Venting Anxious

[puppet_nihilist]

Has been bugging me how come some of us with some degree of social anxiety don't seem to develop any resistance to it.


I'm sure I'm not alone in this. It's been with me my entire life. Given the amount of times I've ended up outside of my comfort zone when it came to having to socialize or face others, you'd think I would have developed some shield or something. Except I just got better at avoiding that sort of thing lmao.

Just makes me wonder. Is something wrong in my brain?? There has to be an explanation I mean. Ahh well who cares. I hope whoever has to deal with social anxiety on the regular understands what I'm saying at least.

 

[VioletNight]

I'm not really sure if my social anxiety has improved over the years or if I've just gotten better at faking that I'm not anxious.

I think it's either just a part of who we are or it's a coping/defense mechanism for past trauma.

 

[jodes2]

Yeah I just avoid things now pathologically to avoid the anxiety. As I result I have no friends

 

[d3c96524be95]

We avoid social situations to limit our stress level (that's called avoidance coping, which I guess is a pretty normal reaction when stress is too high). Consequently we become less and less competent in social situations, and we feel it, so we lose even more confidence, and we're even more stressed. I wrote this yesterday you might relate to. I can only remember moments where I've felt awkward or ashamed or judged, therefore socializing is only associated with bad memories. It's extremely difficult for me to think of something positive out of past social situations, unlike others who always seem to only keep the good parts. It's very probable that you made some progress by exposing yourself, but you're just too stressed and biased to reason about it rationally.

Seems that CBT can help at breaking this negative feedback loop, but it was a bad experience for me because I was also highly depressed so it was even more guilt-inducing. (And ASD was probably an aggravating factor too.) Also, exposures must be very progressive, otherwise it's more traumatic than anything else.

If you can identify specific reasons why you are feeling this way among others, it can help a lot too. I sincerely hope you'll be able to overcome your anxiety.