[TomaszZielinski]

For me the hard part was to convince myself that the distortions were actually real. I mean, on paper I could see there were distortions in my thinking, but my guts were still telling me that "those people are out there to get me".

In other words, (c)ognitive and (b)ehavioral components of CBT were contradicting each other. And that's where exposure was helpful--it allowed me to behaviorally validate that my cognitive distortions were real.

By which I mean that exposing myself to social interactions when all cells of my body wanted to escape, gradually convinced me about the things you mentioned: that the negatives are nowhere as strong and the positives are much, much higher.