My SP

[Yossarian]

Am I alone here? People keep saying you are SP because you think X, Y or Z but i disagree.

You see whenever I try to explain to people why I am afraid or what I am thinking I can't. For me I am just afraid. Then when I think about why or what I am thinking my brain searches desperately and comes up with things to rationalise or justify my fear.

I'm gibbering sorry. Basically I disagree with alot of peoples interpretation of cause and effect.

People say:
"You think scary/negative thoughts, therefore you are afraid"

But for me its a case of:
"I am afraid, therefore I think scary/negative thoughts"

I keep rambling on then deleting, so I'll just ask if this is true for anyone else?

 

[Remus]

I've noticed that SA/SP is different for everyone.

You are probably very different to me and the next men.

The only thing everyone has in common is 'the fear', how that comes about varies from person to person.

 

[Yossarian]

Hmm, I don't know if I find that good or bad. Just the way it is I guess.

 

[Anonymous]

its just a view, but i think alot of the discussion on these boards, and the reason for the posts is that everyone is trying to rationalise their fear. People are desperate to find a cause for why they feel so. Emotion is considered exceptable so long as there is reason, irrational fear is seen as...not a failure, but just..odd, different. Everyone has irrational fear, but few accept it. As SP sufferers ours is more obvious then the next man, although like remus said no sufferer of SP will be the same as the next one.

 

[Johnie]

When our body is distressed, we feel pain.
When our mind is distressed, we feel fear.

We go wrong when we try to use logic to explain our fears.

The fear is not really caused by what's going on around us - that was just the trigger, the real culprit is inside. We cannot accept this because it suggests we are going crazy, so we try to blaim it on our situation or on other people.

The thing that we know as fear is a set of chemical reactions which are set off by several glands in the body - which in turn cause a response by the brain. We have Social Anxiety because these glands have a "hair trigger" and give off false alarms for almost no reason.

When we have had SA for a long time the systems of the body settle into a permanent state; at this time the thing that we fear most is the fear itself - we come to hate these feelings that are holding us back.

------

The contradictory thing is that people that don't have SA can actually enjoy these feelings of fear. They would call it a "thrill", for example from extreme sports or generally living dangerously.

Is it possible that anyone with bad SA, actually can enjoy bungee jumping or surf boarding, or going on the big fairground rides? Or have they come to hate the feelings of fear so much that they hate these things too?

Johnie.

 

[wistful_dementia]

When our body is distressed, we feel pain.
When our mind is distressed, we feel fear.

We go wrong when we try to use logic to explain our fears.
Johnie.

But didn't you just use logic?

logic:a science that deals with the principles and criteria of validity of inference and demonstration. the science of the formal principles of reasoning.

logic isn't a dirty word or impractical verbose used by robots.

 

[wistful_dementia]

Am I alone here? People keep saying you are SP because you think X, Y or Z but i disagree.

You see whenever I try to explain to people why I am afraid or what I am thinking I can't. For me I am just afraid. Then when I think about why or what I am thinking my brain searches desperately and comes up with things to rationalise or justify my fear.

I'm gibbering sorry. Basically I disagree with alot of peoples interpretation of cause and effect.

People say:
"You think scary/negative thoughts, therefore you are afraid"

But for me its a case of:
"I am afraid, therefore I think scary/negative thoughts"

I keep rambling on then deleting, so I'll just ask if this is true for anyone else?

I see your point. I had a therapist who said that she subscribed to the idea that our feelings are a product of our thoughts. I had to write down certain specific incidents in the recent past that caused me social-anxiety and explain what thoughts caused those emotions. But I would guess the majority of the time the anxiety occured without a specific thought causing them. I think in most cases the SA was caused by my subconcious. I have a fearful subconcious in part because of character traits- genetics + schemas or personal philosophies learned from life experiences.

 

[Johnie]

When our body is distressed, we feel pain.
When our mind is distressed, we feel fear.

We go wrong when we try to use logic to explain our fears.
Johnie.

But didn't you just use logic?

logic:a science that deals with the principles and criteria of validity of inference and demonstration. the science of the formal principles of reasoning.

logic isn't a dirty word or impractical verbose used by robots.

What I am saying is that SA makes us behave in illogical ways, so don't expect to be able to explain it in a logical manor.


Don't try to put words into my mouth about the meaning of logic - I didn't say it was a dirty word or impractical. You said that.

And just because I am saying that something is illogical does not mean I cannot use logic myself, in my answer.

 

[wistful_dementia]

What I am saying is that SA makes us behave in illogical ways, so don't expect to be able to explain it in a logical manor.


Don't try to put words into my mouth about the meaning of logic - I didn't say it was a dirty word or impractical. You said that.

And just because I am saying that something is illogical does not mean I cannot use logic myself, in my answer

.

Geeze, chill out man. I wasn't trying to accuse you of anything. I just think alot of people (not you in particular) are anti-logic because they feel that they are somehow going to turn into unemotional robots or that logical people are somehow anti-emotion or dispassionate. Anywho, I'm not puting anything into your mouth. I just brought this up for sake of argument... for a learning experience. I personally think that being a rational or reasonable person does entail logic- nothing against you personally.

"What I am saying is that SA makes us behave in illogical ways, so don't expect to be able to explain it in a logical manor." Good, thanks for the clarification- a wise man once told me to not fear being misunderstood, but rather, seek clarification through continual dialogue.

Now, for sake of discussion (because, I obviously am still socialphobic and not perfect) and this isn't a personal criticism of you, but, just because something makes us behave irrationally, can't we still logically seek the cause of this irrationality, and can't we rationally seek a solution. I think it maybe difficult, but not necessarily impossible.

 

[wistful_dementia]

The contradictory thing is that people that don't have SA can actually enjoy these feelings of fear. They would call it a "thrill", for example from extreme sports or generally living dangerously.

Is it possible that anyone with bad SA, actually can enjoy bungee jumping or surf boarding, or going on the big fairground rides? Or have they come to hate the feelings of fear so much that they hate these things too?

Johnie.

I use to be somewhat a thrill seeker (skateboarding- antisocial behavior as a teenager- shoplifting) , but that in part was because I felt that I had control over the dangers. Socializing though is different- there is a natural trigger based off of my genetics, but at the same time I feel that I have little control over the outcome of social situations. At least positive outcomes. Of course it is a little more complicated socially- pride, selfcenteredness, an innate fear and feeling of stress of social-situations, etc.

 

[Johnie]

Sorry if I came over a bit heavy, wistful, but I was just responding to your reply - I didn't know now to make my point more softly. (I find it a bit patronizing when people start quoting dictionary definitions of simple words to me).

Just because something makes us behave irrationally, can't we still logically seek the cause of this irrationality, and can't we rationally seek a solution. I think it maybe difficult, but not necessarily impossible.

I don't know if every one of us SPs are the same - but when I have a bad time in a social scene I tend to agonize over where I went wrong. I get too tied up with the details of the specific occasion - sort of thrashing myself for my own shortcomings.

What I really need to do is to step back a pace, and then rationalize from this new vantage point, looking at the bigger picture. It's difficult to do this in the heat of the moment, but maybe it's possible as a long term strategy.

If I "rationally seek a solution" to my overall problem, I come to the conclusion that one way is to achieve total control over the fear response - by controlling the production of adrenaline, and blocking its influence on the hypothalamus and amylgdala in the brain. There are some ancient oriental techniques of achieving control over the (normally) autonomous systems of the mind and body, but an easier option would be with medications.

Another way would be to accept the fears, but to make them less debilitating. Somehow to "kid" ourselves that we have control over it. This is in accord with your other post where you say that there's a different response to the fear in this case.
I assume that this "brainwashing" approach is the basis of Cognitive Behavior Therapy but I've never done that.

Is social phobia just a hypersensitivity to fear, or is there more to it? How does it compare with (say) arachnophobia or ophidiophobia? These specific fears can be handled by hypnosis, or by controlled exposure to the source of the fear. Can these techniques be translated to helping SP?

Is there anything to be gained by observing people who don't have SP? It seems to me that these people do things automatically without a second thought - the same things that we fearfully anticipate, agonize over and analyze to extremes.
This would suggest to me that maybe we are wrong even trying to analyze it - that there is something already "built in" to enable us to be okay, but we've only got to find it.

 

[countrybumpkin]

This is not really a reply , just an observation . I just joined this site half an hour ago or so , but so far everyone who is posted on it seems very intelligent and well spoken .I can see merit in both Johnie and Wistful's trains of thought . In my personal experience logic and clear thinking don't seem to help me much with my problem . My mind pretty much surrenders control to animal instinct , though perhaps you lot have been working on this problem longer than me.