THIS STORY WILL CHANGE YOUR LIFE! How i finally overcame Social Anxiety (Ama)

[Drebased123]

I was moderately popular in middle school not going to lie I had a couple girlfriends here and there and had a decent amount of friends.it all started freshmen year of high school for me where my self consciousness started to get the best of me when I would often get picked on by the seniors getting roasted almost every other day for my haircut, my shoes, my image and etc. I would always be the center of attention of everybody around when people joked about me it led me to feel like I wasn’t "cool" enough to show my face around that group of people, so I left them and became friends with a kid who became my best friend. He constantly trashed popular kids, which made me feel good about hanging out with him.

Fast forward to senior year I was a little more open to people, I was on the football (starting position),had a new girlfriend who was “semi popular” and made a bunch of new friends, you would think 3 years later I would be feeling like the shit at this moment with all the new things in my life but nope I was missing one thing : I wasn’t as sociably open as I wanted to be, I’m talkative and energetic when I’m around my friends but I still didn’t have the courage to approach a stranger anywhere and say anything without feeling jitters or overthinking what I have to say. THEN ONE DAY THAT ALL CHANGED FOR ME. We had a homecoming prep rally at school which me and my best friend at the time planned 2 months in advance on asking our girlfriends to homecoming in front of the WHOLE SCHOOL ! Now you know with my social anxiety I was thinking about all type of bad things that could happen on that day 2 months prior but eventually that day came, I had to follow through with the promise to myself and my Best friend. So the moment has come where I walked out to the middle of the gym in front of 3000+ kids there was no way I can turn around now because all eyes was literally locked on me at this moment. My nerves were jumping like crazy as the principal handed me the microphone I didn’t practice anything I wanted to say or even had an idea what my voice sound like on a microphone, but once I managed to get the first couple words out the rest came natural and to be honest that became one of the most memorable days of MY LIFE! My girlfriend said yes to homecoming and the whole gym cheered for me I felt like I was a performer at a concert and everybody loved and remembered me for days to come. People I run into from old high school days still bring that story up when we met lol

So the mural of this story is The best way to overcome social anxiety is to literally put yourself out of your comfort zone, the things that give you the the most jitters DO IT! I could have easily punked out the whole situation with my negative thoughts 2 months prior but because i maned up it changed my life forever. I promise if you start with the little things first the bigger things only get smaller for you to accomplish. I hope my story help and inspire someone to step out their comfort zone 

 

[AtTheGates]

great story!

Sometimes the most insecure people are the one's who judge others more frequently. When someone is judging others based on the way their image /the way they look its plain to see where their heart is. They're superficial.

addressing a large crowd of people and getting your point across to them is nerve-racking but it can definitely help overcome anxiety. some will boo and some will cheer but regardless, it will help develop a thicker skin. Being a correctional officer was something that really helped me break out of a downward spiral of social anxiety..it was REALLY hard , but worth it..I didnt think I could do it but I really pushed myself.

. In general , dealing with social anxiety is something thats best to do earlier on in life..because it CAN and WILL get worse over the years if its not dealt with properly .

 

[Drebased123]

your absolutely right my friend ! all it took was for us to just swallow our pride and go out and DO IT. i think that's the hardest part for people to get over at first

 

[Sacrament]

That's the thing about anxiety: anticipation is always worse than the actual event because you spend most of the time in between thinking about the worst possible scenarios.

 

[Sacrament]

I wouldn't say closing off your emotions necessarily, but maybe if you actually prepared for the worst, things wouldn't have to be so messy. Let's say you have a job interview, but you're ready to leave with your head up even if it goes wrong. If you do that, and it does go wrong (you stutter, sweaty handshake, etc), you were already prepared for it.

A couple of years ago I won a literary contest in a place I had never been to before. I was extremely anxious about actually going there to receive the award, but I was like "meh, it's in a relatively small town, so there shouldn't be many people there". When I got there, the place was packed, and there were around 300 people there. I knew I had to go up on the stage eventually, and I knew my face was red and my hands were sweaty, but I wasn't going to back down. Eventually, when they did call my name, I proudly went up on the stage, shook their hands with my sweaty hands, made a joke as soon as I got the microphone, and read my prize winning poems. Sure, I read them a little fast, but I was very proud of actually going up there.

You will feel worse if you don't do the things, than you will if you do them while facing your fears and anxiety.

 

[Bronson99]

Skeptical, because I think it's not the "serious" kind of social anxiety if you had popularity, partners, friends, and were on a football team to begin with.

I've said it before and I'll say it again, I think we have 2 different phenomenons that comprise social anxiety. I suspect yours is the less problematic "acquired type" that can be unraveled; I suspect the other kind is more neurological in nature, relating more to how quickly one can process sensory stimuli. That's what you get in disorders like ADD and mild autism, etc. It's essentially a "delayed nervous response" and that's what I have. Far, far harder to deal with.

As an edit, though... I realize this response is quite terse. I'll say I like the message behind what they're saying. getting out of one's comfort zone is indeed necessary, after all.