Soical Anxiety

Okay,

So irl i've started becoming more nervous and getting rly panicky if i'm around people or if someone looks at
me i will start panicking or in general if someone asks me a question i'll get really nervous and i'd start shaking.



Please can i have some advice, on how to stop feeling paranoid around people.

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Originally Posted by Chloe7355

Okay,

So irl i've started becoming more nervous and getting rly panicky if i'm around people or if someone looks at
me i will start panicking or in general if someone asks me a question i'll get really nervous and i'd start shaking.



Please can i have some advice, on how to stop feeling paranoid around people.

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Hey Chloe I'm going to prescribe you with this video :)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7-iNOFD27G4

I used to suffer from appalling social anxiety that got completely out of hand. The reason I started using Habbox is because I got to the point where I could no longer go outside or go to ANYTHING social at all so it's better to do what you're doing and notice early on.

I went to weeks of CBT to help me and absolutely hated it but it did help nonetheless.

The main thing I was taught there is to realise that no one else cares. It sounds harsh but it makes sense if you think about it. If you see someone tripping and falling, do you think "haha what an idiot I'm going to remember them for the rest of their life now as that person who fell"? Chances are you probably think "oh no" or maybe even just glance at them before continuing with your day. The CBT I had was all about learning to realise that your thoughts are pretty much the same as everyone else's; so if you don't care, neither does anyone else.

Second of all, talk to your friends about it. I've never been great at making friends and so never told anyone that I was struggling with social situations because I was worried about them thinking I was weird. If you have a group of friends, talk to them and tell them that you're struggling with social anxiety and that you might need their help. I wish I'd told my friends but never did because it was "too scary". You might think the same but you'll definitely regret not telling them in the future.

With panic attacks, find something that works for you to get them to go away. Ideally you'll want to learn to prevent them, but to begin with you'll just have to learn to suppress them once they start. Suppressing panic attacks is different for everyone, so work out what works for you. Usual things are like having a cold drink, pacing slowly up and down (weird but this is what works for me), counting slowly to 50/100, breathing techniques, giving all your attention to something in the room (e.g completely focusing on the light on the ceiling).

I can go into more detail about the CBT I got if you're interested in finding out more, just send me a PM or something. I know how awful social anxiety can be, and it's just made worse by the fact you feel like you can't tell anyone because the social anxiety means you don't want to approach people.

i used to have quite mild social anxiety between 16-18 years old, it's only just stopped now but it was for really stupid things, for example say if i was at costa and i was given a tray to carry i'd start having a little panic attack having visions of myself going to drop it and everyone staring at me, another thing is which still occurs but only slightly, say if i'm at a restaurant, i hate sitting in the chair where i am facing away from people, i either want to be behind a wall or close to a wall whereas my boyfriend is a selfish ***** and believes i should just 'get over it and not think about who is behind me' which is extremely difficult and i end up not being able to eat my meal

it's weird though as if i do something stupid quickly without having time to think about it, i don't feel embarrassed at all i just deal with it and laugh saying 'haha well don't i look like a ******* now' - to be fair i'm still a very confident person, just have a lil bit of anxiety in certain situations

best bet is just try and get over it, picture the other people around you being in your position and be like yanno what i am more confident than them, just have positive thoughts constantly and it'll slowly fade. don't go to the doctors about it, they will say oh no you've definitely got this and such because they basically read a their diagnosis book and judge you on your symptoms, not you as an individual the you'll be put on pills you don't need and believe that you're an outsider in society because you have been LABELLED as this 'social anxiety gal'

so get over it

cbt is always more beneficial and personal than prescription drugs and should be actively sought if you can't overcome the situation alone. don't heed the advice above that discourages you from visiting a doctor because every practice is different and every doctor will be able to offer a different perspective. if you come prepared with possible solutions and therapies you'd like to try they will oblige. too many people avoid sharing their feelings for fear of being categorised or palmed off with prescriptions and end up getting worse.

https://moodgym.anu.edu.au

For online CBT, they're redesigning the entire website soon so the actual workbook section won't look like it's from 1998 thankfully.

if you watch zoellas videos she speaks about how she suffers with her anxiety and stuff like that especially in vlogs, and theres a lot to view on youtube too. it sounds quite rude of me maybe but my friend thought she had social anxiety from looking at tumblr posts and thinking that it automatically appealed to her, but she was later told it's like one of the symptoms of growing up and especially being a teenager, it doesn't help (this probs didn't help)

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Originally Posted by IzzyUhh

if you watch zoellas videos she speaks about how she suffers with her anxiety and stuff like that especially in vlogs, and theres a lot to view on youtube too. it sounds quite rude of me maybe but my friend thought she had social anxiety from looking at tumblr posts and thinking that it automatically appealed to her, but she was later told it's like one of the symptoms of growing up and especially being a teenager, it doesn't help (this probs didn't help)

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I agree. Be careful not to self diagnose. It does sound like you're suffering from anxiety but ALWAYS seek a medical opinion before deciding you have something.

I've read the comments on that video of Zoella's and a lot of them seem to be "Do I have social anxiety??? I feel *lists symptoms of adolescence here*", and the majority of the answers are "yeah you have anxiety" or something to that effect. That frustrates me so much as we are just encouraging a whole generation to become hypochondriacs.

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Originally Posted by Empired

I agree. Be careful not to self diagnose. It does sound like you're suffering from anxiety but ALWAYS seek a medical opinion before deciding you have something.

I've read the comments on that video of Zoella's and a lot of them seem to be "Do I have social anxiety??? I feel *lists symptoms of adolescence here*", and the majority of the answers are "yeah you have anxiety" or something to that effect. That frustrates me so much as we are just encouraging a whole generation to become hypochondriacs.

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100% agree although doctors will diagnose on a whim now though.

Comes with age. When you grow older, get a job, a house, kids and responsibilities in general you're forced to talk to people and do things you would avoid when you were younger. I'm not confident at all but I have seen a big change now that I'm being forced to do things.

When I started work I changed a lot, purely because it was forced customer interaction. That being said I still can't make phone calls.

Throughout most of high school I wouldnt leave the house, unless it was to go to school or my nans house. If I had to go to a restaurant, I couldn't order my own food, but like Zak said, you are kind of forced into things as you get older. It's not nice, but it's a necessity.

Personally, my counsellor didn't help me in the slightest. If anything she made me worse, but that's just a personal experience.

Can I ask why you get nervous and panic a lot in the situations described?

@Chloe7355; I know I already posted in here but this blog just reappeared on my tumblr and I know they sometimes reblog useful stuff. Here's their anxiety tag:

http://onlinecounsellingcollege.tumb...tagged/anxiety
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Show Hide personalstuffiguess

Also, I can't speak for your experiences obviously but I myself sometimes do get irrationally anxious in certain social situations - primarily ones where it's me starting a conversation with a friend online or offline. If I start the convo I get paranoid that they never wanted to speak to me in the first place, if they go offline [internet example] midconvo I assume I bugged them, If I meet a new group of people (primarily males) IRL I panic that I'm not masculine enough or interesting to fit in etc.

Though I have actually come quite far with being anxious in social situations (like 2 years ago I would be terrified at the prospect of speaking to a staff member in a store, now I'm fine with it) and with all my other emotional problems and stuff. The moodgym link I gave you earlier has an interesting section on warped/distorted thoughts which has actually bloody stuck in my mind for ages. They're in the spoiler with links just in case you can relate to any of them:

Show Hide warped thoughts

http://sourcesofinsight.com/10-disto...king-patterns/ or if you have acct https://moodgym.anu.edu.au/moodgym/thoughts/david_burns

All-Or-Nothing Thinking – You see things in black-and-white categories. If your performance falls short of perfect, you see yourself as a total failure.

Overgeneralization – You see a single negative event as a never-ending pattern of defeat.

Mental Filter – You pick out a single negative defeat and dwell on it exclusively so that your vision of reality becomes darkened, like the drop of ink that colors the entire beaker of water.

Disqualifying the positive – You dismiss positive experiences by insisting they “don’t count” for some reason or other. In this way you can maintain a negative belief that is contradicted by your everyday experiences.

Jumping to conclusions – You make a negative interpretation even though there are no definite facts that convincingly support your conclusion.
A. Mind reading. You arbitrarily conclude that someone is reacting negatively to you, and you don’t bother to check this out.
B. The fortune teller error. You anticipate that things will turn out badly, and you feel convinced that your prediction is an already-established fact.

Magnification (Catastrophizing) or Minimization- You exaggerate the importance of things (such as your goof-up or someone else’s achievement), or you inappropriately shrink things until they appear tiny (your own desirable qualities or the other fellow’s imperfections). This is also called the “binocular trick.”

Emotional Reasoning – You assume that your negative emotions necessarily reflect the way things really are: “I feel it, therefore it must be true.

Should Statements – You try to motivate yourself with shoulds and shouldn’ts, as if you had to be whipped and punished before you could be expected to do anything. “Musts” and “oughts” are also offenders. The emotional consequence is guilt. When you direct should statements toward others, you feel anger, frustration, and resentment.

Labeling and Mislabeling – This is an extreme form of overgeneralization. Instead of describing your error, you attach a negative label to yourself: “I’m a loser.” When someone else’s behavior rubs you the wrong way, you attach a negative label to him: “He’s a goddam louse.” Mislabeling involves describing an event with language that is highly colored and emotionally loaded.

Personalization – You see yourself as the cause of some negative external event which in fact you were not primarily responsible for.

Most probably, jumping to conclusions probably relates better to anxiety than the others. The aim is to identify the distorted thought pattern, realise you are actually having a warped thought and then challenge it.

Sorry this was a long post and might not even help you but identifying thoughts has actually helped me loads, still have a way to go though haha :P

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Originally Posted by Zak

Can I ask why you get nervous and panic a lot in the situations described?

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I don't exactly know tbh ;l

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Originally Posted by Chloe7355

I don't exactly know tbh ;l

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If you wanted to go to CBT or something, which I thoroughly recommend that you do, they'd want you to try and work out why. Find out exactly when you start to panic and under what circumstances. If you see any correlations, they might be something to do with it.

My therapist told me to make a list of the things that scared me and rate them /100 for how scary they were. 0 obviously being a breeze and 100 being I'd die if I did that.
I'll take a few examples from my list:
Getting on a bus on my own - 60
Making a phone call - 80
Asking a friend over/out to do something - 85
Being in crowded spaces - 30
Having to ask a stranger a question - 50

Once I'd worked out as many things that I was afraid of as I could think of, I had to start working on the list. You always start with the smallest thing, so using my example I'd have to go into town during a busy time and tell myself to keep calm. Obviously we worked on coping strategies for me to use so I didn't panic when I got there (see my first post in this thread for examples of coping strategies).

This post has gone on a bit but I suggest making a list of all the things that make you scared, rate them on their scariness and then ask yourself WHY and could I overcome it? If not, who could I ask for help?

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Originally Posted by Empired

If you wanted to go to CBT or something, which I thoroughly recommend that you do, they'd want you to try and work out why. Find out exactly when you start to panic and under what circumstances. If you see any correlations, they might be something to do with it.

My therapist told me to make a list of the things that scared me and rate them /100 for how scary they were. 0 obviously being a breeze and 100 being I'd die if I did that.
I'll take a few examples from my list:
Getting on a bus on my own - 60
Making a phone call - 80
Asking a friend over/out to do something - 85
Being in crowded spaces - 30
Having to ask a stranger a question - 50

Once I'd worked out as many things that I was afraid of as I could think of, I had to start working on the list. You always start with the smallest thing, so using my example I'd have to go into town during a busy time and tell myself to keep calm. Obviously we worked on coping strategies for me to use so I didn't panic when I got there (see my first post in this thread for examples of coping strategies).

This post has gone on a bit but I suggest making a list of all the things that make you scared, rate them on their scariness and then ask yourself WHY and could I overcome it? If not, who could I ask for help?

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Thank you, I will try doing this, I appreciate it x

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Originally Posted by Intersocial

@Chloe7355; I know I already posted in here but this blog just reappeared on my tumblr and I know they sometimes reblog useful stuff. Here's their anxiety tag:

http://onlinecounsellingcollege.tumb...tagged/anxiety
--

Show Hide personalstuffiguess

Also, I can't speak for your experiences obviously but I myself sometimes do get irrationally anxious in certain social situations - primarily ones where it's me starting a conversation with a friend online or offline. If I start the convo I get paranoid that they never wanted to speak to me in the first place, if they go offline [internet example] midconvo I assume I bugged them, If I meet a new group of people (primarily males) IRL I panic that I'm not masculine enough or interesting to fit in etc.

Though I have actually come quite far with being anxious in social situations (like 2 years ago I would be terrified at the prospect of speaking to a staff member in a store, now I'm fine with it) and with all my other emotional problems and stuff. The moodgym link I gave you earlier has an interesting section on warped/distorted thoughts which has actually bloody stuck in my mind for ages. They're in the spoiler with links just in case you can relate to any of them:

Show Hide warped thoughts

http://sourcesofinsight.com/10-disto...king-patterns/ or if you have acct https://moodgym.anu.edu.au/moodgym/thoughts/david_burns

All-Or-Nothing Thinking – You see things in black-and-white categories. If your performance falls short of perfect, you see yourself as a total failure.

Overgeneralization – You see a single negative event as a never-ending pattern of defeat.

Mental Filter – You pick out a single negative defeat and dwell on it exclusively so that your vision of reality becomes darkened, like the drop of ink that colors the entire beaker of water.

Disqualifying the positive – You dismiss positive experiences by insisting they “don’t count” for some reason or other. In this way you can maintain a negative belief that is contradicted by your everyday experiences.

Jumping to conclusions – You make a negative interpretation even though there are no definite facts that convincingly support your conclusion.
A. Mind reading. You arbitrarily conclude that someone is reacting negatively to you, and you don’t bother to check this out.
B. The fortune teller error. You anticipate that things will turn out badly, and you feel convinced that your prediction is an already-established fact.

Magnification (Catastrophizing) or Minimization- You exaggerate the importance of things (such as your goof-up or someone else’s achievement), or you inappropriately shrink things until they appear tiny (your own desirable qualities or the other fellow’s imperfections). This is also called the “binocular trick.”

Emotional Reasoning – You assume that your negative emotions necessarily reflect the way things really are: “I feel it, therefore it must be true.

Should Statements – You try to motivate yourself with shoulds and shouldn’ts, as if you had to be whipped and punished before you could be expected to do anything. “Musts” and “oughts” are also offenders. The emotional consequence is guilt. When you direct should statements toward others, you feel anger, frustration, and resentment.

Labeling and Mislabeling – This is an extreme form of overgeneralization. Instead of describing your error, you attach a negative label to yourself: “I’m a loser.” When someone else’s behavior rubs you the wrong way, you attach a negative label to him: “He’s a goddam louse.” Mislabeling involves describing an event with language that is highly colored and emotionally loaded.

Personalization – You see yourself as the cause of some negative external event which in fact you were not primarily responsible for.

Most probably, jumping to conclusions probably relates better to anxiety than the others. The aim is to identify the distorted thought pattern, realise you are actually having a warped thought and then challenge it.

Sorry this was a long post and might not even help you but identifying thoughts has actually helped me loads, still have a way to go though haha [emoji14]

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Thank you, the website seems rly helpful I appreciate it x