Blogging Against Social Anxiety

It’s been a while since I posted on this site. I think that’s partly out of shame, to be honest, since I’ve made very little progress over the past couple of months, despite all the best intentions…
I know what I need to do to beat this. Get back into a routine: three days a week at the gym, once a week at Chinese class, join Toastmasters, make an effort just once or twice a week to eat lunch with one of my colleagues rather than by myself at my desk. Start accepting social invitations rather than immediately finding excuses not to go out. Say hi to the stranger in the elevator in the morning. Walk across the floor to talk to a colleague instead of calling or emailing them… Read the rest of this entry »

I had an interesting experience at work this week. I was suddenly summoned for a “get to know you” meeting with a very senior manager at my company who I had never met before. I had little time to prepare. And even if I had, I didn’t know what he wanted to talk to me about. This type of meeting would probably make anybody at least a little nervous, but for somebody with social anxiety, it’s a nightmare. I’ve made some good progress over the past couple of years. But suddenly, that all seemed to disappear. I started to think too much…. Read the rest of this entry »

Lately I’ve been thinking a lot about relationships and social anxiety. After about one and a half years of staying totally single, I’m in a relationship again. It’s been six months now, and I’m having a great time with my new girlfriend. But here’s the thing. While those six months have been a very happy time for me in many ways, I’ve recently come to the realization that in other ways I have been going backwards. A year ago, I was pushing myself to regularly attend events where I didn’t know anybody to practice mingling, I was going to the gym regularly, and I was taking public speaking classes. Now, the easy option on weekends is to just hang out with my girlfriend. And I have become very lazy. As a result, I can really feel the SA starting to creep back into my life. I sometimes feel anxious even meeting up with friends, and I feel much more nervous attending meetings at work. Read the rest of this entry »

Well, it’s been more than a year since I posted on this blog, and I’ve decided it’s time to start writing again. In retrospect, the best progress I ever made in beating SA was the period of a few months when I was blogging about my experiences in early 2008. There is definitely something very positive and motivating about getting your thoughts down in print. SA has been on my mind a lot again lately, so I’m hoping to start posting again quite regularly. Standby!

Ever had that experience where you suddenly find yourself the center of attention and turn bright red for no reason? Where the more you think about stopping it the more you face starts to look like an overripe tomato? It hasn’t happened to me for quite some time, which I guess is a mark of progress. But of course, as is the way with social anxiety, just when you think you’ve got something beaten it comes back at you with a vengeance from time to time. I got my hair cut really short last week, shaved number 2 all over. I’m still not sure why – I suddenly decided on a whim to just see what it would look like. And Monday mornings at work we have a regular team meeting with about 12 people. So of course I rock up and am instantly faced with all sorts of comments about my hair. “What happened? Are you joining the military? “Are you going to Iraq” and so on. I make a lame attempt at defusing it with a joke and start to turn bright red. Read the rest of this entry »

Setbacks are a natural part of the process of overcoming social anxiety. After a few months of really measurable progress, I’ve just had one of those weeks where nothing seems to go right, and you start questioning whether you really are moving forward. It started out well. I organized an event last weekend, getting together a group of people that I met recently at a social event, for drinks at a bar. Now this is the first time I have ever done anything like this in my life. Taking the initiative to invite a whole group of people out, some of whom didn’t even know each other. But on the way there suddenly a whole bunch of old insecurities come flooding back into my mind. Suddenly I start thinking too much. “What am I going to talk to these people about? What if they don’t all get along? What if I start to get anxious like I used to do and they notice I am acting weird…” And so on… It’s amazing what tricks the mind can play. So by the time I got there, I was feeling anxious and jittery. I couldn’t relax. I could feel the tension in my face. The more I thought about it the more difficulty I had smiling. I was back in that vicious circle of anxiety where the negative thoughts in your head become a self-fulfilling prophesy. Read the rest of this entry »

One of the most challenging parts of overcoming social anxiety is learning to become a more friendly and sociable person. If you’re anything like me, you’ve spent much of your life avoiding all sorts of social situations, dreading small talk, and avoiding eye contact. These harmful habits become so ingrained in your brain that you do them without even thinking about it. Have you ever been asked why you’re looking so serious? It happens to me regularly, and the crazy thing is that most of the times it happens I’m not even in a particularly bad mood. The way I feel inside and the way I am being perceived by the people around me are totally different. It’s only recently that I’ve become very conscious of what a damaging impact this has. Read the rest of this entry »

I’ve made more progress fighting social anxiety over the past 6 months than in the 20 years before that. On top of that, I feel like my progress is coming at a faster and faster rate. So what happened? For years I read all the books, I tried therapy, I forced myself into social engagements, but every time I thought I made a step forward, I would soon be faced with a setback that made me question if it was ever going to be possible. One step forward, two steps backward is how it felt. You’ve probably heard this before, but forcing yourself into high-anxiety situations and just hoping you’ll get used to it rarely works. Exposure only works if it is gradual, and in parallel with that, you start slowly but steadily eliminating the automatic negative thought patterns that have ruled your mind for so long. Here’s a little advice based on my recent experiences. Read the rest of this entry »

I know this sounds like a very depressing and ominous post, but stay with me for a moment. I was reading something recently about the importance of coming to terms with the idea of death, and the idea that when you eventually get to the end of your life you don’t want to be left with a mountain of regrets about what you could have, should have, and might have done during your lifetime. Think about this a little. If you’re anything like me, you might have already spend two decades or more battling with social anxiety. Think of all the opportunities you probably missed out on over that time because your inhibitions were holding you back from taking any type of risk in social situations. Read the rest of this entry »