Hi Sophia

I really feel like I know your situation. I’m also 25 and also use to have really bad social anxiety. But I have had a lot of help to deal with it for the last two years and have been seeing a therapist and going to group meetings. I’m so sorry that you havent been able to get any treatment, but actually what helped me the most was things I read myself, but since i’m from norway most of it is norwegian psychology books/articles, but I will try to explain it to you as good as I can, because i think i found a few things that really helped me a lot. I think the therapists I have had focused a lot on low self-esteem and although I think this is also the main problem.. for me at least, what has helped me the most was the advise that i needed to stop to try and fix my myself and focus is to focus more on empathy for other people instead

Of cause I can’t say if you feel the same way, but for me, I always imagine and analyze what is going on in other peoples heads and reacting and judging this according to my own bad self-esteem. Because I usually think really badly about myself, this is naturally what I imagine other people think too. When I’m focusing on how I appear and at the same time trying to remember what my therapists told me about deep breathing and self-worth I can’t even have a normal conversation. I’m trying so hard to control the situation and trying so hard to relax at the same time that the situation just becomes more tense. It’s so paralyzing and painful

But at the same time I don’t feel like this around some few close friends, because they know me so well and they’ve already seen me in all kinds every mood and situation. I feel safe and I don’t overanalyse because i don’t focus on my self-image. This shows that I’m able to forget my anxiety and at the same time it also makes me feel like social anxiety isn’t really a part of my personality, but more like an phobia that isn’t there all the time

My anxiety really started going away in other situations too after i realized this and when I became genuinely more interested in people around me. New people don’t know you or your worth from the beginning like your close friends or family do, but instead of being afraid that they wouldn’t recognize my worth, I tried to focus on them. You can’t just stop negative thoughts from coming up, but you can shift your attention back to the other person. The more I focus on feeling compassion or empathy for the person I’m talking too, the less I think about how they perceive me. I still care about it, but it becomes much less important. When I started doing this people really reacted to me differently and I found out that a lot of people around me was just as insecure as I was, just in very different ways

I write all this because i really hope it can help you too! I think I know how you feel and sometimes I’m still afraid that I will end up completely alone.

But I try to remember that the negative reactions I think I see in people is more a projection of how I feel about yourself, more than its reality. I can’t control how they feel and there will always be someone who doesn’t like me, but I know that it is not important to me. I try to always see it as if I’m choosing empathy over the risk of being embarrassed

I think maybe I read this in a Mark Epstein book, but he says that it’s impossible to control what other people think and really hard even to control your own thoughts, but you can always choose how to react to it. You can just begin to notice which of your thoughts comes from out of fear, and then without judging them, choose not to react to them

I’m not saying that you’re not already really empathetic or able to feel love towards other people because you have social anxiety. If you’re like me, maybe anxiety is just stopping you from expressing it. I used to hate myself for having anxiety because i thought i was self-centered and weak, but its really not self-centrered to want to connect with other people and its really not weak to face anxiety every day

I really hope this can help you a little!

Hi! I had to answer thi because I torture myself about social interaction sometimes. Just realize that most people are caught up in thier own world. Normal healthy people are not judging you anymore than you are judging them. If you do encounter super judgmental people, save yourself the stress and disengage:)

Dear Sophia:

They did not invite you to a meet up after you reached out to all of them individually, telling them that you were distant at uni because of depression and anxiety, expressing therefore your desire to re-connect with them, and not only re-connect but connect on a closer level, correct?

If so, prior to the meet up to which you were not invited, did you contact every individual in that group? How many individuals are in the group and did you contact each? Did each one not respond?

anita

Hi Sophia,

I just read your thread now, because the title drew me a lot, very recognisable, I am 34 and having the same problem. After becoming aware of some unhealthy patterns inside of myself, I feel that now it is time to start doing efforts to reconnect with other people, so I will follow the thread, I already read some useful advice here 🙂

I don’t know if I have much to say, but I wanted to reply because it is so recognisable.

First of all, sorry to hear about that hurtful experience. I can imagine how that hurts, and how many questions it is probably raising for you.
I don’t know what you should do regarding those friends. Saying something might mean that you take yourself seriously enough to express your feelings about what happened. If you find that important enough. On the other hand, if you really feel that this shows that they don’t accept you or understand you, after you did the effort to contact them, that sounds very understandable. Haha sorry, i want to say something but i don’t know what 🙂

My biggest fear is that my problems will cause me to go through life completely alone…s x

I know that feeling. But fear is a bad adviser. I’m not sure how to say this, if we keep being afraid that we will end up alone, it might be more likely to be that way, because we are already framing it like that. Maybe, if we learn to see this as a challenge, as a learning experience, where we will keep evolving from, then we are much more likely to make progress and to change something. I hope you get what i mean. The way we define ourselves and our situation has a huge influence on what we do and what kind of experiences we allow to happen or make happen. Please ask if you don’t understand me, and I will try to clarify more.

I also wonder, about how much do you accept yourself the way you are? So I understand, that the way you look, has a big influence on your self-image and your anxiety problems? And in your teens your peers were not nice to you (did they make fun of you, ignore you/exclude you, bully you…?). Sadly enough, these experience in that time of our life, has a huge influence on us, that we can carry with us. Teenagers are usually very insecure and often work it out on others. How sad and unfair it is.
That doesn’t mean anything about you, that is the way that your peers dealt with their own growing up and their own fears about themselves, probably. But unfortunetaly, it left you with a lot of damage to your self-esteem.
I know it is easier said than done, to accept yourself the way you are and the way you look. But I wonder, if here can be a big part to help you to regain self-confidence. I found the advice of avam very helpful and will reflect on it more, I think I can use that advice as well.
But I also wonder, in the same time, wouldn’t it also help, that you start to believe again, that you have some valuable things to offer, and that that has nothing to do with some scars on your body? Could it help you to focus on your good qualities, whatever they are, to help you to see your worth, and maybe slowly learn to feel more confident about yourself? Maybe you could try to write them here, if you like.
Because I think, if you accept yourself, you might be less dependent on the acceptance of others, on how they view you..

Me too, I have always been a very quiet person. Because of being shy and anxious, maybe also just because I don’t like to be in the spotlights, and I don’t know how to do that kind of talking. I used to spend time in different groups, because I would travel abroad to do voluntary work in groups for a few weeks. That was usually terrible. My therapist spent so much time trying to convince me, that quiet people also contribute in a group, and that i needed to be myself, not trying to adapt myself to how the others in the group were. I could’t believe that and I kept saying that I would be ok if I talked more. But now, I started to wonder, if I am in a class or a workplace, which people do I feel more attracted to, which people do I like? And almost always, they are the more quiet people. Because i feel more similar to them, because they feel more human, not just about making all small talk that doesn’t interest me, or because they help to make me feel more relaxed. I would always have problems to approach them, but becoming aware of that, is helping me to accept slowly, that I am ok to be quiet, and that that also has a value.

Hmm… sorry.. I am writing too much again and maybe a lot of stuff that doesn’t really help. I started to write some thoughts that came up, I need to learn to skill of synopsis perhaps. I should stop writing now and go to bed. But I’ll post it anyway, you never know if it of any use to you, or if it brings up any ideas for you.

Hang in there. You are not alone, and we need to keep believing that these things can be changed.