersome intake process or long waiting periods. We are a small private practice dedicated to helping you. Our compassionate therapists provide a confidential and supportive environment where you can explore your thoughts, emotions and concerns, all without stepping foot outside your door. Whether you&#39;re dealing with depression, anxiety or just need someone to talk to, epricity has therapists for you. Visit Epricity expat therapy to learn more about our therapists and schedule your first online therapy session today. </p>