Practice Acceptance

Christy appeared visibly anxious during our first meeting. Her arms shook, and she sat mostly with her head down, eyes staring at the floor. In her mid-thirties, married with no children, Christy came to see me because she had "lost her voice."

Several months before our first appointment, Christy had been sick with a cold and sore throat, and subsequently developed laryngitis.  She recovered from her illness but continued to have difficulty speaking above a whisper. Doctors ran all sorts of tests but could find nothing apparent that was wrong. Her next stop was a speech therapist, who was quite helpful in many ways; however, he felt Christy’s problem was related to anxiety, and he referred her to me.

I asked Christy some general questions to get an overall picture of her background. She said she’d always been agonizingly shy and withdrawn. She never spoke at school and had difficulty making friends. She grew up a devout Catholic, and despite her shyness, she met a man at church whom she later married. At the time I saw Christy, she was working in a small diner doing mostly food preparation; her husband, Will, worked for a sign company.  They lived in a small town, several hours away from our office.

I asked Christy to describe herself. "A nobody...worthless," she whispered. "A complete failure." As she continued, her head shook slightly. "I know my husband is disappointed in me because I haven’t gotten my voice back. I’m such a problem."

"What about before you lost your voice. Did you feel so bad about yourself then?" I asked.

"Yes, but I hate myself even more now," Christy answered. "I never did have a very strong voice, and it was embarrassing. When I said something, people always asked me to speak up. It would be great to be more outgoing and talkative, but I never have anything interesting to say. Will has lots of friends from work, and he knows a lot of people from playing sports. Sometimes I feel jealous that he has friends and I don’t."

Christy teared up as she added, "I’ve always been nervous and jittery around other people, even before I lost my voice. Like right now. I know you’ve noticed how shaky I am. My head won’t stay still sometimes. I hate for people to see me like this."

Although Christy could find absolutely nothing positive to say about herself, I liked her right away. I could tell she was a warm and caring person who had a lot of potential.

We agreed to work together, although the distance between us would make it difficult to meet regularly. Christy set the goal of getting her voice back. She didn’t think she could stand it if she had to continue whispering the rest of her life. She also wanted to work on becoming less shy.

As for my goals, I needed to first verify Christy’s physical condition with her physicians. I wanted to make sure they’d ruled out all possible medical causes for her lack of speech. After that, my next step focused on helping Christy learn to accept herself - to treat herself as kindly as she did others. I knew she’d have a difficult time making progress on her goals until she eased up, at least a little bit, on the vicious self-criticism. I believed that Christy needed to accept herself and her situation before she could make changes in her life, especially a change so great as speaking again. We’ll return to Christy’s story later in the chapter.

If you’re like many people with social anxiety, you can relate to Christy’s disdain for herself, even if you’ve never experienced her inability to speak. You probably see no value to your quiet, reserved approach to life and would trade social anxiety disorder for practically any other problem. Of course, we’ve written this book to help you change - to become more comfortable in social situations and to improve the way you manage your anxiety. But we must proceed carefully. Techniques designed to help people change must be carefully blended and balanced with an ongoing posture of "acceptance."

What is Acceptance?
Why Do We Fight Acceptance?
Learning & Practicing the Gentle Art of Acceptance