AdrianMtl
New member
Hi all. I happened to stumble across this forum recently and have been going through all the posts. I just wanted share something that I've found incredibly helpful. For about two years I've been trying to deal with SA and associated hyperhidrosis. Until recently, I was kind of planning my schedule and activities to avoid situations where I felt my performance was being judged. I'm majoring in biochemistry and it was especially bad in the lab. My supervisor would be explaining some technique to me, and I'd be thinking about how I'd screw up something and look like an idiot. This led to me not learning much and having to ask him to repeat himself. The worst was when I had participated in a psych study at school; like all psych studies, there are cognitive tests at the beginning to test performance and screen for those with cognitive impairments. This is a one-on-one situation, the tester giving the participant a string of numbers and letters, which the participant must recite backwards. After a while, the sweat was beading on my forehead and I was worrying that she could see it (she probably could). It's a horrible feeling, someone two feet away watching you sweat in a quiet, air-conditioned room with no one else around. Anyway, you get the picture. A few months ago, I figured that the root of the problem was perfectionism. I had this idea that everyone expected me to do everything 100% properly. Thus, making a mistake makes me look like an idiot. Recently, I started making situations like these less 'serious' by trying to making more jokes, trying to smile more, and making an effort to be more conversational and personable etc. I've found that over the last two months, my SA levels have gone down significantly. The important thing is to lighten the mood from the beginning of the situation. That way the SA doesn't get a chance to snowball. I'm not sure if anything like this has been posted elsewhere in the forum, but if this advice can help anyone else the way it's helped me it would be a shame to keep it to myself. Also, I'd be very interested in seeing if this works for other people. If it does, let me know!
Adrian
Adrian