Social anxiety situations and coping
How do you cope with social anxiety? And what was your worst experience?
A lot of us have experienced that many times but no one had the courage to speak up, so this is the place where we can share what happened and help each other feel good about ourselves.
I wish you all well💖
@carefreeNarwhal88
Hello! It is nice to meet you 
. I am not experiencing social anxiety, but know how it can be sometimes hard. I really like your idea of this thread. You offer a save enviroment for those who suffer by social anxiety and can share, support and help each other. Thank you for sharing this post 
I have social anxiety and a service dog who helps. However there are times when people in stores will try to distract him and then I get really agitated. My daughter has agoraphobia. I'm not sure how she manages when I can just barely manage.
I never completely got over my social anxiety, although it did improve a lot for a few months. I went to a new school in order to graduate high school senior year and started classes later, which I think helped because I was getting adequate sleep. I also started a part time job in a grocery store where I had to talk to people. I hated that job at first, although I gradually got more comfortable, and I forced myself to talk to people. Same with school. I actually made a new friend, got a boyfriend, and got back in touch with some old friends, as well as was just generally happier. I was also in therapy at the time. So yeah, I'd say what really worked for me was exposure. If I had kept going as I was, I'd likely be even better now, although with isolating for quite a few months I'm back at square one 😅
I'm still far from over it, but I have made some progress over the years. Gradually exposing yourself to social situations helps. When I was 27 I went to study abroad on my own and that pretty much forced me to put myself out there. It showed me that I'm stronger and more resilient than I thought.
Now I'm really into mindfulness. Being aware of my thoughts and my feelings, as well as my actions, helps me see the relationship between how I feel (sad, anxious, ashamed) and what I do (avoidance by different means). They feed off each other--the more anxious I feel, the more I avoid, and the more I avoid, the worse I feel. Sometimes this helps break the cycle.
I'm also into changing my negative self-talk into positive one. I believe the negative self-talk is trying to protect you from something. But if you give it a new job--pointing out your good, positive actions instead of any mistakes, real or preceived, you get to feel better about yourself and celebrate your progress.
These actions have only got me so far, but I'm hopeful I can still make more progress.
