Avoidance Spirals

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Holy crap. Did you steal my brain or something? (actually I wish you had, then I wouldn't keep getting stuck in spirals exactly as you described).

Ok I'll start with some questions?

What the mix of ages are the people you are going to be working with?

Is this a technical / science course or an arts based course?

Is this a postgraduate or undergraduate course?

Here's a few logical things to think about.

Since you said you were ok hanging round with the guys at the induction that sounds like you successfully socialised with some people on the day, that's great especially as you were so nervous beforehand. There is no rule that says you have to hang around with the girls if you don't like them, so you can spend the courses hanging around with these guys you got on with instead.

Yes, psychological bullying is horrible and the memories of it can be intense, however, you are assuming that just because girls you have met so far have bullied you you'll be bullied again, in fact many girls in a school or college setting do not do this.

Do you have any evidence at all, that the girls on this course are likely to cause you problems (other than you're suspicious that the girls might bully because this has happened before)?

My experience is that a lot of girls seem to grow out of the psychological bullying, especially at the more advanced levels of study; it's much more important to study well than be a successful socialiser and this is particularly the case in science / technical subjects. You'll be respected for your intelligence more than you're social skills, and whilst you might not get invited to all outside social events (if you actually want to go), it's extremely unlikely someone will start a bullying campaign against you. If there is someone who makes you uncomfortable in classes you'll be busy studying and outside classes you don't have to spend any time with them.

Mixed age groups are much easier to be in as well, and more likely to be encountered at a more advanced level or where you are returning to study at a slightly older age.

Ok how is this as a starting point?

Any more logical questions \ statements you can come up with?

Would naming the story you are telling yourself that's triggering the spiral help? If so what would you name it?

Sorry by girls I mean women, I was thinkingof school, and automatically used the word girls

I'm going to finish reading the thread, just wanted to add real quick I know EXACTLY what you're talking about, and do it all the time!

I can relate to this feeling and also when a big important event is coming up such as a final exam in grad school or a presentation at work then I have this feeling of impending doom. I do find that working with and being around positive people helps or talking about it to someone helps as well (if the person you talk to it about is supportive and positive). Being prepared for something and then hoping all goes well seems to work best, but of course life is not always fair or perfect.

Most in the course are 17 - 25, with the majority on the younger side of that.

Neither. Uni preparation program. These are done at technical schools in order to gain entrance to college, it is not yet college.

Yeah, I'm planning on hanging out with guys or other foreigners wherever possible.

Why do I have so much trepidation about this?
Well, probably because the majority of people who attend these courses do so because they fail or do badly at high school. Usually that means those preppy popular girls and guys who are jocks are a large percentage of those who attend. In the past, that was always the type (the preppy popular girls) who would bully me. In percentage terms, there are more in the class than there was in high school. And they haven't grown up that much in that time period (as evidenced by a girl they were teasing on orientation for her clothes), it's rare that girls like that grow up before 25, if they ever manage to.

If I were doing post grad - you would be absolutely right about the people in the course wouldn't have time for it and would be more mature than that, and I probably wouldn't be worried about it. But this isn't even undergrad yet, this is just an entrance program and they tend to attract a lot of riff-raff.

This is a bit of a long post in response, I hope that is ok.

Kjas I completely sympathise with why this situation is causing you loads of trepidation, this is exactly the sort of scenario that would freak me out big time (even as a 40 year old who was a lot older than them and therefore would perhaps find it easier to stay at a distance).

Whilst I'm sure that some of the riff-raff will actually turn out ok, the question is there evidence for your fears? has come back yes - there is some chance that this is a situation where bullying could occur. Now I understand why your current avoidance spiral is proving tough to handle, the ones that you can go ok this just really unlikely are usually very much easier to break.

The ones where you find there is a higher likelihood of what you are afraid might actually might happen are much tougher, obviously it's very important to remember that just because there is a probability it will happen, does not mean that it will, but sometimes this isn't enough. In my case my brain has a nasty habit of, faced with a reasonable possibility of something I don't like happening actually occurring, of going 'But what if it does - help, help'

I'll suggest some things I find helpful to do when faced with this type of avoidance spiral, hopefully some might help you.

In my case if it's a nasty situation that could potentially happen, I move onto the challenging the 'If this happens I am not going to be able to cope' belief - which is a really scary one for me and harder to deal with.

So a first step I'll often take at this point is to consider two things:-

1) What steps can I take that will prevent this from happening, that also won't be negative to me in some way?

2) If the nasty thing does happen, what can I do to enable and help me to handle and cope with it and not shutdown / meltdown in some way?

With 1) for me if it was a course I really wanted to do / piece of work I want to finish that ultimately is going to be a big benefit to me for my future employment / life prospects I wouldn't want to give it up / back out of it unless I absolutely had to, so then I start working out, what are the practical steps that can make the situation less likely to happen, and what support I can put in place to help me cope if it the situation starts to stress me out, so I'll be able to get through it without dropping out.

You've already identified that you can hang out with guys / foreign students that sounds like a great strategy.

Are there other things you can do regularly to care for your-self in some way to reduce stress levels in some ways? Hot deep baths, walking in my local botanic gardens, coffee and cake in my favourite cafe and very short (5 mins or less) self-compassion meditations are amongst my favoured ways make me feel better when I'm stressed out at the minute. I'm sure you'll have your own.

Another option, in addition to this, is to get some kind of additional support structure in place if you can (in addition to us here on WP who you can always keep coming back to when stuck ). I don't know what the college services are like, is there some kind of agency there (or an outside agency) who can give you some kind of mentoring support? This would means disclosing your support needs to the agency but you should be able to this without letting any staff or students at the college know anything. As an example, my University runs a mental health mentoring service - which I currently use which is really helpful. so there is someone I can talk to about my fears and worries regularly - all she does is listen and be really kind but actually this has been very helpful for me. They also run a specific Aspergers mentoring service (no idea what this is like but I know it is available). I've managed to keep that I'm using this service completely confidential. Does the college you're going to offer any support services that you could take advantage of?

You could also consider professional therapy to support you through this (if you can get it free / through insurance / at an affordable cost). I have been seeing a clinical psychologist, to address some of the deeper issues that lie behind why a bullying from past effects me so badly now, however you may or may not want (or be able) to do this at the moment. Some people find therapy helpful, some don't, not everyone can afford it (I'm lucky as I managed to get a referral to the NHS but there was a 6 month wait). Also some people don't find it helpful to delve into past, some do, and whilst this has (eventually) massively helped me I've had to go through points where I felt very very vulnerable and if anything worse than before (these didn't last long but can did disrupt my concentration quite badly for a couple of weeks at a time on occasion). So you may need to pick the best moment to seek help for deeper issues if you want to, and you might decide now is not yet the best time for that.

It might help you write down the practical steps you can take to protect and support yourself in this situation, and that can also help you to cope with any problems that might arise.

Anyway, does any of the above help?

Please let me know if any of the above doesn't make sense or needs further clarification.

Feel free to PM me if you'd like to.

The institute doesn't offer that much in terms of support. Nobody there has any real working knowledge of AS. Which is fine because I prefer to deal with stuff myself. Therapy wouldn't help me at all. I don't like to talk about my problems, I just like solutions.

The problem with a situation like bullying, is that I don't know what practical solutions there are in the first place. Probably because I am so close to it and have dealt with it for so long that I just cannot distance myself from it in order to find some like I usually would. Which is now why the freak out is occurring. Because I have never been able to stop bullying previously (although I did try) and if it starts here I have no way to stop it from occurring here either.

Maybe my question should have been from the beginning, what can I do to prevent the bullying in the first place, and if is does happen, what practical steps should I be taking to deal with it and to stop it?

Some practical solutions I think of that might help with preventing bullying could be:

1) Where possible don't associate with people you think might be bullies, don't hang out with them and when possible avoid locations where they might be, as long as this doesn't restrict you negatively.

2) Another thing that could help is find out if the college has an anti-bullying policy, and if it does how does it work? Is there a way you'll be able to report concerns anonymously, if you spot people bullying others is there somewhere you can report them to so this can be dealt with before it gets too serious and culture of bullying can gain a foothold. I've heard that some schools and college now have very low tolerance of bullying, if the college you're going to has that attitude you can make use of whatever anti-bullying strategies they have.

3) Potentially find some people who you're happy being with, who hang out in places the jocks, preppy types etc do not hang out, so you don't have to interact with the types who might bully you (this was my solution at 6th form college - roughly equivalent to high school, it worked very well).

4) Spend break times between classes in the library or elsewhere where people are not allowed to talk or disturb you. (I also did this at 6th form college I then got to know other people hanging out in the library to and we became good acquaintances)

5) Find a club or group of people at the college who share a special interest with, and spend spare time at this club / group when not in class / studying at library (I did this at University, I chose the groups I joined with care, it worked well).

I'm sure there are lots of other things that might help, hopefully others might have some suggestions.

Yeah.

Hmm. I just have this thing about not being mean to people unless I have to - even if they are going to be disrespectful, I won't be. I'm thinking maybe I need to change that. Or at least be more assertive about putting my foot down without being unreasonable about it.

I would say being more assertive, as in quietly, firmly expressing my needs and wants, has helped me a lot.

I have never been bullied since school and I definitely have got much more assertive since school. I've also be lucky to generally work, and study, amongst fairly decent people.

Being assertive still makes me uncomfortable though, I still need to get better at it.

I know what you mean as when I must speak up about something I have to mentally prepare myself and hope for the best. It does help to speak up for yourself without losing your cool and without being passive aggressive.

That's my problem. I have a tendency just to ignore everything and not do or say anything until I get angry, which is rare but eventually happens if it's bad enough.

When I get angry, I have absolutely no filter (for once! pity it's the only time that happens) and I tell them exactly what I think of them (although all of it is true, I don't exaggerate or anything). This results in them being taken back, running to the nearest teacher, and telling on me, and then I get in trouble, all because I actually react for once. Then after that they hate me forever.

I have never worked out how to effectively deal with my anger and frustration, I just suppress it ruthlessly, and eventually tend to collapse into floods of tears when I can't suppress the emotions any more (this really really isn't a good solution either...) I could do with a few pointers here too...it is also one of the main reasons I try really hard to be more assertive these days so I get less frustrated / annoyed / upset by people.

I've no idea if this suggestion is any help, but I found I got better at assertiveness by practising on people who I wasn't closely involved with but needed a service from e.g. shop assistants, people working in cafes, medical professionals etc. I found I was less nervous being assertive with these people because I was less concerned whether they socially approved of me or not, if this makes any sense; it had the added advantage that I've got better service, and I think in some cases better medical outcomes, because of it - also people generally seemed to be comfortable with it as they were clear what I wanted. Also the interactions were generally short, so I didn't need to keep the assertiveness going for long, which made it easier. This has then given me more confidence to be assertive with others.

I've also practised with my parents and husband who I trust not to be offended or tell me if they think I've spoken out of turn (however, I don't always manage it with them, it's harder...)

I was then able to move on to being assertive with more casual acquaintances and people in the work environment (again I don't always manage this...)

It still doesn't always work, but I am getting better at it.

Yeah.

I've gone from having the "f*ck everyone and everything" attitude I used to have about bullying when I was really young to the "you're stupid, I can't be bothered even acknowledging that with a reply" kind of attitude.

Basically a pendulum swing from one extreme to the other. I need to find the middle point here somewhere.