Expose yourself to fearful situations?

[deux_ex]

I don't know if anyone will get to read this.

If the idea of never overcoming this makes you feel like the only option is suicide, there's your problem.

Anxiety means intense fear of. Your fear in this case is living a life where the anxiety never goes away. I'm seeing a therapist for social anxiety, and this is what she has to say about it: it's never going away. Anxiety is a feeling just as much as happiness and sadness. You can only seek to manage it.

But you don't want to manage it, you want it to go away completely. And there's your problem. You'll never get over something if you're constantly resisting it.

So I'll give you this tip: stop being so afraid of living with anxiety for the rest of your life. Usually what you fear/think about constantly is what you get (and we're not even getting into the law of attraction, it's been so blown out of proportion).

That's what acceptance really is.

PS: And another thing - if you want to kill yourself because the way you see it, you're a damaged individual and you just want to drop out because of this flaw you cannot bear to live with... guess what? No one gets out of life without battle scars. We're all damaged, in one way or another. And believe it or not, you can turn your damage into personal beauty. I promise.

Now try the exposure again without caring whether it goes badly or well - do it just for the experience and novelty of the moment.

 

[laure15]

I have exposed myself to fearful situations and each time, I seem to be getting worse. It doesn't help that I have poor social skills and come from a dysfunctional family. Instead of going all in, I need to perhaps take baby steps, going one step at a time, to face SA. I also need a mentor who can help me with my social skills.

 

[Earthcircle]

I have exposed myself to anxiety-causing situations over and over again - and it never reduces the anxiety. In fact, about five months ago, I was exposed daily to very large social fears (at work) that emotionally crippled me and facing my fears only made things worse. "Expose yourself to fearful situations" is just worthless advice. On the other hand, withdrawing from society makes me depressed and anxious as well -- so what am I supposed to do, commit suicide?

I have to admit that I feel the same way. Through the years, I've put myself into a lot of social situations, even to the point of hosting a couple of parties, only to find that I made a bad impression, people wondered why I was so uncomfortable or thought I was weird, etc. It just seems to make things worse.