Don't we need to shift our attention onto ourselves?

[Jim_Bergerac]

I don't know how everyone suffers or thinks, so if what I write is not applicable to you I do apologise, I am just speaking from my own experience.

I suffered years of put downs, name calling, ridicule, in my teenage years and it had terrible impact on me. I went from being so confident and living my life focused 100% on being myself to basically living my life so self conscious, always fearing attention on me, fearing negative judgements, believing people will be so critical of me if they see my flaws/imperfections.

I aim to be the best I can now, I make a lot of effort to look my best and be the best person I can. I have not however managed to change these negative beliefs I developed from the years of put downs, name calling, ridicule, etc because they are so strong. Those negative judgements like being called ugly and people laughing and saying I talked like a retard hurt me so much, I don't believe I could ever see judgements like that as not hurtful.
I experienced so many people judging me negatively and being nasty and critical of me, so how am I supposed to believe people aren't like that when that is what I was always experiencing? When people saw my flaws/imperfections they always seemed to be judging me negatively with horrible put downs, ridicule, name calling, how can I believe people are not judging me negatively like that when that is what I was always experiencing?
The mind cannot believe something if all the evidence proves something.

I think its a waste of time trying to change beliefs that are so strong and you believe 100%. I don't believe you can change them, your mind just will not have it.
But isn't the problem that we have become stuck living our lifes focused on what other people think rather than focusing on being ourselves?
If you are self conscious and anxious of people seeing your weaknesses/flaws/imperfections then you are basically living your life placing so much emphasis and importance on what others think of you rather than living life being the person you are. We seem to be living our lifes worrying about being judged in the negative ways we have experienced in the past that hurt us so much. We seem to be living our lifes believing protecting ourselves from critical people who clearly do not like us and do not respect us if they think negatively of us is more important than ourselves and being ourselves, aiming for what we want in life and being happy.
We seem to be living our lifes letting how people think of us control us.
I was walking down a street a few months ago and 3 lads about 17 years old were walking towards me, they all looked really rough and looked like they had a bad attitude, as I walked past them one said out loud 'Look at that ****ing lanky tosser'. Am I really living my life placing so much importance on people like that? Am I really living my life letting people like that control me?

I realise how stuck I am in always being aware of who can see me, how will they be judging me, fearing that they are thinking those negative things of me that I was judged so many times as in the past. I am always self conscious and focusing on what people may think of me rather than focusing on just being myself and doing what I want to do and need to do.

Isn't this just so wrong? Its no wonder if we are always focusing on what people think of us and fearing people judging us negatively, that we are going to be anxious and self conscious.

At the end of the day our focus should be on ourselves. We are all unique, we are all different, we all have strengths and weaknesses, we all have positives and qualities but imperfections and flaws too. Why should we be living life self conscious of how all human beings are? Shouldn't we be living our life focused on being ourselves, believing we are just as worthy as anyone else, we deserve happiness and success just like everyone else deserves. Shouldn't we be looking after ourselves and respecting ourselves and putting ourselves first? Aren't we more important to ourselves than some critical nasty person who can only see fault in us and not our qualities?

We may not be able to change the beliefs about how critical and nasty people are. We may not be able to change the beliefs about how we believe people judge us. But if we don't focus on that and treat ourselves like the most important thing, living our lives focused on being ourselves and going for what we want instead of what people judge us then those fears of what people think can become irrelevant.

I used to live my life focused on being me, doing what I had to and what I wanted to do, I wasn't focusing on or fearing people judging me negatively for who and how I am. I feel that maybe the key to overcoming this. That doesn't mean I will become some jerk who doesn't care what people think of me, it just means I will be me, the best person I can be and treat people how I think is right.

Whilst I continue to focus and place importance on what people think of me and worry about what people think of me, I will continue to be self conscious and anxious and worry. But I shouldn't be living my life focusing on what people think of me, I should be only focused on being myself.

If this is right, then the challenge is how do you shift your focus to being yourself 100% and no longer focusing on what others think.

Does anyone think this is the answer to overcoming SA?

 

[Nack]

The SA isn't an experience that you can just forget, Its a lesson the life teaches you; that people are not all nice. There is no "cure" for SA, You learn to accept what made you the way you are and control the anxiety. Understand that SA isn't the worst thing a person can have, to overcome (cure) Social Anxiety means to accept it, and don't use it as an excuse to regret things...

 

[Jim_Bergerac]

How can on a social phobia site that a post like this get one reply and 'Should LOL be banned' get 3 pages of replies.

I am clearly in the wrong place to discuss how to overcome this.

 

[FOR REAL]

How can on a social phobia site that a post like this get one reply and 'Should LOL be banned' get 3 pages of replies.

I am clearly in the wrong place to discuss how to overcome this.

its only cause some people like to lighten the mood a wee bit. i do agree with what you are saying though.
but come on, youve got to smile or laugh at the 'Should LOL be banned' type of threads.

 

[Jim_Bergerac]

its only cause some people like to lighten the mood a wee bit. i do agree with what you are saying though.
but come on, youve got to smile or laugh at the 'Should LOL be banned' type of threads.

Yeah its good that posts like 'Should LOL be banned' get lots of replies, its just a shame that questions about overcoming SA get one reply on an SA forum.

 

[FOR REAL]

theres loads of threads to help you on here, i hope this can work for you

http://www.socialphobiaworld.com/sai-overcoming-social-anxiety-step-by-step-16683/

 

[Jim_Bergerac]

The SA isn't an experience that you can just forget, Its a lesson the life teaches you; that people are not all nice. There is no "cure" for SA, You learn to accept what made you the way you are and control the anxiety. Understand that SA isn't the worst thing a person can have, to overcome (cure) Social Anxiety means to accept it, and don't use it as an excuse to regret things...

You are basically saying that SA cannot be overcome, you just have to cope the best you can? I don't know if that is true or not. Right now I cannot disagree because I have been working so hard on trying to overcome my problems for the last 5 years and although I have improved massively from my lowest point I am still a million miles away from overcoming the problem fully. But I do believe it is possible, its only down to beliefs and the way you think.

I don't believe accepting you have SA does anything to help overcome it. I accept very well that I have SA and confidence issues, it doesn't make it go away.

I really do think the answer lies in my original post about stop focusing on what other people think of us, stop fearing what people think of us, stop placing importance on what people think of us - all our focus is on what people think of us when it should be on ourselves. This is who we are, we should be looking after ourselves and putting ourselves first. We have no control over what people may think of us and really it doesn't matter because anyone who doesn't like us or is critical of us is not really worth our time bothering with.

 

[chained]

the cause of SA is not excepting yourself.. if we were pleased with ourselves we wouldn't care about what others think of us... this is very difficult to achieve, but not impossible and yes.. ppl should pay more attention to these threads ..

 

[shore_of_glass]

first of all, anyone can say LOL or make a good or lame joke, but people tend to refrain from posting when its about more serious matters, because they're not sure they are saying things right or they don't want to post a reply just saying "good post.. blabla".
But yeah it should have more posts and support, thanks for the post!

Now that you made that point of accpeting social anxiety, I started to wonder. If I didn't care that I was this way, didn't give a **** about others TRULY, I believe I could accept SA. But isn't that curing SA? Not worring about others and about the mistakes you do when talking or doing something? Laughing about failed attempts of seduction or ignoring a bunch of mean-ass youngsters?


I dunno bleh, I'll write more later xD

 

[Jim_Bergerac]

first of all, anyone can say LOL or make a good or lame joke, but people tend to refrain from posting when its about more serious matters, because they're not sure they are saying things right or they don't want to post a reply just saying "good post.. blabla".
But yeah it should have more posts and support, thanks for the post!

Now that you made that point of accpeting social anxiety, I started to wonder. If I didn't care that I was this way, didn't give a **** about others TRULY, I believe I could accept SA. But isn't that curing SA? Not worring about others and about the mistakes you do when talking or doing something? Laughing about failed attempts of seduction or ignoring a bunch of mean-ass youngsters?


I dunno bleh, I'll write more later xD

Well this is when I see that people suffer so very differently to myself. I don't care less about what to say to people, I don't care if I fall over or say something stupid. I received years of put downs about how I looked, called ugly many, many times - and I am self conscious and anxious being looked at fearing negative judgements about how I look. I do make the most of myself and look my very best but I fear being judged negatively for how I look. Me accepting I am anxious and self conscious does not do anything to overcome my anxiety/social anxiety because its being triggered not by me not accepting I am anxious and have SA, its being triggered because I fear being judged negatively - as ugly or being laughed at.

For myself I just don't see how accepting I have SA stops the anxiety from fear of negative judgements from being triggered.

I am not saying it is not true for you or anyone else because we all suffer so differently.

 

[Jim_Bergerac]

I believe that we will always care what others think. The most we can do is not worry more than what is necessary. We can control how much we worry and that is a good thing. Once you come to terms with the fact that caring what others think is something that you do then you'll understand that it doesn't have to be a negative thing.
Hell, my therapist says that it's okay to care what others think of you. It's the excessive worrying that gets to us. Most people just shrug it off.
I do think that a lot of us do shift the attention onto ourselves, and the reason why it's detrimental to us is that we do this in a negative manner rather than positive or rational way.
Some say that it's possible that we will never really be able to cure SA, only keep it under control. A therapist I used to see has told me that she has anxiety and that she has never been able to get rid of it, although she has learned to control it.

I've often said that I become nervous when people look at me. This happens mostly with women because of the fact that I've been bullied or verbaly abused mostly by women. I was at the doctor's office the other day and as I was checking in, a woman in the waiting room kept staring at me. She was very likely sick or tired or having a bad day because she didn't look too happy. I began getting anxious because I automatically worried that she may have been judging me negatively. As soon as I recognized/acknolwedged that I was anxious, I told myself that there is no reason to be anxious or to worry because there really was no reason to worry. I successfully stopped my anxiety dead in it's tracks and I felt good about myself for taking control over my feelings. Could she have been thinking bad about me? Maybe she was and maybe she wasn't. So what if she was? Why should it affect me? Who is she to me? Why should I care? There is no good reason why I should care so why bother myself with it? I know it sounds more simple than it is, but if you actually ask yourself these questions and give give yourself a rational answer then you'll see that there really is nothing to be afraid of. The fact of the matter is that I am sick of worrying or caring what others think. I'm sick of letting that worry control my life instead of me. That gives me enough incentive to make a change and it feels great to not worry all the damn time about everything and everyone.

The first half of your post left me a bit puzzled but the second half was fantastic.

What you said in the second half is fantastic and I totally think this is where the answer has to lie. We seem to be always so aware of any attention on us and worrying what people think and fearing being judged negatively. But like you pointed out - what does it matter if we are being judged negatively, what impact does it really have on our lives - it doesn't change any thing, it doesn't alter anything in our life, we don't know what people are thinking unless they say it out loud and adults don't do that unless they are absolute cretins. This is the whole point - why are we placing importance on what people think when it just does not matter. There are some 6bn people out there, its impossible to please everyone, we all think differently, we all like different things, if someone is being critical of us then the problem is with them not us because we're all unique, we all have weaknesses, flaws and imperfections.

I believe that if we can successfully believe and understand how pointless and irrelevant and meaningless any negative judgements are on us that we can stop fearing them and being obsessed and always focused on them.

You say you were bullied (I was too) and I can totally understand how you will believe people are judging you negatively and how hurt you were by past negative judgements - and I do agree that we may not be able to change our beliefs that we believe we are being judged or that certain negative judgements are hurtful, but surely we can change one thing - and that is to understand and believe that negative judgements mean nothing. Its going to take work to believe and understand it means nothing and is irrelevant.

Oh and by the way, if that is you in your picture by your name, you are totally gorgeous and that woman staring at you would be looking at you jealous of how nice you look.

 

[Jim_Bergerac]

Okay. :: Let me try to explain myself. I think that caring (not excessive worry) what others think is essential to our social survival as well as success in life and I believe that everyone does it to one extent or another. Sometimes it's necessary to care what others think. We care what our boss thinks of us, of our performance because we might want that raise, we might simply not want to find ourselves without a job. If we just ceased to care what others think of us, we could possibly ruin our reputation, do and say things that could possibly harm us, harm others, burn our bridges etc... It's just not a good idea to not care at all. This is basically how I explained it to my therapist the other day. He told me that it is not necessarily bad to care what others think of us. We just have to make sure that we don't do it to an extreme.

I don't particularly agree with this sentence. You seem to be almost implying that if we don't care what people think we will turn into absolute jerks with no respect for people. This is not true. I respect people, I like to treat people well and treat people how I wish to be treat. I would hate to treat people bad, not so much because I don't want people to dislike me but I just like to be nice to people and make them feel good.
For myself I have a lot of confidence in my personality, my fears are about being judged negatively are related to negative judgements for how I look - after years of put downs about how I looked. So for myself I just don't see this as relevant because I am trying to stop fearing negative judgements on how I look, its not about how I treat people.
You seem like a nice intelligent person, just because you want to overcome SA and stop fearing negative judgements doesn't mean you'll start being a jerk, the real you is clearly a nice person who treats people with respect.
The aim is surely to be ourselves and not worry what people think of us. That doesn't mean we will turn into insensitive jerks, it means we will have the confidence to be our true selves and not be pre-occupied by what people think of us. If you respect people and want to treat people right you will always treat people like that.

What I also believe to be important is to accept that some people are going to think what they want no matter how wrong or twisted their view may be. Why worry ourselves if someone will think we're stupid or ugly? Sometimes, those people just don't matter. Those people are not the ones signing our paycheck or putting clothes on our back, food in our bellies. They actually don't affect our life at all. We could be too busy worrying what others think of us to realize that they're not perfect. They might be the biggest idiots or they might be complete douches and here we are worrying what they think of us. If someone thinks we're ugly or bad or stupid, does that make it so? Some of us worry that others are thinking negatively of us because we think negatively of ourselves. How about when we know someone thinks ill of us? When we know for a fact that someone thinks badly of us, we take it so hard because it validates all of the negative beliefs that we already have of ourselves. If someone thinks that I'm stupid, that doesn't prove that I am stupid.

That's brilliant. You are right that we need to accept that some people with a certain mentality maybe are going to be judging us negatively and critical of us. I mean look at a lot of teenagers at high school, the ones who bully people and call people names - they have a mentality of being immature, insensitive, cruel, nasty, disrespectful, childish, don't care about other people's feelings, don't care about treating people badly, etc. Anyone with that sort of mentality may be likely to think negatively of anyone's flaws/weaknesses/imperfections.

I was shocked a few years back when I had a really good group of friends. Then 2 of them became friends with these 2 guys that drank in the same pub with them. So they hanged out with us and one of them was like the biggest jerk on earth. He was always putting people down including me and my friends. He'd make fun of people and point out people's flaws. He was just horrible, probably the most horrible person I've ever known. He would even throw pieces of fruit at people and find it hilarious. The whole point here is that if someone has that sort of mentality then they maybe likely to judge us negatively because that is how they are. Why should we live our lives in fear of people like that? I think like you say, you have to accept that some people with certain mentality's are going to be critical of us and judgemental. But are people with that sort of mentality worth us worrying about? Are they important to us? Do we need their approval? Do we want to impress them and want them to be in our lifes and to like us? Clearly no!

I was thinking last night before I went to bed, I must write down a pros and cons list about why should I fear the negative judgements I do fear and why shouldn't I fear the negative judgements I fear?
I know I fear negative judgements so much right now and place so much importance on them. Clearly therefore I do not believe and understand how irrelevant and pointless they are. It just seems utterly crazy to fear things that you do not know what people are even thinking, even if they think those things it has no impact on my life, it does not change or alter anything in my life. I was even thinking last night that I am fearful of negative judgements from strangers who I will never ever see again. Those people are just not important to me, it does not matter if they don't like me or think bad of me as they are not someone in my life. Its so wrong to place importance on what those people think of me. Clearly I have become stuck in a mindset of believing negative judgements are so important and terrible, I clearly need to understand and believe that negative judgements matter nothing.

Interesting about feeling awkward about people being envious or jealous - because it was people like that who were so nasty to you. At the end of the day there will be a lot more people who think positively of you and like you and admire you than people who think negatively of you for how pretty you are. And the people who are jealous and envious are not being nasty because of you as such, its because of how they feel of themselves.
When I think of women I know who are really very attractive, all the guys think positive things about such girls and think they are so desirable and nice. I think most women would also look and think 'She's pretty' and think positive things of you. I can only imagine the sort of women to be jealous and nasty towards you for how pretty you are as being really insecure, immature, no class, etc - basically people you should be glad you won't be friends with.

I am going to really work hard today and this week on trying to put some perspective and reality back on the importance of fearing negative judgements. It just seem to be placing so much importance on something that actually does not matter, it does not impact on my life. Why am I placing importance on what strangers think of me? Its stupid. Why am I placing importance on what people who are critical and judging me negatively think of me - they don't like me, I don't like them - why am I letting people like that control me? I definitely need to work on this because I don't seem to believe and understand the reality of things.

 

[Riptor]

look at meee