A life event occurred and now I get bad anxiety to be around people. Is this a sign I need therapy?

Thank you Val, for seeking support and sincerely asking "what do I do"? First none of us human beings have everything together 100% and you are not alone in seeking another's insight.

You have perhaps given me a glimpse into a pattern of how you deal with emotions and things that bother you. Your behavior described is bottling the emotions, which contributes to you letting the emotions out, when a life event triggers the emotion. Part of our work together is figure out how you learned that bottling emotions was a way to deal with life circumstances, emotional pain, or unpleasant events. Did it come from family, learning from others, generational reactions, media, etc.

Next we would look at how to identify emotions, body responses, and ways to verbally and non-verbally express (in a healthy productive way) your thoughts, needs, wants, or desires.

The next issue of concern is your anxiety now, that is preventing you from being around people. Working together we would explore if the anxiety existed prior to recent life event that was traumatic or did the recent event cause the anxiety. I will say I have a clue that something was going on prior to the recent life event. However we can tease that apart. Going back to anxiety, if you are isolating yourself away from friends or family because you are unsure how you will react if triggered, such as going over the edge, breaking down, or crying randomly; that these displays make you feel shame or embarrassment, or bring attention to you, then that work in therapy is to explore the underlying issues of the anxiety and reduce the symptoms so that you can feel good connecting with family and friends. Gaining confidence in your skills to recognized your thoughts and feelings, having body awareness when your pulse rate, blood pressure, and "fight or flight" reactions might be increasing. There are many techniques such as CBT (cognitive behavior therapy), and DBT (Dialectical Behavior Therapy) that can assist with having knowledge, awareness, and regulating emotions and reactions.

Yes you can benefit from therapy to help manage your symptoms and reconnect in a healthier way to family and friends. Thank you for asking and seeking support. :-)