Overcome social anxiety WITHOUT therapy

Paul calls in to ask how to overcome social anxiety without therapy. #ThePsychShowOfficeHours

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If you or someone you know needs help immediately, you should take one of the following actions:
- go to your nearest hospital emergency room

[drali]

What helps you to overcome social anxiety?

[Maryet]

I lost so many opportunities and people because of social anxiety. I can't take it anymore. I literally can't even open my mouth, I'm scared I'll remain alone for the rest of my life

[schizojit]

God knew I'd be too powerful if I had social skills.

[zvyyohu]

I feel like with social anxiety, rumination plays a huge factor. I feel like exposure therapy would be helpful in conjunction with talk therapy because sometimes rumination causes me to view an entirely normal social interaction as something that went horribly and discourages me to try again. It's important to retrain your thought process, not just exposing yourself to new situations because sometimes I have tried and have had adverse effects.

[JustT]

This college student is brave and clearly articulated what social anxiety feels like. I am decades past college but I still struggle with what this young man is going through. God Bless

[setorious]

One of my fears is being taken out of context and being hated on for something I'm misunderstood for.

[aubriewest]

People with social anxiety are so intelligent

[strawberriesblueberries]

Ever since I was a child I had social anxiety. I feel very shy and I shut down and become very quiet. I feel more safe living alone in my apartment. I’m afraid of people in general. I feel afraid to speak up, and confrontation is my biggest fear.

[chronicfatiguehermithiker]

I’ve been practicing exposure tolerance by expressing myself in comments sections. It’s distressing, I pray before hitting the send button, but self expression is satisfying. I’ve done years of exposure in person but though I have experience and have lived a life, I’ve become a total hermit now, can’t leave the house unless I have no choice.

[bhatsumaira]

I think I m literally living the life of this college student.

By the way it is my first comment ever I did on a social media want to take baby steps to overcome this social anxiety.i just recently got to know that I might be most probably suffering from social anxiety when a group of relatives came to our home and asked me a few questions regarding my studies and I was like my breath got caught in my throat, I was not even able to answer any of the questions without stuttering and I was furiously blushing and my heart was beating like didn't want to write these many details but I just wanted to get it out of my heart.
I hope whoever read this didn't got bored😅

[mag]

Sending soo much love to everyone here! You’re not alone, we’re all in this together ❤️ and you are all beautiful souls.

[aliquresh]

For me, there's also a fear of rejection. I think I fear rejection the most, and I kind of anticipate it from almost everyone.

[akashverma]

Having social anxiety, It requires great courage to contact and talk to therapists.

[chanellaDaboss]

The thing about social anxiety is that you just have to do things. Stop thinking too much. From my experience, we need to be more in the do and be willing to make mistakes. I know it's hard especially when you are kind of a perfectionist. If something makes me nervous I say that. I've found that announcing that I am feeling anxious always helps me. I've noticed that there is this thing that goes on in your head when you are anxious. For some reason you don't want people to notice that you are anxious, so it just adds a double portion of anxiety. Saying I am anxious about something before saying anything else to a person definitely helps me relief some of that anxiety.

[jordanrogers]

I've suffered with social anxiety now for 8 years, it seems to come in waves. Some weeks I'm good some weeks I'm really anxious. It all kind of kicked off when i was studying and made to do presentations. I crumbled a few times, now i have a constant fear of people judging me and thinking negatively. Had CBT twice, it helps certainly but I'm still battling it everyday along with health anxiety. Stay strong peeps!

[meganmorgan]

The new symptom I’ve developed with my social anxiety is stuttering and messing up my words which makes things much much worse and makes me even less likely to speak not to mention the crushing suicidal thoughts

[nejram]

Something about the logical approach of 'your mind needs more experiences/data with these fears' actually really helps me. Thank you, thank you!

[basketballandbeyond]

I’m 32 and I just realized I have this. Since I became aware I’ve been doing a lot better with talking to people.

[Ariane_theblinginrealtor]

I relate so much to this young man. Social media has really opened my eyes to so many of us suffering like this. I’m working on on it

[whyisgamora]

It's interesting to see how different social anxiety can be for different people. I personally also have social anxiety, but whereas the person in the video would rather talk to a complete stranger or make mistakes with the cashier, I would be completely horrified doing this and have no problem talking to people I already know ^^ Sounds like his fears are rooted in some kind of fear of being embarrassed in front of friends/existing social network while my fear is judgement of others, so talking to frineds - people who I know won't judge me - isn't scary for me.