You might not like it, it might stress you out a bunch, you can cry afterwards, or have a stiff drink after, but you should be able to set those emotions aside for 30 minutes, especially for something important like a job interview.
If someone cannot do that, they should definitely go into therapy for that. No matter if it was 'done to them', it's still a problem that person carries around, and the only way around that is fixing it.
None of the many many reasons someone may act this way mean they are broken, and therapy is not about 'fixing' someone to be the member of society you deem appropriate.
If relating to people is not a goal of yours then I would agree that you should not go to therapy for it. On the other hand, it is difficult for me to believe that anyone with anxiety is truly comfortable, considering that discomfort is the main feature of anxiety.
I see the enthusiasm and that you want better things for others, but the way you are approaching this communication is not doing it justice.
Just as someone with a broken leg is not a 'broken' person, their leg still needs fixing.
just fyi: 2 people could have the same mental health issues, but one could get a diagnosis and the other one doesn't. The reason for that is because a 'diagnosis' is basically just a ticket to get treatment, and thus is solely based on the question: "Will this person be able to deal with the disruptions caused by the issue, without professional intervention?".
If someone has a panic attack every time they talk to 3 strangers, it's is very plausible that this can lead to difficulty making and maintaining friendships and relations, which can likely lead to loneliness, depression, even further excerbated social anxiety, etc. All these afflictions make it even harder to deal with these issues which is why some people cannot break this cycle by themselves.
Therapy doesn’t always help, many people need more compassion from those around them. And society would be better equipped to provide that if instead to referring their contacts to specialists they might not be able to afford, more well-off people developed some minor therapeutic ability and concern for their fellow humans.
Love the quote marks. Next time try a Marx quote. I mean the brothers.
To fellow humans reading: the point is that the ones who did this to you are extremely unlikely to repent. Or even to comprehend that what they did to you is wrong.
Even if you were to explicitly hurt yourself - or place yourself in a position where you get hurt very badly - with the intent to communicate "do you still not see what you did to me?"... it's just no sweat off their, you know? "Yeah that person was all wrong, had it coming anyway".
The social contract protects them better than it protects you, so an "eye for an eye" solution is also unlikely to work - or even be possible: we don't hit, do we?
Therapy is... some person's job. That they trained for, you know? To put some food on the table, you know?
That means you can "go to therapy" in good faith (assuming you can access it in the first place) and not heal at all. The therapist might be a talented and intrinsically motivated person - or might just go "mmhmm" as you try to get through to them that they are doing exactly nothing to help you heal from some very particular, and perhaps not even unclearly defined at all, mental wound (that PP has had the gall to put in 'scare quotes'.)
Point is, the therapist will get paid either way. There is no shortage of people being told to get therapy by their fellows (who are too fucked up themselves to exhibit basic human fellowship). The systemic incentive to heal people's minds is next to nonexistent in comparison with the systemic incentive to drive hurt people mad, and then destroy them for being mad.
My suggestion: read some fucking books, and I don't mean books about fucking, I mean fucking books. Then, you might begin to get a clue how to get in touch with your spite, and how to become the undoing of all that ever wronged you without turning into that thing in the process.
TL;DR: You can start with those people who taught you that "feeling sorry for yourself" is a thing, and that it's what you need to do to make those who wronged you to regret their actions. You take those people and unlearn everything that they ever taught you. If there was anything true at all in what they wanted you to understand, you'll relearn it on your own, unencumbered by association with their other insidious lies. Then you can go tell two priestly kings that the balamatom sez hi ;-)
The only solution I see is to find the right therapist. Some people might not when their future depends on them finding one, and they give up too early. I can't see how that would be fixed except maybe having a mediator that pairs you up with therapists they recommend and asks if you feel an improvement each week. You'd be surprised, but I had nobody to do this for me. So I ended up losing years worth of time sticking with incompetent therapists because "going to therapy" like everybody told me to seemed more important than "fixing my life."
As cruel as it sounds, I was in no position to think critically about my own treatment because my mental state only allowed me to see checking off the box of self-care to get people off my back as the ultimate goal. It's the nature of the problem of mental healthcare. If I had been given a simple questionnaire to rate my treatment providers on a scale of 1-10 in various dimensions, I would have been put in front of someone else within a month or two.
If you say something like "I hate that people don't see the real me", LLMs would say "yes it's understandable that that would make you upset" basically confirming your reasoning as valid, while a therapist would ask "why do you want to people to see the real you?" or "What is in your words the difference between how people see you now, and how they would see you if they saw the 'real you'?". These kinds of questions force you to explain and identify your assumptions and reasoning.
LLMS are more like friends, providing a listening ear, but otherwise just nodding along.
edit: To be clear, this is why llms are NOT a good replacement for therapy. Using llms will likely only exacerbate instead of mitigate.
All this talk about retribution, what would you think you will get out of this? What do you think would happen if all your bullies would call you and tell you they're sorry for what they did to you? Would that erase any of the memories you have? Will that suddenly make you approach each social interaction without worry and with confidence? Will that help improve how you feel about your self?
I think the answer is a resounding 'no'... The required changes between you and your 'best self' are not within them, but they are within you.
> that it's what you need to do to make those who wronged you to regret their actions
Why does your goal even include these people? Why do you keep letting these people play a part in your life? Your goal should be to live however you want to live, and to disregard these people