Alone on a school trip

Hi!

I'm sorry to hear you had a falling out with your friend. It's never easy to go through that, but have no fear!

I can relate to how you feel. This summer, I am going to a camp a few hours away, and I don't know anyone either! But the similarities of our situation don't have to stop there -- we can both overcome the anxiety!

I also try to exterminate the "what if's" in my mind.

What if I have no one to talk to? What if I embarrass myself in front of them? What if I have no one to turn to? I'm so far away!

Thoughts like that are toxic. Accepting the circumstance that you are in and allowing just the plain facts -- I am going on a trip to Italy without anyone I know -- resonate will be a good start.

From there, you can take those negative "what if's" and turn them to positives!

What if I make a new friend? What if I love my time in Italy? What if it's even better than I expected?

Keeping those kind of things on your mind will always be more reassuring than allowing the negative feelings to permeate.

If you need any more assistance, my messages are always open!

Have so much fun at this once-in-a-lifetime experience!

That's really rough, and I can totally see how you would be afraid of being alone and lonely while in an unfamiliar environment.

My suggested next step here would involve borrowing a CBT exercise as follows:

Step 1: Write down everything you can think of that you're afraid of with respect to this trip

Step 2: For each of the things you wrote down, consider what you might do to handle it. For example, if you're afraid that the other people on the trip aren't interested in talking to you, maybe you can arrange to take some books with you to read/listen to. Or if you're not completely sure that they'll snub you, maybe you can brainstorm conversation openers for approaching them