How do I fight against "Avoidance" (anxiety related)

[CatsSleepAnywhere]

Social anxiety,
Hi all as part of my counselling I am supposed to try and face my fears.
So I need to go out but I am doing things other than getting ready to go out.

Anyone got any advice on how to be strong/ "get on with it" etc.

Could you try two things: first, setting a really really easy objective to begin with, just to make sure that you get a small success under your belt; and second planning a reward for yourself, to acknowledge the success you have had. Perhaps buy a bit of a treat while you are out -- a book or a mag or some posh bubblebath, etc.

Good luck.

Take small but genuine steps. If opening the front door and sniffing the air is the first thing you are too scared to do, do that. Then close the door and congratulate yourself.

You can do this. It is hard and it may upset you, but you will feel a sense of achievement that will spur you on.

I know how you feel. I suffer from agorophobia, If I am having one of those days when I do everything I can to avoid going out I at least try and walk up and down the garden a few times or go and sit on one of the seats near the car park round the corner and stay there for at least ten minutes. Once I have done that sometimes I can walk the next couple of hundred yards to the shop and reward myself with a bar of chocolate of a magazine or something nice for lunch. If you feel yourself getting panicky while you are out look around you and pick the first five things you see and just keep repeating them over and over in your head my therapist suggested that and it really does work most of the time.