A weird impression.

[Falkor]

Hiya all.

I was sitting in the waiting line for my therapy session, and someone walked by, and I was just acting nervously and having a tensed expression on my face, and scared eyes. She looked at me like this : O_O??
This seriously got me worried, and when i was taking water, i saw a lot of people typing at a computer and they were all looking at me at the same time,
My face turned red and I turned my back to them and took my water nervously.
I felt so terrified of what I did, I just gave them a weird impression.
I think people could reject me, because of my own behaviour.
But it all comes from SA, it makes me act like a fool. Sounds funny probably,
but it's not fun at all :/ feeling like nerve wracking people watching you.
I talked to my therapist about it, she said I look a lot more calm to her,
I said thanks, but you should have seen me in the waiting line, I acted weird.
She told me I should find a way to be more relaxed, but HOW?
I act like this for like 3 years, and it brings me even more thoughts about people thinking weird.

I want to show a relaxed calm attitude, open body language,
and when i'm in waiting line i wanna feel safe around the people.
but all i do is get frightened, scared, terrified of every move i make.

btw i only act like this when im ANXIOUS, but when im at home its like nothing going on. (sometimes i get anxious around my family too)
and when i was sitting next to the taxi driver i was relaxed, he told me i dont seem social phobic.
but i told him i feel more safe 1 to 1 person. so the anxiety level is low.

its like i get more aware of my whole exist, when i am around people.
its like i wake up, and everything around me seems so overwhelming
like everything is coming close to me, i need to escape
people watching, i feel like all eyes are on me
any advice?

 

[AsTimeBurns]

You could try listening to music while you're in a queue like that, it distracts you and means you're not thinking about what's going on around you so much.

Also I find that if I have chewing gum to chew that helps as well, as it gives you something to do, rather than constantly worrying about how nervous you look or things like that.

 

[maiato]

Hiya all.

She looked at me like this : O_O??

i saw a lot of people typing at a computer and they were all looking at me at the same time,

I felt so terrified of what I did, I just gave them a weird impression.

I found this text in a book once that can explain what happened, hope it helps!

"Jumping to Conclusions. You arbitrarily jump to a negative conclusion that is not justified by the facts of the situation. Examples of this:
MindReading: You make the assumption that other people are looking down on you, and you're so convinced about this that you don't even bother to check it out. Suppose you are giving an excellent lecture, and you notice that a man in the front row is nodding off. He was up most of the night on a wild fling, but you of course don't know this. You might have the tought, " This audience thinks I'm a bore"."

 

[inconspicuous name]

find something else that makes you concentrate, i always carry a particular old coin on me that i play with and do little coin tricks with (running it along the fingers ect) takes my mind off whatever it is thats bothering me.

someone else said listen to music, an even better thing to do is sing the song to yourself in your head....you can sing out loud if you like but that might draw a lil more attention to yourself i personally sing the theme tune of the smurfs in my head