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Mental Health social anxiety?

Smiley91

Smiley91

Bluelighter
Joined
Jan 21, 2012
Messages
331
Location
UK
I'm really loving this site and am thankful for all the advice...

But a problem of mine that i also get in 'real life' too, is that i will severely cringe over things i've said, written, done, etc. I can be very hypercritical of myself, but i honestly can help it and believe i should be. I see multiple mental health and addiction services to sort myself out, have next to no contact with friends for nearly 2 years - tend to be scared of letting people get to know me, hate close relationships minus someone who i lost to brain damage a while ago.

The feeling of anxiety is getting a bit too severe i.e. it is making me want to give up using the site, or at least posting, although i felt at one point it may have been good for easing myself in to steady human contact, then get back on social networking etc. But now...not so much just regret ... il regret posting this too no doubt.


Anyone else in the same boat? Do you just power through it? Its also the reason i dont ever switch on my mobile phone.

I couldnt think of anything else to post and was gonna say goodbye to posting but just thought id ask this one.
 
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it is how you are due to your particular life experiences. The culture we are in which I see as quite insane makes out that 'social anxiety' is a 'disorder' or 'mental illness' which needs their 'treatment' which most often comes as drugs. And that is good for them because they are all about profit, and the more people they can convince are in need of their drugs the richer they get

I have just typed that and don't regret it one bit :)

So what would I encourage you do to help yourself? Well look into the 'mental illness myth'--checkout a site called mad in america which is very good and join their forum too and you will get alternative experiences and opinions than the 'just take their drugs' rap
all 'anxiety' means is fear. Often fear is a fear of losing control, and essentially is a fear of death which may even include 'social death'. But I say it is never good to fit into an insane society!
 
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ive seen several psychologists and shrinks and whatever and described my condition to them, the same anxiety you have such as being critical of yourself and not trusting people. what they said to me which really rings true for me is that its a fear, a fear of not being accepted or judged in social situations.

i also cannot stand being at great heights such as tall buildings and places that overlook a cliff or are high above the ground, i get very uncomfortable and start feeling uneasy and like im having a panic attack, what ive been told this is, is paranoia and it manifests itself in different ways either being scared of heights or anxiety.

i dont take any medications for this, but i find if i force myself into social situations or to be in public its not as bad as i make it out to be in my head. the fear of heights never really goes away for me but just being around people eases my discomfort, its known as social exposure or something like that.
 
Your not alone Smiley, I found once I got my Anxiety and Depression under control ( with meds) I was able to build my self esteem back up , then make new friends and not be so harsh on myself. All the best on your recovery and there are so many people who battle this daily its incredible.
 
What you describe in your first post sounds like OCD to me. I have GAD and definite OCD tendencies but thankfully not nearly as bad as some people.
 
hey smiley91,

I read your post and want to comment on the cringe-reflex you're talking about. I got it really bad at different times in my life. It's like anytime I tried to think about my past I got a violent internal reaction. It's a strategy I used to shut down I realized; keep me locked up because there was something in my mind that couldn't accept how my life was going and all the distorted perceptions of myself. Talk therapy doesn't help everything, but it really helped me here. I also suffered from social anxiety up until my mid-20's the it subsided significantly. Life changes buddy, I was the most locked up dude when I grew up. I fought to unleash myself. Unleash myself from poisons in my operating system that keep turning out to be simple completely-forgivable misunderstandings. At the end of the day, when you expose yourself to yourself, in all the mistakes and hurts and wrongs, it gets better. Nobody can survive this life without some self-love and some forgiveness. The internal judge hates his job turns out, he'll relent spontaneously if you give it due respect and listen and interact with it and with others who can understand. Life will do it for you to some extent just with time but putting in some effort really speeds it along. Commend you sharing and best wishes.
 
nuttynutskin said:
What you describe in your first post sounds like OCD to me. I have GAD and definite OCD tendencies but thankfully not nearly as bad as some people.
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Really? Never thought about it before and just thought it was a part of SA. I'll bring it up at my next appointment.

@Levels Beyond
That would make sense had/have a lot of stuff I block out on a daily basis in order to keep going as I dont know/cant fix things. Youre right that life changes, hopefully next time for the better.

As you can see im still posting so thanks for the replies everyone.
 
Does anyone else get this?....

Sometimes think things are aimed at you e.g. jokes in posts or overhearing conversations etc... and even although you know its likely a misinterpretation on your behalf you cant shake the feeling that they COULD have been or probably were. Am I paranoid? Or paranoid about being paranoid? Lol I don't know anymore and am no even stoned tonight.
 
Smiley91 said:
Really? Never thought about it before and just thought it was a part of SA. I'll bring it up at my next appointment.
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Well I'm no psychiatrist obviously, but just the fact you said you're hypercritical of things you say or write, and even that you would regret posting your first post sounds very OCD to me. I deal with the same things to a lesser degree, like wondering how someone took something I said in a casual conversation to the point of obsessing about it sometimes, or in writing something relatively simple I'll sometimes rewrite it multiple times because I think what I wrote doesn't sound right.

IMO while somewhat different, anxiety disorders pretty much all come from a similar place anyways.
 
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Yep, that sounds about right. ^

Thanks for sharing, I honestly just thought that was SA and I am just weaker than others at dealing with it. Been on multiple different types of anti-depressants but none have helped with obsessing over things so far. So perhaps if I emphasize this to pdoc it will help him help me. Currently diagnosed with GAD PTSD.
 
I'm reading my way through a book called The Man Who Couldn't Stop at the moment - it's about OCD and its relationship with other illnesses, treatment, history, etc. Might be worth having a flick through and seeing if anything stands out as familiar.
 
Here's my tips to defeating social anxiety.

(1) Be your True Self for best results, but put on an act to get started. What I mean is don't pretend to be something you are not to fit in, be honest and express yourself as you are. Ultimately, this is the key to defeating social anxiety, as much social anxiety is caused from you hiding your identity for fear of rejection, then getting increasingly anxious as the people you are with say or do things you don't agree with. The other approach is while first getting started, is to put on a costume and go method act in public. Pretend to be a scientist, a punk rocker, a drifter, a lawyer, and develop this character, give it a name, an identity, and go out in public pretending to be this. This is a great way to start your battle against social anxiety, as anything stupid you say or do, isn't the real you, it is just the character you portray. Eventually though, you'll want to be your True Self in public, to make real friends and get yourself heard.

(2) Take small steps to interact with the public. Set a goal that everyday for a week you will say high, wave, or smile at five people. Next week? Start a conversation with five random people with a simple question like "What time is it?", "Where is X location?", or make a comment about the weather. Next week you can kick it up a notch and go for a conversation that lasts at least two minutes (don't need a stop watch, really, haha, just guestimate), start with a smile, wave, or greeting, ask an opening question like what time is it, what the weather is like, where something is, but don't just say thanks and leave, ask more follow-up questions, along with complimenting the person in some way. Keep it going for awhile, and then go on your way. The final week, you can do all that was mentioned before, but at the end of the conversation, offer to take the person out for coffee, a beer, or a walk in the park some time, and get their phone number or e-mail address. Bam, it is that easy.

(3) Stop focusing on yourself in a social situation. Don't care about what you look like, sound like, etc, just focus entirely on the other person. Everyone in this modern society is so focused on how they are being perceived, that if you keep the attention on them, you won't even need to have any anxiety about yourself.

(4) If someone does insult you, turn around and make a joke about it. Someone is like "nice pants, faggot", respond with, "Yeah they'd look even better bunched up in a ball under your bed.", then blow them a kiss. Nothing diffuses a situation more than comedy, and you can actually make friends this way, because they probably really did like your pants, they were just too scared to compliment you properly.

(5) Make a fool out of yourself on purpose. Ask an offensive question, dress stupidly, be rude, the only way to overcome these fears you have is to become them!

Good luck.
 
I have had problems in the past with being overly critical of myself and my own behaviour. Having the same cringe reflex and stuff. The one thing that I think has really really helped me was one day I thought to myself ... why not show myself the same understanding and compassion that I show everybody else that I care about?

Things got a hell of a lot easier after that. I just have to occasionally remind myself to be as gentle to myself as I am to others.. its like a massive weight has been lifted off me :-)
 
Thanks troops.

@Rakaposhi - thank you, fo7nd this helpful, altho don't you cringe reflex afterwards? For example, you have friends over, everything goes 'normal' you may not have embarrassed yourself... But! Thats exactly how you feel for days literally afterwards, cringing (perhaps obsessing is a more fitting word) . I can be totally sober, act myself with friends/family/ppl i know but tye next day or as soon as i have left them and Omg - cannot help brain whatever i do from overthinking. It has destroyed my ability to form close relationships + my old ones i have neglected.
 
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Hey Smiley, glad my words helped if even a little.

Yes I can still get the cringe reflex when I look back at time spent with other people, even close friends. The trick is to either literally or mentally take a deep breath and recognise the thought for what it is - an illogical unnecessary and nasty feeling. Its not something you have to act on. You can choose to let it go. Even if your brain is trying its damndest to convince you something bad has happened and you find yourself instinctively accepting this as the truth.. you can take control and say no, that is not how it was, I recognise this thought for what it is and Im going to ignore it.

Obsessing over thoughts you know are illogical will lead to a deterioration of your mental health. Just let them go.

I read a book by the Dalai Llama once and found lots of what Buddhism has to say about negative thinking quite helpful. Heres a quote from a random Buddhism website I just googled. Hope its of some help to someone :

"Just because some of our thoughts are negative doesn’t mean we have to listen to them.


Did you know that our brains produce 70,000 thoughts every single day? Just imagine trying to take action on every single thought—all 70,000 of them. It would be pretty much impossible, right?


In fact we actively “filter” our thoughts pretty much all the time. Our brains are constantly deciding which thoughts are useful and which ones to ignore. So when a negative thought pops into our heads, we do actually have a choice.


Either we listen to the thought and allow it to trigger a whole host of other negative thoughts, or we decide that we have better things to do in life and we ignore it."
 
SixBuckets said:
I'm reading my way through a book called The Man Who Couldn't Stop at the moment - it's about OCD and its relationship with other illnesses, treatment, history, etc. Might be worth having a flick through and seeing if anything stands out as familiar.
Click to expand...

I've had a look at that. Sounds interesting. Will probly get on kindle -thanks.

@Rak... do u have the name of that book u were talking about also? Sounds good too. Thanks for ur post very helpful ☺
 
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Done the heroin, benzo thing but didn't get in too deep as I lost someone n seen first hand that its just no worth it so quit. I was lucky... it might help at the time but what about the day I want to have kids etc. Unfortunately still doing the alcohol thing cant get rid of it its everywhere. Was doing good but now i have been drunk the last few days and right now. I fucking hate it.
 
I have Borderline Personality Disorder, self diagnosis. Because the person that is most qualified to diagnose your problem is the Patient themselves.

I'm taking 300mg of Effexor, an SNRI, and 20mg of Aderal SR. This mix seems to have a positive effect. I think that the only way it can be tweaked is to take a Benzo at night for sleep. I don't like to ask doctors for drugs because it turns them off and they will cut you loose. I've been dropping sublingual message when I see the doctor and some day she will prescribed me some Xanix
 
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