Joolin
Well-known member
If any of you out there are musicians, specifically electric musicians, you most likely know what feedback is. If not, feedback is what is happening when you hear that high pitched squeal when someone turns on a microphone. What is happening is that the sound from the speaker is being picked up by the microphone and then coming out the speaker and being picked up by the microphone and so forth. The sound stacks on itself and gets louder and louder until you move the microphone.
You're probably wondering how this relates to social phobia, and I can assure you that it has everything to do with social phobia.
I think that a lot of social phobia is just your brain making a feedback loop. Say you're riding in a car with someone and neither of you are talking. You feel like you should say something to stop the awkward silence. You start trying to think of something to say, but all you can think about is the fact that you need to think of something to say. That makes you even more anxious, because every second that you are thinking about how you're not saying anything, you continue not saying anything. It just keeps looping back around and the anxiety/awkwardness gets louder and louder in your head, just like the microphone and the speaker.
The question is, how do you break the cycle? How do you move your mental microphone out of the way of the speaker?
Your thoughts?
You're probably wondering how this relates to social phobia, and I can assure you that it has everything to do with social phobia.
I think that a lot of social phobia is just your brain making a feedback loop. Say you're riding in a car with someone and neither of you are talking. You feel like you should say something to stop the awkward silence. You start trying to think of something to say, but all you can think about is the fact that you need to think of something to say. That makes you even more anxious, because every second that you are thinking about how you're not saying anything, you continue not saying anything. It just keeps looping back around and the anxiety/awkwardness gets louder and louder in your head, just like the microphone and the speaker.
The question is, how do you break the cycle? How do you move your mental microphone out of the way of the speaker?
Your thoughts?
