Before I joined the programme, anxiety had been part of my life for as long as I can remember, but it had been getting worse. Going out felt overwhelming. I wore a mask when I left the house and avoided busy places because I felt like people were watching me and judging me. I’m on antidepressants and I’m also being tested for autism, which has brought up a lot of questions about myself.
I’ve had suicidal thoughts in the past, but they were thoughts only. Still, they were frightening. About a year ago I got a job as a cleaner, but I had a panic attack and couldn’t go in, and I was fired. That knocked my confidence badly. Before that, I worked in a kitchen with my mum until Covid, so losing work felt like losing part of my identity as well.
When I started the course, I was enjoying it more than I expected. I didn’t have lots of questions at first, but I felt like it was going well. As the weeks went on, I started to look more closely at the beliefs that drive my anxiety. One of my strongest beliefs was that people are watching me, and if I see them looking at me, I assume they are judging me and thinking negatively about me.
During the course, we worked on developing a new belief. At the start, I only believed it about 15 percent, which was that people actually find me interesting. My first reaction was to attack that idea. I thought, maybe they are just trying to make me feel better, maybe they don’t really mean it. But when I defended it, I could see evidence. People have shown interest in what I wear, including people on the course. They’ve commented on shared interests and engaged with me in ways that felt genuine.
Even when the thought came back that they were just being nice and didn’t really care, I could challenge it by noticing patterns and similarities. That helped me see another angle. By the end of the exercise, my belief in the new thought had gone up to about 35 percent. That felt like real progress.
What I liked about this work was that it changed my perspective. It showed me a different way of looking at situations, turning something negative into something more balanced and then backing that up with proof. It didn’t make the anxiety disappear, but it made it feel more manageable.
When it comes to work, I still feel conflicted. I don’t think I’m fully ready for work, but at the same time I am trying to look for it. I know I want to move forward. I’m interested in game development and I’ve started looking at courses I could do in the future. That feels like a direction, even if I’m taking it slowly.
The course has helped me understand myself better and start challenging thoughts I’ve believed for a long time. I’m not suddenly confident, but I feel like I have tools now. I’m starting to see that the way I think about myself and how others see me can change, and that gives me some hope.