#also I panicked SO HARD because I'd seen a couple people say that dancing with Wyll-

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My BG3 run is quickly devolving into a messy dating sim (sorry)

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[weltenwellen]

Okay, I am curious about your opinion on this. I hope you don't mind but I am sending this to my favourite bloggers in hopes to get an answer. I have severe social anxiety to a point I can barely leave my home without having a panic attack; recent therapists have described me to be agoraphobic and in the words of my parents I am a ''lost cause'', which on to my point of messaging you I am out of work due to this. People tend to not take me seriously and just say it's shyness. I feel so weak and misunderstood. Do you have any advice or words of encouragement? Thanks in advance.

I'm sorry that parents told you that you were a lost cause. Not only is it a really shitty and horrible thing to say to your child but it's also completely bullshit. And how anyone can draw a connection from shyness to someone having regularly panic attacks when they leave the house, blows my mind. Are you still seeing a therapist? If you are, are you able to do it from home or partly from home? Have they all diagnosed you with agoraphobic? Have most of them focused on the diagnosis or have some focused on the cause of your underlying symptoms? When have you started having panic attacks? What are your triggers? What are things you feel safe doing and where you don't feel anxious, stressed, panicked? How do you relax and let go of stress? Do you meditate or / and regularly do sports? Do you have people you feel safe with that you would be able to spend time with without having a panic attack? Do you set boundaries with your parents when they start talking down to you, calling you a lost cause? Without your job, do you have routines that you can keep up? Do you have a way of regularly expressing yourself through drawing, dancing or talking to someone you trust? How is your overall physical health, your diet and other self-care behaviours that you can list?

Those are far more questions that words of encouragement but I truly believe people are never lost causes. That's such bullshit and you parents saying that to you points potentially to some damaging and unhealthy family relationships resulting in your struggle with self-esteem, self-efficacy and self-belief. Whatever symptoms you're displaying (and I know from personal experience, panic attacks make you feel so ashamed, and embarrassed and unable to think and just overall and constantly so weak), they're just symptoms and symptoms pointing towards something deeper. I know it feels like they're all that you are or all that's left of you, but ultimately they're not you. There is a way to get better. If your current therapist or prior ones have called you weak or made you feel that you will never get out of what you're feeling right now, then I am deeply sorry. Please don't believe them. If your current therapist is not good or makes you feel bad, please please please have the faith to seek out another one and if your current one is good, please keep going. And in terms of your parents, I'd love to talk to them and maybe slightly go into rage mode and yell a little bit even though that would be counterproductive... but my point is: I know it's hard to not want to be loved by our parents or feel seen or even ask for help when we feel lost... and it's hard to untangle the ties that bind us to our family, but some distance to certain families members is healthy if their behavior, their actions and their words repeatedly hurt us and keep us from healing and believing in ourselves.

I don't know where you are right now in the world but there are lot of people who have and are struggling socially through this pandemic... with being alone, socialising again after a long time or going grocery shopping when you're repeatedly in isolation or because you're scared of catching the virus. I've had severe anxiety and a few anxiety attacks in the beginning of my bachelor a couple of years ago and it was so overwhelming that I thought I would never get out it. I felt so uncomfortable and overwhelmed and helpless. Like everything in me was not only jumbled but it was like I was a soda bottle and someone was constantly shaking me and for the life of me I couldn't find a way to open the bottle. After awhile, it began to take me such a long time to calm down after I got home and I was already so anxious hours before I had to leave for uni or sport. But I went to see a therapist during that time, I meditated before leaving the house, I worked out regularly and I took small steps of being more social and spend time with the people I trusted. I took care of myself because I started believing that I was worth taking care of and it got better in time. Not that I am still not deeply introverted and I feel like I am drained from the being social very quickly, but it got better and so will you. So please please please keep going. I promise you, hardship and severe struggles have an end. All the best to you. ❤️❤️❤️