# Tell me your success stories



## Kaliber (Jan 1, 2016)

Hello SAS community, my first day here,

Of course it is important to sympathise with others here and hear people out when they're having a hard time with SA. What I am interested is in hearing your stories about overcoming SA and the methods used for doing so. I'm not looking for "I did this and now it's gone 100%". Just some advice in dealing with high anxiety situations, some techniques perhaps.

I want it to be positive :smile2:


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## Bogus (Jun 28, 2010)

Hi there,

and welcome. im fairly new here too, and im still working on it. so no advice from someone who has overcome it. however, i can share with you some techniques and ressources that i have found to be useful, and that others have used to overcome it.

note that all of the techniques require practice and likely they will not work every time, especially in highly anxious situations. the way it works is that you practice these things when youre not feeling much anxiety, and then gradually move into sligthly more anxious situations, all the while practicing your techniques.

i remind you that repetition is important with almost all of the techniques. some may not work at all at first, but eventually will. some will become automatic when you have practiced them enough, and that is where you want to go.

*mindfulness:*

mindfulness is about being in the present moment and out of your head, as well as not fighting negative thoughts and feelings, but acknowledging them and letting them pass.

there is a whole bunch of material on mindfulness out there and many people have found the concept and practice very helpful. 
you might want to just google "mindfulness" or "mindfulness meditation" / watch some videos on youtube.

the mindful approach to anxiety feelings it is to just accept their presence, as uncomfortable as they may be. you dont want to focus on them, just acknowledge the fact that theyre there when theyre there, and keep/shift your focus externally and what youre doing or on what youre seeing. the more you are able to accept and do your thing anyway, the less these feelings will be able to bother you.

there are various excercises that you can do to help you learning to do this (shifting your focus away from negative thoughts, feelings onto something else). for example, if youre in a relativly quiet place where you have only a little anxiety, focus your attention on the sounds that you hear. try to keep your focus on individual sounds, shift your focus to other sounds from time to time, then hear them all at once, and so on. you do this to learn how to focus on the one thing and the one thing only that you want to focus on, and to be in the present with whats going on around you.

when youre walking somewhere, look around. look at trees, architecture, whatever. notice all the details, absorb, feel the thing youre looking at.

let thoughts and feelings come and go while you do this, dont judge, if you think about what youre doing then dont think about that youre thinking about it. if you focus moves away from the thing youre focusing on, gently move it back.

be aware that you are not your thoughts, nor are you your feelings. just because you have a thought doesnt mean its true. mindfulnes helps you to distance yourself from your thoughts, this is especially helpful if you feel "locked". see "thought diffusion"

*relaxation:*

learn relaxation techniques and apply them in the same manner. practice them when youre feeling ok/not very anxious, and then move them out into a bit more anxiety causing situations. you can make a keyword that you think of when being relaxed during the excercise and then say it in your head when youre feeling anxious, or you can try to just recall that relaxtion feeling in such a situation.

loosening up your muscles in anxious situations can also be very helpful, if you are able to do so. saers often tense up a lot without even noticing, loosening your muscles helps to communicate it to your brain that youre not actually in danger. again this will likely only work in somewhat but not all that scary situations at first.

*physical excercise:*

helps to get off excess energy that is otherwise spent on rumination. also tends to get you in a more relaxed mood and helps with depression. even jumping around in your room for a bit can help a lot when youre down.

*affirmations/self talk:*

sa people tend to have very negative self talk (often in our head and we dont even notice it). you want to consciously talk to yourself in a more helpful way. you generally want to keep your self talk slightly optimistic, focused on the positive aspects and the options you have, while being rational. that means, say things that are true.

if you say to yourself for example "i like/love to be confident / calm / relaxed / whatever", this is always true. everybody likes this whether they feel like that at the present moment or not. for me, this almost always brings up the feeling that im talking about, and reminds myself that i do in fact enjoy feeling that way.

another, different one could be: "even though i have this social anxiety, i accept myself completely and know that i can overcome, because if others have overcome it, so can i."

these are just an examples, there are many, many ways to do affirmations some of which may work better than others. google it.

these work best if you say these to yourself out loud, every day, several times if you can. repeat them if you dont feel it at first.

*slow talk:*

practice to talk just a little bit slower than usual. this tends to have a calming effect and gives you a feeling of control. practice this at home first and when youre feeling comfy with it(that is, it no longer feels too weird, forced) try this in easy situations. unless youre talking really really slow, people wont consciously notice what youre doing, but they may respond more positivly to you. this technique seems to have done a lot for some people, especially for those on the really fast talking side.

needs a lot of practice tho, and you need to keep reminding yourself to use it when in social situations. dont try to this in very anxious situations (until your are really comfy with it).

*do stuff:*

this is really the most important "technique". spend as little time on thinking as you can (unless youre thinking about really nice things) and do stuff instead. focus on what youre doing, always. avoid doing many things at the same time (this goes into the mindful area, you basically want to train your brain to not be distracted by random, possibly scary stuff that pops into your mind).

this is also very important when youre depressed. do stuff, even ltttle stuff. even carrying one piece of paper to the trash can can give you a boost of energy, if you are really, really down. ive been there. when you did one thing, do another.

*thought stoppage + distraction:*

this goes along with the above. when you have a negative thought spiral, say to yourself "stop" or "wait a minute" or whatever. you can add a rational statement such as "im having these thoughts again that are not helpful at all. im not going down that road, so im gonna move on to something else now". and then do something. dont fight the thought or try to make them go away, just do something else. pretty much everything goes, as long as its sufficiently enganging. bonus points for constructive, positive things. excercise is good here too, and singing/humming/mindfully listening to music. when youre singing your brain will be very busy and it will no longer spend as much energy on destructive thoughts.

*look around:*

when youre feeling very self conscious while being outside, and feel like everybody is watching you, stop and look around. notice how usualy nobody really cares or even notices you, as they are all going about their own buisness. 
this doesnt really require practice and may be useful in some highly anxious sitations.


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## Bogus (Jun 28, 2010)

some ressources:

https://socialanxietyinstitute.org/

this is dr.richards "overcoming social anxiety step by step" program. it is basically an audio tape series and a booklet, it has been helpful to me and many others. you can buy the program on the site and they have a forum dedicated to it, but there are also less than legal ways to obtain the old programme (they made a new one, seems to be about the same as the old tho).

you find a whole thread full of people praising this programme on the sad forum btw, this thing is the ****.

http://anxietynetwork.com/

an affiliate of the above, dedicated to various anxiety disorders including sa. has some useful articles and if you feel like you might be having a secondary disorder such as GAD, this might be a good place to go.

https://www.youtube.com/user/everybodyhasabrain

this guy talks a lot about the whole mindfulness thing, this might a good place to start if youre interested in the topic. its more focused on OCD tho but touches the subject of sad in various places.






a guided mindfulness meditation audio that i found to be helpful. there are many more videos of that type that touch various topics.

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCWwtT8oT98K5sOUkVPFRsRQ

this guy is a former sad sufferer and is now a personal coach on the subject. he used the dr.richards programme and speaks very highly of it. overall somewhat useful, tho a bit more focused on the confidence building, dating, .. kind of thing.

http://www.moodjuice.scot.nhs.uk/

a lot of simple techniques for various mental health problems, including but not limited to anxiety disorders. explains some of the above techniques in more detail, and more.


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## Kaliber (Jan 1, 2016)

Thank you for your reply. It was exactly what I was hoping for; practical and straight forward advice. 

I am already looking into mindfulness but I can definitely expand the variation of the resources I use to look into it.


Good luck with your progress!


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