Just want to start creating a megathread that’s gonna consist of my ongoing debriefs.

starting with my first debrief..

Had a session with my psychologist today. We went through the stuff about working through my social skills when it comes to meeting people in real life in social situations, which for me is a 50-50 cause for me it really depends on the person and if they seem really approachable enough in order for me to I guess “wanting” to start a convo with them first? And what my impressions on that particular person is.

Anyways, throughout our whole session she kept asking me “what’s stopping you from wanting to try and approach them first and smiling at them (if they don’t approach me first)?” She asked me this similar (not the exact same) question like 3-4 times within the session and at that point I was already getting quite annoyed with it, though I’ve told her “no” and that “I’m not used to it” like a couple of times.

Because really even if I was to “try and do it”, the thing is a lot of the times it doesn’t end up working at the end.…in terms of me trying to do something that I’m not even comfortable with doing.

Well her and I did a little bit of a role play so there’s that. But I also did talk to her about me being able to have those social skills with my support workers and stuff so far, and that the fact that I was able to talk to other volunteers when I volunteered at places too that kinda did help with those skills.

Also, I’m not sure why she would suggest that I should make phone/video calls with my online friends - even if I’m “comfortable” talking to them like only through chat/text? I don’t know any of them in real life obviously so I don’t even get the point of that. Even I told her that I don’t get the point of it 🤣

By the way, that’s not to say that my psychologist is a very nice and lovely person to talk to and has a lovely speaking tone that’s easy to listen to as well, and I’m really glad to have someone like her. ❤️

It’s just that when counsellors or psychologists ask me these kinds of questions like “what’s stopping you from doing this” or “what scares you/makes you feel anxious about this” etc. especially when they ask you that more than once during the session, then that’s where it gets annoying…

I told her that there’s this social group I’m gonna be going this Sunday which is gonna be a forest therapy event and she mentioned about giving it a try to have an open body language (smile, say hi) and approach the person first etc.— only if they smile and seem nice&approachable of course and not the opposite to that. And towards the end of the session, she suggested that I journal on how things have went with that event after I go there on Sunday (basically debriefing it) and then talk about it to her during our next session to check/see if there was any negative feelings and thoughts I’ve felt and have/had during my experience there.

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