How Social Anxiety Shows up for Sensitive Women, & Why Traditional Coping Tips Don't Always Work

If you've ever been told to "just breathe" or "try journaling" when feeling overwhelmed, you may feel even more discouraged and hopeless when these tips don't work. You're not alone in this experience.

Many coping strategies for anxiety are aimed at helping you tolerate the anxiety, and support your nervous system while it is in a heightened state. Don't get me wrong-breath, walks, journaling, etc are all wonderful things to maintain well-being. But when you are in a state of panic, they may not reach the part of you that is struggling on a deeper level.

So what's going on?

The Missing Piece: Your Nervous System Is Doing It's Job

For highly sensitive people, or people who have been through trauma, anxiety isn't "all in your head". Sure, anxiety can come with racing thoughts and overthinking, but this is merely a response to a perceived threat. And this response is working overtime.

Experiences you've had may have taught you that relationships aren't always safe, that your emotions don't matter, or that others should always come before you. This is especially true for those of you who have experienced relational trauma, chronic invalidation, or emotional neglect.

So let's look at an example. You are invited to a social gathering where you will only know one other person. While on surface level, this is a brand new experience for you with brand new people. However, your body immediately recognizes it as an environment where you could be rejected, disliked, or embarrassed. Why? Because it happened to you in the past! Remember that time you had no where to sit in the cafeteria during lunchtime in 6th grade and everyone was staring at you? Yeah, that was awful. That means your nervous system will jump into protection mode to prevent you from feeling that awfulness again.

Unfortunately "protection mode" isn't always helpful, nor comfortable. And listening to calming music beforehand may only help a little.

So What Is Helpful?

Therapies that go beyond surface level symptom management, like EMDR or IFS, help you access the part of you that still believes the entire 6th grade is staring at you. Imagine telling that 6th grader to just take a walk outside while she's feeling dejected and alone? No! She needs more than that. And so does the current version of you.

Ok...But How?

Somatic therapies, and trauma informed therapy, can help your brain and body align to understand that the past is truly in the past, and old narratives about yourself can change. But this takes guidance and specfic steps. With EMDR, an 8 phase approach with bilateral stimulation is used to access and desensitize painful memories. With IFS, unblending from burdened parts of you is used to bring inner harmony and compassion, that is then reflected outwardly in your relationships.

You Don't Have To Navigate This Alone

In fact, it's harder to go about it alone. If you're interested in decreasing your anxiety in relationships with these types of therapies, let's chat! Schedule a consultation to see if I can help.