The Confidence Coach - overcoming childhood bullying

0:02 A listener production. This podcast aims to provide general information only and is not intended to be a substitute for psychological therapy. If any of the topics discussed raise issues for you, please seek advice from a trained psychologist, and if you're struggling, you can always call Lifeline on one three one one one four. Hi, and welcome to the Confidence Coach, the podcast for people who struggle with self confidence, question their self worth, or have a persistent nagging voice in their head that tells them they're not good enough. I'm your Hostcast done. I'm a clinical and coaching psychologist, and in each episode, we'll start with a real person sharing their confidence struggle with me in their own words via a voice memo. I'll share with you ideas and tools that you can apply to help boost your self esteem and live a more confident life.

1:06 Today we're going to hear from Jason. Hey there, Cass. My name's Jason, and my confidence struggle is based around interacting and building friendships with straight men. So as growing up as a gay man, I was bullied very much by straight men, and not only straight men within school, but also my own father. This confident struggle really comes into play within my workplace now as I now work in construction, I find that I have a lack of self worth and confidence when it comes to interacting, you know, with those other straight blokes on the job site, in fear that you know, I might be told I'm not enough or I'm not equal, as I was told a lot when I was younger. Thanks so much, Cass, appreciate it.

2:00 I really appreciate this submission from Jason, and I thought this was a really good opportunity to talk about the impact of bullying. Generally, so as many as three in five children and adolescents experience some form of bullying during their school years, and that can have lasting psychological consequences. At its extreme, you know, it can create PTSD, but it also can lead to anxiety, depression, difficulty forming trusting relationships. As Jason mentioned, low self esteem and lack of confidence, and the loss of trust is perhaps one of the most challenging consequences if you have been bullied. It's not just that you don't trust people to generally be good and kind and decent towards you, but if other people don't stand up for you, you can also just lose trust in people generally, and that can last for years, well into adulthood. Long after that experience is finished, you can still be having these same experiences and these same reactions and maybe not even realize your difficulty forming relationships is all connected to these early experiences of bullying. And look, I think it is important to acknowledge that if you do belong to a minority group, whether because of your sexuality or ethnicity, or if you have a disability, then it's true that you are more likely to be the

3:31 target of bullies. And so while anybody can experience bullying, if you already have something about you that you feel sets your part, that makes you a bit different, and then that message is reinforced by other people, that can really undermine your sense of self worth and it can take a long time to recover from that. So, when you have experienced any kind of emotionally distressing event in your early life, then later on any kind of content, textual factors, any kind of contextual cues that you associate with that experience, with that a van to or that trauma can trigger a threat response in you. You know, sometimes those things are even hidden from your conscious memory.

4:16 It could be just somebody's tone of voice, or the color red, or a particular sound or a smell. More likely, if you associate a particular kind of person or a particular kind of environment with that distressing, traumatizing experience, then it's very likely that you will have an unconscious physiological reaction. In Jason's case, he is talking about straight men. For somebody else, it might be strong, assertive women, it might be any kind of male authority figure. Oftentimes, when you have this threat response, this fear response, it happens at a physiological level, like it comes from a part of your brain that is out of your conscious awareness. Like it's not a rational response, it's actually kind of instinctive, and you will feel this fear arising you physiologically, and in that moment, it is really important that you manage your physiology, that you calm down your nervous system. Your body doesn't respond to verbal language. Your physiology only responds to physiology. And that's why in psychology we talk about taking slow, deep, calming breaths, because when you do that, you activate a parasympathetic nervous system, which is the calming down response, which is the antidote to the stress response

5:50 that sometimes arises completely involuntarily. So in that moment when you. Feel that flood of fear, of that nervousness, the sweaty palms that you might feel tight in your chest, you can't find your words. Calming down your physiology is the first and the most important thing to do. Later, when you are out of the situation and when you're feeling calm and relaxed, then there are other things that you can do that might help you to manage and to challenge some of the more unhelpful thoughts that you have that are reinforcing and maintaining.

6:30 This kind of fear response. So I want to introduce you to this technique that is commonly used in cognitive psychology, and it's called the ABC model. And the way it basically goes is that A is the activating event. So A just basically means that something happens. B is your beliefs, So B is the story that you tell. Yourself about that event, and see then is the consequence. And the consequence can be an emotional reaction, or it can be a behavior, it can be what you actually do in response to that. So to walk you through a really basic example which I often use let's say that the activating event is that it's Friday afternoon, you're packing up from work, and your boss asks if they can see you on Monday morning. Now, b is the story that you tell yourself about that. Where does your mind immediately go? Because most of the people that I talk to when I offer this scenario, they go straight to what have I done, I'm in trouble, I've stuffed something up. Nobody's mind ever goes to thank God, I'm about to get that raise that I so deserve. And so the consequence is that we become anxious, agitated, probably spend way too much time over the weekend thinking about all the things that we might have done wrong, all of the worst case scenarios. So we've created this whole

8:04 story and this whole emotional response based on a very neutral event, which is the boss saying can I see you on Monday. So, when you have a bit of time and space and you're feeling calm and relaxed, it can be really useful to work through this process on your own. It does help to write it down if there's a situation that you've been in that has triggered an emotional response in you, to actually write down what the event was, what was the A. Remember that A is the facts. There is no room for judgment or opinion in a. B is where you write down your interpretation, all of the meaning that you've given that event, all of the stories that you're telling yourself about that event, and C is the consequence.

8:54 And then the very important next step is D. And D is where you dispute the story that you're telling yourself or you look for some disconfirming evidence. So it may be that you ask yourself, how likely is it that this story is actually true in the past in this situation? How often has this actually happened? What are some of the alternative explanations in this situation? Reminding yourself too, that our brains are very good at filtering in all of the information that supports our existing belief.

9:38 We have to actually intentionally steer our attention to the evidence that our pre existing belief is not always true, that sometimes there is another possibility. So I guess the takeaway from today's episode is that, first of all, when you're in that situation where you feel that triggering off that threat response, the most important thing is to not try to talk yourself out of that, but to actually calm your physiology, use your breath, slow your breathing, push your feet into the ground. Just do what you need to do to calm yourself. And then later, when you're safe and when you're relaxed, see if you can work through that ABC model to start to challenge those old assumptions and those old beliefs and start to actively look for the evidence that your beliefs aren't true so that you can start to build up a more positive and a more supportive and empowering.

10:41 Set of beliefs. Thank you so much for listening to the Confidence Coach podcast. If you have a confidence challenge that you'd like my help with, send me a voice memo. You can do that on my Instagram account at cast done underscore x, or you can just use the voice recorder on your phone and email it to the Confidence Coach at castone dot com and I look forward to helping you with another confidence challenge on our next episode. Listener