For those who want to stop feeling like this

steve111

Ok, i had posted a couple of question last week to get a feel about why you experience social anxiety.

I have noticed, through research and my own experience, that anxiety is not an illness, it is a thought. If you look at the major theorists (freud,jung, etc..), it is quit eclear that behaviour is shaped through life experience and perception. My reality is different than yours.

If you want to better yourself, one ingredient is of great importance. You have to convince yourself that living like this is far worse than facing your fears.

You see, what i did when i first started to better myself, is that i drew up a list of things that would happen to me, or things i would miss out on because of my anxiety disorder. THings like:

Could not compete my ph.d
could not be able to have kids
feel like a prisonner
die young since my body is always on edge
screw up all my relationships, etc....

I then drew up a list of things i could accomplish and how i would feel if i would not experience this disorder. like:

speak my mind,
be all that i can be
own a business
do speeches, etc...

After analyzing the pros and cons of this disorder, i then convinced myself that living without this was way better than living with it. When that happened, my brain recognized the negative effects of this and i associated disgust about the disorder.

THis disgust was far worse than the pain i would go through if i did have to go to the mall.

THis digust was far worse than the pain i would go through if i talked to that girl

THis digust was far worse than the pain i would go through if i ignored my racing, pounding and irregular heartbeat.

after a while, things got better. I no longer felt anxious as before. I no longer feared things i did. And it only got better.

If i would put a gun to your head and order you to talk to a stranger, would you? Probably, because the pain of dying is greater than the pain of speaking with the stranger. So,IMHO, in order to change, you have to associated great pain to retain the status quo and great pleasure to expand your horizon. And once you do this, once you think that a situation is so bad, do dreadful, that i can't continue like this, you will change. Your mind has no choice.

manall · Posted: Thu Oct 07, 2004 2:26 pm Post subject:

hi,
i think that it is interesting you should mention this. just the other day when i was driving, i was thinking about why i am so afriad of talking to people. the only reasonable explanation i could come up with was this. if i were to take the chance and converse with another, i would put myself in a vulnerable position. what if that person did not like me, and thought i was boring. it would prove everything that i think about myself, that i am unlikable. the pain of that is just too great. it is so much safer to avoid situations where you expose yourself to judgement.

lonelycody · Posted: Thu Oct 07, 2004 3:35 pm Post subject:

Jess_19 · Guest

i have to agree that i feel overly pissed off at myself and disgusted i wanna puke

Jess_19 · Guest

after the day ends i wanna explode knowing i wasnt myself today. i cant be myself knowing in a false sorta way that people wont like me.people already seem to hate me...whenever they try to approach me i shy away and answer with a few words i think are safe to say...but they dont understand they think this is me. they must think im a bitch. someone called me a bitch once cuz he got fed up trying to get my attention or talk to me and get me to talk. i cut some of skin in the beginning of the week. one side of my cheek i slashed and i bled.. everyone asks me how i am and how i got cut. i pretend it's nothing.. i'm such an idiot. but im so hurt and im suffering so much it's like im bleeding inside.

racheH · Posted: Fri Nov 19, 2004 11:05 pm Post subject:

I agree that social phobia isn't an illness, I'm even writing a coursework essay about it. Parts of the brain that allow us to have all kinds of phobias, including social phobias, can be seen on brain scans; they're in everyone, as a survival technique, so thinks nature. Not everyone's experiences demand that they use these abilities, and I think genes probably influence susceptibility to them. However, the definition of 'illness' just doesn't fit with my understanding of it.

I think the key to ending a phobia is to understand it, and realise that your brain doesn't do it because it hates you (so I thought Laughing

) or because there's something wrong with it. What it's doing is a natural reaction to external influences. Setting goals must help with any challenge, but I think until you understand why you as an individual feel the way you do sometimes, specifically when it’s rational and when it’s not, you can’t know which goals will really help you solve it from those that will just block out feelings temporarily. If through readiness you can identify as soon as the symptoms occur that they are an irrational response, and what thought processes are behind them, you know how to oppose those thought processes to rational ones before the feelings run away with you.

Saying vaguely ‘I shouldn’t be feeling like this, I choose to feel something else’ will only replace one irrational emotion with another, and you won’t learn anything about yourself that way. I’ve been trying the former method this year and it wasn’t an over night recovery, because my subconscious was suspicious of my theories I guess, and I was aware of being scared of where not fearing disapproval would lead me (expulsion maybe?) Now I know even that fear was really just of more disapproval. I had to think of the most I could ever be looked down on and convince myself that unless the people acted on it against me, it really wouldn’t matter. Eventually, I taught that ‘other me’ not to fear things the same way she learnt to fear them – through experience and example. Gradually, she accepted that I was right; disapproval in its own right isn’t necessarily bad for me. Like a child, she needed ideas explained and demonstrated, not forced upon her.

These are my experiences anyway. Good luck to anyone figuring their own way out of this Smile

_________________
'Be a first rate version of yourself, not a second rate version of someone else' ~ Liza Minnelli

Guest · Posted: Fri Nov 19, 2004 11:11 pm Post subject:

yeah, all that helps... what is your definition of a disorder though? And, have you done any research on other anxieties disorders to help give you insight... more later... you should try to be objective and not to define a preconception I think.

Guest · Posted: Fri Nov 19, 2004 11:17 pm Post subject:

so you are saying that the genes involved in the mechanisms can't be abnormal? That some don't set normal boundaries? I think most people agree with you, but as with an disorder that involves irrational fears, most of us are aware of them... and most people here agree that we most rationally reason our way to better mental health... but we also sense that something genetic + environmental (nurture and cognitive distortions) has allowed ourselves to be this way in the fist way.

racheH · Posted: Fri Nov 19, 2004 11:39 pm Post subject:

Guest 1: I've done quite a bit of my own research this year, when I at last realised what was making me act they way I always have. I go by dictionary definitions, not my own. An official definition of a phobia is 'an irrational fear', which I don't think humans are born with (although pidgeons are scared of hawk silhouttes even when they don't know what one is). A definition of a disorder is 'a mental or bodily condition marked primarily by sufficient disorganization of personality, mind, and emotions to seriously impair the normal psychological functioning of the individual called also mental illness'. My opinions are based on my own experiences, my research, and a considerable amount of theorising. It's a very important subject to me, so I think about it a lot, and I'm interested to see ideas contrary to my own. If my personal views come across as stated fact; it's not intentional, but 'I think' before every line is boring to type and to read. Smile

Guest 2:I think it's more likely to be an evolutionary feature in humans, as it is in many other species, to be able to develop phobias, rather than abnormal genes. Some people may be born with predispositions to getting them, as is suggested by how many severe phobics have multiple fears. I'm not ruling anything out though; I'm no genes expert, but I think no normal human is born unable to develop a phobia - it just doesn't make sense to me.

_________________
'Be a first rate version of yourself, not a second rate version of someone else' ~ Liza Minnelli

tommy_15 · Advanced User Joined: Nov 16, 2004 Posts: 351

i agree with this guy .. mostly. I think the truth is, most of us end up with physical conditions aswell from prolonged depression and/or anxiety, things such as chemical imbalances and such, which do complicated things further.

Notwithstanding, i like the theory about making choices, and choosing whats more important.

Look iv done what youd call some solesearching over the last week or so, and iv decided FUCK this disorder. FUCK living with fear.

Im gathering my resources now, im asking around, im talking to people, getting advice, im going to go to my gp in the next few weeks ... and then, im going to take everything iv learned, and all at once im gonna put it all together and blow this shit right out of the water. Iv decided, i dont care if i have to face fears, i have to break through the barrier, im not going to let my rediculous and nonsensical fears hold me back from doing what i want.

edit : im not trying to inspire anyone else to be a hero. I am at a progressed stage of recovery. I dont recomend anyone who is having major panic attacks to go out and be a cowboy like that, but same principle, just take it in smaller bites.