# From social anxious to outgoing



## Cassoulet94 (Apr 3, 2014)

Hey,

Four years ago, I was 18 years old and I was social anxious. Granted, it was not severe, I had some friends. 

But only a few good friends. No acquaintances. You know, people usually have some good friends and then a lot of acquaintances with whom they have casual conversations all the time. But I was completely unable to do that kind of things. I could speak with my friends but was very awkward with others. With some people who were impressing me, I could not talk at all. I had never kissed a girl, or even touch one (holding hand, that kind of things...). I could never laugh ("why don't you ever smile ?") or talk loudly. I liked soccer but when I was on the field I could not say a word. 
I was so dependent of my few friends that sometimes, when some of them were laughing at me, I was unable to stand my ground because I was to scared to be alone. Happily i didn't happen often.
I was depressed because I felt very lonely and completely unable to express myself and to do things I wanted to do. Actually I felt so miserable that I had very little idea of what I wanted to do with my life. All I was seeing were closed doors.
Apart from school and video games, I wasn't doing much of my time. I was too scared to be really involved in social activities (sport, music, summer camp, etc...). I was not comfortable with family members (other than parents and brothers).
Happily my family was relatively nice, even if they didn't know how miserable i was until it became obvious that i was deeply depressed. Also I was relatively clever, and that is probably what saved me because I was able to change.

After 18 began a new era of my life, the era of change. High school was over. I thought that all my problem would disappear in College but I was mistaken. Once again I was alone. Maybe more than before, actually. Then I became really depressed, I cried often, wasn't eating much, harmed myself without anyone knowing, was barely sleeping and wasn't interested in anything anymore. 

I turned 22 a few days ago and I am no longer social anxious. After a very slow tapering, I completely stop paxil a month ago without noticing any differences in my behavior. I kissed several girls and am no longer a virgin. I am studying abroad, very far from my family and friends, in a country with a very different culture from the one of my homeland. Sometimes it is hard to have company because there is not a lot of westerners here but I no longer get depressed because of that.

My current level of confidence has nothing to do with what it was four years ago. My way of thinking has completely changed. I cannot give a exhaustive list of all the things that have change, only a few examples.

I can laugh, I can shout, I can sing. I no longer think automatically that if a conversation is not going smoothly, it is because of me. I am not always putting the focus on me and my responsibilities but also expect things from others. 

I don't avoid strong emotions at all cost as I was doing in the past. Actually I am craving for emotions because it is what makes life interesting, even if sometimes it can get awkward. But it is the same for everyone.

I accepted that I am not perfect, that I cannot please everyone and that sometimes, I can still get shy. But it is ok because it happens to everyone and doesn't change the fact that I have also qualities.

The new semester just begin, so I have to meet new people and I can easily engage conversation with persons who seem interesting to me. Often I am the one who propose to do things outside from class first.

I would not say that all is perfect, far from it, because even without social anxiety, life is never easy. And I have my issues, like everyone. Plus when you are social anxious for many years, it leaves scars.

I am not depressed anymore, but I have trouble to get really enthusiastic. The way I view the world a little grim and disenchanted. I have trouble finding people I really enjoy the company and when I do, I have to be careful not to become emotionally dependent. Sometimes I feel a little empty.

Also, having been lonely for so long, I tend to crave for company, sometimes even the company of people I don't really care about. I have life plans and all that, but when I compare myself to others, I can see that my way of thinking has clearly been distorted, because I am always looking for new people to meet, as if I were constantly scared to be alone again, as if the only thing that could make me feel good was interactions with other people.

I still have to find more in myself in order to be more independent.


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## TAruba (Dec 11, 2014)

Damn son! Congratulations. I just turned 29 and have told a similar story. Man, it amazes me how quickly our lives can turn around when everything clicks.


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## 546617 (Oct 8, 2014)

so just one random day your social anxiety dissapeard? That makes no sense.. Anxiety dont just dissapear like that. Are you sure you had SAD?


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## IlIlIlIrlpoloIlIlIlI (Feb 5, 2012)

What lead to your change, or do you know


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## Cassoulet94 (Apr 3, 2014)

KurdishFella said:


> so just one random day your social anxiety dissapeard? That makes no sense.. Anxiety dont just dissapear like that. Are you sure you had SAD?


If you read carefully you'll see there is a four years gap in the story. So no, it didn't disappear in one day. And certainly not by itself. What I did is just not included in the post, I wrote it mainly because I felt like I wanted to talk about how I feel now. About the scars social anxiety leave even when it's not there anymore. But of course I am not complaining, I am better now than I was before.


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## Cassoulet94 (Apr 3, 2014)

TAruba said:


> Damn son! Congratulations. I just turned 29 and have told a similar story. Man, it amazes me how quickly our lives can turn around when everything clicks.


Good for you man. But things don't "click" by themselves, as I am sure you know ! If you're better it's because you did the right things.


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## Cassoulet94 (Apr 3, 2014)

IlIlIlIrlpoloIlIlIlI said:


> What lead to your change, or do you know


I know that it is the most interesting element of the story for people here, and yet I omitted it.

The thing is that obviously, in four years, I did a lot of things and a lot of things happened to me, so it is really difficult for me to say to what extend these actions and events played a role. Plus, if I wanted to recall the evolution of my way of thinking, it would take pages an pages.

I will try to sum up very briefly what appears to me as the most relevant (I think I won't do it in one time, I ll write several posts):

- Here is a brief summary of my course of actions (it may appear excessively rational and organized, but only because I want it to be clear; in reality, it was not so well articulated and there was no clear chronological order).

1) getting as much knowledge as possible about social anxiety (books, websites, forum, etc...) , but also about psychology and even philosophy (great literature is useful) or sociology if you feel it relates to some extend to what you think is wrong about you. In order to do that you must also try as hard as you can to make some kind of diagnosis about yourself. "What is my problem ?" "How do I want to be?" "What behaviors prevent me to express myself ?". You must try to be as objective as you can, even if of course you won't reach perfect objectivity, far from it. It is very difficult to be objective about yourself. That's where psy can be useful; they can provide a different perspective. Diagnosis; that's for what they are the most useful. Passed that phase I was not too convinced, but maybe I didn't find the good ones.

2) Getting the picture: What you'll understand from the knowledge you get is the nature of social anxiety. It is nothing more than a a set of thought and behavior patterns that you have deeply integrated. Your thoughts shape your reality; each person has a different one, and your reality can make you feel that there are a lot of open doors or, on the contrary, a lot of closed doors. Obviously, If two persons have the same physical appearance, the same level of wealth, the same intelligence but one of them is very confident and the other one is has very little confidence, the difference in the way they see the world will make that one get a lot more things than the other.

From there, you know what you have to do: change your thought patterns. The good news is that it is possible. If there is one thing that I have learned, it is that the human mind is very flexible. Actually, changing your thought patterns is the goal of the CB therapy. I didn't manage to find a psy that was able to do it right for me, but maybe other will have more chance? I had to do it alone.
That being said, changing lifelong thought patterns is complicated and takes time. It usually does not come by itself. Of course everyone change with time, but usually, social anxiety is strongly rooted and some effort are needed to make it go away. So it is very important to understand from the start that the path to recovery is long and not linear; sometimes you feel you are on a treadmill and that you're going nowhere. It is important to hold strong.

3) Working on your thought patterns: next time, I have to go now and I also need some time to think about what I will say, but I hope it will help you.


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## quiet88 (Jan 14, 2016)

That sounds great. I agree you must have tried hard for such an outcome. It might be harder or easier for others, since SA is different for all. My SA came back worse after study abroad and graduation, so I hope it lasts for you! Thanks for sharing your experience! It's good to hear about people winning the fight


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## Cassoulet94 (Apr 3, 2014)

Note: I am not very happy with what will come but I post it anyway now that I wrote it. But it is just too complicated to make a summary, each time I write something, something pops up in my head and I realize that I missed important things. Actually this would require a book. So What follows is very incomplete and disorganized. 

3) Working on your thought patterns (this part may be very long; I don't pretend to have an exhaustive knowledge on the matter, I'll just share some thoughts )

It requires to mix purely psychological work and some exposure. Recovery is a process: you change your thoughts, that will change your the way you behave in social interactions. But exposure is also important because by getting used to some social situations, you ll enable your thought patterns to change by themselves. Experience is key because a truth is nothing but an abstraction if you don't feel it is the truth, if you don't experience its content. A new thought must be integrated trough exposure. It's a cycle: Thoughts change your behavior, experience can change your thoughts. The more you progress, the more you are able to are able to see how wrong some of your old thoughts were. It will have a progressive impact on your behaviors and reflexes. Progress tend to be slower at early stages. 

A social anxious must get rid of the thoughts that are problematic, that's to say that are too irrational (it's impossible to know what is a perfectly rational thought, but social anxious have an obvious distortion in their way of thinking; they have a set of false beliefs and perceptions). The first step is to spot them.

a) analyzing your behaviors and the thoughts that lie behind:

No need to find try to find them all, it's ok to just have a few to start, or even to take them one by one. Such thoughts can be hard to spot, because you can be largely unaware of them; they can be so deeply integrated that you don't have the time to notice them, you just see the conditioned behaviors they provoked; these are like reflexes. You have to find the thought behind the behavior. 

There are thousand of examples, I'll give two, so maybe these one may not work for you, but you get the idea a) you recognize someone in the street and in just one second you have already decided to change your path so she/he does not see you; or b) you are in a group conversation and you don't say a word. c) you just walk in the street and you pass in front of the terrace of a bar with people sitting; suddenly, you feel uncomfortable, awkward and even think to divert your path. Why one would act in that way/feel that way ?

First, let's state the obvious:

a) it is classic avoidance, even if you don't dislike the person, you'll just be anxious at the perspective of a social interaction, so in less than a second, you'll have a flight response. 

b) you fear being in the spotlight and want at all cost to avoid being the center of attention, so you say nothing. 

c) you become self conscious because you feel that people are watching. 

But why ? What are the beliefs/thoughts behind ? It can be a lot of things depending of the person, here are some random classic explanations applying to b) and c) :

b) you don't want to talk because you're scared that you'll say something dumb/uninteresting/out of place. You fear that there will be a silence after you talk because no one relates. Or you just feel that people will notice that you are anxious. So the core beliefs could be: I am too different/too stupid/too boring/ to shy to have a conversation, so it's better if I stay quiet. People are seen as judgmental and hostile.

c) you feel that people are paying a lot of attention to you and that they will judge you, probably in a negative way. Maybe they make fun of you. You hear a laugh. Maybe someone is laughing at you. The core beliefs: 1) people are paying a lot of attention to you 2) people judge you, even complete strangers, and often do so in a negative way (once again -> people tend to be hostile and judgmental).

So it's obvious, when you are social anxious, you tend to:
A) have very little self confidence
B) see people as excessively hostile and judgmental

But of course, A and B are not single thoughts, these are core beliefs that shape your way of thinking. You must move step by step to destroy them. Taking more simple and concrete thoughts and trying to change them.

Now, before i talk more about replacing your thoughts, I must clarify something: I don't imply that there is an objective and rational way of thinking, of seeing the world, people, social interactions, etc... So there is no perfect thoughts to replace the one that are problematic; it is a very personal process; the goal is to think calmly and to find thoughts that you think: 
1) are reasonable and seem accurate to you; if you chose thoughts that does not resonate with you at all, it will not work well, because your mind will tell you "that's a lie".
2) will help you to behave more like you want to.

From now I will use the first person because I feel that it is a little pretentious to do otherwise, as if it were a proven method that can work with everybody.

So what new thoughts did I find for myself ? I'll keep on later because I'm tired.


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## Jimma (Feb 15, 2016)

Really intresting reading and it gave me alot of motivation and understanding, thank you.


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## LimePenguin (Aug 3, 2011)

KurdishFella said:


> so just one random day your social anxiety dissapeard? That makes no sense.. Anxiety dont just dissapear like that. Are you sure you had SAD?


I don't think it's the day that your SA disappears, it's the day that you wake up and decide "I don't want to live like this anymore".

From there SA gradually disappears from different obstacles big or small that are overcome over many years. In the OP's case, that was 4 years.

Say, OP (Cassoulet94), what was the epoch from when you started your recovery? Was it your 18th birthday? Congrats btw, I feel you may have achieved more in 4 years than I have in 11 years.


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## 546617 (Oct 8, 2014)

LimePenguin said:


> I don't think it's the day that your SA disappears, it's the day that you wake up and decide "I don't want to live like this anymore".
> 
> From there SA gradually disappears from different obstacles big or small that are overcome over many years. In the OP's case, that was 4 years.
> 
> Say, OP (Cassoulet94), what was the epoch from when you started your recovery? Was it your 18th birthday? Congrats btw, I feel you may have achieved more in 4 years than I have in 11 years.


Sa is genetics idc what u say its not learned, most here dont have sa. Dont reply back i will just ignore it


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## Cassoulet94 (Apr 3, 2014)

KurdishFella said:


> Sa is genetics idc what u say its not learned, most here dont have sa. Dont reply back i will just ignore it


it's just what you believe but you don't have any evidence. There is no scientifical studies to support that statement. Actually, the consensus is that it is probably a mix between learned behaviors and genetic. You may have severe SA. But by saying that it is just genetic, you're allowing yourself not to do anything. You do what you want but that's not how you'll get better.

No need to answer.
_Posted via Mobile Device_


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## Ophc39i (Oct 19, 2015)

Hey congratulations, this is so inspiring. And I also feel like you have achieved more in 4 years than me in 11 years. I think that you're very intelligent and insightful and strong willed. Keep up being great like this!


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## meepie (Jun 20, 2010)

Good


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## Cassoulet94 (Apr 3, 2014)

Ophc39i said:


> Hey congratulations, this is so inspiring. And I also feel like you have achieved more in 4 years than me in 11 years. I think that you're very intelligent and insightful and strong willed. Keep up being great like this!


Thank you, that's nice to read  Hope you're also doing well !


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