8 Tried and Tested Ways of Overcoming Social Anxiety

by Aletheia Luna
at LonerWolf
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"Suffering from social anxiety is like tiptoeing along the edge of a very steep cliff."

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lonerwolf.com...
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The slightest look, the subtlest tone of voice, the smallest gesture that anyone does can set you off into a tirade of insecure, self-hating thoughts that make you shrivel up and fall back into the endless depths of your inner abyss.
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As a former social anxiety sufferer I know precisely what it feels like to suffer from intense feelings of self-consciousness, awkwardness and insecurity. Not only did I have a really severe phobia of speaking with others, I also carried around a terrible phobia of feeling judged and persecuted even when NOT interacting with people.
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It is so easy to feel as though "you're losing it" when you have social anxiety. I remember how intensely paranoid and claustrophobic to the point of hysteria I felt when walking through shopping centers and sitting in trains. My heart would race, my muscles would tense, my eyes would get glassy and my blood pressure would instantly shoot through the roof making me feel faint.
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1. Approach Your Healing With Counter-Intuitive Patience
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2. Work on Evolving Within First
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4. You Are Just as Worthy and Valuable as Everyone Else
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5. Expose Yourself to Situation That Make You Uncomfortable [I'd say that Leave You Feeling Uncomfortable. No one and no situation has the power to FORCE you to feel uncomfortable--unless you give them that power. When you realize you have given them that power--TAKE IT BACK!]
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7. How People Treat You is [more of] a Reflection of THEM Not YOU
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This is a solid article with real practical steps to take that work. I've used similar steps with 100's of students to lasting good effect.
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I believe that a number of folks reading this could find this article life changing for the better. Please avoid allowing naysayers or any variety of cheeky detractors to rob you of that opportunity and new freedom and new peace.
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Social Anxiety can be a very debilitating prison. That it is wholesale a prison of the mind is no comfort. Said prison of the mind results in a real tangible prison of limiting activities, limiting locations, limiting freedoms. Some folks end up imprisoned in their own home or even their own bedrooms.
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It doesn't usually help to exhort someone to "JUST DO IT" . . . particularly without baby by baby steps of support.
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Once in Taipei, after considerable therapy, with a co-therapist who was also the industrialist's wife's good church friend, we took the wife to a major Department store to shop for a blouse. I can be rather off the wall in such situations and certainly determined to be that day. It was kind of a measure of throwing the dear lady in the deep end of the pool. But it worked. She was able to tolerate my antics and to more or less automatically sluff off layers of social anxiety in that one outing.
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Anyway, imho, help requires empathy and patience--but also firm nudges forward. This article has lots of practical steps forward.

Going to the Duck on Saturday night and having a couple of beers and playing foosball and pool while listening to the live band used to work great. I used to dance quite a bit too.

The next three days I used to have a hangover and wasn't worried about anxiety. Along came Wednesday and they had another band at night. That took me back to Saturday night again. Medicine for thought.

a reply to: rickymouse

THANKS for your kind reply.

LOL Good on you for such progress . . . I think.

However, having been involved a lot in alcohol treatment . . . I've never considered a hangover a good sign of anything but an addiction.

And, the trouble with being partly anesthetized by alcohol, any social progress one supposedly makes--was under anesthesia--and is not all THAT transferable to normal unanesthetized waking states!

There's only one water molecule of difference between alcohol and the surgery anesthesia ether. And with ether--they take you down just above death and try to hold you there--very delicately. That's why insurance for anesthesiologists is so high.

a reply to: BO XIAN

#5 is solid advice. However, social anxiety AKA GAD, General Anxiety Disorder is a serious thing. They are usually accompianied by depression and sometimes agoraphobia and sometimes migraines with numbness and speech problems mimicking ishemic strokes (in acute attacks).

Therapy and often medication are normally required. I appreciate your suggestions, but I will be on Clonazepam the rest of my life, at a high dose. Along with Buspar. Along with anti-depressants that often help with sleep. Along with sleep meds, as people with anxiety often have insomnia and restless sleep. Along with therapy. Along with exercise and diet and vitimen regimens. Meditation and yoga. People with high IQ often fall into this category. But people who are near-sighted often do too.

The anti depressants are my pschiatrist trying to help 'slow my roll', is the wording I use with him. He changes them out, he tells me to stop taking if I don't feel well.

That one thing though, in regard to 'exposing yourself to situations that make you feel uncomfortable', is a tried and true method for improvement. Many therapists use it.

However, improvement is all that an be attained. There is no cure.

As someone who is confident and felt comfortable being an M.C at raves in front of 1000's of people, I suffer from the kind of social anxiety the OP describes.
My social anxiety happens when I am walking in open spaces. I find myself tensing up and then get paranoid that I'm walking weird which then used to become a self fulfilling prophecy because I would then start walking weird.
It got really bad and I was starting to become a bit agoraphobic but I ended up doing a water fast and found my anxiety disappeared during the fast. It did return once I started food again but it has never returned to the levels it used to be which has been a life saver for me. I get a little bit of anxiety now and again but I can rationalise it now and power through it, as I know it's not something to fear. I'm a lot more confident walking now as well, so I no longer walk strange when I get the feelings of anxiety.
I feel it's going to be a thing of the past very soon and just wanted to give people hope if they ever felt as helpless as I did during that period.

a reply to: reldra

imho,

the issue of a 'cure' is a complex one and different for each individual. And all the more complex with several dis-eases.

I wonder . . . have you asked your psychiatrist about the studies comparing anti-depressant meds with

Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (now called some special term when it's the depression variety--that was after my time). The short of it is--CBT was proven MORE effective; lifetime lasting; no side effects. The catch was--it takes a LOT of work to rewire--literally--all that mental wiring toward depression. And many folks are just not up to that much work. It can take a therapist skilled in that modality a lot of hand holding and coaching to succeed.

Anyway--sounds like you have a mostly working set-up and I wouldn't want to risk upsetting anything that's working for you even with a mild suggestion.

Thanks for your perceptive, informative and kind reply.

a reply to: mclarenmp4

WONDERFUL! CONGRATS!

Good on ya for taking charge in your life.

Progress can feel soooooooo good. And, it can result in more freedom and peace.

Impressive.

Thanks for sharing.

a reply to: Sevanth

originally posted by: Sevanth
NO but feel free to tell me what ever you want I asked for a 404 so here is your opportunity

I want to gag lol

What?

I feel like this would not help me out....or is it because I'm not strong enough to help ME out? Who knows ¯_(ツ)_/¯

a reply to: DarkestConspiracyMoon

One of my Navy Human Relations Project bosses once pointed out . . .

when I was feeling particularly low and weak . . .

that I had a LOT more strength within than I thought I had.

I gathered that perhaps I needed to act as though I did--then I'd discover it rising up within me and out to touch the world more successfully and with more boldness. It took me a while to process that and risk acting more on it. I tended to find it true--the more and the more persistently I acted that scenario out.