How do I tell my tutor I can't do my course due to my social anxiety

[Recomme]

I signed up to do a course. It's delivered via zoom. I thought it was all theory and learning via books etc. I've only had a few sessions and really enjoying it. I didn't realise that there would be regular"practical" sessions where I would need to role play in different scenarios with other students / tutors in front of everyone. Currently everyone has their videos off and speak only if they want to answer a question or ask something themselves so it feels "safe" for me.

I have social anxiety and the thought of this is making me feel sick. I feel I need to quit the course and feel so sad that i need to do this as I'm really enjoying it. The role play sessions would be part of the assessment for the qualification so it's not something I could skip.

Should I just quit and make up an excuse or tell her the truth?

OP do you feel able to do the role play if it's just your voice and you don't have to be seen on screen?

Talk to your tutor and arrange for some therapy for yourself. I have severe social anxiety (panic attacks before phone calls, fainting in social situations kind of severe) but started CBT in November. It hasn't been an easy road, but I have come so far. In the past few months I have achieved things that this time last year would have been a 'nope, nope, can't do that, too scary'. In the long run avoidance makes your social anxiety worse and it's a shame that you will miss out on things until you address the problem and find ways to cope with it. Your tutor won't want you to fail or feel uncomfortable, as long as you're open with them I'm sure they will make some adjustments for you. Good luck!

Without knowing what course you're doing, it's kind of difficult to advise, OP, since we don't know how important this role-play/social part is in the end qualification.

As an extreme example, someone ain't getting a nursing qualification if they ask for adjustments to be made for the blood-taking part of the course (i.e. not do that bit).

They can also say "ah but I'm just taking the course for fun, I won't actually be practicing!".....but how can the course provider know this? They can't then in good faith issue the qualification.

I would also say just have a bash at it.

OP doesn't care about getting the qualification (if I understand correctly).

OP: Would you tell someone else with your condition (social anxiety) to be too ashamed about it to ask for help? Or is it a case that your SA is so bad that you can't ask anyone (like tutor) for help (except on MN anonymously) ? Are you ashamed else why is it so impossible to ask for help?

Can you see this as an opportunity to "Feel the Fear and Do it Anyway?"

I'll say here what I say to any of my students that approach me in situations like these.

It's part of the course assessment so you can't not do it. Failure to complete means failing the course.

Has your mental illness been diagnosed? In other words, can you supply me with medical evidence to support your adjustment or concession? If you can, send it to me and I'll try to sort it.

Is your condition self-diagnosed? If so, you have two choices: get an official diagnosis and we take the steps above or don't get a diagnosis and accept you're going to fail through non-completion of the required elements.

Unfortunately, things like this tend to be pretty rigid - you can't be exempted because your tutor feels sorry for you.

@TheVillageBaker is right, avoidance stops you finding out that the threat isn’t so bad and you can cope. I’m a CBT therapist and have helped lots of people with social anxiety over the years and it really is possible to feel much better and to stop missing out on things because of SA. You might find CBT based books in the “overcoming” series helpful. There is one on social anxiety. Apologies for the long link! www.amazon.co.uk/Overcoming-Social-Anxiety-Shyness-2nd/dp/1472120434/ref=asc_df_1472120434/?tag=googshopuk-21&linkCode=df0&hvadid=310973726618&hvpos=&hvnetw=g&hvrand=4766498137699247498&hvpone=&hvptwo=&hvqmt=&hvdev=m&hvdvcmdl=&hvlocint=&hvlocphy=9045125&hvtargid=pla-416959137050&psc=1

try and reach a compromise with your tutor but avoid quitting the course. As you’re doing the course for interest rather than for career advancement there might be some flexibility. Try and get help for your SA via your GP or self referral to IAPT (NHS CBT provision) or (better still; less waiting for an appointment) find a BABCP accredited CBT therapist privately on the CBT register which offers a geographic search or therapist name search babcp.com/CBTRegister/Search

If you're just doing the course for your own pleasure, surely it doesn't much matter if you don't do the role play?

Should I just quit and make up an excuse or tell her the truth?

IMHO you should do neither - just go for it while you have this opportunity where the stakes are low and it doesn't matter if you fail. (And I'm no stranger to anxiety so I'm not saying that with a complete lack of empathy.)

If you quit you've effectively failed anyway, so you may as well try - especially if you've paid to do the course.

if they are asking you to say act as "MURDERER IN PSYCHO/lady Mcbeth" then thats one thing but i can't imagine any role plays are anything more than

You play client who has a question/complaint/illness
other plays Doctor/advisor/Social worker

I suppose it also depends - are these things assessed? we had to do some presentatons in groups that were not assessed. other courses it was marked.

(we have to do a film as part of the group work for my masters - i am just ignoring anyone showing me the footage that includes me)

I almost texted her but then chickened out! I don't know if telling her if she will be supportive.

I don't really want to just put myself through it. That doesn't help me. Smaller steps - If it was on a one to one basis I would be much better. I guess if you don't have social anxiety it doesn't make sense to you.

I would try and tackle the fear aspect, running away from the issue will just reinforce it. Ask yourself what exactly you are scared of? If you are scared of making an idiot of yourself, remind yourself that you will never see the ppl on this course again, and they are prob equally as scared. If it’s because of perfectionist tendencies, remind yourself that it doesn’t matter if you fail, you are doing it for the enjoyment of learning.
either way I think it’s a challenge you need to face and overcome - growth only comes from being out of our comfort zone.

@Recomme I do understand how you feel - I struggled with selective mutism as a child and still really hate public speaking, but with a lot of work I have got to a point where it's a fairly routine part of my job and even though my heart races and I feel like I want to cry, nobody can tell.

At some point you may decide that you don't want this to control your life any more, and that you are missing out on too many things - maybe try thinking of the anxiety voice as a completely separate person from you. Mine was a boring middle-aged, cardigan-wearing man who still lived with his parents and had never been outside of his home town. He wanted me to be like him, but I wanted to experience the world and really live in it, so I had to keep reminding myself that what he was saying was only his opinion, and not a fact - I could choose to prove him wrong. Like I say, it took a lot of work, and plenty of practice (and false starts) but it has been so worth it. I genuinely believe that you have inner strength you haven't learned to trust yet, and you will be able to achieve anything you want to when you're ready. Even signing up for this course must have been a step out of your comfort zone, so be proud of yourself for that, and then see if you could slide your toes just a little bit further out... Is the worst that could happen that your tutor isn't supportive, and then you withdraw from the course?

just message her! The worst outcome would be her saying she can't make any adjustments, so you might have to drop out of the course, which you have already accepted as a possibility, so you have nothing to lose. Or she might say "Yes of course, I've had other students with the same concerns in the past, you can x/y/z" - result you can keep going with the course, and, if one of the options is just do it with the tutor (which I think would be a reasonable adjustment) then you've taken a baby step to hopefully improve this in the future.

As someone who had (and still does, a little) social anxiety the only thing that helped me (having also tried medication, cbt, talking therapy etc) was doing the things that I was scared of BUT via small steps. Avoiding them completely actually made me worse, because it reinforced in my mind that by not doing whatever they were I'd escaped the 'danger' (danger isn't really the right word because as I'm sure you understand, logically you can tell yourself it's unlikely the bad thing you're dreading will happen and if it does it's not actually that bad, until the cows come home but emotionally you can't make yourself believe it!) - so obviously going forward I should keep avoiding them in the future forever and then I would stay 'safe.'

Whereas doing them broke the pattern and made me think 'Oh actually I did x and nothing happened, perhaps if I do it again it will also be fine. Ok I did it again and it was fine again. Perhaps that means I can also do Y and that will be okay too. Oh that sounds scary, perhaps I'll try x one more time first. Ok, I've done x 3 times now and actually it was fine each time, so I will give Y a go, and if it's horrendous at least I know I can do x now so I'm better than I was, and can perhaps build up to trying Y again in a few months....' etc.