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Hey everybody, happy Thursday.
Now today's question comes from YouTube.
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But before I get into that,
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But let's get into today's question and the question is,
hey Kati,
can you make a video talking about social anxiety
and it making you feel younger than you are?
What exactly causes it and how can we fix it?
Now I thought this was a great question
because I know a lot of us
have struggled with anxiety over the years
and many people do feel developmentally arrested,
meaning we still feel a lot younger than we actually are.
But before we get into all of that,
let's first start by defining the term anxiety
'cause I think we talk about it a lot,
but we don't really know what it is.
Now anxiety is a feeling of worry, nervousness,
or unease typically about an eminent event
or something with an uncertain outcome.
However, there are many different anxiety disorders
and I have videos about most of them,
so you can click through the playlist
that I'll put down in the description
for more info about each and every one.
Now it's my belief that social anxiety
can cause us to be sort of developmentally arrested
because we tend to avoid certain situations
that can make our anxiety worse
or potentially trigger a panic attack.
And we can avoid a lot of social situations
and not engage in what could be considered normal activities
like joining choir or an art group or playing sports,
or even going to happy hour after work
with a lot of our colleagues.
And so it's my belief that
because we can feel too scared
to participate fully in life,
we can in turn struggle to, quote on quote, grow up.
And I say that because I truly believe
that engaging in uncomfortable situations,
going out with friends,
doing all sorts of different things,
is when we learn more about who we are
and are forced through uncomfortability to change and grow.
And so you can kind of see
that if we're avoiding all of those things
because it makes us so anxious,
then we don't really get those chances
to be challenged and to grow.
And when we don't grow up at the ages most people do,
like I said before,
we call that being developmentally arrested.
And there is much research to support that BPD,
or borderline personality disorder,
can lead to arrested development
as well as any sort of childhood trauma
or intense substance abuse.
But when it comes to trauma specifically,
I believe we aren't able to grow up,
we become developmentally arrested so to speak
because we haven't processed through what happened.
And often I find my patients are held
at that age when the abuse maybe started.
And by getting into therapy
and working with a trauma specialist,
we can process through all the abuse, all the trauma,
and only then are we able to move on
and grow up so to speak.
And also I just wanna say that I don't want
anybody to think that they have to grow up completely
and lose that sense of childlike
wonder or excitement, 'cause that's a beautiful thing.
And when I'm talking about these terms
of being developmentally arrested and growing up,
I don't mean that we aren't able to hold jobs
or to pay our bills or to do
what we could call adult things,
it's more so emotionally and psychologically.
Many of my patients who find themselves
developmentally arrested, that's a mouthful you guys,
but when they find themselves like that,
they will tell me that they still feel like a child
and find themselves wanting to use childlike verbiage
when they're communicating with others.
Or when anyone talks about dating or sex,
something that an adult would do, they recoil.
It is too much, they don't even wanna think about it
because they still feel maybe
like that 10-year-old version of themselves
where sex was just not something
that they ever wanted to engage in,
it wasn't even on their mind.
And by growing up psychologically and emotionally,
then, and only then, we'll be able
to hold on to parts of our childhood like that wonder
and excitement I was talking about,
but also let go of the things that aren't serving us, right?
Because there are parts of being a child
that are beautiful and wonderful.
And sometimes it's nice to see
things through those eyes.
But if there are certain parts of being a child
that we're still holding onto
that are actually holding us back
from having real relationships with people,
being able to engage in a romantic
relationship if that's what we want,
or pursue a different career path,
or live on our own.
Many of my patients struggle to leave home
because that act of moving out
just seems like too intense.
So any of those things that are kind of holding us back
while we're processing through this and moving forward,
we should be able to let go
of those things little by little.
Now I know that's a lot to take in
and it's a lot to consider that our inability
to participate in certain situations in life
could hold us back developmentally
or a trauma could hold us back,
but I hope that kinda makes sense.
But let me know.
And if you completely disagree with what I'm saying,
I would love to hear your thoughts
and those comments down below.
Now that we understand why social anxiety
can cause us to feel younger than we really are,
let's move into how we can overcome it.
And my first tip is resourcing.
And I put that as the first tip
because I know I've talked about it in regards to trauma,
but I also believe it really helps when it comes to anxiety.
Because if we start to feel overwhelmed
or we find ourselves completely retracting
and not wanting to engage in a situation
or not even saying yes to any
of the invitations we get,
we're gonna need to have some resources
that help us stay grounded
and help us calm ourselves down.
And until we have those resources,
we really won't be able to engage
with people socially and quote on quote, grow up.
And if you don't remember,
resourcing is really just a way of us
coming up with different resources that help soothe us.
That could be imagining a place that we are,
maybe we're in our bed that we grew up in,
maybe we're petting an animal,
maybe it's a person that we talk to
and that voice that hear,
maybe it's we're actually in the place,
we're like in our bedroom in our own home,
anything like that.
We have to come up with some resources,
people, places, things that use our senses,
that's why I said petting a dog,
or if there's a certain smell
that's really calming like lavender,
or maybe it's a baby blanket or something like that.
Come up with those different resources
that use all of your senses,
can be accessed 24-seven,
and practice using them to calm yourself down.
So this means that we're gonna have to engage
a little in some of those socially anxious situations
and we're gonna have to use these resources
to bring ourselves back down to feeling calm,
cool, and collected.
And just be patient with yourself while you resource
'cause it's like a muscle that we're building, right?
And we're not gonna know how to do it right away
and that muscle's gonna be really weak,
but just keep at it,
because little by little it'll get better
and you'll be more able to access those resources
in potentially even more stressful situations.
So in other words, practice makes perfect.
And number two is building on a healthy relationship,
specifically with siblings
so that we can do some fact checking.
So if any of you know that when
you're working through something
if you think your social anxiety
is caused from a trauma in your past
but you just don't remember it,
I've talked about repressed memories in an old video.
If you're curious about that,
I can link that in the description.
But we need to build on those healthy
and supportive relationships
so that we have people to reach out to.
It's kind of like resourcing,
but taking it an extra step.
And also, when we have those people who are supportive
and that relationship is strong,
we can tell them how hard it is for us
to go out in social situations,
how hard it is for us to do this thing or go to this party.
Because we're coming into the holidays,
there's gonna be a lot of parties to go.
If we have that person,
we can share with them how hard it is for us
and they can hopefully accompany us
to certain parties or situations
or going to happy hour with colleagues after work,
any of those things.
Maybe they can come with us
and then if you have to leave early,
we let them know and they're understanding
'cause we've already kinda told them
this is something that we're struggling with.
So spending some time building up those resources,
building up those people,
and building those relationships can really, really help.
And number three, CBT, or cognitive behavioral therapy.
I have a video all about that as well,
I'll link it down in the description.
But we use this downward arrow technique in CBT
which is when we ask question like
let's say our worry thought
is no one's ever gonna like me.
Then as a therapist I would say okay,
well if no one liked you, what would that mean?
And then you would answer like
well it means that I'm terrible with relationships.
Okay, well if you're terrible with relationships,
what does that really mean?
It means I'm a bad person.
Okay, well if you're a bad person, what would that mean?
And then you might come down to the thought
that I'm always gonna be alone
and no one's ever gonna like me.
Or I dunno, but we use that to kinda track down
to figure out what those faulty beliefs are.
Because that belief that no one's ever gonna like you
and you're gonna die alone, isn't true.
And so we have to figure out what that deep-rooted belief is
and that downward arrow technique
can help us figure it out.
And then in therapy,
we can start talking about that belief
until we kinda prove that it's not true
or get you to come around to maybe another way of thinking.
And so CBT can really, really be helpful.
Not to mention that CBT is super beneficial
for any of us with anxiety disorders,
because those behavioral techniques
and challenging those negative thoughts really,
really do help.
And number four, medication.
Medication can definitely help with any anxious feelings.
And I've always said I know
not everyone's open to medication, that's completely fine,
but if you find yourself drowning in the symptoms,
meaning any of the behavioral techniques
that your therapist is offering,
you're just not able to do
because the symptoms are too strong.
So if you feel the anxiety so intensely
you can't do anything else,
medication can help you get your head
above water enough to engage with it.
And so just know that it's there
and if you are interested, please talk to a doctor,
preferably a psychiatrist,
so you can make sure you're properly diagnosed
and you get the right medication for you.
And number five, processing through the trauma.
Like I said, a lot of anxiety is rooted in trauma,
and especially that developmentally arrested
feeling can come from trauma as well.
And so if we take some time,
whether that's doing EMDR,
I have a video about that if you wonder what that is,
or talk therapy, or trauma-focused CBT,
whatever kind of trauma work we need to do,
we're gonna need to do it with a therapist
or another clinician who is trained
and able to help us.
Oftentimes it's just talking through the trauma in detail,
so it gives our brain another chance to process it,
but it could be a lot of other things.
There's a lot of other resources
and ways that we can heal.
So just be open to the idea of seeing a therapist
or another mental health professional
and giving your brain yet another chance to process
through any trauma you may have sustained.
I hope you found that helpful.
I love getting your questions and that's why,
if you haven't noticed,
every Thursday video is where I answer your questions.
So you can leave them down in the comments below,
you can tweet them to me,
but just make sure you're following me on all socials
as I let you know when things
are gonna be released and what's happening.
And I'll see you next time, bye.