Social Anxiety

Lol.

Not drink.

That made my social anxiety 10 million times worse.

Honestly... yea there's all kinds of relaxation exercises, meditations, relaxing things you can do naturally. But when it all comes down to it. The only thing that really helps me, is, 1-working on controlling my anxiety through my breathing and 2- just freaking doing whatever I have social anxiety over. If I sit around for a week fearing meeting a group of people I don't know and become more and more anxious.. it's not gonna go away and only get worse til I just, go and do it. Force myself to do things. The more you do it the easier...
but actually I still have social anxiety and it's a good question.

sucks. I used to always have Xanax/valium/etc.... but not for years. So I just work though it by repetition and controlling breathing.

 

This thread may be helpful. It's a pretty long discussion of how to treat (imho) depression and anxiety
http://www.hipforums.com/newforums/showthread.php?p=7989127#post7989127

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2iGk87bug2s

 

the less i have to feel dependent on having to deal with anything human the less anxiety i feel. its a fear i have of loosing access to solitude. its something i've always felt since infancy.

its not about fearing to have friends or being around other people or how many of them. none of that matters to it. its a fear of loosing the ability to have the solitude i need to recharge and stay sane.

and i'm sorry, but i really don't see it as anything to "get over". nor anything wrong nor unnatural about it. maybe a little bit unusual my version of it.

i'm sorry but i generally find humans boring and myself much happier alone.

i can and do, at times, enjoy interesting company, for a few hours at a time. i just NEED more time alone then with people.

and i totally don't see that as a problem nor concern for anyone.

 

How about the fear of not knowing the latest review for the "meaningless materialist" Joe Byden has for the justification of state enemies. Aaah, that last part was an idealistic concept I could enjoy.

 

benzos work better than anything else, but if you ever try to get off of them, you will regret ever taking them i promise that. so maybe its not the best option.

i can take benzos tho and even on benzos i still don't think i feel how i imagine a "normal" person feels. that's why benzos become such a trap for me, increasing the dose to try to just feel like i think i should that's normal but i never do, they end up really fucking me up before i ever get there

 

i don't really follow literary political commentary closely.
unless its mentioned on democracy now or daily koss i usually don't hear about it.
i like chomski and that fat guy who makes movies, can't think of his name atm.
most of my political input comes from the internet.

personally i see people who see everything in terms of humans and their personal relationships as pretty meaningless.
concern for each other's happiness isn't. but trying to impress each other is how most people completely waste their lives.

 

I'm not concerned and I don't see why you would apologize for finding being human more interesting than hearing someone talk about themselves. I don't see how you find human beings boring if you can find happiness in your own human being, I find I don't need to withdraw as much as not make claims on the presence of others or internally ignore them. Sometimes isolation has not been physically possible. Strong internal presence makes social tolerance easier and I just say this as a general observation.

 

Isn't this a statement of your own meaningful relationship to people?

 

Being NORMALITY seeking; I wish to find the meaning of abstract fellow citizens in the surrounding community make sense for the values of the normal democratic tolerance, or fear of tyranny, or consensus to civil action representable. I believe families in a society normally have a responsible belonging to consequences of NOT being ignored for what they have done.

Unless there is something apocalyptic going on.

 

Looks like my link in #62 is broken. Here is a new one.

http://www.hipforums.com/forum/topic/458019-treating-depression-and-anxiety/

 

I recently watched a documentary on how our brains function and social anxiety might just be hard coded into us. Basically, I'd noticed with myself that when all eyes are on me, unwanted attention, while I played billiards that I was prone to sweating, heart rate increase and my face would flush red a lot, especially after my games.

This doc suggested that from a very early on stage of human life, we've learned to "fear" or "worry" when people are watching us. Like a defense mechanism, chemicals are released into our bodies that cause social anxiety. Not too sure what the defense purpose is, but our brains do it for a reason.

And so I have been trying to overcome this too as it hurts my billiard playing. I sync my Fitbit to my gf phone so she can now watch my heart rate as I play. It's very interesting. But we noticed it had little effect as to who was watching me while I play. Fluctuation between not sinking a ball, to sinking three in a row and then on the black, my rate spiked on the black and dropped when I was running the table but it wasn't until the game is over, when I step back and reflect.. That my heart rate goes off the chart and it feels like a rush of endorphins when I step back and see everyone staring at me.

So to overcome this I've simply been telling myself "I'm better than them, I've proven this, I can hold my own, they do not want to play me". And to a small degree this has worked and I think I've gotten better. Introducing an excitement chemical release to over come the anxiety chemical release. Or something.

 

yes, social = anxiety. no one can possibly know everything that might ever offend anyone. nor everyone who's being offended might lead to regretable consiquences.
you might think there are assumptions that are reasonable. statistically of course there are. but everything and its exact opposite, each offend someone.

now i don't worry about what someone thinks of me as a person, but i do worry about making them feel bad when they don't need or have a real reason to,
and even more, about the kind of world, everything each of us do, contributes to creating.

but i do believe, if people insist on being inconsiderate, then yes, they are giving themselves reasons to be disgusted with themselves.

 

Yeah sometimes I get social anxiety. It depends on my mood and the problems I'm facing in my life. I was a lot more confident and outgoing until I got my work hours cut in half and now I'm in a financial struggle

 

I've had social anxiety since I was 11. It's evolved into a more generalized anxiety and the social part has toned down significantly. Sometimes I still don't have the energy to deal with people, but I can generally power through most difficult situations. I used to be really painfully avoidant. These days at worst I'm just kind of impatient with silly human social rituals, lol.

The only thing that helped me really was getting pissed at it- deciding I was done hiding in my house and having it control me when it was just chemicals in my brain lying to me and nobody really gave a shit what I was doing. The more I went and did the things I was afraid of and powered through it, I would have that experience under my belt for next time, and it got easier to try. Sometimes I would go do a thing and it would totally crash and burn and I would flee and hide for a while freaking out and licking my wounds, but after another month went by, I'd get antsy and annoyed at all the time passing me by again and venture back out. I used to have quite the fear of missing out on things. It was very motivating.

Another thing I did was get a job at a call center. Not seeing people face to face helped me feel safe when I talked to them. I built up my conversational skills that way and now I do pretty well talking to strangers. For someone who used to be terrified to order a burger and fries by myself, I feel like that's a pretty decent accomplishment.