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[skins]

Hi nick, I just want to say having read this thread with interest that I really appreciate it and feel it is helping me lot. It is helping me get in the right frame of mind and to get motivated about becoming more socially confident and overcoming my sa. Having read this I feel this is my first real step at improving my life and will lead me onto numerous other steps of improvement. This thread has been a huge thing for me and has become a milestone for me making an effort for change, so don’t underestimate its importance and please keep those support group handouts coming. Before I just accepted the way my life was and believed I couldn’t do much about it, but now I am following this daily with great interest and printing everything out and actually making an effort!! Which is huge in itself. In a way this is a support group for me while I wait for therapy and CBT sessions which I am psyching myself up for doing soon.
I also feel it is helping a lot of others on this forum judging by the interest and I say to any mods reading this MAKE THIS A STICKY! Hopefully posting this and making it longer this tread will become so big they will notice and make it sticky anyway 8) . Thanks again

Jamie

 

[Vincent]

Burning questions

Nick,

First, let me add to the praise for your work here. You have inspired and motivated me. I have already thought alot about asking myself what I want, comparing to others and tranformational vocabularly since you wrote them. I have some questions that are unrelated to one another, but are burning questions to me, and hopefully others.

First, what do you think about religion? I'm not religious and never will be. I think about my own mortality and finality all the time, and it makes me more aware of time slipping by without fullfillment or enjoyment. If you aren't religious either, then does it bother you? Do you find that you only think about morality and finality when you are unhappy? Do you think that those not religious need a philosophy to compensate?

Not being anxious means not thinking anxious thoughts. So I should think of something else. But what? I try and think of other things, but I don't know what do think on. I try and guess what others think of, is it their life; plans and reflection? Is it people they know? Is it past conversations? Is it abstract things? Is it recalling details? Advice suggests thinking of other things, but I don't know what. I know that what I think of makes up a large part of my personality, but I don't know what my personality is. I estimate its the things that naturally interest me or come to my mind automatically, but all that comes to my mind is anxiety or negativity. So when I'm manually trying to override these, I never know what automatic thoughts I want to establish. How can I ignore automatic negative thoughts and replace them, if I don't know what to replace them with?

Lastly, I'm on the Dr Richards program and he talks of limiting to thirty minutes a day as it takes time to reprogram your brain. Someone at the Institute that it can take as long as four years to negate SA with their program. In the book it says it takes 45-55 days to rewire thinking from negative to positive. You and others have commented that the program is slow and tedious. Do you think that increasing the amount of time reciting and thinking on the concepts beyond half an hour can increase the speed? You mentioned that you conquered the majority of your SA within several months or intense focus and thinking.

Thanks again for your time and efforts. You are just so inspiring to so many people. One of the best messages between the lines is that of unselfishness. I find myself drawn between being a very compassionate and forgiving person because of my own suffering, and that of a spiteful, hateful person. I think that others may indentify with these seperate paths. You have taken the high road and left breadcrumbs for the rest of us.

 

[nickabcuk]

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[nickabcuk]

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[nickabcuk]

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[cellardoor]

Hey Nick

It has been awhile since I have had internet access and have been able to view this thread; the wedding speech went really well as I did my best to take onboard your advice. I have been trying my best to work out the root of my sp. Before the age of 18 I was as confident as anyone could be, so I have been trying to remember how my thought patterns were back then. The confidence came down to the fact I was able to drift through life without ever accessing my behaviour in social situations I was able to not care about other peoples opinions of me and get through life being liked. I now remember the first signs of social phobia, it was the thought that I didn’t no what to say, now prior to me being alerted to this there are two possibilities, either I was content to not contribute to the conversation or the thought never came into my head and I was able to converse freely. I believe that worrying about not knowing what to say then snowballed into me worrying that I was making other people uncomfortable with my silence, which later on has led to more powerful symptoms like paranoia.
Later on I also developed a strong feeling of self consciousness where walking through a crowded room I would feel as thou I was being watched and this would make me more couscous of my walk, which would lead to an unnatural walking style. The same thing would apply to my facial expression when I thought I was being looked at, my jaw would become tense and I would be confused about what to look at, both these symptoms have been mentioned countless times by posters on numerous sa related boards. I believe this is relates to an extreme level of self consciousness.
What I am trying to do here is show you the pattern of how my sa works, but from reading many posts I am starting to think that it is a universal pattern. As is true with most people with sp, I am aware that these thoughts are untrue (being stared at, being judged) but am unable to stop them as they appear to operate on an automatic unconscious level which overrides the conscious thought by effecting me physically and emotionally. I have made two more observations one is that in the company of people I feel comfortable with I am not able to experience these negative thoughts unconsciously, when I have experimented by forcing these negative thoughts in good company, I have observed that they have no physical or emotional effect. I define feeling comfortable by the fact that I have established a rapport with them in the past and I am aware that this person likes me or knows that I am capable of easy interaction, which shows that another root of my sp is I need to be liked. My final observation is that I have never experienced sp in a dream to my knowledge (I am able to remember my dreams most nights very vividly). I am able to experience intense social situations and am able feel and react to them the same as I did before I experienced sp, my behaviour in dreams is almost identical to how it was before sp. I believe the reason for this is that it is impossible to experience self consciousness in a dream as you will wake up, which in term leads me to believe that sp main root is self consciousness.
Before I ask for the advice id like to say that your advice so far has made a massive change in my life and that I am extremely grateful, I hope you feel a sense of spiritual and moral reward from dispensing this advice and maybe one day your experience with overcoming it and helping others to will help you to write a self help book or program that will result in financial reward for you too.

Anyway here goes:

1. what would you say is the best way to overcome the numerous feelings of self consciousness?

2. What would you say is the best way to beat the “not knowing what to say” problem?

3. Do you post on any other message boards relating to the same subject, if so could fix us up with some links?

4. Of anything I have stated above tells you anything about a possible solution to my type of sp , I would be grateful if you could comment.

 

[vanessa]

i always think negative but i dont want to. i try to think positive but i cant. i tell myself positive things but i cant believe them

 

[Vincent]

Self-Discovery using the Enneagram

Nick,

that was a through reply to my earlier enquiries. Thankyou.

I've stumbled across a book and concept of late that is intriguing and providing a greater incite into my personality and anxiety than anything else I have ever come across.

It's called the Enneagram, and has been developed by pschologists as a system for classifying and describing personality types. Personalities are divided into nine main types of which, there are three feeling, thinking and intuition. Within each of triads, there are a withdrawn, compliant and conflicting disposition. There are also combinations of these, a total of twenty seven permutations.

It's really ingenious, and is a continuation and refinement of the works for Freud, Jung and Horney. I have found my own personality to be a type "4", called "The Individualist". A Four is an withdrawn emotional type. This means, very self aware and self intrinsic. The strength of this, if I am "healthy" state, is profound creativity, an ability to fully acknowledge and harness my emotional focus as a strength to myself and others. In an "unhealthy" state, then I suffer from withdrawl, depression, self loathing and an inablity to relate to others. Now, I have had these symptoms all my life, and I'm speculating that alot of people reading this now have had too.

There are other personality types that have symptoms similar to social anxiety in an unhealthy state. Noticably, the thinking triad all suffer from anxiety to some degree, but deal with it differently depending on whether or not they are compliant, withdrawn or conflicting. I think that alot of people on this forum, from reading posts and knowing social anxiety, are Individualists, like myself.

I can't stress what an important discovery this book has been for me so far, and I am only just starting to understand it. By knowing your personality type, you can understand the natural strengths that you posess, that you can offer to others. Also, you can understand other people alot better. You can better read people, and stop feeling jealous of more outgoing types, because they have other weaknesses.

If anybody has experience with this book and system, please tell me about your experience and perspective. Nick, I'd really be interested in your comments, along with everyone else.

The book I have is called:

"Personality Types - Using the Enneagram for Self-Discovery"
by Don R. Riso and Russ Hudson.

The book is 493 pages long.

Thankyou for your time in reading this post and I hope its of use.