Mr.SomeoneElse
Don Juan
I just want to talk about Social Anxiety and even Social Anxiety Disorder and the good and bad ways of dealing with it from my experience. I see a lot of posts on the forum about this, but not really any solutions to dealing with it.
This is going to be a long post, I just want to cover everything that i've learnt on the topic and hopefully it will help some of you.
I have a friend who is diagnosed with Social Anxiety Disorder and has gone through a lot of methods to try and deal with it from seeing various counsellors, drinking excessively and even taking SSRIs, Beta-Blockers and Street drugs like MDMA and Ecstasy.
This guy dropped out of his first semester of college when group projects were put in place, THATS how bad he was.
So all of you sobs out there thinking that there is something wrong with you and you just CANT talk to a stranger, just know that there are people with way worse cases.
So Alcohol as we all know, is pretty much liquid courage.
I don't object to drinking at all, or going out, but when you do it because you believe a healthy social lifestyle is located at the bottom of your pint then you're doing it all wrong.
Yes, when you drink you'll be more outgoing and have less inhibitions, but you have to realize you will build up a tolerance to it, not just to alcohol but how you behave when you're drunk, the more often you drink, in my experience the more used you get to the feeling - the less effect it has as far as making you the person you want to be so bad.
Alcohol stacks when you drink and that level of perfect sobriety is specifically hard to hit and maintain. No one likes the super-drunk guys at parties, it's definitely not going to help you pick-up chicks or be a solution to your anxiety because
1. its a temporary fix
2. its a temporary fix
If you want to be able to be a fearless person and actually commit a change to your social life, your social status and who you are, you cant look for fast and easy solutions like this, its all about your mental outlook.
My friend would NEED to get drunk at parties and social gatherings, like chug a full mickey type drunk and it's ridiculous ( once he threw up on a $10,000 rug at this rich girls house party )
He then started going to doctors and got prescriptions for various SSRIs which basically **** with your serotonin levels and a whole bunch of chemicals in your brain.
They are used not just for social anxiety disorder but a lot of them are used for anti-depressants as well.
He would take these things and yeah, it would make him able to talk to strangers and not be afraid to go to work or be in social situations but it made him completely numb.
He had nearly no sex-drive at all, no enthusiasm, no drive to do anything.
he had a bleak outlook on everything and he just described them as making him feel numb. Not sad, Not happy, just numb.
Worst of all, when you get a prescription for this type of medicine you have to take it for nearly 2 weeks straight for it to finally show an effect and the longer you have been taking the drug the more severe the withdrawals and they suck to go through apparently.
Bottom line, if you want to change your social life.
You will need to change your outlook on life.
You can't rely on drugs or tools to be the person you want to be, i'm not saying don't be wild and do drugs or get super drunk sometimes, i'm just saying as far as social anxiety goes, or self-improvement its not the answer.
I'm telling you if you put in the effort to break down your walls, get out of your comfort zone, the reward is going to last a lifetime, it's going to stay with you all night and all day long and it will spread into every aspect of your life.
Advice to getting past your anxiety.
My favourite piece of advice is from my Father strangely.
My dad never gave me any advice except for this when talking to girls and about approaching them.
He told me that girls are 60% made up of water.
Just keep that in mind, when you go up and talk to girls, more than half of what you're talking to, is water.
Just water.
You swim in that **** naked, so why do you care what water thinks of you? You drink water.
It puts things into perspective, how stupid it is to be worried about the consequences of your actions and how high of a pedestal we put other peoples perceptions of us.
And as far as dealing with Social Anxiety as a whole.
I read this online and thought it was probably the most powerful piece of advice and I think it should help some of you out.
Hey dude, I used to be really bad with social anxiety. Like run when someone knocks on the door, can't even order pizza, avoiding eye contact at all cost kind of social anxiety.
Now i'm a two star Thespian (honor society for drama club).
Here's what you do.
Go look at your ****ing mirror. Don't bull**** it, do it. Now talk to yourself. Tell yourself about your day. You look pretty damn stupid, don't you? Keep doing it. Spend at least 5 minutes doing it. Talk about your day. Your cat. Megan Fox. Whatever. Now walk away. Go to sleep.
Wake the **** up dude, you over slept. Alright, go brush your teeth. Stare at yourself. Don't even blink the whole time you're brushing your teeth. Kinda weird isn't it? Rinse that **** out and Listerine up in that *****. Go through your day.
Come home. Go to that mirror. Get a post it note and write one thing that made you happy. Don't get all fancy and ****, I just said one thing. Now talk to yourself. Why did that make you happy? What's up? How was your day? Do it for 10 minutes.
Wake up. I want you to look at yourself more while your getting prepared for the day. Or if you're not getting out that day, put a mirror beside your computer.
Don't you get it, dude? You're not afraid of other people. You're afraid of yourself, and you're missing out 'cause you're ****ing awesome. You'll learn that. You owe it to yourself to learn that.
Take care dude. Let me know if you've got any questions. Trust me, being on stage in a tutu clucking like a chicken in front of 200 people wasn't exactly the easiest thing I accomplished in my life.
But damn am I proud.
You will be too.
Make one more post it note. Write: I want to be proud.
I will be proud.
Get out there, man.
My tools to dealing with Anxiety now.
These are the only two things I do for myself that have made a drastic change in the way I carry myself.
I went from being extremely introvert to extrovert just by these two things.
1. I talk to myself in the mirror, I get used to the sound of my own voice and facial expressions. When I used to be shy, I would always be super conscious of the facial expressions I was making. The more I talk to myself in the mirror, make funny faces, whatever, the more comfortable I am socializing in public. I know what my muscles are used in my smile, smirks, laughs etc.. so when im in public i'm comfortable because I'm comfortable with myself.
2. I always find ways to improve myself.
Financially, mentally and physically.
When you are putting in effort to be a better person, in my mind you are already a better person, better than the 90% out there that surf their couches and don't have any ideas of grandeur in their future.
It's amazing how many people just stop trying at anything. Whether there in there 20's or 50's in long marriages or relationships they've somehow just given up and gotten so stuck to a routine that they stopped caring about what could be.
Anyways, start working out, reading, setting goals, just knowing that you have put this stuff into motion helps heaps. It reverses your idea when you go out in public, instead of worrying about if you qualify for the gorgeous girl in your supermarket you start wondering if she qualifies for you. You're the one who has a thriving career, who has strong mental game, who's working on his physique, who's healthy. Be a pillar for society.
If any of you have any tools you use to confronting Anxiety, frames of mind that you get yourself in, or even stuff you'd like to share that you've read on it that puts it into perspective for you, i'd love to hear it.
Life begins at the end of your comfort zone. - Neale Donald Walsch
-Mr.SomeoneElse
This is going to be a long post, I just want to cover everything that i've learnt on the topic and hopefully it will help some of you.
I have a friend who is diagnosed with Social Anxiety Disorder and has gone through a lot of methods to try and deal with it from seeing various counsellors, drinking excessively and even taking SSRIs, Beta-Blockers and Street drugs like MDMA and Ecstasy.
This guy dropped out of his first semester of college when group projects were put in place, THATS how bad he was.
So all of you sobs out there thinking that there is something wrong with you and you just CANT talk to a stranger, just know that there are people with way worse cases.
So Alcohol as we all know, is pretty much liquid courage.
I don't object to drinking at all, or going out, but when you do it because you believe a healthy social lifestyle is located at the bottom of your pint then you're doing it all wrong.
Yes, when you drink you'll be more outgoing and have less inhibitions, but you have to realize you will build up a tolerance to it, not just to alcohol but how you behave when you're drunk, the more often you drink, in my experience the more used you get to the feeling - the less effect it has as far as making you the person you want to be so bad.
Alcohol stacks when you drink and that level of perfect sobriety is specifically hard to hit and maintain. No one likes the super-drunk guys at parties, it's definitely not going to help you pick-up chicks or be a solution to your anxiety because
1. its a temporary fix
2. its a temporary fix
If you want to be able to be a fearless person and actually commit a change to your social life, your social status and who you are, you cant look for fast and easy solutions like this, its all about your mental outlook.
My friend would NEED to get drunk at parties and social gatherings, like chug a full mickey type drunk and it's ridiculous ( once he threw up on a $10,000 rug at this rich girls house party )
He then started going to doctors and got prescriptions for various SSRIs which basically **** with your serotonin levels and a whole bunch of chemicals in your brain.
They are used not just for social anxiety disorder but a lot of them are used for anti-depressants as well.
He would take these things and yeah, it would make him able to talk to strangers and not be afraid to go to work or be in social situations but it made him completely numb.
He had nearly no sex-drive at all, no enthusiasm, no drive to do anything.
he had a bleak outlook on everything and he just described them as making him feel numb. Not sad, Not happy, just numb.
Worst of all, when you get a prescription for this type of medicine you have to take it for nearly 2 weeks straight for it to finally show an effect and the longer you have been taking the drug the more severe the withdrawals and they suck to go through apparently.
Bottom line, if you want to change your social life.
You will need to change your outlook on life.
You can't rely on drugs or tools to be the person you want to be, i'm not saying don't be wild and do drugs or get super drunk sometimes, i'm just saying as far as social anxiety goes, or self-improvement its not the answer.
I'm telling you if you put in the effort to break down your walls, get out of your comfort zone, the reward is going to last a lifetime, it's going to stay with you all night and all day long and it will spread into every aspect of your life.
Advice to getting past your anxiety.
My favourite piece of advice is from my Father strangely.
My dad never gave me any advice except for this when talking to girls and about approaching them.
He told me that girls are 60% made up of water.
Just keep that in mind, when you go up and talk to girls, more than half of what you're talking to, is water.
Just water.
You swim in that **** naked, so why do you care what water thinks of you? You drink water.
It puts things into perspective, how stupid it is to be worried about the consequences of your actions and how high of a pedestal we put other peoples perceptions of us.
And as far as dealing with Social Anxiety as a whole.
I read this online and thought it was probably the most powerful piece of advice and I think it should help some of you out.
Hey dude, I used to be really bad with social anxiety. Like run when someone knocks on the door, can't even order pizza, avoiding eye contact at all cost kind of social anxiety.
Now i'm a two star Thespian (honor society for drama club).
Here's what you do.
Go look at your ****ing mirror. Don't bull**** it, do it. Now talk to yourself. Tell yourself about your day. You look pretty damn stupid, don't you? Keep doing it. Spend at least 5 minutes doing it. Talk about your day. Your cat. Megan Fox. Whatever. Now walk away. Go to sleep.
Wake the **** up dude, you over slept. Alright, go brush your teeth. Stare at yourself. Don't even blink the whole time you're brushing your teeth. Kinda weird isn't it? Rinse that **** out and Listerine up in that *****. Go through your day.
Come home. Go to that mirror. Get a post it note and write one thing that made you happy. Don't get all fancy and ****, I just said one thing. Now talk to yourself. Why did that make you happy? What's up? How was your day? Do it for 10 minutes.
Wake up. I want you to look at yourself more while your getting prepared for the day. Or if you're not getting out that day, put a mirror beside your computer.
Don't you get it, dude? You're not afraid of other people. You're afraid of yourself, and you're missing out 'cause you're ****ing awesome. You'll learn that. You owe it to yourself to learn that.
Take care dude. Let me know if you've got any questions. Trust me, being on stage in a tutu clucking like a chicken in front of 200 people wasn't exactly the easiest thing I accomplished in my life.
But damn am I proud.
You will be too.
Make one more post it note. Write: I want to be proud.
I will be proud.
Get out there, man.
My tools to dealing with Anxiety now.
These are the only two things I do for myself that have made a drastic change in the way I carry myself.
I went from being extremely introvert to extrovert just by these two things.
1. I talk to myself in the mirror, I get used to the sound of my own voice and facial expressions. When I used to be shy, I would always be super conscious of the facial expressions I was making. The more I talk to myself in the mirror, make funny faces, whatever, the more comfortable I am socializing in public. I know what my muscles are used in my smile, smirks, laughs etc.. so when im in public i'm comfortable because I'm comfortable with myself.
2. I always find ways to improve myself.
Financially, mentally and physically.
When you are putting in effort to be a better person, in my mind you are already a better person, better than the 90% out there that surf their couches and don't have any ideas of grandeur in their future.
It's amazing how many people just stop trying at anything. Whether there in there 20's or 50's in long marriages or relationships they've somehow just given up and gotten so stuck to a routine that they stopped caring about what could be.
Anyways, start working out, reading, setting goals, just knowing that you have put this stuff into motion helps heaps. It reverses your idea when you go out in public, instead of worrying about if you qualify for the gorgeous girl in your supermarket you start wondering if she qualifies for you. You're the one who has a thriving career, who has strong mental game, who's working on his physique, who's healthy. Be a pillar for society.
If any of you have any tools you use to confronting Anxiety, frames of mind that you get yourself in, or even stuff you'd like to share that you've read on it that puts it into perspective for you, i'd love to hear it.
Life begins at the end of your comfort zone. - Neale Donald Walsch
-Mr.SomeoneElse
If she's turned off or scared, you dont want her, anyway. Even Elvis lost Priscella to their karate teacher, Mike Stone. There's something about having that ability that just turns on a lot of women, no kidding.