whatsallthisthen
Member
I feel like I've effectively gotten over the severe social anxiety that started plaguing me around the end of middle school.
At the start of high school, things were really bad. I felt like the world hung on my every action. I felt like everyone was watching me at every minute of every hour. I was thus terrified of trying new things or meeting new people, for fear that I should make a mistake and made a fool of myself. I made very few friends, and the few that I did make, saw me as a strange, anti-social recluse.
However, throughout the four years that I attended high school, I gradually came to the realization that:
a) The world doesn't revolve around me. If I make a small blunder, no one is really going to care all that much. People are usually much more concerned with themselves than what the kid in the second row from the front is doing with his pencil.
b) If I can't really be 100% confident about something, I can at least feign it. the effect is the same. I've gotten so good at feigning confidence that on occasion I manage to fool even myself.
c) Forcing yourself into social situations toughens you. If presented with a choice of going to a party or staying home, pick the party. Stay as long as possible: meet new people, try things you haven't tried before. Never take the easy way out.
d) Similarly to the above... I learned to DO things instead of just sitting there and brooding about my formerly miserable situation. As my Euro Hist. teacher put it... "if you don't feed the mind, the mind begins to feed on you". When I wasn't out doing something, I found something productive to do with my time... e.g. practice piano, guitar, program a short game... in essence, anything to prevent me from becoming a prisoner to my thoughts.
Now, nearing the end of my senior year, I feel like a more or less different person. The only obstacle I faced was that the people that had come to know me as a recluse during the freshman and sophomore years: it would seem quite odd if I was to one day become super-social and talkative, so I kept my gradual transformation on the d.l. with them. However, I made plenty of new friends during junior and senior year, and began to drift away from that old crowd.
Now that high school is almost over and college is only months away, I feel like I'm ready to start life afresh. I can only thank the people that have taken the time to post their stories on this site: they made me aware that I was not alone, and gave insights into what was wrong in the lives of others, so I could make sure that my own life did not take the same route.
I guess the only advice I can give is pretty much the general mumbo-jumbo: take risks, get out there and do stuff, and stop being over-sensitive. It's been said many, many times before... but it works.
At the start of high school, things were really bad. I felt like the world hung on my every action. I felt like everyone was watching me at every minute of every hour. I was thus terrified of trying new things or meeting new people, for fear that I should make a mistake and made a fool of myself. I made very few friends, and the few that I did make, saw me as a strange, anti-social recluse.
However, throughout the four years that I attended high school, I gradually came to the realization that:
a) The world doesn't revolve around me. If I make a small blunder, no one is really going to care all that much. People are usually much more concerned with themselves than what the kid in the second row from the front is doing with his pencil.
b) If I can't really be 100% confident about something, I can at least feign it. the effect is the same. I've gotten so good at feigning confidence that on occasion I manage to fool even myself.
c) Forcing yourself into social situations toughens you. If presented with a choice of going to a party or staying home, pick the party. Stay as long as possible: meet new people, try things you haven't tried before. Never take the easy way out.
d) Similarly to the above... I learned to DO things instead of just sitting there and brooding about my formerly miserable situation. As my Euro Hist. teacher put it... "if you don't feed the mind, the mind begins to feed on you". When I wasn't out doing something, I found something productive to do with my time... e.g. practice piano, guitar, program a short game... in essence, anything to prevent me from becoming a prisoner to my thoughts.
Now, nearing the end of my senior year, I feel like a more or less different person. The only obstacle I faced was that the people that had come to know me as a recluse during the freshman and sophomore years: it would seem quite odd if I was to one day become super-social and talkative, so I kept my gradual transformation on the d.l. with them. However, I made plenty of new friends during junior and senior year, and began to drift away from that old crowd.
Now that high school is almost over and college is only months away, I feel like I'm ready to start life afresh. I can only thank the people that have taken the time to post their stories on this site: they made me aware that I was not alone, and gave insights into what was wrong in the lives of others, so I could make sure that my own life did not take the same route.
I guess the only advice I can give is pretty much the general mumbo-jumbo: take risks, get out there and do stuff, and stop being over-sensitive. It's been said many, many times before... but it works.
