How can I express myself confidently?

[Toomuchfear]

Hi guys. I wondered if you could help me?

I find it exceptionally hard to communicate to others. I can make a witty comment about something, but when it comes to telling anecdotes and stories or making conversation with someone, I find it really difficult to put my words across. I went to a party the other night with some acquaintances, and I felt no-one was interested in what I was saying and I had nothing of relevance to say

I find when I attempt to engage people, the people who are listening look confused or just ignore me. This makes me feel very depressed and negative thoughts such as "You're not good enough" "You're a social klutz" well up inside me and I want to curl up and die. I find such negative thoughts clog up my brain-to-speech skills and I find interaction even harder! I feel I get particuarly jealous at others who find interacting so natural and easy, which strengthens my depression.

I took part in a public speaking course to help me, but I find reading out a pre-planned script to a passive audeince completely different than making conversations in a social environment.

Do you know of anything else that can help me? I know a lot of people with SA also find it hard to communicate and be heard. I thought maybe some improvisational classes would be good, but there's nothing like it in my area

 

[mikebird]

It's not our problem

It's the onlookers who are not willing to accept quiet people.

I accept anyone.

I remember a job description which specified: no visible tattoos, or metal insertions for this role.

I accept anybody for who they are. People should lower their guard, and be open. I don't like dancing in the street to entertain others. If someone likes to be quiet, people should stop ignoring them... shouldn't be petty

 

[IGotSeoul]

Hi guys. I wondered if you could help me?

I find it exceptionally hard to communicate to others. I can make a witty comment about something, but when it comes to telling anecdotes and stories or making conversation with someone, I find it really difficult to put my words across. I went to a party the other night with some acquaintances, and I felt no-one was interested in what I was saying and I had nothing of relevance to say

I find when I attempt to engage people, the people who are listening look confused or just ignore me. This makes me feel very depressed and negative thoughts such as "You're not good enough" "You're a social klutz" well up inside me and I want to curl up and die. I find such negative thoughts clog up my brain-to-speech skills and I find interaction even harder! I feel I get particuarly jealous at others who find interacting so natural and easy, which strengthens my depression.

I took part in a public speaking course to help me, but I find reading out a pre-planned script to a passive audeince completely different than making conversations in a social environment.

Do you know of anything else that can help me? I know a lot of people with SA also find it hard to communicate and be heard. I thought maybe some improvisational classes would be good, but there's nothing like it in my area

The public speaking course sounds like a good idea, improvisational classes too. Anything that works towards readying you for spontaneous social engagement is all better than nothing in some manner. The classes and occasional exposure sound as if they would help develop speaking skills and social techniques that would eventually grow to be second nature over time.

From my own experience, it's a lot easier to speak aloud about a subject that I'm knowledgeable about. Usually speaking of it in a clear, humerous tone making light of it - a few jokes and such. Allowing others input and knowing when to use body language to communicate, such as agreeably nodding and smiling.

It's really hard to describe it but I honestly do feel that mild exposure and classes into steadily more engaging activities would work wonders.

 

[LazyHermitCrab]

Use your arms to express yourself. It's fun watching some people move their arms around as the talk. Also good posture, eye contact but not too forcefull, relax your shoulders. Basically, everything I don't do, do

 

[Deus_Ex_Lemur]

Those classes are good but there's deeper seeded issues they don't really help with. The habit of negative self-talk/thoughts is a white noise constantly in the background of your brain. That's the real root of the problem, the way you say things, posture, body language all vital but do follow.

And you won't be knowledgeable about everything. But you can't fake body confidence, imo. That's big too. Relax the mind - the body relaxes, vice versa.

Got to catch those thoughts, challenge those thoughts, change those thoughts. And let go. BE.

It's something that takes time and awareness at first, seeing how often you go inward in convo's and over harsh with negative self talk - HEAR that white noise that you miss but is there. I'm doing this and it's amazing. There's no magic solution, but there is. When I let go of being negative, my own inner thoughts once aware of all that noise, so I can filter out - NO, I didn't suddenly become all chatter. I'm still working on it, these days I dont have many opportunities. But - I become more content with being quiet depending the convo/context and find suddenly things do come to mind. Tho it's still a process, for me at least.