Answer:
finally got the courage to set up an appointment with a therapist to address my anxiety issues that have gradually been getting worse for the past months/year.
I see the therapist in a few days but yesterday I feel like I hit a road block that has already digressed any potential progress I may have.
I was at a family member's house last night and a fight broke out. It was a pretty intense yelling fight and it was about politics. It got extremely intense at one point and very, very mean things were said. My heart started to pound the very second it started. I eventually got pulled into it. When I'm at this house I get scared to talk. I'm scared to speak my mind. I'm terrified of confrontation. Usually, I just flat out dislike being over there because of how much it stresses me out. I constantly worry a fight like this will break out. After I was brought up in this fight that I wanted zero part of, she (family member) nags and confronts me to the point where I can't take another moment in that room. I ask to leave the room, and I'm told no. I stand up and say "I just can't do this, I can't. I need to leave the room, please. I can't do this." but she keeps on and on and she keeps asking why I can't stand it, why I can't deal with it, and she is being extremely aggressive. She asks why I can't speak up like the rest of them, what's my problem? I end up snapping and yell back to her that I hate the fighting, I can't take it, and they aren't acting like adults. At this point my heart is racing out of my chest, I'm trembling, and my mind is racing. She keeps on but I honestly can't remember what is said and I finally start to leave the room and in my anger and panic I say, "this is why I'm seeing a therapist." I completely leave the room and go into the garage and pace. I can't stop. My mind is completely blank and I can't stop moving.
She eventually comes into the garage and yells to me "If you're going to be like this, leave my house and I don't want you back here. Leave. You aren't welcome. We are adults. I have a serious problem with you right now. You come in our house and don't talk and whisper to SO and it's incredibly rude. I feel uncomfortable in my own house with you here."
At this point I've lost it and I'm yelling back to her. Yelling things that I don't want to tell her, but she's nagging me and begging for confrontation. She brings up so many things she has issues with about me. Things like how I haven't introduce her to my friend, how I don't share anything, how I apparently stopped her from having a relationship with my mom because of my "feelings". I'm so upset, I'm so angry. I'm crying and trembling and I'm the most uncomfortable I've ever been in my entire life. I feel like the attacks and aggression just keep on coming. I eventually yell "I HAVE SOCIAL ANXIETY LEAVE ME ALONE". She doesn't leave me alone, but I think she eased up a fraction (but not like that made much of a difference at this point). I am then brought back inside and a to face the rest of the family (2 others) in my moment of utter brokenness and explain to them how I've been feeling. She eventually says she's glad I'm getting help and that she wants to help me as much as she can and that the family is there for me. She then calms down completely, says she loves me and that she'll try to alter the fighting behavior when I'm around and everything is back to normal like the fight never happened except for me crying at the kitchen table.
After that, I don't want to see her for a long time. It's going to take me a long time to recover. I feel so embarrassed, ashamed, broken, and stupid. I didn't want to talk and I was not ready to talk about my problems with them. I feel like I was forced into this stressful situation and it's made me so upset with her. I feel that any help in the future from her will never be appreciated by me because of how she treated me. I will never forget last night and I will obsess and stress about it for months and months, years probably. How hard is it to be compassionate? I feel that any other person in that situation would not have acted in that way. Or maybe they would have and I'm just acting like a baby. I'm so hurt and confused