This is How to Treat Social Anxiety
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- Опубліковано 27 тра 2023
- Full video - • Overthinking Won't Sol...
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My personal take on this issue is a bit counterculture but this is one of those problems where quality of experience matters much more than quantity of experience. My issues with social anxiety stemmed from problems with people pleasing and failing to set personal boundaries. Start doing those things unapologetically and then you will start surrounding yourself with better people. Not all social situations are created equal and if people are only just tolerating your presence, they’re probably manipulating you.
Getting back / reclaiming boundaries that shouldn't have been broken down is a powerful feeling. Surrounding yourself with people that are positive impacts to your life, pushing each other forward as you go, the best. Quality over quantity is real af
Yeah but like all things this exists on a spectrum and subject to change at any given moment. You can look for a bond that's perfect or you can FORGE a bond that's perfect. You can also try and never be able to form a bond with anyone. I'd say quantity in a wide range of situations is just as important as quality if you actually can properly internalize what is going on in any given relationship. Which comes the next issue; complexity and assumptions internally vs the true data externally.
@@nicholassaephanh4407hats a great point, in order to even surround yourself with "quality" people you have to actually meet tons of different kinds of people anyway. And then you have to be careful not to have accidentally created expectations for these "quality" people which will come back to bite you down the line. The idea that you can just choose the good ones who respect boundaries and bring positivity to your life is an illusion.
I agree. I got very good at masking and making small talk in my 20s. I can still do it now, but i lack the energy to maintain it. Im too scared to let the mask crack, but i feel its the next step
I agree because I’m actually experiencing this now. My social anxiety has gotten better as I’m starting to tear down my people pleasing habits. I’d say that you don’t have to be actively looking for quality people that you want to surround yourself with because hey, sometimes you just don’t get that. It’s better to just stay authentic to yourself. Part of my social anxiety comes from subconsciously feeling sorry for the way I am. When you stop yourself from chastising your social differences, you allow a bit of confidence to seep in. Its not big changes but you start off somewhere.
I think one of the most important things I've learned in combating my social anxiety is - it's okay to be quiet!! It's okay to have nothing to say. It's okay to say "I dont know what to say to that" It's okay to step out and take some time by yourself before reintegrating into the social setting. It's even okay to say you're feeling anxious. You might be surprised at who around you feels similarly! After realizing I may be autistic it's helped me to acknowledge what I need in a social setting, what I dont like and know what to step away from, and especially not force myself to stay in a social situation if I feel I'm not benefitting from it. Socializing is supposed to fill that need for connection. At the end of the day we are social creatures. But if all you learn from a social event is "I don't like these people, I don't like these activities" then you can also add that to your data and keep exploring until you find the people and activities that you do like and the people that like you too even if you're quiet and/or working through your anxiety
If you're suspecting you may be autistic, I strongly suggest going to a doctor to see IF you really are autistic or e.g. have ADHD or ADD, those are really similar to autism :)
@@builderbasti9773 I have been diagnosed with ADHD, I went to see a specialist for an initial assessment for autism but they were incredibly expensive and referred me to other doctors to rule other things out but the references I reached out to said they either don't diagnose adults or don't diagnose autism. Maybe one day I'll reach back out to the specialists when I have $1000+ saved for a diagnosis:)
Great advice
My issue is that its too easy for me to remove myself as a response to anxiety. I dont force myself to do stuff I dont want to. But, even the stuff I want to do is super scary and the easiest way to deal with it is to just remove myself which isnt helpful. I often leave situations thinking "I like these people but I dont know how to connect with them"
@@saliseis A lot of people have no idea that the anxiety they feel is partial spectrum of neurodivergence, aDHD or autism.
Instead - due to toxic ambient and CBT - they are programmed to believe that anxiety they feel is sickness and personal abnormality, something to mask and make functional, to deny and suppress and hide away from any eyes to see.
So exposing with such toxic shame inside us - will not help at all. It will only accumulate more toxic people who sniff out anxious people easily.
We just end up re-traumatizing ourselves. As long as toxic shame and trauma are ignored and suppressed and denied, and as long as toxic shame flourish inside us - exposure will fail to process it all.
Something that helped me come out of my shell is understanding that being social is a SKILL. the more you practice, the more you learn, the better you get at it. You’re not born anti social, you just need more practice. As an introvert, I had to be more intentional about developing these skills than if I was an extrovert, but eventually I got to a place where I can just talk to ppl at work without feeling like I was going to die of embarrassment at everything that came out of my mouth.
Start by listening. You don’t have to say anything when you’re just starting out. Ask questions, remember what they share with you, people love being heard.
" come out of my shell is understanding that being social is a SKILL. the more you practice,"
This is common CBT myth that social anxiety means lack of social skills.
People with social anxiety are empaths, they were abused - so they have empathy and are very careful not to harm others. In the same time they scan environment for potential abuse and trauma and attack - so they already to listen to others a lot, and they are zoomed onto other people like with a microscope - looking in hypervigilance and survival mode any clue of potential rejection attack and intrusion - like looking at facial expression and tone of voice - to seek potential attack and abuse from others.
People with social anxiety have high empathic skills, they are agreeable and open as personality trait - which are social skills which 80 percent of people do not posses.
What you are describing is egocentrism - where people without social contact never get chance to talk to others and learn other people's angles and other people's perspective - but instead only focus on their own needs wants. This Piaget developmental stage is final one, and usually ends as the age of 12.
For many socially anxious - bullying and isolation started at the age of 12 - and this may cause egocentrism being stuck in early adulthood - and then to traumatized person and to a third party - like incompetent CBT therapist - it may seem as if the problem is in lack of social skills.
While it is narcissistic abuse and toxic shame that is ruining/running the show behind the veil.
@@ranc1977 totally agree with this, you put into words what I was thinking, thank you.
I totally agree 👍
@@ranc1977This is interesting. What's some further reading on this? Or is there a particular psychologist that conceptualizes social anxiety like this? Does he make videos/have interviews/podcasts?
Also how do you overcome this then?
I don't really have social anxiety, but I am introverted.
What I've noticed is that my social battery adjusts to be bigger (or more efficient) as I socialize more. Sometimes I'm put through 2-3 weeks where friends from other countries come to visit, friends from other cities where they study come back etc. and it's a really intense period of hanging out. At end of week 1 I'm pretty drained, but then I take a day or two just for myself. After that the next few weeks I can totally keep up with thr extroverts. When all this dies down a little, I even miss that level of socializing for a week or two.
Personally , my social anxiety came from my own insecurities . I avoided going outside , I avoided people , I avoided laughing , I did everything that I absolutely should not do . But I think when I let those things go , I let my social anxiety go. I'm in a much better situation now than I was . Although my hands or legs are constantly shivering In a social setting but atleast I can breathe
Its always nice to be reminded that im not alone
I hope that everything will be okay for both of you, you are doing great job, darlings❤️
"my social anxiety came from my own insecurities . I avoided going outside , I avoided people , I avoided laughing , I did everything that I absolutely should not do . But I think when I let those things go , I let my social anxiety go. I'm in a much better situation now than I was"
Self abuse and distorted belief that we are abnormal and there is something contaminated inside us is toxic shame - and this irrational self abusive belief leads to personality disorder.
Social anxiety is not related to our vulnerabilities presented as defective and something to cure.
Social anxiety stems from Rejection sensitivity. The medical definition of social anxiety is fear of criticism and negative evaluation by others.
When we make decision to build super strong personality which must be perfect and without flaws - we will develop narcissism and severe delusions and mental illness. We will be unable to listen to others or form any kind of meaningful contact.
Lundy Bancroft:
"Abuse is NOT caused by bad relationship dynamics. You can't manage your partner's abusiveness by changing your behaviour. But he wants you to think you can."
"Any attempt to dictate what thoughts, feelings, and sensations are proper or improper creates a breeding ground for guilt and shame"
Peter Levine
Carl Rogers: “The curious paradox is that when I accept myself, just as I am, then I can change.”
Carl Jung | Psychology and Philosophy 🧠, TWITTER:
The most terrifying thing is to accept oneself completely.
Interpersonal strife with those close to us leads to rifts and resentments that produce symptoms of mental illness; these problems are, in fact, the logical consequence of troubled relationships.
Glasser emphasizes that lasting psychological problems are usually caused by problems in our personal relationships (rather than signifying a biochemical abnormality in the brain), and distress can be remedied through repairing these relationships without recourse to psych drugs.
WILLIAM GLASSER
Wow, that is exactly where my social anxiety comes from
@@muhyadindahir3188 If we could somehow end child abuse and neglect, the eight hundred pages of DSM (and the need for the easier explanations such as DSM-IV Made Easy: The Clinician's Guide to Diagnosis) would be shrunk to a pamphlet in two generations.
🟦 John Briere
14 Traits of an Adult Child of an Alcoholic ("The Laundry List")
We became isolated and afraid of people and authority figures.
We became approval seekers and lost our identity in the process.
We are frightened by angry people and any personal criticism.
We either become alcoholics, marry them or both, or find another compulsive personality such as a workaholic to fulfill our sick abandonment needs.
We live life from the viewpoint of victims and we are attracted by that weakness in our love and friendship relationships.
We have an overdeveloped sense of responsibility and it is easier for us to be concerned with others rather than ourselves; this enables us not to look too closely at our own faults, etc.
We get guilt feelings when we stand up for ourselves instead of giving in to others.
We became addicted to excitement.
We confuse love and pity and tend to “love” people we can “pity” and “rescue.”
We have “stuffed” our feelings from our traumatic childhoods and have lost the ability to feel or express our feelings because it hurts so much (Denial).
We judge ourselves harshly and have a very low sense of self-esteem.
We are dependent personalities who are terrified of abandonment and will do anything to hold on to a relationship in order not to experience painful abandonment feelings, which we received from living with sick people who were never there emotionally for us.
Alcoholism is a family disease; and we became para-alcoholics and took on the characteristics of that disease even though we did not pick up the drink.
Para-alcoholics are reactors rather than actors.
Mans just took a whole 5 minutes to say "you treat social anxiety by just getting out there". I could've told myself that.
And it doesn't work.
Getting out there with social anxiety trauma will not make us stronger. Exposure will make us implode, like carbon fibre in deep depths.
@@ranc1977 And yet you won’t in real life, no amount of talking about it with a therapist will fix your social anxiety. I’m sure it’s scary to think about exposure and even when you’re in the situation it’ll be scary but if you genuinely want to change there’s no other way. Implode or change
@@ranc1977and so whats the answer then? Give up? You cant improve at ANY skill in life by avoiding it. You dont become good at math by never doing math. You dont become good at a sport by never playing it. If you want to become better in social situations you need to put yourself in social situations. You need to let yourself fail. Failure is the first step to success. Honestly its the first, second, and third. But eventually you will succeed. Its only truly failure if you give up. Otherwise its the first hurdle of many. You dont need to win the race, but you do need to complete it. DNF will not help you grow and move forward.
@@yang139 ". I’m sure it’s scary to think about exposure"
People who struggle with social anxiety 30+ years know that exposure does not work.
It turns social anxiety to be Functional. Functional does not mean healthy - it means investing huge amount of mental energy, money and focus into pretending and masking - which leads to toxic stress accumulation.
Also - perceiving social anxiety as cowardice and lack of "strength" enforces toxic shame and harsh inner critic already present inside - making it solidified.
Michael Jackson had severe social anxiety -yet his was functional: he performed in front of billions of people without showing nervous, gave interviews, made movies and music videos without trouble of showing social anxiety.
Yet his life ended in tragedy because trauma was never processed - because CBT misinform us about what is social anxiety.
The same story applies to Whitney Houston and Prince.
@@Deathraze1 "and so whats the answer then?"
Complex trauma healing.
Coherence Therapy.
IFS Model.
"You cant improve at ANY skill in life by avoiding it."
Social anxiety IS NOT issue of lacking skills.
With social anxiety when we do not avoid - we do not learn anything due to trauma: toxic shame and inner critic. It is like going to gym and twisting our ankle because we do not know how to stand properly due to conditioning and poor trainers which all people around us tell us is the correct one.
Or another example would be taking Vitamin A without milk - so vitamin does not get absorbed by the body. This is not issue of improving skills - this is issue of mechanical kind: operant conditioning. Attachment styles being thwarted by trauma and invalidation.
"If you want to become better in social situations you need to put yourself in social situations. "
Social anxiety is already being better in social situations. It means having empathy and ability to put oneself in other shoes and feel his emotions and needs. This is something that 80 percent of people on this planet do not have - most people lack social skills.
What you are talking about is narcissism and psychopathy: glib charm : manipulating and controlling other people so that you prevent their criticism by being nice and people pleasing them with charm - that is what you define as "social skills".
"You need to let yourself fail"
In social anxiety- there is inner critic which is harsh and toxic shame internalized- which are preventing this letting process.
Think of it like living in a plastic bubble and not being able to touch anything.
"You dont need to win the race"
Rat race is another issue of toxic people - and this needs to be deconstructed too.
Buying money to impress people who would not care if we are live or gone tomorrow.
This is extremely true. I developed pretty severe social anxiety through middle school due to heavy bullying, to the point that I had to start taking Xanax just to function and continue going to school. Things got a little bit better in highschool because I moved to a different school and my new class was for the most part very nice and had little to no bullying (though ironically, we had this one teacher who made me feel worse than most bullies did and she really was terrible at her job to the point where the class literally got her removed from teaching us).
But even then, in highschool the damage was already done, because I skipped like a third of all my classes in whatever way I could, and mostly that was because I got such insane anxiety attacks whenever I'd be on my way to school in the morning that a lot of the time I just chose to run and spend the day out of school, usually went to the cinema on my own and just watched movies so that I could go home late and not get caught skipping by my parents.
But that was entirely the wrong way to handle anxiety. On my last year I tried to be a bit more sociable and I also travelled to a whole different continent alone to meet a girl I met over the internet, which was a major test for my anxiety, just the trip alone, nevermind staying with her and her dad and meeting all these new people in a whole different country.
That already improved my anxiety significantly, and then I got a job where I worked in like an open office floor with loads of people, met my whole current group of friends and I started going to events and parties with them (which I never did back in school) and I really got over my anxiety. One time in particular, my most outgoing social friend invited me for a board game night and I was under the impression that it was just going to be our friend group that I was already comfortable with, but then I got there and half the people there were people I didn't know, including a bunch of cute girls, and I got such a massive anxiety attack I nearly ran out of there. Was so mad at my friend. Especially as we played party games where you have to put yourself in the spotlight which was even more tough for me.
But in the end, I got through that night and I honestly think that one night was the kind of final nail in the coffin for my social anxiety, because I had already been getting better for a long time, but after that my social anxiety is kind of under control. Its not gone, I still get those intrusive thoughts of thinking about what strangers are thinking about me, but I am able to ignore them and remind myself that they don't care now, which I couldn't do successfully before. And now I only really get badly anxious at times when most people do, like having to do public speech or going to a place where you don't know anyone, but now if I have to do some thing where I'm introducing myself to a bunch of strangers, I can totally do it, even if I still get a bit of anxiety sweats and what not. Back in school, I could never have done that, I would just run away.
I did graduate from college, but my old friends seemed to not text after 2 weeks. I'm hoping to find a good chance of meeting a friend group if I find a new job. However, I get the worst thoughts such as people being rude when I meet them, or we small talk to nowhere. Thanks to bullying from high school, this disorder has been making it really difficult
I feel like I'm stuck in the mud
Really proud of you and happy for you, my man. Thank you for sharing. This was touching. It also helped me see my feelings as normal.
I suffer from debilitating social anxiety. I've been "exposed" to social situations against my will my entire life, and I have NEVER found them to be easier to deal with over time. I am always in over my head. Have been since kindergarten. I'm on the wrong planet.
Come back to earth buddy, were all rooting for you. You should start exercising first to get into your body.
Neurodiversity describes the idea that people experience and interact with the world around them in many different ways; there is no one "right" way of thinking, learning, and behaving, and differences are not viewed as deficits.
What is neurodiversity? - Harvard Health
Ah a fellow silent sufferer..I can’t even cross the street without my heartbeat quickening and a surge of adrenaline because of the people waiting for me in their cars.
@@natalie_v0.1 This rush of fear is covert and hidden and unprocessed trauma.
On surface- this social anxiety trauma appears as fear and toxic society quickly labels it as fear - and hence sets us up to downward spiral due to wrong label.
It is not fear.
When we think it is fear - we end up with toxic shame and we fuse our emotions with our self worth. We end up thinking we are inept, stupid and abnormal for feeling this so-called "fear".
However in reality - this rush of heartbeat and surge of adrenaline is trauma response.
And in social anxiety - this trauma response is conditioned belief that other people must never hate us. We learned this hypnosis in alcoholic abuse/narcissistic abuse ambient of constant criticism while growing up.
The criticism was so ongoing that we do not even see it as unhealthy - until we start to learn and educate ourselves about Complex Trauma.
Quote:
You shouldn't fear being hated.
🟥Izaak McCullough
@@ranc1977 good quote but thats a lot easier said than done, thankfully I got myself a psychiatrist so maybe they’ll be able to help
Ive had social anxiety all my life, then I went and lived in South Korea for one year. I was all alone and had to put alot of effort into communicating with people in a language I didnt know well, with no one else to rely on for support. By the time I came home I had almost no anxiety with people anymore. Now that Ive been home and in my usual routine of never going outside anymore, my social anxety has come back again.
Don't forget what you're capable of. the social skills you obtained haven't disappeared but changing the environment may make it difficult to apply them at the beginning.화이팅
You should come back then.
" and had to put alot of effort into communicating with people"
This is shyness, easily and often confused with social anxiety.
Social anxiety is not primary issue with communication, chat, going to parties etc.
Social anxiety is abuse, being abused, affects of abuse: bullying, mobbing, attack, narcissistic coercive control, manipulation and gaslighting, toxic shaming. That is social anxiety - it is trauma with set of triggers and Rejection sensitivity as its byproduct.
This social anxiety does not wear off with talking with strangers unfortunately.
Shyness does - glad you made your shyness functional and masked and it worked for you at this moment.
@@ranc1977 The medical definition of social anxiety disorder does not involve trauma but anxiety around interacting with people and being judged by them. It can appear in people who have not suffered related abuse or trauma and can have a genetic component as well
@@felspare1416 "The medical definition of social anxiety disorder does not involve trauma"
IT does.
Medical definition of social anxiety disorder is fear of criticism and negative evaluation.
This is the definition of trauma.
People do not get scared of people because they want to. This is not choice.
This happens due to specific socioeconomic settings.
Lack of money.
Lack of love.
Lack of validation.
Plenty of narcissistic abuse.
Plenty of gaslighting.
Plenty of toxic shame.
If person is genetically neurotic - this is called Neuroticism personality trait and it is recognized by Big 5 personality traits - such person is confident in non-confidence and will not report or be aware of social anxiety. They will call and label it differently.
We can see people with schizophrenia over you tube - they look differently than socially anxious people - they lack in hygiene and grooming, they talk differently, they have different preoccupations and worries, they lack shame and they lack wording and descriptions of what socially anxious people are preoccupied with.
The difference is in trauma and toxic shame.
There is video called "The Politics of Trauma (and why cPTSD will never be in the DSM)" created by author called "Nice People"
Quote from that video:
Much like the VA not wanting to acknowledge that war leads to Veterans developing PTSD, the same powers do not want to acknowledge the social realities and failures in public health system that give rise to the conditions in which people develop cPTSD.
For me if I get exposed to a situation that's too stressful, it completely discourages me from trying to socialise again and that fear and panic that happens every time makes it counterintuitive for me to keep trying
I can definitely vouch for this. For a good while I would get really worried about saying the wrong things or having huge blunders with my speech when talking to strangers in public. My “solution” used to be trying to predict how conversations would go, especially in contexts such as check out lines or restaurants. This didn’t help, and would often lead me to getting my social battery drained a lot faster. The biggest help for me was getting a job at a café where I would serve up to 50+ customers during peak hours. Sure the first day was a little scary, but forcing myself to have that many interactions with people got me super comfortable with needing to interact with strangers. Experience definitely does more than thought experiments.
So basically the anxious person has had all this time to perfect thinking about a social situation that their brain automatically thinks ahead to the worst conclusion.
This is just because it doesn't have the information to tell it that this interaction is safe like it does with people you aren't anxious about.
Override the lack of information and understand you may be jumping to a negative conclusion that's giving you social anxiety.
When I don't socialize for a few days, it's like I forget how to socialize at all.
This is exactly why I've been looking for support groups for social anxiety in my area, but it doesn't look like they're too common, which sucks since that would be an amazing way for socially anxious people to have an easier route to start exposure therapy as opposed to just the typical response of "Just go to a bar and start talking to people!" which sounds like an extremely high bar for some people
Yep!
Social anxiety is complex trauma - trauma needs healing. Exposing of some other sort. Not going to bars.
Social anxiety is toxic shame - toxic shame need exposure - but not going to strip bars and drink alcohol type of exposure. It is exposure of our weaknesses and mistakes and flaws and vulnerabilities.
Social anxiety is Fearful-Avoidant attachment issue - which needs exposure to all facts from all sides from all critics even painful ones - exposure here does not mean going to disco bar.
Social anxiety is Neurodivergency - it is on spectrum with ADHD and Autism - and exposure here means being authentic - which may entail not going out to sleazy bars if we do not like toxic places nor toxic people.
I went to a social anxiety and agrophobia support group a few times as a teenager. It was weird and awkward, everyone avoiding eye contact, starring at their shoes, a lot of mumbling. I remember sweating a lot. I'm not sure if it helped 🤷
@@_cloudface_ Unless we get educated and freely express ourselves, our trauma and toxic shame - there will be no help in exposure of any kind. Suppressed parts of ourselves are making us stuck, suck and sick because they are shamed and denied and suppressed away - due to CBT ideology that anxiety means sickness and abnormality that must be destroyed.
Emotions can't get destroyed - they go into shadow and then guide us without us being aware of it much of the times.
@Thawne "in school you are constantly in social situations all the time and people still get social anxiety"
You are corroborating what I am saying: that exposure will not heal social anxiety.
Yep, socially anxious are in the school all the time - yet social anxiety is still there. That happens due to trauma.
Trauma is psychological Black Swan Event - it is shocking, violent, hurtful yet it can be covert such as constant and relentless criticism, error pinpointing at flaws and natural mistakes at early age when making mistakes is totally normal way to learn anything about life.
Those with ADHD and Autism spectrum are constantly told that something is wrong with them - so they also develop Rejection Sensitivity Dysphoria -which is social anxiey.
Alcoholic home, dysfunctional homes are the source of Complex trauma, narcissistic abuse.
So -exposure to toxic people will not work, it will not heal trauma: conditioning, programming, hypnosis that we are unworthy, which is toxic shame - internalized trauma.
With toxic shame and trauma we get hypnotized to believe that we are contaminated if someone is angry and that it is our duty to fix other people and keep them happy. Also we believe that other people must never hate us - this beliefs happen automatically, we are totally unaware of them, and they run on auto-pilot - and we obey them.
That is social anxiety: trauma and toxic shame.
Social anxiety is no genetical since we are not born with fear of criticism nor negative evaluation. We are conditioned into social anxiety when we were exposed to toxic people and toxic ambient in childhood.
Then as adults we attract toxic people since we are programmed to fawn and hence have no boundaries.
C.G. Jung - 'Until you make the unconscious conscious, it will direct your life and you will call it fate.'
I've recently realized that my social anxiety is so bad that I dont really know how to be myself in social situations. I dont know who I am because almost every interaction I've had since puberty has been shaped by anxiety and insecurity. Im trying to get rid of intrusive thoughts but in the end Im not left with much. How do I go about positively shaping my experiences? It seems like all I know how to do is make myself smaller and stay quiet. The only people I feel comfortable around are people Ive known for years but even then theres a thin veil of anxiety on those interactions.
Trauma.
There is unprocessed trauma that is festering and blocking our self worth.
Also accompanied with trauma is toxic shame - deep seated belief that we are contaminated if we are not perfect.
Toxic shame and trauma are not our fault - we were exposed to mentally ill people who transferred their toxic shame and their own unprocessed trauma onto us.
Healing trauma and healing toxic shame means that we trust ourselves, that we express ourselves, that we do not depend on other people to explain us reality, basically that we do not self-censor ourselves.
Emotional abuse is when we are not allowed to speak our opinion - since mentally ill people and other narcissists hate truth and exposure to information - since this exposed their shame and vulnerabilities which they try to hide.
Memento Mori, we are all going to die mate, that person will by myth at some point. You put so much value on their opinion you forget to value your own.
Remember that most people don't even really think about you, they are thinking of themselves usually.
Maybe just like how you are worrying about what they think of you, they could be doing the same.
Have you ever tried making the other person feel more comfortable?
Doing so might make you more comfortable in the process.
You need not to let others control your feelings, you can feel them, don't let it dictate your actions.
The obstacle is the way, love your fate regardless of what it brings.
Take the trials as lessons, challenges. Its opportunity for growth.
Your anxiety is the key to greatness, think about how bread bakes in the oven, cracks appearing here and there and it doesn't make it less perfect, these little imperfections add to the perfection in a way, you're the bread baking in the oven.
The temperature tests you and hardens you into a imperfect person, but that's perfect in its own right.
The cracks are there to let through the light, the humanity.
Idk, I'm just a young man so I'm not sure if anything I say makes sense.
So basically the cure is to "get over it." The problem for me is that I am simply incompetent at talking to people, and no amount of practice can fix that.
Well... it's more like building up endurance. The idea is that if you keep throwing yourself at it, eventually it won't hurt as much...
Lol what a contradiction, if the word competence is in the equation then you 100% can get better because nobody is born competent, we become competent with practice
@@filazkeita2272 Everything is paradox.
This phenomena is called Grand Paradox.
Quotes about Grand Paradox:
What is The Grand Paradox?
Everything is acceptable and it is also unacceptable.
Everything is OK and nothing is OK.
Everything is right and it is not.
If you believe in duality, then you will find it everywhere.
If you don't believe in duality, then it disappears.
The Grand Paradox
What looks like struggle can actually be the most important and meaningful season of our lives.
The Grand Paradox
You give purpose and meaning to the world around you. You create your own reality.
The Grand Paradox
- end of quotes -
That is why it is useless to talk in CBT damaging terms of "will power", being "strong" and "courageous" and or "competent" and "practice" or "exposure".
These all will come naturally once our Maslow Needs are satisfied - when we feel psychological safety inside us and outside.
Instead we need to focus on neurodivergency and trauma: so that we
able to differentiate between anxiety, depression, and dysregulation.
When we follow CBT crap we end up in hamster wheel and we are controlled by our trauma, as Jung said:
C.G. Jung - 'Until you make the unconscious conscious, it will direct your life and you will call it fate.'
CBT must be banned - it is creating incredible psychological damage to socially anxious: traumatized and abused targets of psychopaths and narcissists.
My social problems come from being overwhelmed by noise, lights, problems like being in physical pain.
Yep that's what I did, my high school days was pretty bad because of it, but once I lived on my own for an internship, basically forced to go out, do stuff on my own and meet people, I learned that they dont care about what I look like or what I do, so now I dont care even if people are whispering about me
We will start to care when stigma and discrimination becomes stumbling block in getting finding keeping a job, paying rent, having money, getting food, unanswered needs, wants and help we need.
Reframing your thoughts about people along with exposure to those people really goes a long way. Only reframing will end up in endless theorizing and overthinking, while only exposing while having a bad mindset about people will only reinforce your bad experiences with them. It really is about finding a healthy, balanced and realistic mindset about people that can help you relate in a more positive, and fulfilling way with them
"Reframing your thoughts"
is exhausting and it is draining. This idea will make us live in hypervigilance - and we will depend on other people to regulate ourselves.
Also, this idea will create deep toxic shame: that we are abnormal and there is something we must fix inside us - and after we fixed it - then magically all problems in life will vanish and all evil people will disappear.
When your romantic partner poops in your bed and plans to ruin your movie career and label you as rapist in the court of all world to see - there is actually no amount of, as you call it "healthy, balanced and realistic mindset" that can actually process this kind of abuse and trauma.
Bad emotions are not bad. When we fuse meaning to emotions - we create them our masters and we create battle world view - where we go into strike against windmills of emotions. Fusing emotions with our self worth is called Emotional Fusion and it leads to mental illness.
Idea that we must build fake, superior, strong grand image of ourselves - is narcissism.
What happens in real life - that bad things will happen. There will be injustice. There will be errors even when we commit no errors at all and even when we put our best and flawless intellect and action - there will still be some critic that will find errors and drama -
so chasing perfectionism is mental illness, and it is part of social anxiety.
This idea that there is something abnormal inside use that is contaminating us, and that we must use magic to become grand superior self - is called toxic shame.
Toxic shame is covert and it is at the root of social anxiety - which always starts as exposure to narcissistic abuse, someone who has rampant toxic shame - which they projected and transferred into us.
Now you transfer your own toxic shame into commentators - instructing them to build fake superior magical grand image which is somehow mysteriously magically immune to troubles in life.
@HealthyGamerGG seems to have forgotten that it was this Data that launched people into a social anxiety spiral to begin with. There are terrible social experiences that can happen too often which justify theories socially anxious people create.
That is because CBT is instructing him and many others to label social anxiety as a mere shyness.
All self help industry books explain social anxiety away as a small social fears like being afraid of talking to clerk in a store and other grammar school fears crap. Neither CBT nor self help books delve into real abuse, mobbing, trauma - but keep it on surface level. CBT ought to be banned. It is doing incredible psychological damage to the traumatized targets of abuse.
My issue with social anxiety is that I often get annoyed and tired of people, most conversations bore me and I rarely have the urge of sharing something about me or that has happened to me, so it feels very uncomfortable to me to enjoy socializing.
"most conversations bore me and I rarely have the urge of sharing something about me"
1) you may be in toxic ambient such as living in a shame Culture country, you may be highly intelligent so you notice irritations easily and get easily bored with lower IQ
2) you may be Schizoid - which has similar symptoms to social anxiety - but schizoid do not like socializing. Socially anxious are scared of socializing.
They feel tense and rigid when around others due to alcoholic and a para-alcoholic exposure to abuse in childhood.
I think a support group might be the most helpful, at least for me, cause in that setting it feels "safe" and people understand my anxiety. I think just randomly going out and talking to people could make it worse, especially if people respond negatively. At least when you're in a somewhat controlled setting, there's a sense of comfort that you won't be judged
" a support group might be the most helpful,"
This leads to External Referencing locus of control - where we will seek admiration, approval and validation from others.
This quickly leads to Borderline issues and narcissism where our self image depends on nod from other people.
No. That’s just more theorizing.
Quit making excuses and get out there to make experiences in the world.
@@thisiswhatilike54 "No. That’s just more theorizing.
Quit making excuses and get out there to make experiences in the world."
In reality - when we have unhealed trauma and when we have toxic shame rampant in side us - getting out there will be equal to re-traumatization and self abuse. We will get inside Karpman Drama Triangles, we will attract toxic people and we will be pushovers and people pleasers and fawn to psychopaths.
Healing must take place - and exposure will not bring healing nor clarity - Exposure will make things worse.
When you break your leg - you don't dance your broken leg away.
When you cut your arm - you do not cut it more to stop bleeding.
When you have high fever - you do not catch another fever to stop it.
When you have headache - you do not bang your head to wall to stop the ache.
I think small steps are the way to go. If you have trouble with any sort of interaction, practice by saying hi to or smiling at one stranger during your day. Then, when you're used to that, you can take the next step.
I don't think the advice in the video meant "can't talk to any stranger for 20 seconds? - go to a party where you don't know anyone and talk to each stranger for 30 minutes"
Exposure therapy means going just a bit further than what you feel comfortable with.
@@the_bottomfragger "practice by saying hi to or smiling at one stranger during your day."
But this is instructing us to believe we are inept, abnormal and that there is something horrible inside us that we are some kind of freak of nature that must be tamed, civilized and groomed into perfection.
First of all, reality is that at the parties or any kind of groups - it is the most annoying person that is the most liked: person who do not follow any social norms, someone who is not politically correct, someone who doesn't care what other people think about them, someone who gossips and who farts and who makes fun of others - they all pass the scrutiny. On the other hand - someone who appears stuck up and fake and someone who tries too hard is immediately excluded and avoided.
Second - the idea that we must suppress parts of ourselves, deny them and destroy them in order to become persona who is idealized - is doomed to failure. This idea to fake pretend something we are not is narcissism: its central idea is that our true self must be stifled down, and in the same time we must build a fake version of ourselves which is out of mistakes, without any weirdness, without authenticity, without particularities, without perks and quirks - and instead we suppose to chisel some kind of super uber man statue of person who is always funny , always in good mood, always has something interesting to say - guess what? That person does not exist. It lives only in movies and shows and in psychopaths' mind with their glib charm being primary trait of their sick personality.
The more we try to act and be something we are not - the worse anxiety.
If we are not serial killers, if we do not have hidden agenda to harm others and cause them pain - there is really nothing to change, fix, modulate or fake pretend inside us.
IF we believe there is - that is a sign of toxic shame and trauma - and these need to be exposed to light - not our fake rigid invented masked persona.
Me having social anxiety while also being introverted WHILE ALSO HAVING AUTSIM brain - BOOOM
I can not recommend group therapy enough! I was so painfully shy and unsocial and I had so much anxiety stemming from past bullying and low self esteem.
I’ve been in one on one therapy previous to attending group therapy and while it helped it wasn’t enough.
So then I thought to fight fire with fire and found an online group counseling. And omg! It’s been a bit more then a year of going but I see so much improvement! Even people around me notice! Im not scared of starting conversations, I’ve gained confidence and I know now that people are interested in me and what I have to say, so I speak more and slowly but surely my social circle is expending and my work interactions aren’t so painful to me anymore!
And group therapy is cheaper then individual therapy sessions.
Anyways, it can be scary at first, but it did for my social anxiety more in one year than individual in 5 years. So yeah, highly recommend
I knew exposure therapy was going be said at one point. I wish there was another easier way to conquer social anxiety but deep down.. GAH talking to people ain’t easy and seems so impossible considering the physical and psychological reactions I get from attempting to talk to others.
It really does work though for a lot of people. It's not easy though :(
Plus, exposure means having money to finance the any kind of exposure.
@@evo683 Social anxiety is socio-economic issue as well.
Man same my childhood was best i would play with random kids in my neighbourhood without the fear of getting judge but nowadays even going to gym seems like hell to me and i feel really lonely there but that's life "It is what it is" and i gotta deal with it.
I feel like im genuinely an outgoing and even extroverted person but I have a terrible habbit of overthinking social situations and often find it difficult to understand social queues/situations. this situation is weird because the feedback i get about my social skills is incredibly inconsistent, I find that certain types of people i will be able to connect with immediately and others will tell me that im one of the worst conversationalists theyve met(this actually happened). I just feel like my social anxiety is made worse by videogames bc people are assholes and i let it get to me and it makes me second guess myself
I feel like a big part of my social anxiety could be related to my poor self esteem but idk
How about if you're socially anxious because you constantly get treated like crap due to being different? That's where the challenge lies.
That is something that CBT does not understand due to white privilege and being entitled and growing up with silver spoon in their mouths.
True... 🥲
YES! This concept is helpful for lots of situations in life I found. I’m 38 and struggled with drinking too much and was able to scale it way back several years ago to drinking lightly once or twice a month. I would ask myself when I’m about to drink “what am I feeling right now? Am I substituting wine with something I need? Like voicing a boundary?” I also noted the time of day that the urge would be strongest, or environment. But the biggest piece of data that changed me was this: measuring the amount of time I’m enjoying myself while drinking, then measuring the amount of time I spend hungover or in some kind of pain from drinking. It was easy for me to then say “hm. Am I willing to trade 24 hours of misery for 3 hours of tipsyness? I think I’m good.”
Me at this point. Over the years it’s gotten worse.
That just means you are the paranoid kind of guy.
@@irgendeinname9256 "Any attempt to dictate what thoughts, feelings, and sensations are proper or improper creates a breeding ground for guilt and shame"
Peter Levine
Carl Rogers: “The curious paradox is that when I accept myself, just as I am, then I can change.”
me too i can’t improvide it , it just worse to day by day just want to die now , can’t live like everyone
I've done this and no matter what or how many social situations I expose myself to, I still perform the exact same. Horribly and embarassingly. No improvement
My social anxiety is somewhat related to trauma and I've noticed as I go out more with good, not-toxic, real friends who accept my neurodivergency and my mental health where it is, I'm learning to be myself more because it's being proven to me that I'm safe and that people will like me if I'm just myself.
"as I go out more with good, not-toxic, real friends who accept my neurodivergency and my mental health where it is, I'm learning to be myself "
Yes!
And when we are in real life- at toxic job which we must have unless becoming homeless - then we are with fake unfriendly rude critics who demand perfectionism - then we will become dysregulated due to exposure to hysteria drama and mobbing and bullying.
That is topic here: what can we do when we do not have friends and when we are forced to be in toxic ambient from which we cannot escape by "having good friends".
Good friends do not give us pay.
Also - depending on other people to feel happy is trauma bonding, it is codependency, Rejection Sensitivity, it is external referencing locus of control. We need to have intrinsic locus of control, self worth - so that we do not depend on other people to feel content.
We do not have self worth due to exposure to alcoholic abuse (ACoA) and para-alcoholic abuse (dysfunctional home) - and now we have destroyed self worth and we have toxic shame.
So toxic shame is as big problem as trauma.
I'm a pretty extreme introvert. What I mean by that is I was one of the few people who didn't suffer one bit from the lockdowns, in fact, I was a bit disappointed when they were over. It's not that I hate people. Most of the time I feel an evening among people was absolutely worth it and rewarding. But I'm still terribly anxious before and insanely drained after. I just feel most content and entertained around myself and the few people closest to me.
Anyway, of course I do understand that humans are social beings and that it will absolutely have negative effects on your life if you don't know how to 'play along'. You will just miss out on a lot important opportunities and vital networking. No matter how much anyone thinks they don't need it, no, you do.
But what to do if you break out in nervous sweats the moment even just a store clerk approaches you to ask you if you need help. What if you are either too quiet to a point people think you're aloof, snobbish or plain dislike them, or when you keep stumbling over your own words from nervousness? trust me that's all things I've experienced intensely.
But what I've found helped me most in my life is as rightly is said here in this video, 'exposure', or I'd prefer to call it 'practise'. By happenstance as a student I ended up with a job that forced me to approach a lot of different people and talk to them about a fixed set of things (I was conducting surveys for our municipal public transport). We didn't have a script as such, but we did have a list of questioned we needed to get through. Every day I would talk easily to 200 people. And guess what, during that time my social anxiety almost vanished completely. I couldn't believe it. Similarly a few years later I worked on the phone for a year. My literal nightmare. I hate phone calls with a passion. But again, we had a protocol to follow, which gave the calls purpose and structure, and suddenly I found myself willingly making phone calls in my private life too.
Somehow the exposure of practise playing such social situations with the safety of a set structure or 'script' helped me gain enough ease and confidence for those situations occuring spontaneously and naturally. Like first riding with safety wheels and then suddenly realising that you can ride a bike after all.
Downside i found is though, that I do fall out of practise. It's been years since I've had those jobs and I've definitely regressed somewhat. I'm still more confident than I used to be, but it's definitely not what it could be.
Literally if there was a service to just practise with fake phone calls and fake social encounters, I might even do that once in a while. It really helps reinforcing in your little introvert socially anxious brain that 'This is fine. You can do this.'
True I hesitated a lot before going to gym for the first time thinking what other people will think and what if they laugh at me by seeing what I do. But when I went to gym for the first time nothing happened everyone focused on their workout nobody cared what I'm doing infact I have heard that some people will actually help you. But social anxiety is also related to past traumas the person who got bullied a lot will have this kind of problems.
You forget here to mention the new trauma - like being in toxic ambient, mobbing, and around narcissistic abuse, unfavorable power dynamics
Man you just mentioned my problem😂 i respect you
@@II_II555 All things not mentioned in social anxiety videos which are important to learn and educate ourselves about, important concepts which are hidden from us to learn about:
1) AcoA / Complex Trauma
2) Rejection Sensitivity Dysphoria
3) Quiet Borderline
Characteristics of Adult Children of Alcoholics
- struggles with maintaining interpersonal relationships
- struggles with codependency
- impulsive or dangerous behaviors
- anxiety and hypervigilance
- fear of abandonment
- conflict avoidance/fear of conflict
- constantly seeking approval
- struggles with authority figures
- poor communication
- struggles with emotional regulation
- poor self-esteem and self-image, or constantly feeling "different"
Many of the traits of the ACoA are similar to those commonly seen in personality disorders.
🟥Adult Children of Alcoholics (ACOA ) Traits and Treatment
Doc Snipes
Unhealed trauma can look like:
- low sense of self worth
- always fearing what might happen next
- codependency
- resisting positive change
- fear of being abandoned
- tolerating abusive behaviors from others
- difficulty standing up for yourself and asserting boundaries
- putting your needs aside for other people
- an innate feeling of shame
- craving for external validation
- not being able to tolerate conflict
- being overtly agreeable
It doesn't necessarily have to be alcoholism in the household. And a lot of times we don't really understand what dysfunctional households are because what our normal is - is our normal. So we might not necessarily recognize dysfunction from the beginning. We might recognize traits but not always dysfunction. Look at dysfunction in terms of stress. Was there a lot of stress and tension in the house growing up? Sometimes that is easier to identify.
🟥 The Intimacy Gram
Symptoms of Rejection Sensitive Dysphoria
(when criticism hurts)
- Being easily embarrassed
- Heightened fear of failure
- Unrealistically high expectations for self
- Assuming people don't like you
- Avoiding social settings
- Perfectionistic tendencies
What triggers RSD?
Everyone's RSD triggers are different, but they may include:
- being rejected or thinking you're being rejected, like not getting a response to a text message or email
- a sense of falling short or failing to meet your own high standards or others' expectations
- being criticized for something you can't control
Things that make Rejection Sensitive Dysphoria worse:
- Not realizing that RSD is actually a problem
Symptoms of Rejection Sensitive Dysphoria
(when criticism hurts)
- Being easily embarrassed
- Heightened fear of failure
- Unrealistically high expectations for self
- Assuming people don't like you
- Avoiding social settings
- Perfectionistic tendencies
What triggers RSD?
Everyone's RSD triggers are different, but they may include:
- being rejected or thinking you're being rejected, like not getting a response to a text message or email
- a sense of falling short or failing to meet your own high standards or others' expectations
- being criticized for something you can't control
9 Signs if Quiet BDP
1. You are calm on the outside but suffer on the inside
2. You have a high need for control, and hate uncertainty
3. You withdraw from people and shut down very easily
4. You mentally retreat or dissociate, as coping mechanism
5. You have an unclear sense of self, resulting in low self-esteem
6. You always blame yourself for everything, and self sabotage a lot
7. You avoid conflicts and anger at all cost, and check yourself as not to offend anyone
8. You are extremely fearful of both abandonment and intimacy
9. You look 'perfect' from the outside, but deep down inside you keep on isolating yourself more
-
Quiet BPD subtype
Also known as High-Functioning BPD
One of the subtypes of BPD, people living with "quiet" or "discouraged borderline" live in extreme emotional turmoil because they don't show their distress.
- not easily detectable
- those with the disorder often struggle alone because they feel like a burden
- common people-pleasing behavior
- withdraw when upset
- feel detached from the world to cope
- fear of rejection and abandonment
- fear of being alone
- social anxiety and self isolation
(Healthline, 2020) ; thebrightbabe
-
QuietBPD
A person living with quiet BPD will typically internalize their emotions, which creates invisible feelings of turmoil that can make life extremely difficult. While quiet BPD is not an official diagnosis, the use of this term denotes a subtype of BPD that tends to turn symptoms inward rather than outward (which makes it less obivious).
As a result of this, quiet BPD often tends to go undiagnosed, misdiagnosed as something else (eg depression, social anxiety, autism), or takes longer to diagnose because of the lack of classic symptoms.
Oh, this is amazing advice doctor K! One of my favorite teachers told me once that the best way to lock in an a win is repeating your performance. We got to see a dancer go up on stage and move us all with her flawless performance. We didn't know that was her second attempt but her ability to nail her moves in sinc with every beat. You could tell she was more prepared than everyone else.
I don't think exposure works for me. Every time I have social anxiety it affects my next encounter by confirming my social anxiety for every future encounter. And I haven't avoided social situations for nearly 10 years. I've just accepted that my anxiety will never get better.
How do I give data to my brain? I don't have a problem with going and being somewhere, I just have literally nothing to say. There's nothing on my mind and it feels like I don't belong there.
@@Dimitris_Half because that's how people communicate, by talking. You don't seduce a girl by just sitting next to her mute, without saying a word.
If you don't feel anxious in social settings then maybe you don't have social anxiety! It could just be a part of your personality. Of course, everyone can change and learn though :)
@@kristijan8518 maybe its not social anxiety, but just underdeveloped social interaction thats the problem, which luckily, is easy to train. i used to be in the same boat, now im a pretty smooth talker
for me i remember that learning about other people and their life experience will make me smarter and more knowledgeable as well, and also teach me about myself. when i remember this i start to actually feel curious about other people around me
This was me and still is me for the most part. It's because your social skills are very underdeveloped, your mind is just this blankness due to lack of practice and data like Dr. K said. Normies don't get it since it comes naturally to them and they had enough social skills development growing up. The good thing is, it is truly something you can develop and you can even have an advantage learning from the ground up about what makes people tick and how to best make them open up. Focus on one or two skills at a time, like making enough eye contact (without overdoing it) and smiling when greeting somebody. Observing your immediate environment and making some quirky comment on it. Figuring out the tone of voice that is most friendly. Asking key questions to figure out what makes the other person tick. My favorite thing to do is ask enough questions because most people love to talk about themselves in the end and it takes a lot of pressure off of me.
Just never lose sight of the fact you shouldn't try to control people and get obsessed with making them like you, you'll just end up losing yourself and becoming miserable.
This is an EXCELLENT, very useful approach -- and can be applied to almost any situation that creates anxiety.
Except.. it does not work in real life situations.
Things left unsaid in video:
1) socio economic issues - like lack of money
2) Neurodivergent brain - which is not sickness nor abnormality to cure away by making it neurotypical
I used to think i had social anxiety because i would get quiet around alot of ppl but i realized i just cant stand 90% of what ppl talk about so i just feel awkward when im forced to chime in on their garbage conversation.
For the last 2 years I've had a psychiatrist help me and the biggest thing that helped me is learning that being social is a skill, that aome people are born with, and some aren't
That won’t work for everyone, I’ve worked many a customer service job and lots of college. It never got easier to do either of those things, my social anxiety has always been very intense. I’m autistic and I know my severe insecurity doesn’t help. In my lates 20s now and don’t think it’ll ever go away.
This is because - It is not social anxiety. Social anxiety actually does not exist. It is really mix of Complex Trauma, Neurodivergent brain, socio-economic issue, Rejection Sensitivity Dysphoria and exposure to Alcoholic abuse and dysfunctional ambient while growing up.
I 100% agree with this, I someone who's very shy and and I can get some social anxiety whenever I go to a place when I know nobody and where I don't what will happen. However, once I do it for a little while, almost all of my anxiety goes away. I can still be a little nervous but I'm not paralysed by it anymore.
"once I do it for a little while, almost all of my anxiety goes away"
Yep!
That is shyness!
Shyness goes away with Exposure. There is no trauma.
There is no Emotional Dysregulation.
There is no Toxic shame (feeling contaminated if someone is rude in any kind of way - over or covertly).
There is no Rumination, there is no inner critic which is brutal and unrelentless.
There is no post-mortem worry and analysis.
There are no triggers nor trauma due to exposure afterwards. There are no flashbacks.
There are no scanning for the next time - about what happened the last time.
There are no panic symptoms which socially anxious people feel before, during and after the event.
Exposure will work for shyness perfectly.
For socially anxious - it will lead to ReTraumatization and new triggers and new layers of anxiety -because the problem is trauma unprocessed, unhealed and toxic shame not exposed.
I think people who think exposure therapy cures social anxiety have probably never had social anxiety, OR their social anxiety was more superficial and based on imagined fears rather than realistic ones. If you have deep rooted social anxiety, I don’t think exposure therapy is doing anything, the only thing that worked for me was convincing myself that every interaction is meaningless since it’s all temporary anyway, but exposure therapy just makes it worse because then you have more moments to ruminate about and you start to feel stupid for embarrassing yourself just because someone told you to.
This is what I did to manage it as well as ask friends and family, or google things, do research, I need to know or have an overall Idea of how a place or event or whatever I'm getting myself into works
No matter how much I go out and experience it, it still haunts me. I walk outside and it feels like everyone is staring at me. Doesn’t help when people think I’m attractive as well. That makes me set high standards for myself and that causes me to fear making the smallest mistakes.
ADHD.
Brain is working in a different way than neurotypicals - and we try to adjust to neurotypical world.
We process things deeply - and people/CBT will label this as overthinking.
We notice fake people easily - and people/CBT will label this as anxiety.
We dislike mindless chat - and people/CBT will label this as abnormality.
We appear differently - and toxic people exploit this by putting us down in order for them to raise their fragile self esteem in the eyes of others.
We will be exposed to bullies and tend to defend ourselves - people and CBT will label this meltdown as hysteria and temper tantrum.
We are explained away by CBT as disease and abnormality - and then end up with toxic shame - without occurring to us that we simply process differently than most people.
Playing MMOs (especially WoW Vanilla-Burning Crusade) helped me more with this than I even realized at the time.
Of course there are been other factors that made me improve myself, but I could barely talk to the cashier in the supermarket before, and having to directly interact with people to do quests and dungeons was a kind of exposure that I really needed. I didn't even know though, the game was just fun xD
Still one of my favorite games that I play to this day ^^
I have no idea what you are talking here about.
Facts, as someone who always looks at their hours played in steam profile (850 hrs CSGO / 900 hrs hunt showdown)
You become familiar with situations and can handle them with minimal mental processing. If you can pull up the hours "socializing" of the people that seem to conversate with ease. I bet there would be HUGE discrpencies between people (especially if you're a gamer introvert compared to an experienced extrovert). Gotta grind those hours to make you somewhat comfortable
"and can handle them with minimal mental processing"
People who have neurodivergent brain cannot minimize mental processing.
Highly intelligent people cannot dumb down and block everything learned, experience and life education - why would you do that anyway?
Highly sensitive people cannot block feelings and emotions - where suppressing emotions leads to mental illness.
Narcissistic abuse and experience of stigma and discrimination is not personal choice - and this happens due to evil people who choose to abuse - it is not what we welcome, accept, choose or stick with by our own choice.
My problem is i'm not rational. I'm emotional. And my mind is dramatic. So we give off a good team to perform ✨️social anxiety✨️
We do it pretty well actually!
Thank you Dr K ❤
Yup, the way I handle this is think of the worst case scenarios and then plan out my response to each of those, working my way up the list.
Having a plan, that I can almost automatically implement, takes a lot of stress out of unknown situations.
Regardless if I decide to go through with that or choose differently at the time, I have a fallback I’ve already planned.
"think of the worst case scenarios"
This is called OCD (PureOCD - obsession over bad things that might happen).
" then plan out my response to each of those"
This leads to hypervigilance and constant worry and constant intrusive thoughts - since PureOCD is like OCD - it leads to more compulsions to avoid bad things in life. This ends up as Agoraphobia if not treated - since very soon - everything will scare us and we won't have response to bad things. There is no response to bad things no bad people.
Such magical cure does not exist - because problem is not in our head - evil people choose to abuse, it is their decision and it is not connected with our thoughts nor actions.
In alcoholic home we learned to fix other people's problems and we feel responsible for problems that happen in life.
"Having a plan, that I can almost automatically implement, takes a lot of stress out of unknown situations. "
PureOCD gives temporary relief - this is what makes it addiction. But very soon it turns into obsessions and compulsions - mental in our head.
We worry and we think of bad things that might happen. This is like hamster wheel.
"I have a fallback I’ve already planned"
This is trait of avoidant person - Avoidance. They always have prepared escape. This is no way to live.
Instead of focus on bad things and bad people - we need to take risks, make mistakes and take initiative in life.
Social anxiety stems from Adult Children of Alcoholic and Dysfunctional Families - where we learned that if bad thing happen - we are contaminated (toxic shame) - and that it is our task in life to fix other people and prevent bad things from happening , including making mistakes and being flawed. This toxic belief leads to hypervigilance, triggers, re-traumatization, toxic shaming, inner critic, fearful avoidant attachment styles, dysfunctional defense mechanisms and constant worry: anxiety that appears as social anxiety.
We need to heal toxic shame: deep core toxic belief that we are contaminated if bad things happen and if we feel bad.
One thing I would like to add is that these experiences need to be good experiences.
If they are bad experiences, they reinforce your anxiety and make you say to yourself, "Gee! I'm not going out ever again!"
Whereas, if it were a good experience, it'll make you think to yourself, "Wow! That wasn't as bad as I thought it would be. I actually kind of liked it!"
The quality of the experience is the most important part of it.
I literally trained myself by randomly talking to a chasier. Now I can finally hold conversation without internally dying like a normal human being
For some unknown reason my comment is kept on deleted automatically.
There are all my social anxiety on my blog called
"My YT comments about social anxiety 2023"
- link in About - Profile.
Once on the blog,
Seek CTRL + F
"" trained myself by randomly talking to a chasier""
😂 I was diagnosed with social anxiety as a teenager, battled it, work out how to cope, horrible shit happened with people stabbing me in the back, people lying to me, got setback, started the battle again, this goes on and on and on. Currently lost my job six months ago because of a situation I still don't understand so now barely able to leave the house.
People make out that CBT, meds, therapy and learning coping techniques solves your problems for life but sometimes progress makes the next downfall worse 😐
CBT is faulty therapy filed with cognitive distortions which they claim that socially anxious have.
Social anxiety has its roots in Alcoholic emotional and narcissistic abuse we endured in childhood.
CBT is therapy which is making money for pharma mafia - to make money profit on human neurosis and trauma. CBT is therapy for the rich - it is not intended for normal every day people.
The quickest way to heal trauma is money - and living with silver spoon since birth. Then CBT crap will actually work. Since if we are in toxic situation - we will simply buy our way out - and we will attract enough people with our money to lure them in - which will provide us with support and mental health in return.
Social anxiety is trauma and toxic shame.
When exposed to alcoholic abuse - we got our nervous system wired to be anxious and dysregulated. All this chaos happened automatically - and it certainly is not our fault.
Now we are stuck with neurodivergent brain - which is trained to detect danger easily. It is plagued with Rejection Sensitivity due to exposure to toxic criticism from alcoholic and neurotypical society - both of whom do not allow differences , flaws, mistakes nor errors of any kind.
So we are trained by alcoholic and neurotypical toxic society to be perfectionist, that we are not allowed to be different , and that we are not allowed to be mistaken or flawed in any way.
So - social anxiety is natural after-effect and by-product of narcissistic abuse.
We will seek help: and CBT will explain to us that we are disordered, that there is something wrong with us. CBT will equate our emotions (weak, vulnerable, scared) with out personality - and this will create personality disorder and mental illness: because we will hate ourselves and we will become convinced that there is something abnormal inside us (toxic shame).
The solution is therefore: that we accept and validate ourselves- as humanistic Psychology tells us since 1930s - which CBT tries to suppress and block from learning about it.
CBT is part of narcissistic abuse and ableism: we are much more useful to corporations when we are constantly scared and when we are made to believe that there is something abnormal and sick inside us, that we must fix and overcome and change - all the time, all our lives. CBT will make us into zombie, without initiative and self esteem. We will end up constantly worrying what other people think of us - and we will interpret reaction to abusive people as our own contamination. We won't be allowed to be flawed nor mistaken - we will be instructed by CBT to be perfectionist and that we stifle our reactions to abuse deep down - so that abusers are enabled to abuse.
More at my blog(s) and reddit forum.
But what if I break someone's heart with my words? What if I make someone feel bad because of my egoistic attitude?
I know I need to expose myself to the outside but these thoughts set me back when I try to engage with people
Gatheri and organising useful data is the single most effective method I’ve found from a lifetime of chronic mental illness that I’ve found to cope with anxiety. It’s the the thing that’s most effective for me before I ever get to the panicking or exhausted stage. I can and do reason my way out of an anxious spiral. And data is the way to do this. It’s good to hear this as a piece of advice from an expert. Very validating.
Problem is that with every step forward I do 2 steps backward every time something negative happens.
It's like my brain values negative experiences 1000 times more than the positive ones (I also have ADHD symptoms like Rejection Sensitivity dysphoria and such)
Toxic shame.
WE believe that we are contaminated when negative happens.
We got programmed to believe this in childhood when we were punished for asking for what we want - and when we were conditioned to calm mentally ill people's dysregulation & their hysterical mood swings around us as kids.
this !!! this is how I learned to live with my social anxiety and thrive despite it
This is so me, I had and to an extent still do have a habit of trying to think my way through everything. I've come to understand recently in order to level up i just need more EXP
The goal of regulating emotions is not to make feelings go away...the aim is to help clients build their capacity to ride the waves of big emotions and sensations.
Dr Arielle Schwartz
@@ranc1977 like the quote, but how is it even remotely relevant as a response to my comment.
@@VaibhavPuranik007 You said: " I've come to understand recently in order to level up i just need more EXP"
This is indicative of toxic shame.
Toxic shame is belief that we are contaminated if we feel anxiety and that there is some kind of magical way that we simply must will into, with the power of our will and discipline.
In reality - anxiety is emotion, it is normal and bad emotions are Jung Shadow - they need to exist. When we suppress them - they will fester.
In reality - when we meet toxic people who are always covert and appear as friendly and servicable and as victims - our emotions and intuitions are the only detective mechanism which can detect the danger of such toxic parasites.
When we decide that we must be strong narcissistic and grandeur without weakness and vulnerabilities such as feeling social anxiety - we blind ourselves and then we end up with person who poops in our bed, destroy our movie career and tells in public worldwide court that we are rapist.
Which could be easily preventable - it we only did not pretend to be alpha superior uber mensch grandious figure who never feels anxiety in their lives.
That is how Dr Arielle Schwartz quote is relevant to your comment where you believe that our will is magical potion which makes evil people and negative unjust things in life make magically go away.
I was able to live with social anxiety for a number of years after being diagnosed. I could do it so long as I maintained habits of therapy, paying attention to my being, knowing my needs and limits, and regular _controlled_ social exposure.
Unfortunately a few years ago my financial situation dictated that I take a higher stress job, and in order to function I needed to go on medication.
Socioeconomic background of social anxiety is often if not always ignored by CBT - industry created by entitled and white privilege rich spoiled brats.
As someone who used to be socially anxious, i can tell you exposure to many day to day interactions with strangers is the best way to conquar any fear. I went from gaming in my room all day to working in a busy store were i talk to hundreds of people per week. Its pretty cool becouse now i know almost every person in town😂.
I dry out of energy really quick when i'm exposed to others in a regular basis. That caused me then anxiety, insomnia, stress, respiratory difficulties, etc...
I'm not afraid of others or afraid of talking for an audiance. For me is just that enteracting with people take me so much energy.
Can confirm. I keep notes of "times I thought people were mad at me": every time I get rejection anxiety, I note down the date. If I find out it was all in my head, I mark it with a green checkmark and, where possible, note whar actually happened: i.e. the person was busy. If not, I mark it with a red X and note down what happened, why they were mad, and how we resolved it.
This has the effect of programming my brain to understand how people work more accurately, and understanding my anxiety is not as accurate as it feels. Right now, the accuracy rating is
Tbh I think alot of problems come from poor parenting and vague terms like get out there
And..
You're correct.
And i also think you are correct
@@II_II555 Individuals with quiet or this high-functioning internalizing borderline personality while they are high functioning, it's not a very stress resistant pattern. So when there is a stress, shift at work or relationship, there is a tremendous difficulty in being able to tolerate the distress associated with those times. But that distress instead of lashing out and yelling at somebody else they're very quick to almost rage quietly at themselves. Self-harm.
🟥 MedCircle
So basically, having experience is better than having only theory.
"So basically, having experience is better than having only theory."
What happens when our brain is wired to toxic shame - and hence any experience will be path to self sabotage?
@@ranc1977 Agreed my friend. The struggle is real.
@@Xtermy It is an ironic habit of human beings to run faster when they have lost their way.
Rollo May
Therapy exposure doesn’t work for most of the people that have social anxiety
EFT (emotional freedom technique) the best solution for social anxiety
Experiencing things is awful af
I get relieved when things work out, and guilty or doomed when they don't, and I always feel I'm walking a tightrope on the way. I only feel comfortable in a place I can leave anytime I want and/or I know I won't meet those people again.
I have no idea what "theory crafting" is, but I know my anxiety of entering a new place is reduced the more I research the place, look at pictures of it on the inside, etc so I have some idea of what to expect and am not as overwhelmed by the new experience. Is that what you mean?
Nope. He is not talking about being flooded by sensations.
He is talking about input and processing the data.
Hmmm I also tend to "research" things when I'm anxious, but I think that just makes me overthink things, I don't think it actually calms me down
@@joelcoll4034 We need Emotional Regulation to remove Dysregulation.
@@ranc1977 why do you respond to every coment with this long and complicated answers, just normal words
@@joelcoll4034 It never occurred to your that your brain is too simple to understand it?
Ok, the thing is am autistic and tried and attempted this múltiple times and i just dont get anywhere
That was such a complicated way to say "you should socialize"
there is no cure😔
This WORKS!
I've been forcing myself to go to social events for the past year and I'm doing much better socially, but also in other areas of my life where I have high anxiety.
Everytime I go to an event where I feel I've "overshared" (shared a normal amount but my brain isnt used to it) but never get called out or whatever, that's another good data point that I've earned a good grade at socializing. It's silly, but it works!
I see it as "well I never wanna go to gym but I never regret going. Let's treat a specific, repeating social event the same way: show up and the energy will follow and present itself."
Show up when you're tired, when you're sad, when you're excited, when you're unmotivated, and eventually it becomes natural to be among people while feeling any kind of way. I've actually gotten to a point where I start to feel bad missing my social appointments.
Social anxiety likes knowing ahead of time, but sometimes you just...gotta be Nike and do the thing.😂
i still have social anxiety, but i forced myself to be more social, it helped a lot.
Exposure definitely helps short term, but it can always come back. I’m not aware of a permanent solution
Live life and meaningful experiences you can share with others. That's how you deal with social anxiety.
y'all the problem is eye contact & quit fapping.
Stop the fapping first for like a month and start making eye contact with people. Just smile and say "hi". You don't need to say anything else.
Fapping is only giving you more anxiety.
👍I like to observe people. It helps.
Ok but what do I do when I'm out and with people around? I don't see a difference whether I'm home alone or whether I'm out but locked inside myself the same way.
Exposure thereapy dosent work. Complete bs. Im forced to socialize with people at work full time and im still anxious around the same people and its been years. The only things that make you feel better is medication or removing yourself from anxious situations. Thats it.
For someone with social anxiety I suggest working as an enumerator. I have social anxiety and it helped. You have a straight forward task, it helps ease you up.
I fuckin' knew that's where that was going! Every god damn time!
"Oh, you're scared of social situation, well you need to socialize..."
I'll tell ya, never let em' know you're scared of drowning...
then I guess first you need to tackle your trauma lad.
I get where exactly where you’re coming from buts it’s true you don’t get to overcome your anxiety then live your life. You have to live your life to overcome your anxiety.
You may be asking ok well how do I get past this wall to just do it. Well honestly it was just a build up of a lot of things, frustration, people pushing me, my own research, being in a good environment, etc. But basic point is for me there came a time where the pain of not trying hurt way more than the fear of potential failure. All it takes is one genuine big leap of faith and it just kept going from there. Eventually you’ll learn to kill those bad social habits of not really trying and realize it really is not as scary or impactful as you think.
@@jamesnelav2649 "Eventually you’ll learn to kill those bad social habits"
Social anxiety is not only bad social habit.
It is also Rejection Sensitivity - which has no cure.
It is physical panic.
It is emotional worry and hypervigilance.
It is flashbacks and triggers - complex PTSD.
It is external factor - toxic people whom we cannot control.
It is unknown factor - such as neurodivergency which CBT bans from public to learn about.
It is Attachment style issue - which cannot be fixed by exposure at all - in fact it solidifies it.
It is deep core wound . Exposure to narcissistic abuse creates wound in the brain.
It is Dysregulation - which exposure does not heal.
I don't understand how I can get that data when just talking to someone for 3+ minutes puts me in bed crying for the next hour.
That is the data.
It means - that we are triggered by someone toxic and now it is our job to become Sherlock Holmes or scientist in a laboratory - to study clues and discover why is that person toxic and why other people do not notice it.
what if in childhood you're only a little socially anxious while still somewhat eager to meet new people, but as you grew up the interactions you had with people just cemented the idea that talking to people is not fun, and now you're an adult you actively choose not to talk to people?
@@Dimitris_Half "social anxiety and it can only be cured by socialising"
You cannot cure toxic people by exposing yourself to abuse and psychopaths.
There is nothing to cure inside yourself.
If we are not serial killers, if we are not psychopaths, of we have no hidden agenda to harm or cause pain to others - there is nothing to cure inside us.
This is exactly what i’ve been scared of and now it’s real already
@@HazelGrey. If we could somehow end child abuse and neglect, the eight hundred pages of DSM (and the need for the easier explanations such as DSM-IV Made Easy: The Clinician's Guide to Diagnosis) would be shrunk to a pamphlet in two generations.
🟦 John Briere
14 Traits of an Adult Child of an Alcoholic ("The Laundry List")
We became isolated and afraid of people and authority figures.
We became approval seekers and lost our identity in the process.
We are frightened by angry people and any personal criticism.
We either become alcoholics, marry them or both, or find another compulsive personality such as a workaholic to fulfill our sick abandonment needs.
We live life from the viewpoint of victims and we are attracted by that weakness in our love and friendship relationships.
We have an overdeveloped sense of responsibility and it is easier for us to be concerned with others rather than ourselves; this enables us not to look too closely at our own faults, etc.
We get guilt feelings when we stand up for ourselves instead of giving in to others.
We became addicted to excitement.
We confuse love and pity and tend to “love” people we can “pity” and “rescue.”
We have “stuffed” our feelings from our traumatic childhoods and have lost the ability to feel or express our feelings because it hurts so much (Denial).
We judge ourselves harshly and have a very low sense of self-esteem.
We are dependent personalities who are terrified of abandonment and will do anything to hold on to a relationship in order not to experience painful abandonment feelings, which we received from living with sick people who were never there emotionally for us.
Alcoholism is a family disease; and we became para-alcoholics and took on the characteristics of that disease even though we did not pick up the drink.
Para-alcoholics are reactors rather than actors.
You don’t overcome your social anxiety then get to live your life. You have to live your life to overcome socially anxiety.
Damn, I feel personally atacked
" get to live your life. You have to live your life "
This is the same as to say someone with broken leg that they need to dance away their broken leg away.
This is the say as to tell someone with fever that they need to catch more fever to cancel the first one.
This is the say as to say to person who got cut on knife to sharpen their knifes.
I've done exposure therapy and it took a year. Then 2020 happened and my brain immediately went back to the old rewiring. After thinking about it I realized i didn’t improve my social anxiety, I just learned how to mask and fawn better so as to be more accepted for my charm/kindness. Idk. ERP was kind of useless despite the initial short term celebrations over small wins.
"y, I just learned how to mask and fawn better so as to be more accepted for my charm/kindness. Idk. ERP was kind of useless"
Yes"
You nailed it!
That is it!
Exposure will not help with social anxiety. IT will only make our social anxiety trauma Rejection Sensitivity toxic shame to be masked and Functional.
The trauma and toxic shame are not healed by Exposure - they only become either ReTraumatized or suppressed away.
What we need instead is Exposure of our Trauma - talking and expressing it in safe environment such as this comments - and exposure of toxic shame - which means accepting our bad parts we dislike about ourselves and not self censoring ourselves
I wish the education system would learn from this. I would learn so much more in 1,000 hours on the job than I would from 1,000 hours of reading and writing. After submitting heaps of assignments and exams, get to the first day of a job and still know nothing. Such a waste of time
Best to try to find groups that you feel are accepting of you in small doses. Keep going. It gets better.
I do have some "data" where what I feared did not happen, or whatever happened was not that bad. But after a while, I go back to the same old way of thinking and am anxious again. How do I keep the "gains".
Letting go of the trauma that's causing the anxiety in the first place
If you avoid anxiety, eventually everything makes you anxious.
Avoiding panic attacks does not lead to fewer panic attacks - it leads to more panic attacks.
YT Mark Freeman
This makes some sense, but is really difficult to implement. Before Covid I was *sort of* able to manage my social anxiety, but ever since then I feel like I’ve been set back to square one and I’m really struggling to make new friends which could allow me to gain control of my social anxiety a bit more.
Gaining control of anxiety leads to more anxiety.
“Get out and do things” easier said than done
What if every time I try to interact with people, the "data" that i get clearly shows me they'd rather not have to interact with me?
I feel like that’s how social anxiety originates. It’s when you’re worried about what others will think of you but if they don’t like you then they’re not worth your time
I'm actually getting healthygamer shorts straight pop up when I open youtube on mobile
i hate how every vids shorts i watch from this is just me and i really try to change but it really hard
Real liberation comes not from glossing over or repressing painful states of feeling, but only from experiencing them to the full.
Carl Jung
As a competitive player with anxiety, this just perfectly clicks
Real liberation comes not from glossing over or repressing painful states of feeling, but only from experiencing them to the full.
Carl Jung
Liberation means you don't have to be silenced.
Toni Morrison
only works if you have genuinely safe things to experience though
Currently in therapy and we're kind of stuck. When I do put myself out there, it almost feel as if I go on auto pilot, being hyper aware of the others and acting how I think they want me to.
It's as if my mind just isn't there. It feels exhausting. I think maybe it's because of constantly being in fight/flight mode?
"When I do put myself out there, it almost feel as if I go on auto pilot"
Yes.
This is called Amygdala Hijacking and Emotional Dysregulation - many CBT therapist have no idea that this concepts even exist - or they google it and they think they know it, so they (therapists) give false information or they are unable to explain it to person who is traumatized, or even weaponize it against the person (by equating feelings with self worth).
I personally call it Dr Jekyll and Mr. Hyde phenomena.
We become anxious and we become a kind of different person with limited scope of memory to work with - this happens due to exposure to alcoholic emotional and narcissistic abuse as children, where we were in constant Survival mode and worry and conditioned to regulate untreated unrecognized mentally ill people in charge around us.
When we are not aware that this personality change happens - we go into hyper-cognition and hypo-cognition - due to CBT explanations - which explain trauma reactions as personality disorder and cognitive distortions.
So instead of being aware that we have unprocessed alcoholic trauma inside us - we end up with self blame and self-pathologizing due to ever-faulty CBT.
"it's because of constantly being in fight/flight mode"
Yes.
There are 4F actually.
There is Fight - where we might become Karen
Flight - where we put out head in sand or run away
Freeze - where we collapse and can't do anything
Fawn - where we try to make abusive and intrusive people into our gods whom we must follow, obey and worship and take their narcissistic crap as our own fault and our own contamination to cure and fix.
These are Trauma responses - these are indicative that we were abused.
Many commentators and laics and CBT therapist deny trauma (even on this comment thread) - and they say that trauma does not exist. They claim that toxic people do not exist. They instruct us to self blame - and this ends up as victim blaming, victim shaming and enabling abuse to continue.
Toxic evil people exist and they are very real.
Exposure , long term exposure to narcissistic abuse causes brain injury - google it.
So Exposure which CBT is promoting - can give us brain injury if we are in toxic ambient surrounded by toxic people - who are mostly covert and they have glib charm - so many people will think they are normal and healthy and that we are hallucinating the abuse.
Glib charm is the first sign of psychopathy.
We need to learn about narcissistic abuse - to recognize red flags and learn how to handle and manage toxic people.
CBT will tell us to cut contact and to be assertive with toxic people (which they call "difficult") - but many people do not have money to escape. Also - entering into argument with antagonistic person who is pathological liar leads to Karpman Drama Triangle. So once again - exposure will bring trauma and abuse and anxiety - not healing.
Dissociation/ trauma is likely to be the cause in this case. Mindfulness practices may help
@@littlewillowlinda Neurodivergency is also probably culprit behind it, too, mixed in with trauma.
Neurodivergency means that there is nothing there to fix, heal, stifle down, ignore or change.
I need to bookmark this😂
How to solve social anxiety: get out there expose yourself and be socially anxious anyway! This video in a nutshell.
I think you have to accept that you'll be bad at first. Removing social anxiety is like learning a skill, I think.
Well - you wrote this 1 day ago.
Do you have still social anxiety?
Did this information help you?
@@Dimitris_Half Facing fears will only make anxiety masked and functional.
Trauma is still there,
toxic shame is still unprocessed and roams around inside freely. and makes damage.
@@Brisingr73 "I think you have to accept that you'll be bad at first. Removing social anxiety is like learning a skill, I think."
Idea that social anxiety is self anxiety is problem itself.
Anxiety stems from the social, that is why it is called social+anxiety. Problem are abusers and toxic people who are evil and intrusive.
So there is nothing you can do to fix inside you to prevent evil people being evil - hence social anxiety is not your problem and therefore you cannot fix it.
Idea that we must remove something that is not inside us, that is not part of us - will lead to paranoia, toxic shame and trauma.
@@ranc1977 I see where you're coming from, but remember that one can limit the pain they receive from others, by changing their perception. Undoubtedly a lot of social anxiety comes from worrying about other people's opinions, but if you can become confident enough in yourself, others' opinions do not affect you as much.
But alas, we are all human, so no matter how strong we are and comfortable we are in our own skin, there will still be negative behaviors that affect us. And I think that is ultimately what you're referring to, if I'm not mistaken--negative behavior from others that we cannot control.
I want to do exposure for my social anxiety but my depression makes that impossible
Exposure will not help.
our thought patterns are wrapped in trauma and toxic shame - and when exposing - these patterns will be running rampant even during exposure.
Exposure will help us is we have driving phobia - repeated exposure will help with panic symptoms to become regulated with time.
Exposure will help us to get our panic symptoms regulated in job tasks and going shopping - regular things which make up life.
HOWEVER .- this will make trauma and toxic shame Functional and Masked.
Trauma and toxic shame are problem - and these need Exposure of its own sort.
Exposing trauma means exploring it. learning what is Complex Trauma, how Polyvagal Theory works - we need to learn that our emotions and overreactions are normal after-effects and by-product of emotional, narcissistic and alcoholic abuse which caused social anxiety in the first place. Healing trauma means that we are no longer governed by unprocessed trauma and triggers and its flashbacks all the time.
Healing toxic shame means - expressing ourselves and taking initiative - so that we are no longer preoccupied with our mistakes, flaws and errors and our neurodivergent brain which appears as flawed to neurotypicals.
God i needed to hear this rn
proof that psychiatrists ust tell you what you already know after a hefty price tag, lol. The problem is not always that people dont have exposure. The problem is almost all of the exposure they have had is negative. The problem is that the events in their life have dropped their self esteem to very low so they are uncomfortable in a social setting because they think they arent worth being there and the others will penalise them for being there. Which is kinf of exactly what the society does. You try to be a little differnt, a little original, a little yourself and not a part of a uniform bigger picture and they will come for you. The whole scoeity needs an attitude adjustment to not bully people into submission to what our brain rot considers "normal". Trying to find individual level solutions to societal problems doesnt really work. It is like saying, hey the solution to gun violence is dressing up head to toe in Kevlar all the time for every second of your life. You will end up doing more damage than helping people. The best thing you can tell an individual is just dont care what others say becuse almost everyone is in their heads and worried about something. To distract themselves from their insecurities they point out those of others. And you are being a better person already by not doing that. So use that knowledge to get through the situation. It will completely change the way they see themselves and others and become a tiny bit more comfortable each time.
There was a League of Legends coach who once said that one of the biggest problems he sees players have is they often, and reasonably, learn the wrong lesson. In games as complex as LoL (and life), it’s very much possible for you to make the right choice that any pro also would have made. And it still blow up in your face because of a 1 in 100 micro thing went out of your favor. - I think a good amount of people with social anxiety have been taught the wrong lesson while doing the right thing. There are people who are bad at determining what normal healthy interactions should have been because of lack of XP, so when they encounter someone who was rude/busy/also awkward… They immediately blame themselves and lose a chip off their confidence. They are taught socializing is problematic, so all future normal interactions are a monumental undertaking. Entirely reasonable, but something that takes a decent amount of effort to fix even once understood.
10 years doing this and no result.
Then get into coaching.
Get someone to talk to about all what you have experienced and are experiencing.
Dr.K is not going to give you a magical answer through a UA-cam comment, or a video.
BUT he has a special coaching program with a community of coaches and patients trying to share their experience and get it better on track, so PLEASE DON'T LET YOURSELF DOWN and go get some proper help ! 10 years are long enough to have 'wasted' without progress, (doesn't mean your life has not progressed in other areas though!) , so if you're aware you're not getting ou of it all by yourself, please take that hand that's reaching !
I wish you courage and good luck with that ! ✊
Drugs help temporary. Especially alcohol and cocaine
10 years and nothing? Ok, maybe you should consider your own assumptions, and expectations.
If you practice something, and at the same time secretly believe that you can't make it, you will not make it.
Don't get me wrong, don't acquire any "belief" or "hope" mindsets either. Just remain open to experience, that isn't and doesn't require any mindset. Being open to experience is simply watching, listening, feeling, you know.
Because social anxiety is problem in social.
It is not problem inside our brain.
If we are not Putin or Trump, if we are not serial killers - there is nothing wrong with us. Stop self abuse.