Social Anxiety

love&peace_t · Mar 17, 2012, 08:28 AM

Anyone out there have intense social anxiety?

Severijn · Mar 17, 2012, 10:00 AM

I used to have extreme social anxiety but I almost completely cured it. It did take me about 3 years or so.

I hope you know that social anxiety is curable, or at least you can make it much more manageable. Improving your social skills and dealing with people is a skill and art that is as old as civilization. But lately we've given people with inadequate social skills a name: people with Social Phobia/SAD.

I belief your best bet at treating SAD is doing self-help and also do CBT therapy. Using these together can get you good results.

Overcoming SAD is all about learning new social skills step by step, increasing your confidence in the process. You should gradually expose yourself to the things you fear step by step, going from things you fear the least to things you fear the most. This can take 3 months, 6 months, 1 year, or even 3 to 5 years. It's different for every single person.

When you try new social things, you are going to make mistakes and embarrass yourself sometimes. But just keep learning from your mistakes and you'll get there. Don't let setbacks pull you down again. Don't say "this is just who I am; this is how I was born". That's just not true. Most likely you have missed opportunities of growing socially because of some fears that were caused by bad social experiences in the past. But to overcome SAD you must confront these fears and change your thought-patterns.

Well good luck and if you have questions plz ask.

2bme · Mar 18, 2012, 07:40 AM

Good to hear about someone who's got better! I suffered from SAD what feels like forever. Did some CBT, but my T decided toe work on other stuff instead. I hate SAD and always thought that I just have to live with it. To be honest I always felt like I'm missing out. Malls are a no go zone especially! Just going to the corner shop is a mission. I don't make eye contact with anyone but family. So it is good to hear that there is hope. Even posting anon is causing my head to spin!! It took me five minutes to press the submit reply button on another post! Here is me hoping.

WantingtoHeal · Mar 18, 2012, 11:30 AM

I have pretty intense social anxiety - at least that's what I think it is. I'm highly uncomfortable around people. I just feel a tremendous anxiety around them and I can't wait until I can get home to get away from them. I don't like one on one talking -that makes me the most nervous. However, I do very well speaking to crowds and have done a number of speaker-type activities to large groups of people. I just don't like to be in crowds like at malls, etc. Talking to people in a social setting is very very anxiety producing to me- I end up saying and doing things that make me feel stupid. I've learned to just be quiet and say very little now.

Effexor XR helped me tremendously with this..helped me to actually get out.