# How I overcame my social anxiety



## MisterM (Jan 7, 2016)

This is my message towards people with social anxiety, and towards people in general. I have no interest in persuading anyone to believe what I say, neither will I return to this forum after my first and only message. This post is like a message in a bottle, who choses to open it is not up to me.

I had social anxiety my whole life, and as long as I remember I have been trying to fight it, find different words and meanings that would ease my pain and break the chains that held over me, true me, but it only made my fear worse to the point it tore my stomach apart. Wanted to fit in, wanted people to like me, wanted to stop being afraid to be confident and strong like I thought others around me were. You know what? They are same as you, only difference is that you dwell on your fears, they dont. When they come home they dont start thinking of how they were scared in some situation, or how the will be scared tommorow. No, they start doing stuff that makes them happy whatever that is, they dont dwell on it. Why? Because they learned to like themselves And you know, that is a choice, you can be that way too. We do not control what our subconcious thinks, or what we feel. But we do control what we set our mind to, and that is choice.

I will get straight to the point.

Learn to love yourself, all your flaws and imperfections. Do not fight your fears, accept them. Do not dwell on them, move on to things that make you happy. You could strip me naked, take away all my friends, embarass me as much as you can, I would still stand strong. Because now when I am afraid I dont ask myself why, I accept it and realize that In the end it only matters what I think of myself. And you know what? I am awesome.

Happiness is a choice, where the mind goes the body follows.


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## visualkeirockstar (Aug 5, 2012)

Sounds like you didn't even had it.


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## Damaris (May 13, 2013)

Thank you so much for writing this wonderful message! It's so encouraging. I wish you all the best and I hope you'll inspire lots of people


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## anxious d (Jan 9, 2016)

That's awesome and I'm glad you shared. I think I have one foot in your boat. I woke up at 3 am last night after a dream in which I was faced with bandaging my cat's broken leg. And I don't have a cat. 

But I digress. It occured to me that all I have to be is myself. My anxious, sometimes akward self and be friendly to people. Smile and be happy. 

People care a lot more about how you treat them than what you think they are thinking about you. Therein lies the secret. 

No one minds an anxious person if they are friendly, happy and make an effort, no matter how akward you might be or feel at first. 

Own your anxiety, say that you are nervous or anxious and don't be afraid of failing with a blundering joke. It's better to be a little weird and try than it is to freeze, stay silent and alienate yourself. The former, others can work with. The latter can be downright scary (even if you harbor no ill will).


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## M0rbid (Jan 11, 2011)

appears to me he was just "shy"


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## Maslow (Dec 24, 2003)

"Like yourself" is another way of saying "have healthy self-esteem." The concept is correct, since most of the time, social anxiety is rooted in low self-esteem. But when you suffer from low self-esteem, that's something that's deeply ingrained in your psyche and is tough to overcome. You don't trust other people because you've been hurt too many times.


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## Noloman (Sep 15, 2015)

Yeah, I think there's more to it than just choosing. I think we would all choose not to be miserable most times. But you didn't tell us how. We all choose to be confident and positive. But it's the how that's hard. But I do agree with you when you say normies don't dwell on fears and doubt, but again, how do they achieve this.


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