Archive for social anxiety
June 27, 2009 at 5:49 pm
· Filed under social anxiety
I renewed my gym membership last week after a 5 or 6 month break from regular exercise. And I have to say it feels great. I’ve only done two sessions so far, and both times my entire body was aching the next day. But both times I came out feeling refreshed, and a lot less anxious about life in general. I know my body is going to ache for a couple of weeks yet, but it is going to get easier and easier. As long as I commit myself to going in three days a week — even when I don’t feel like it — I know there is no way I can’t make progress. I’ve done it before and I can do it again. In some ways I think this is a good metaphor for overcoming social anxiety. Read the rest of this entry »
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June 23, 2009 at 5:59 pm
· Filed under social anxiety
I had an interesting experience yesterday that suddenly reinforced to me the craziness of the automatic negative thoughts that race around the minds of social anxiety sufferers. It was after my Chinese class and I was standing around chatting with a group of my fellow students. We were all commenting on how little progress we seem to be making in Chinese, and one of the girls commented that she was so envious of people that are able to master a foreign language, especially one of the difficult Asian ones. And at that point I found myself thinking, “lucky she doesn’t know that I am totally fluent in Japanese”. Which I am. Which is a very impressive fact. Which is something I should be very proud of. Which is a fact I should not be hiding when I am talking to an attractive girl. What on earth is going on here?
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June 2, 2009 at 6:33 pm
· Filed under Relationships, social anxiety
As I said in my last post, I’ve spent a lot of time lately thinking about relationships and SA. It’s my impression (purely a subjective one based on reading forums, etc) that a lot of SA sufferers end up in unhealthy relationships that do them more harm than good. Here’s my take on that. Most of us never dated at all in high school and university, and “stumbled” our way into relationships rather than meeting a wide range of people and then making an informed choice about who we really wanted to be with. When your options are limited (because of your anxiety and shyness) then you are more likely to settle for whoever is available. You are also more likely to attract somebody with emotional issues of their own. And when that relationship is not fulfilling your needs, you are less likely to leave because you feel like there is nobody else out there for you. Read the rest of this entry »
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February 5, 2008 at 9:02 pm
· Filed under pickup, social anxiety
I recently read “The Game” by Neil Strauss – a fascinating, hilarious, at at times sad true-life account of a short, balding guy in Los Angeles who goes from a compete failure with women to the self-proclaimed “greatest pickup artist in the world” in the space of a year or so after methodically studying the art of seduction. After reading this book I learned there is actually a huge community of guys out there that call themselves PUAs (pickup artists) that study this stuff and share their ideas online. Now, personally I find a lot of their material quite degrading to women, and I’m not suggesting anyone take it too seriously, but when it comes to social anxiety, I think you can sometimes learn lessons from unlikely sources. Read the rest of this entry »
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February 4, 2008 at 8:02 pm
· Filed under Reviews, social anxiety
The really frustrating thing about social anxiety is that it’s such an all-pervading disorder it’s very difficult to treat. If you read some of the literature, you’ll learn that simple phobias such as a fear of heights or flying, are much easier to treat. A common approach to treatment, using cognitive behavioural therapy, might be first just learning more about the REAL dangers of flying, and becoming more aware of how irrational the fear is. You could then combine this with some exposure, moving up a gradual hierarchy that eventually gets you to the final goal. Imagine flying. Go to the airport and spend a couple of hours just watching planes take off and land. Get in a flight simulator for a couple of hours. And pretty soon most people will be flying and basically cured of the problem. Read the rest of this entry »
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February 3, 2008 at 10:35 am
· Filed under social anxiety
I can remember having social anxiety since early high school. Until that point, I had an incredibly happy childhood, I had plenty of friends, and was lucky enough to have great parents and a wonderful family. So I have no idea where it came from. But one of my earliest memories is of photo day in high school, where we would all line up after the class photo to have individual photos taken. And everybody else would be watching as you were sat down and told to smile. I can still vividly remember that one year this suddenly became a problem for me. I completely froze up, become totally unable to smile, and my hands started shaking uncontrollably.
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February 3, 2008 at 8:34 am
· Filed under social anxiety
OK, first things first. I’m a 32-year old guy in New York who is one of the millions out there silently suffering from what is known as social anxiety. I’ve noticed that there has been a proliferation of social anxiety blogs, forums, and whatnot in recent years, which is a great thing. Compared to a decade or so ago, when I first heard about this disorder and got an inkling of what was wrong with me, there really is a huge amount of advice and material out there today.
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OK, first things first. I’m a 32-year old guy in New York who is one of the millions out there silently suffering from what is known as social anxiety. I’ve noticed that there has been a proliferation of social anxiety blogs, forums, and whatnot in recent years, which is a great thing. Compared to a decade or so ago, when I first heard about this disorder and got an inkling of what was wrong with me, there really is a huge amount of advice and material out there today.