One Brain's journey

About five years ago I was diagnosed with social anxiety. I already knew from my reading that ADHD almost always comes with coexisting disorders known as co-morbitities and I was pretty sure I had it from reading the symptoms. So it was no great surprise, but now it was confirmed. I also knew that social anxiety does not equate to shyness neither in the intensity nor in the range of fears. Social Anxiety is usually described as fear of scrutiny and, in my case at least, scrutiny resulting in judgment. I have no fear of public speaking. Well maybe a little, as in the old adage, “If you ain’t scared, you ain’t paying attention.” Mine comes into play around the telephone and with authority figures. I also have trouble in social situations where I don’t know people. I would rather rather walk a plank over a pool of sharks than step into a room full of people. In a lot of ways social anxiety had caused more damage in my life than ADHD and following the diagnosis there was another period of adjustment to that fact. Not long after though, I had the opportunity to participate in group therapy employing Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) at the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health (CAMH). We met once a week over some two months or so. An early impression of my fellow participants was that they were all articulate, intelligent and if you met them under favorable social conditions you would never guess they had any kind of anxiety. I found the application of CBT somewhat strenuous mentally, although the one time outside the group that I did apply the mechanisms I was taught, I had quite positive results. But it was difficult and I came to the conclusion that if I had been in my twenties, I would have made the effort but at the age I was I wasn’t sure that the benefits equated to the effort of doing it and in my mind that effort was substantial and I couldn’t imagine having to go through it in every social encounter in which I would experience anxiety. However, I came across some research about what happens in the brain with CBT and realize now that I had missed an important aspect of the training. I discovered that it wasn’t just tricking my brain out of the fears. I was actually changing the structure of my brain. In other words, I would not have to go through the CBT process forever, every time I was faced with a social anxiety trigger. Eventually, I just wouldn’t react to the triggers at all because the structure of my brain would have been changed. I think I still have the worksheets I was given in those CBT sessions. I’m going to look for them now…