social anxiety is holding my kids back from us doing things

[ichoosesleep]

Today we have birthday party which I'm dreading! Then there is a local village picnic/concert thing going on. Everyone is looking forward to it but I just can not go! I won't mind taking the kids somewhere different for a picnic which they will still enjoy but I just feeling I'm holding them back from everything. I'm just feeling so shitty today it's unreal. DH is at work and the house is a bombsite even though I spent so long on it last week I feel my life is in a vicious circle every single day. I know later on there will be photos all over Facebook of everyone enjoying the picnic thing. God I feel awful

[sadie9]

How long will the picnic thing be? About 3hrs maybe. If you went you would probably feel awful for 3hrs max. And you wouldn't actually feel awful that entire time. It would come and go. However, no one would actually know you feel awful because you would look exactly the same as you always do.
If you don't go you will spend much more than 3hrs feeling bad about not going. You will initially be relieved you didn't go, yet that is very very short term. The more you don't go to things the harder it gets.
The question you have to ask yourself is - what is it worth to me to not go? (relief from bad feelings). What is it worth for me to go?
Could I have a couple of hours of bad feelings (and you are well used to bad feelings, so you are actually very very used to them so that's nothing new for you) so could I have a couple of hours of bad feeling in the service of moving forward with my family?
All those people you think live normal lives, don't actually, some of us feel like shit some of time just like you.
If you shift your thoughts from all the terrible stuff in your head, the invisible audience judging you - which isn't there actually. And think of one person that you feel is okay and picture yourself saying hello to them. Because that is actual real life. It is real people the same as yourself who would be delighted to pass some time with you.
So switch from feeling that pressure in your head to be a perfect person, to being just a regular human being who is made of all sorts of parts and ingredients nothing being perfect, going to an event with a load of other human beings, and they are made up of all sorts of parts and ingredients nothing being perfect.
You could, if you wished to, go late to the picnic thing so you could attend but just not the whole event. Or don't go, you are free to do that to.
But there might be a small part of you that wants to go.
And your kids would certainly enjoy it. And they would enjoy something else as well by yourselves if the picnic is a bridge too far for today.
For the housework - each day allocate a certain amount of time to housework, a certain amount to kids time, a certain amount of Myself time etc. Start with 20mins for each thing. Then say to yourself that you can stop after 20mins if you feel like stopping.