Okay, it's not entirely accurate, but there is some truth to it. More mental disorders are prevalent amongst poor living situations compared to those who had better living situations. It's not saying that people who have better living are not able to have SA, it's just saying the statistics are higher with people who had poorer situations. If you break it down by geographical location, race, male/female; there are reasons to why each group are more likely to develop these things. Plenty of children who are raised in stable homes may be able to have mental issues, but not compared to the ones that who were not, the rate is far higher.
Social Anxiety is a Lie
- Thread starter powerfulthoughts
- Start date
Okay, it's not entirely accurate, but there is some truth to it. More mental disorders are prevalent amongst poor living situations compared to those who had better living situations. It's not saying that people who have better living are not able to have SA, it's just saying the statistics are higher with people who had poorer situations. If you break it down by geographical location, race, male/female; there are reasons to why each group are more likely to develop these things. Plenty of children who are raised in stable homes may be able to have mental issues, but not compared to the ones that who were not, the rate is far higher.
powerfulthoughts said:
Yeah, if all one needed were loving parents and a stable home life, I wouldn't be here right now. To be a bit bitter and mean-spirited, might I ask where my success is? I've got no doubt that what Beleza just posted is correct - that if you're born into a poorer living situation, you're more 'at risk'. I just occasionally see the assertion that if everything was hunky dory, I should be OK, and the fact that I'm not just causes enough cognitive dissonance to bug the hell out of me.
I can go down Richey's list, saying that I had easy going parents, fantastic schoolmates, lived in a beautiful home, was surrounded with mentors who provided great advice (that never stuck), and had an overall blessed life where little went wrong. I feel talented, I feel smart - then what the hell's wrong with me? Sometimes I feel like, amongst all these people who have genuine, heart-breaking pasts or present situations, and have developed symptoms similar to my own, that means I must be especially deficient if that's my natural way of feeling.
Without chattering on more about me personally, I just think that, as has already been said a fair bit, social anxiety is a damn broad malady, and has several root causes, though some are more common than others.
Now I'll stop being cranky and try to contribute. I don't think the nature vs. nurture thing is all that clear cut. As a very young child, I was extremely hidebound. I never, ever crawled. My mother had hell with potty training me. Once I 'learned' a word, even if it was wrong, that was it; I spent years in speech class because I was too damn stubborn to change. This still holds true, to some extent. Babies have personalities, and I suppose it's a question of whether that's a neurological quirk or random environmental chance. One has to wonder if one could take two infants, expose them to the same stuff, and get reasonably similar personalities. I think it's a little bit nature, a little bit nurture, and then everything just results from experience.
That largely-unscientific spiel done, I do agree with powerfulthoughts sentiment about folks believing it's unchangeable. Letting social anxiety define you, thinking that you can't change it because that's the way things are - that's just delusion. If it's adversely affecting your life, you need to do something about it, not just accept it as the status quo. Very little makes me feel worse than seeing someone resign themselves to that.
Maybe that's just my own experiences and beliefs talking, but eh.
As for the lie bit, it's a charged word. The original post goes straight from a rather provocative title to a spiel about how accepting that you were lied to is some sort of easy-to-use magic bullet. Now that powerfulthoughts has explained it, I get it, but something being a lie and something being predicated on a lie are two different things. I suppose that, given I really don't feel inferior, the message wasn't for me. (And in fact, I agree strongly enough that it seems like a truth that's needless to even state.)
So thank you for making the thread, powerfulthoughts - if nothing else, it has generated some stimulating discussion.
theslowesthand
Banned
That pretty much sums up my life. Yep, it all just builds up, year in, year out .. the insults, ridicule, mocking, rejection, non-acceptance, belittling, laughter, curel/disgusting taunts, random verbal attacks, funny looks, stares, disaproval,...
All these "cursed" people have (& still do) "held me ransom", dictating what i can & can't do (can't "have a life" or "get out there" even if wanted to), what clothes/fashion i am allowed to wear in public (nothing that shows any individuality), what feelings i may express (practically none, good or bad), where i may go (not in most public places, due to fear of random "attack" by strangers). Basically, the dumb-but-toxic sheeple RULE all public situations. They have chosen to fit-in exactly as their fellow-sheeple DEMAND, and anyone who "steps out of line" (eg is even SLIGHTLY different), gets "HAMMERED". It's almost like a Nazi regime out there!!!
Put it this way, after 30/so years of all this bullsht, i would quite happily be one of the first in line were there ever an "operation" for a mass-culling of humanity (eg the 1st commandment of this unknown author - to reduce world's population down to 500M, as currently human population FAR exceeds what is healthy for planet earth; we've become a PEST now, no different than rats/etc, and much worse than)
----------
About being a lie: Yes, SA/SP is based on lies, namely irrational beliefs. But it's certainly no lie that these "phenomenom" are for real, they do exist.
Last edited:
Opaline
1
You can count me in for that as well.
theslowesthand
Banned
Some lies go deeper than others. Either you don't truly "believe" these affirmations/truths, or they are very deeply-entrenched. Either way, i believe some form of deep-subconscious-targeting therapy is required (in my next therapy session i'm will start "subconscious sandbox therapy", which involves a tray of sand, and small figurines)
Satine
Well-known member
Hello powerfulthoughts.
I see where you're coming from but I assure you that if a person feels belittled, it comes from a deep place (near the core of the self; most of us here were taught we were inferior at a very young age and it has been reinforced since then) and is not very easily shifted. Social anxiety is indeed a learned behaviour and as such can be unlearned.
As for it being a complete lie... I wouldn't particularly say so. At the time each of us learned to be extra-vigilant in company it was the best thing we could do to survive. For some of us, our social lives and our own resources have changed, therefore for most of us here social anxiety is an outdated way of responding to the world. But it's not easy to change it. That takes work, courage, determination, support, resources and ingenuity.
Your message is well-intended, I can certainly see that, but the road to changing all of this is pretty tough. For the time we continue to have SA it is real enough.
poisongodmachine
Member
Who ever said having 'social anxiety' makes you inferior?