# Social anxiety should not limit your life



## rurichek (Jan 23, 2015)

I refuse to recognize social anxiety as a disorder. I think it is normal to experience fear in public places - everyone feels fear. I agree that there are people who experience more fear then others, but it is not caused by a mental disorder that needs to be treated with drugs. It is caused by circumstances such as being poor, lacking social skills, and lacking confidence. Because of this we feel inferior to others. We carry a false self image of our selves that prevents us from developing our potential. Everyone of us, no matter how miserable and worthless we might feel, are not different from the people who look confident and have friends. Our thinking makes us feel the way we do. My solution for us is to realize that everyone of us has a talent to become a greater person then we are. Stop allowing your thoughts to control your life. My thoughts always tell me that I am worthless, but I have to realize that these thoughts do not have to become my reality. These thoughts are a voice of a critic, another person that lives inside of me, they are not me. Start listening or reading something positive. I like to listen to Les Brown on YouTube. This way you will reprogram your mind for success. Lastly, I don't know about you guys, but I will not allow this fear to imprison my life anymore. I will go out, I will make mistakes, I will face rejections, I will fail at times, but I will learn from these mistakes and eventually get where I want.


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## meandernorth (Nov 12, 2014)

rurichek said:


> I refuse to recognize social anxiety as a disorder.


While I think the overall intent of your post is sincere, some may disagree with your opening sentence. For example:

"A psychopathological (chronic and disabling) form of social anxiety is called social anxiety disorder, and is a chronic problem that can result in a reduced quality of life as it interferes with the affected person's daily activities and socialization. Roughly 40 million American adults ages 18 and older (18.1%) have an anxiety disorder. The difference between social anxiety and normal apprehension of social situations is that social anxiety involves an intense feeling of fear in social situations and especially situations that are unfamiliar or in which one will be watched or evaluated by others. The feeling of fear is extremely intense in these types of situations, occasionally causing a person to become so worried that he or she feels anxious just thinking about them and will go to great lengths to avoid them."

- Wikipedia
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_anxiety


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## forgetmylife (Oct 1, 2011)

I know it should not limit my life, but it does...

Even when I force myself into public, I can rarely even enjoy myself or not feel my stomach turning for no logical reason.

Performance anxiety is one thing, as is going on a first date, meeting a stranger, etc. but I don't think the average person experiences anxiety just for being outside or in public. It is not normal nor healthy to feel this way.

As we see here time and time again, social anxiety is not necessarily correlated with physical appearance or social/economic status. Plenty of people with good looks have it as do some celebrities.

I've been told that I have excellent social skills, but that has no impact whatsoever on my social anxiety. And having chronic low self-esteem may be a symptom of clinical depression, and that is gonna take more than just telling yourself to be more confident to treat, hence we have medication...


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## rurichek (Jan 23, 2015)

Okay. I apologize for the lack of understanding of social anxiety on my part. But I still believe that you shouldn't let it limit your life. Keep trying, keep learning. I have bad social skills, especially speaking. I think if I had a louder voice I would feel less anxious in public places. I have a lot of other complexes in addition to my voice. But every person is different. 

I am from another country, I only developed social anxiety when I moved to the United States. Living without social anxiety for 12 years in the Ukraine before coming to the US is a reason why I refuse to think of it as a disorder. I think if I learned how to interact with American people as I knew how to interact with the Ukrainian people would reduce my anxiety. 

However, I understand that all people are different. Whereas my social anxiety is due to lack of social skills when I moved here, the social anxiety of other people can be caused by other factors. We just have to study ourselves and keep trying to face our fears.


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## Rom (Mar 25, 2015)

Preach it bro, im not letting mine control my life anymore, I've missed 4 years of my teen lifes because of this but i will enjoy my early 20s.

Though ill fail at times, and feel down i wont let it bring me down all day because SA is part of my life but it will not control me or hold me down. One day at a time buddy.


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## Quirky (Jul 27, 2014)

I'm trying not to let social anxiety bother my life as well, though it is difficult without a whole lot of experience making friends throughout one's lifetime. It's definitely not a simple feat to cure SA, but there have been cases that it is solvable based on some other posts I've read here recently. At least these days I've been going out and taking better care of myself.


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## visualkeirockstar (Aug 5, 2012)

Well I didn't ask to be born with social anxiety.


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## Mystic Force (Jun 26, 2013)

For me social anxiety does not prevent me from doing things, it just makes them harder, I am to actively think to do things that others do naturally. Because of the extra effort and feelings i have to deal with i have to evaluate how much I want to do something to pay this price. If you are having to think about making eye contact for example that leaves you less mental capacity for thinking about what the other person is saying or your response.


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## chael5 (Apr 21, 2015)

I like the positive of this don't let sa stop us from doing things in life just may be a little harder


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## twitchy666 (Apr 21, 2013)

*People who abused you*

~ loss of career ~

label / categorise you as someone who is not like themselves

no specialised psychologist Dr
can map you to their standard template provided by some bumbling professor

I never had any SA; I was fine and normal
until fools decided to fire me from offices. That was my life hourglass inverted haywire, slingshotted around Mars

I really love animals - my local cats who follow me, and new ones who turn up. Each one get scared if I play my games like dropping something on the floor, or
standard lifting the cat to show them something new - down from a shelf they were scared how the climb down or onto the trunk of a tree they now love to cling onto, scratch & climb. Onto cars with rubber aerials they love rubbing their face on, as they do with the palm on my hand. I nurture confidence from them.


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## xDan (Apr 8, 2015)

People with Social Anxiety dont have much self-control. Their fear takes over triggering all sorts of symptoms. Regaining control is part of getting rid of SA and reducing self focusing, because instead of thinking outside yourself, they only evaluate their every move. Suspecting negative opinions are another cause of SA, they probably assume everyone is laughing and because they become so self conscious, they blush, shake etc. People are more likely to laugh at this point, but before the symptoms were obvious, they probably didn't. How does someone laughing affect you though? Its simply a laugh, its not exactly going to kill you, and what do you think they were laughing at? If it was your 'weird' hand movements you were probably being too self concious about that. If you feel you moved your hand in a 'weird' position, they would probably evaluate everyone who they suspected saw that movement - checking if they were laughing etc.

Key to getting rid of SA is stop self focusing, stop negative thinking, understand that you are not unique in any way and practice talking to others more so that it simply becomes a habit. Imagine instead of having Social Anxiety, you had anxiety of not talking to people and you become too sociable.


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