For the past couple of months I’ve been trying to withdraw from society/people a bit to try and recover from a couple of toxic friend breakups, went no contact with my family a month ago and all of this, plus I’ve noticed that my people-pleasing behavior and social anxiety has been somewhat amplified.
Since the drama mostly ended last year, I’ve tried to pick up the pieces and work on myself. I got on new meds, got a new therapist, met my now boyfriend, started working out more, met a few new friends who I ocassionally hang out with, moved to a nicer apartment, but despite all of these improvements, since the traumatic events, I’ve felt the need withdraw from social activities/not be open to making new friends and work on myself instead, such as trying to learn through self help books/podcasts/youtube on how to be more discerning about meeting high quality people, not being a people pleaser, and having more self esteem.
But at what point do you decide that you’re healthy enough to bring yourself back into the fold of being a social person again? So that you can feel like no matter what happens with people, I still have myself and still like myself, and not continue to have those self conscious, people pleasing behaviors? I’ve worked through some of it in therapy and through studying/reading but I’m still concerned about people walking all over me again and having to try and fail multiple times in the process of meeting new people. I feel like it’s impossible to know when I’m going to be okay after the trauma I went through, and I want to not have those fawning/doting behaviors and be more assertive, but if you’ve gone through traumatic experiences before, how do you know when you need to just go out and be social again, without being afraid of being hurt? And when would the right time be to do that, if there even is a right time?