How big a factor in SA is self consciousness?

[charlieHungerford]

I wrote this post yesterday but decided to delete it, but I have decided to post it again as I have more thoughts on it. If you have any thoughts on this I would be really interested in reading your views.

Its been a lot of trial and error for me in recent months, thinking I may have found the solution to overcoming my SA but realising there is something major that has not been addressed. I am a firm believer that there is one major problem behind SA and until that is sorted out then SA cannot be overcome. I know people will disagree with that which is totally understandable, I am simply looking at my own problem and realise there is something that needs addressing in order to make a giant step forward.

But anyway, I wanted to talk about the role of self consciousness in SA. I have noticed that whenever I am centre of attention I seem to focus all my attention on myself, in particular on to my perceived flaws, focusing on what people may be looking critically at me for. I seem to be doing this all the time, like its taken over my life. Whether its meeting a new person, I will be focusing all my attention on to my flaws of believing I don't look good enough, that I lack confidence and that I shouldn't speak too much at a time incase I start struggling to get my words out, focusing on my performance and how I am coming across, everything is basically focused on myself.
Any situation where I am centre of attention, whether that is the attention of one person or lots of people I always seem to focus all my attention on myself, but never my good attributed and qualities. Even silly situations like at the front of a queue and people facing me, I am so self conscious, all my attention is on my flaws as to why I don't look good enough, how confident am I appearing, etc.
Walking down a busy street where there are cars in traffic is another situation I get self conscious at, focusing all attention on myself for how I look and how I walk, etc.
And then major feared situations like public speaking, all my attention is on myself, I am so self aware that people looking at me are going to notice my flaws in how I look, speak, how confident I am, etc.
Even walking past windows and I can see people looking out, I suddenly get self conscious, all my attention is on myself again - for how I look again.

I do understand a lot of this, because I remember at school when I was ridiculed for being skinny, for my nose being big and for a speech impediment, I got so much ridicule for these things that I started being so self conscious of these parts of me, i.e. I was so aware that I was skinny and that people may think negative things of me, I used to hate people seeing how skinny I was so I wore loads of layers. I used to hide my nose all the time when people looked at me - either by looking away or using my hand to cover my nose by pretending to wipe my eye, etc. And as for speech I hated speaking out loud and detested having to say words that I struggled with. Basically I became so self aware because of the years of contant ridicule and put downs I received made me so self conscious. If no one had ever said anything nasty about me I would never have known anything was 'wrong'.
So I can tell that these thoughts of being so self conscious have picked up and I guess I have gotten into a mindset whereby whenever I am centre of attention, I believe that if someone was to see a certain perceived flaw in myself then I begin to panic and worry that they will think negative things of me. My mind's way of protecting me from being hurt - the hurt being people thinking negative things of me, because that hurt like crazy as a kid, so my mind now has become so brilliant at spotting any situation I may get hurt in that it senses danger (hurt) and the anxiety is the warning to get myself out of that situation.

I don't think there is anything wrong or ill about me for developing such thinking patterns, because for my teenage years I received just so much ridicule, put downs and name calling. My mind was just protecting me, but of course in today's world its extremely problematic, I need to be confident, not always self conscious and anxious in social situations.

So what I am trying to say is that I think the answer for me to overcome SA is to change this mindset I carry around with me in life of always focusing all my attention on myself, its like I am a critical onlooker to myself, always focusing on anything I may get judged negatively for and warning me I am in danger of getting hurt for these things.

I don't know how many people can relate or agree with what I say there, we do all suffer differently.

That is basically where I am at, I have not worked out the solution to stop this self consciousness and always focusing attention on myself. I must stress that I don't think the answer is just to try and concentrate on someone else, I mean yeah that is basically the end goal to no longer focus on ourselves but on the subject involved - i.e. whether its a person or a task, etc. But there is a major problem here - stuck in a mindset where I focus all attention on myself and my flaws, it has to be addressed and the mind to understand that this is no longer necessary. My mind believes its of huge importance to protect myself, so you cannot just focus attention on someone else and that is it sorted, things have to be puut right.
This whole mindset I have is based on incredibly biased and exaggerated experiences by teenagers who contantly ridiculed me, kids are cruel and immature, I cannot base my beliefs on people as immature teens. But also I took all of the ridicule so hard and so hurtful, but in reality it didn't have to be, i.e. so what if people called me skinny, I was skinny, but so what? And I know I wasn't the only kid by any means to have received so many put downs and ridicule, I remember many other kids also called so many names, I think I believed that was how people saw me when in reality it was kids being immature and making fun of people just to be nasty and look tough or get some cheap laughs, etc.

I can only speak for myself when I write all of this, but I do feel I will never overcome SA until I change this self consciousness, always focusing my attention on myself. No confident people are self conscious, focusing on themselves, confident people seem to be focused on the subject. That is what I am starting to work on now.

Any thoughts?

 

[charlieHungerford]

I spent an hour or so looking into this last night and I really do feel the answers for myself and how I suffer all lie with overcoming the self consciousness and focusing all my attention on to myself and to situations in which I feel anxious.

This is what I believe for myself is happening when I get anxious, maybe you can relate to it or maybe for yourself this is just totally off the mark.

I think that because of all the hurt in the past that I suffered from put downs, name calling, ridicule, etc, my mind has become so 'brilliant' at sensing any danger (danger of being hurt) that it recognises any situation in which I am in danger and the anxiety is a warning to tell me to avoid/get out off the situation immediately as I am in danger of getting hurt. This hurt is basically being judged negatively, people thinking critical thoughts of myself - such as ridicule, insults, etc.
We will all be hurt for different things, i.e. I had been judged as ugly, ridicule about how I look, ridicule about my speech and I feel people will judge me negatively for my lack of confidence, thinking I am a bit weird for how nervous I can get in certain situations.
What happens then is that my mind knowing I am in danger of being hurt takes protective action - I focus on the things I may get hurt for, i.e. if its centre of attention I will be self conscious of how I look and my flaws in my appearance which I feel I will be judged negatively for. If its speaking out loud again it is for how I look as everyone is looking right at me, but also for speaking - I have received a lot of ridicule over a speech impediment in the past which now I have as good as overcome the speech impediment, but I also worry about how confident I come across - worrying that if I am struggling and shaking then people may be thinking I am weird which worries me. Basically all my attention goes on to my flaws in a way to protect myself - i.e. I will try and do some sort of safety behaviour to cover a flaw - i.e. if I am fearing being looked at because I feel I will suffer negative comments, I will look away or hide my flaws in my appearance somehow - i.e. use my hand to hide my flaw. If its the speaking, I will try and avoid saying any words that I struggle to say as I am speaking, if its about worrying people see I am anxious/nervous I will focus on how anxious I am and aim to disguise my anxiety by trying to avoid people seeing it - i.e. will try and avoid speaking, will try and hold something so that my hands are not fidgeting, etc.

At this point all attention is on myself, specifically my flaws which I am self conscious about, I am also focusing all my attention on the danger of being hurt by people thinking negative things of me which hurt.

As a result of this I am now so anxious, so self conscious, all my attention is on being hurt and I am in danger and the task which in reality is a straight forward is now some major big deal which freaks me out.

The end result is that the anxiety/panic attacks I feel mean I cannot perform. I mean how can you perform when you are freaking out having panic attacks? Its impossible. I must stress again that for myself its not about personality or what to say, but the fact is I am so self conscious and anxious that in these situations I cannot be myself, I cannot aim to say the things I would do if I was calm and felt confident.

So what is the answer? It appears that it certainly isn't practice/exposure, because when you look at it like this - the situation is triggering anxiety because I am worried I will be hurt in the situation. Its not the situation that will hurt me, the hurt is worrying I am going to have people thinking negative things of me, negative things about how I look, how I speak, my confidence, etc - which I have done in the past for many years.

I only get self conscious when my mind senses a situation in which I am in danger of being hurt. Therefore the key to overcoming this is the first part of this - my mind protecting me from being hurt. If my mind no longer sees what I currently find hurtful as hurtful anymore, i.e. if I didn't find someone judging me negatively for how I look hurtful, or if someone judges me negatively for how confident I appear or how I speak when I say words wrong because of a slight speech impediment, then my mind would not be trying to protect me as there is no hurt or danger to protect me from. And then I will not be self conscious over these flaws as they are no longer an issue. As a result my SA will no longer exist.

Therefore the answer for me to overcome and beat SA is to change the way I think about these things I find hurtful - i.e. I am very sensitive to negative comments about how I look or if I feel someone thinks I am ugly. Whilst I think like that I will be self conscious and worried putting myself in situations where I am centre of attention of eyes on me.
I do fear speaking because I feel people will judge me negatively for how I speak and because I am anxious because my mind has recognised I am in danger of being hurt for negative comments I am self conscious and anaxious and I worry even more because I worry that I won't get my words out because I am so anxious.

So basically the end goal is to no longer worry what people think of me, but in order to do that I have to no longer be hurt by what I currently see as hurtful. The fact is, if you are like me and are very sensitive about negative comments or that people maybe thinking negatives about you for your perceived flaws, you will never overcome SA until you have sorted them out.

What do you think of that?

 

[phoenix1]

Hi,

I agree and I relate to alot of what you are saying too. I think underlying all anxiety is the pain we feel or in some cases is the fear of pain thats constantly reinforced. If we can stop feeling the pain, then the anxiety lessens.

I'm wondering though..you mention that you felt alot of that pain through the teenage years and younger. What about today? Do people still occassionally ridicule you in some way or is it the ghost of yesterday that still haunts you? I mean the question is, do you feel pain from ridicule today or do you just constantly just fear it and make yourself believe that people still judge you like that (which in turn creates the pain in itself)? I think if its the latter, its might be easier to deal with, because it is mostly false beliefs? I think the pain might be imaginarily self-inflicted too? Pain is pain though.

I really do like the idea of mindfullness in dealing with pain. If you can manage to better observe your feelings without getting involved with them. Never ignoring your thoughts/feelings though cause I think can contribute to panic attacks. Understand what is it your mind is doing, without feeding the flames and eventually they sort of give up and stop bothering you as much.

Keep up the good work though.

 

[charlieHungerford]

Thanks for replying Phoenix.

Well when you become self conscious about something in yourself (which in my case and probably many other people can relate to is caused by lots of negative feedback) then you are going to remain self conscious unless that thing you are self conscious about changes, i.e. weight can change, you can really see the change and remove the self consciousness. But what about something such as being judged as ugly or features that cannot be changed or speech impediment, etc?

I have made zillions of progress and self improvement with how I look, just making the absolute most of myself and I am sure that if people saw me they would think I am just your average looking guy, but I am still very insecure about how I look - i.e. I won't have my picture taken, I have no belief whatsoever that any woman would ever think I am good enough looking to look at me any more than a friend (not that looks is what is important for me, but it seems like good looking guys get all the women's attention).

About 2 years ago at work some woman in her 50s who is such a loud mouth, was making fun of my appearance out loud to the office. Some people laughed, most people just ignored her. It absolutely killed me, I was close to tears. I left work so upset just thinking I really must be some sort of freak who people just laugh at. I think if I suffered the same comments now I would still be really really upset and it would just smash my self esteem to bits. But realistically, what does the comments of some load mouth woman really matter? She only said such things to get some cheap laughs rather than to be nasty. It only hurt so much because of how I interpret negative comments. I mean some people will be able to laugh off such comments or just be thick skinned to take no notice. The only reason I am so sensitive to such comments is because I've had so many negative comments in the past and they hurt so much.

Before high school I was never self conscious, I thought I was fine and good enough because no one ever told me any different. But years of put downs and ridicule has made me believe I really am not good enough.

I think the reason why I am so insecure and self conscious about this still to this day is because I still believe when people see me they will be so critical of how I look. And around women I have absolutely no belief I am good looking enough, I fear what women think of how I look because I believe they will be looking at me and thinking 'No, don't like how he looks, he is ugly'. So of course I am going to be self conscious, fearing that people are thinking really hurtful things.

I don't want to live feeling like this any more. I will always make the most of myself but if my best is not good enough for people well I don't want to to worry any more, I mean what more can I do than try make the very most of myself, this is who I am! If someone thinks bad of me for how I look then so be it, I cannot change it, so I may as well be myself and let my personality shine through, I mean no one is perfect, I need to stop this ridiculous way of thinking and to do it I do have to no longer be bothered by what people think of my insecurities.

The past is indeed haunting me, I seem to have developed exaggerated thinking patterns about protecting myself from being hurt because I was hurt so many times, but the fact is that almost all the hurt is from my teenage years by immature teenagers. These days I don't really ever get any negative comments, but for example I get next to no attention from any women, for sure a lot of that maybe because I hardly ever meet new people, I make no effort with women, etc, but I just don't feel I am ever looked at by any women as being slightly desirable, whereas so many women I think are good enough. So its hard to think I am good enough.

The daftest thing is that when I was a student I met a lot of women and had relationships with women. And 3 years ago I met a woman from a dating site and she was really nice person, personality and looks and things happened with her. So it does seem my beliefs are very biased and exaggerated, but those are the thinking patterns I have developed, became so self conscious and so hurt by negative criticism in the past over a prolonged period of time.

I am really going to work hard on changing beliefs and what I find hurtful, understand that its not hurtful in reality, the reality that it means nothing and you should take no notice because a % of people will think negative things of you but that has no impact on my life. The reality is that it doesn't matter, what does any negative comments I have ever received matter now? It doesn't. Don't get me wrong, its going to take a lot of hard work changing this, to go from being so sensitive and finding negative comments about me as devestating to get to a point where they can be laughed off and taken with a pinch of salt. But it must be possible because all it is comes down to interpreting something as hurtful when in reality its not. If you do not challenge what you currently find hurtful and just go along believing something is really hurtful then you will continue to be hurt when you experience or believe people think those things of you.
It doesn't have to hurt because the reality is that it doesn't mean anything, which shows that these beliefs are exaggerated and biased. They need putting right!

 

[phoenix1]

Well said and nice response.

Your story reminds me a lot of a very close friend of mine. As you’ve already pointed out yourself, it seems like one of the biggest problems is not being able to accept your ‘flaws’. I think we are all suppose to try to fight and change what we can change (like dress and act better) but after a point realize there is nothing more we can do and simply accept who we are. Not accept in the sense of accepting that you might be ugly or that women don’t like you because that means you still look at it as something bad and something that could be changed. Accept in the sense that it is simply a part of who you are – not necessarily good nor bad. For example, If someone gets into an accident and loses the ability to walk again, most people will accept it soon enough and wont continue to dwell on it and hate themselves for not walking. They will come to a point where they just accept its now a part of who they are – (neither good nor bad really) and get on with what life they have. Many people look at them and wonder at their strength to continue on (but I think it’s a mechanism to be able to let go and move on with our lives under almost any circumstance). ‘Looks’ are more difficult though, because its never so concrete like losing the ability to walk. So I think we have so much trouble just accepting certain things like that and moving on with our lives. We continually try to change and dwell on flaws in a feeble attempt to change that which we cant change.

And that's what really creates all the pain and anxiety too. When we keep trying to change / hide from something we view as bad.

We all have so called flaws. I think the trick is to figure out what we can change and what we cant change and realize that if we cant change it – then how can it be so bad? Its not our fault, its just a genetic trait and we need to accept it as a part of who we are and simply move on as best we can. Not to hide from it either. Be proud of who we are and think of it as a challenge perhaps? If theres something about you that makes it harder to attract women, then think of it simply as a part of life and a challenge (certainly not impossible) – and the funny thing is in reality women are probably more judgmental against insecurity than actual physical traits. Some people naturally have a harder time taking school tests, so in order to succeed, they simply have to try harder and work around it as best they can. They don’t have to think of themselves as stupid, just like none of us have to think of ourselves as ugly or anything like that. We are who we are and it can make life difficult sometimes, but that’s what life is all about I guess?