simplejack
Member
hi. i found out few things observing my social phobia that i havent seen anywhere else and i'd like to ask you about your thoughts on it.
im 19 and im from poland so pardon my english skills. i've found out i have SA just few months ago, did a lot of thinking since that but im sure you all did
My idea is that social anxiety is really concentration disorder. 100% of our concentration is targeted at ourselves. when i'm walking on the street other people create anxiety in me. but when something else catches my mind and i forget to think about controlling ourselves, our anxiety dissapears for as long as we keep focused on something. i have noticed same mechanisms in completely different areas. when im excersising at the gym and i think about the pain and how many repetitions are there left, the excresise feels sooo long and i feel that pain i actually do like 30% less repetitions. when something else catches my attention like someone is talking to me or i just think about what im gonna do after gym during excresise, im like "wow am i already done?" i did it so fast and i havent felt the pain! another example: when im in classroom and im constantly looking at my watch and just trying to wait till end of class, it gives me kind of psychical pain. again if i listen to teacher (or think about something) class passes like if it was 15 minutes.
The trick is to actually THINK about something and kill other thought. brain doesnt do well with multi tasking. well it's not as easy as it looks heres some experiment that will show you how this damn mechanism of thinking works
YOU ARE NOW BLINKING MANUALLY
now try to stop blinking. you cant. you cant concioussly steer your thoughts. have you ever been in a situation with awkward silence with someone and say to yourself in your head "say something, comon start some new topic. hmm what can i talk to him about" and you cant say fucking anything and it kills you? ok, lets get back to blinking. social phobia is actually blinking manually. (same mechanism is with breathing, there actually are many things like that). you can blink manually for some time but you're getting confused. you ask "is this the speed i normally blink? should i blink now or wait few more seconds?" you somehow feel that your blinking is unnatural and you are unable to blink like when you are automated. controlling your every move when people are around is same mechanism. you do it but deep inside you feel that those moves are not natural and not like automated moves. this self conciousness is a bitch. YOU ARE UNABLE TO PERFORM ANY ACTION NATURALLY WHEN YOU ARE OBSERVING IT AT THE SAME TIME! if you start observing your thoughts you cant think at the same time. when you analyze yourself, you analyze your thoughts from the past, cant think and analyze at the same time. the conlusion is: observing our action and doing them at the same time is our worst enemy.
SOME MORE PRACTICAL USES OF THIS THEORY
its hard to implement it because as i said earlier its impossible to concioussly forget about something. it has this auto destructive mechanism of checking if you have forgotten it which fucking reminds you of anxiety and youre back at the beggining.
when talking the biggest mistake i always have been making is first thinking and than saying it.(when im insecure i would actually not say it at all) if you know you have thought about something its usually already too late to say it. i mean you can say this sentence but its more like reciting text given to you than talking. you will be focused on saying it and you say only this sentence and your mind goes blank. you should think the same speed you talk and speak your thoughts directly without paying attention on what you're saying. if your observer turns on you're fucked. i often stop talking in the middle of the sentence because i have this self concioussness turning in. i also noticed that in this observing state of concioussness you can actually talk but its like with blinking. you are talking slow and you are unable to say anything creative.
one of my techniques is listening to music and focusing on it when traveling on public transit. this is very hard, i know because the moment you check if you have forgotten about anxiety it comes back.
sorry for my english im curious if you know all of this or if some things are new to you or if you disagree i will post more techniques if you are interested, wanted to write them in this post but i gotta run.
im 19 and im from poland so pardon my english skills. i've found out i have SA just few months ago, did a lot of thinking since that but im sure you all did
My idea is that social anxiety is really concentration disorder. 100% of our concentration is targeted at ourselves. when i'm walking on the street other people create anxiety in me. but when something else catches my mind and i forget to think about controlling ourselves, our anxiety dissapears for as long as we keep focused on something. i have noticed same mechanisms in completely different areas. when im excersising at the gym and i think about the pain and how many repetitions are there left, the excresise feels sooo long and i feel that pain i actually do like 30% less repetitions. when something else catches my attention like someone is talking to me or i just think about what im gonna do after gym during excresise, im like "wow am i already done?" i did it so fast and i havent felt the pain! another example: when im in classroom and im constantly looking at my watch and just trying to wait till end of class, it gives me kind of psychical pain. again if i listen to teacher (or think about something) class passes like if it was 15 minutes.
The trick is to actually THINK about something and kill other thought. brain doesnt do well with multi tasking. well it's not as easy as it looks
heres some experiment that will show you how this damn mechanism of thinking worksYOU ARE NOW BLINKING MANUALLY
now try to stop blinking. you cant. you cant concioussly steer your thoughts. have you ever been in a situation with awkward silence with someone and say to yourself in your head "say something, comon start some new topic. hmm what can i talk to him about" and you cant say fucking anything and it kills you? ok, lets get back to blinking. social phobia is actually blinking manually. (same mechanism is with breathing, there actually are many things like that). you can blink manually for some time but you're getting confused. you ask "is this the speed i normally blink? should i blink now or wait few more seconds?" you somehow feel that your blinking is unnatural and you are unable to blink like when you are automated. controlling your every move when people are around is same mechanism. you do it but deep inside you feel that those moves are not natural and not like automated moves. this self conciousness is a bitch. YOU ARE UNABLE TO PERFORM ANY ACTION NATURALLY WHEN YOU ARE OBSERVING IT AT THE SAME TIME! if you start observing your thoughts you cant think at the same time. when you analyze yourself, you analyze your thoughts from the past, cant think and analyze at the same time. the conlusion is: observing our action and doing them at the same time is our worst enemy.
SOME MORE PRACTICAL USES OF THIS THEORY
its hard to implement it because as i said earlier its impossible to concioussly forget about something. it has this auto destructive mechanism of checking if you have forgotten it which fucking reminds you of anxiety and youre back at the beggining.
when talking the biggest mistake i always have been making is first thinking and than saying it.(when im insecure i would actually not say it at all
) if you know you have thought about something its usually already too late to say it. i mean you can say this sentence but its more like reciting text given to you than talking. you will be focused on saying it and you say only this sentence and your mind goes blank. you should think the same speed you talk and speak your thoughts directly without paying attention on what you're saying. if your observer turns on you're fucked. i often stop talking in the middle of the sentence because i have this self concioussness turning in. i also noticed that in this observing state of concioussness you can actually talk but its like with blinking. you are talking slow and you are unable to say anything creative.one of my techniques is listening to music and focusing on it when traveling on public transit. this is very hard, i know because the moment you check if you have forgotten about anxiety it comes back.
sorry for my english
im curious if you know all of this or if some things are new to you or if you disagree i will post more techniques if you are interested, wanted to write them in this post but i gotta run.
