Advice needed re counselling

Thanks John. 

I was curious about what CBT involves and I found this description on a counselling website;

"The premise behind CBT is that our thoughts and behaviours have an effect on each other, and by changing the way we think and behave - we can ultimately change the way we feel about life. The therapy examines learnt behaviours and negative thought patterns with the view of altering them in a positive way."

One simple example of negative thoughts I've seen described is where a friend walks past and ignores you, and you assume they no longer like you, whereas they may have just been distracted and did not notice you. I have what I term "hyper-awareness" - I'm always aware of the people around me, and husband and my only real friend both have this awareness too, so it wouldn't happen with them and I'm really not bothered whether anyone else likes me. 

I'm not sure what negative thought patterns encompasses: I know a lot of people with depression don't like themselves, but I generally have a positive view of myself. I do get a negative view of others when they criticise me in an unkind way, but usually a person who does that to me is not liked by quite a few other people, so I think I have the right to be upset with them, particularly if they don't apologise when it's obvious they've upset me. 

A lot of my behaviour is learnt, obviously, but mostly that's to fit in and communicate with others in a way they find acceptable. My reactions when anxious are much more on an instinctive basis - I panic, I sometimes get a flight response and want to run away, and I find it hard to not get emotional. I used to think I could learn not to react like that, but now I understand that I can't. I'm now more mindful of when I'm starting to get anxious about silly things like the bus being late, or getting overwhelmed by having too many things to do at once, and I'm already working on dealing with these fairly successfully. I'm even starting to manage better when people let me down and lie to me - I've started to expect this behaviour from certain people so it's not so unexpected when it happens and to be determined not to get obsessed about it, because I've reasoned that me getting stressed over it only hurts me, it certainly doesn't appear to bother them. 

I don't see though how anyone can help me deal successfully with the situation where someone starts criticising me unfairly when I'm least expecting it, which is really bullying behaviour as far as I'm concerned.

I'm supposed to fill in a long questionnaire the day before my appointment, and some of the questions are difficult to answer, which is off -putting. I just don't know if it's going to be worthwhile. 

Thanks John. 

I was curious about what CBT involves and I found this description on a counselling website;

"The premise behind CBT is that our thoughts and behaviours have an effect on each other, and by changing the way we think and behave - we can ultimately change the way we feel about life. The therapy examines learnt behaviours and negative thought patterns with the view of altering them in a positive way."

One simple example of negative thoughts I've seen described is where a friend walks past and ignores you, and you assume they no longer like you, whereas they may have just been distracted and did not notice you. I have what I term "hyper-awareness" - I'm always aware of the people around me, and husband and my only real friend both have this awareness too, so it wouldn't happen with them and I'm really not bothered whether anyone else likes me. 

I'm not sure what negative thought patterns encompasses: I know a lot of people with depression don't like themselves, but I generally have a positive view of myself. I do get a negative view of others when they criticise me in an unkind way, but usually a person who does that to me is not liked by quite a few other people, so I think I have the right to be upset with them, particularly if they don't apologise when it's obvious they've upset me. 

A lot of my behaviour is learnt, obviously, but mostly that's to fit in and communicate with others in a way they find acceptable. My reactions when anxious are much more on an instinctive basis - I panic, I sometimes get a flight response and want to run away, and I find it hard to not get emotional. I used to think I could learn not to react like that, but now I understand that I can't. I'm now more mindful of when I'm starting to get anxious about silly things like the bus being late, or getting overwhelmed by having too many things to do at once, and I'm already working on dealing with these fairly successfully. I'm even starting to manage better when people let me down and lie to me - I've started to expect this behaviour from certain people so it's not so unexpected when it happens and to be determined not to get obsessed about it, because I've reasoned that me getting stressed over it only hurts me, it certainly doesn't appear to bother them. 

I don't see though how anyone can help me deal successfully with the situation where someone starts criticising me unfairly when I'm least expecting it, which is really bullying behaviour as far as I'm concerned.

I'm supposed to fill in a long questionnaire the day before my appointment, and some of the questions are difficult to answer, which is off -putting. I just don't know if it's going to be worthwhile.