Why we resist solutions to Social Anxiety?

[phoenix1]

Hear me out here- I’ve been doing a lot of thinking.

Have you ever wondered why we (who are socially anxious) naturally resist solutions to our problems? If you don’t believe me, just scan the threads and see where someone tries to directly help (with more than just sympathy) and you will see a lot of resistance and anger and sarcasm towards anyone who thinks they have a solution. I’m certainly no exception either. Every time someone says they know how to change social anxiety, I get all defensive and want to pick them apart.

Why then does that happen? The answer I believe now is that the majority of people with social anxiety are in some kind of acceptance holding pattern. The more you fight anxiety, the more anxiety you will receive. After awhile, we realize we cant fight any longer and we start to accept and give in to our situation to some degree. I believe that is what stabilizes social anxiety after so many years. To some degree, we simply stop fighting and accept our situation with loathing. We realize we cant fight it and we submit to it and in doing so it mostly stabilizes anxiety – meaning it doesn’t get much worse (although it doesn’t get any better either). So most of us reach a point where we give in and stop fighting it some of the time and the fear subsides a bit, but we still hate who we are, so every time we accept it, the fear goes a bit, but then we start to try to fight it again and make it worse to the point where we give in and accept it again. I think you get the idea..the pattern goes on and on.

I think that is why we especially resist solutions to social anxiety due to the idea that we are in some kind of acceptance pattern and that deep down we know that accepting who we are and not fighting helps us the most. We are tired of fighting and weary of making our anxiety worse.

The reason that acceptance is a pattern is that we still hate who we are, that even when we accept our situation, it will eventually crash again because we will start to try to change and adapt again which will bring back all the anxiety. So we are ‘stuck’

Read the excellent post ‘Unconditional Love’ in this forum. You can see how if we learn to accept and to LOVE who we are, then we can break the pattern and move away from anxiety.

 

[Spearmint]

..

 

[charlieHungerford]

Hmmmm. Totally disagree to some parts but agree to other parts. I think there are some of us who are working especially hard at overcoming SA and are making great progress.

Maybe the reason people are quick to disagree about solutions is because everyone suffers differently and what is the answer for one person is absolute nonsense to the next person. We all have developed fears for different reasons and suffer in different ways. I made the mistake in the past thinking what was right for me to overcome SA is right for everyone, but I hold my hands up and say I was wrong, we all suffer very differently and have very different insecurities.

Don't judge everyone who suffers from SA as resisting solutions. Its so far from the truth. But I do agree some people do just want to put to dismiss everything, I have encountered people like that.

I do agree for myself that acceptance of oneself is vital in order to overcome SA, but it certainly isn't the full answer. i.e. we have believed situations or certain people are to be feared because of maybe negative experiences and avoidance, this can only be overcome by complete analysis behind the fears and bringing things back into reality.

 

[signs05]

I'm with Charliehungerford on this one. I am personally VERY willing to try anything that will remove my social anxiety. This does not mean that I can not distinguish between someone actually out there to help and someone who is obviously trying to cash in on my anxiety problems.

 

[phoenix1]

Well the point I’m trying to make is that I believe a majority of people with SA eventually learn to ‘accept’ their situation after trying to fight it for so long. Not everyone is at that point and it wavers back and forth between fighting and submitting it seems. But that acceptance means that you have to believe that your case is hopeless. It actually brings about comfort and relief to me to believe that I just have to accept that this is how my life is going to play out and stop killing myself trying to fight it. I’m sure I’m not the only one. But anyway, if one is at that state of mind, then you are obviously less likely to want to find solutions to your problem. We seem to know that acceptance brings relief. Many times we just want to know that we arnt alone (like this website) and not how to change our situation.

Like I said, not everyone is at that point though. I’m trying to account for what I see as an unusual high resistance whenever someone tries to ‘help’. I'm happy for anyone who is doing great or desiring specific help. Not intending to judge anyone or their personal situation, it was a curiosity of mine. I'm quite strange like that.

 

[frizboy]

I feel like this post is aimed primarily at the posters who objected to Morty and/or powerwithin's threads, myself included. It should be noted, as has already been made apparent, that most, if not all of us, want help and have no objections to good solutions. Bad solutions are a waste of time, however. So let's make sure we're making a distinction here. Do people with SA resist bad solutions? Yes! And they should. So if someone comes to this forum offering a bad solution, it is incumbent upon us to demonstrate its shortcomings and offer better alternatives, lest someone fall prey to some false or overblown promise and end up wasting resources.

So I guess the relevant question is: Do we resist good solutions? I have no evidence to hazard an answer to this question at this time. Suffice it to say, however, social anxiety and depressive symptoms often go hand-in-hand. One of the main cognitive components of depression is hopelessness. This hopelessness can manifest in noncompliance with treatment options, an inability to see things getting better in the future, a preoccupation with failure, etc. So, to the extent that SA and hopelessness are correlated, I would expect some resistance.

 

[frizboy]

I would, finally, like to add that in my personal experience, accepting anxiety has had the opposite effect. As long as I accepted it, I grew rigid in my ways, did not try to find solutions, began thinking of how I could bend my future to fit around it. I grew more and more anxious, and more and more withdrawn.

Today I am fighting anxiety. I am being proactive, seeking solutions, applying what I've learned, taking risks, and I am starting to feel a lot better about myself. Obviously, when I say I am "fighting anxiety," that's not giving a lot of information. But for space reasons, and because I do feel that everyone is different and that everyone will find different solutions useful, I feel no need to post what I've done. That said, if anyone is interested on my perspective on their own SA and what might be done, let me know and I'll see what I can contribute.

 

[phoenix1]

No particular thread in mind. I’ve been around a long time just reading posts and it was just something that seemed a little out of place and was curious about. It was also a ploy to try to help people at the same time if you read between the lines

Some interesting points brought up though. What is ‘fighting’ anxiety?

I think there are some of us who are working especially hard at overcoming SA and are making great progress.

Working hard in constructive ways like analyzing our perceptions and thoughts and the reality of such is extremely important and are great tools and techniques to help improve SA. But the ‘fight’ I’m talking about is the direct fight against anxiety – such as hating yourself for being shy / anxious or hating who you are and wanting so bad to change and be like everyone else. The more you directly fight your anxiety, the more anxiety you will have. The more you want to change your anxiety directly, the more anxiety will be created in an effort to change itself.

Suffice it to say, however, social anxiety and depressive symptoms often go hand-in-hand. One of the main cognitive components of depression is hopelessness.

I think it may be more than just a correlation between helplessness and SA. I think our minds are designed to give up the ‘fight’ when we realize its just not working. SA is one of the cruelest things because it fuels itself and we cant directly fight it. It may take years, but sooner or later most of us do give up to some degree and accept that we cant change it (atleast part of the time). We give up trying perhaps? And even good techniques like the ones CharlieHungerford is working through may seem too difficult for many people.

There's a lot of defensive repsonses, but I'm not trying to criticize anyone. It's probably more about me because I know that many times I've given up trying because I cant directly fight SA. Not depression per se, but just accepting that I cant win this battle. Many times I find comfort in no longer fighting it and perhaps that makes it a little more difficult to try other ways to get better..such as analzying thoughts, exercising, eating right, relaxation, meditation and so on and so on.

 

[ignisfatuus]

Phoenix1, you are partially correct in your observation of SA sufferers staying in a holding pattern, but this has a lot to do with the services available. As Frizboy pointed out, most, if not all of us, are willing to try something new, provided it isn't some off the wall treatment.

So, what services are available to us? Being as we are, particularly those of us with SA generalized type, it is virtually impossible to reach out to the current help in place. One of the big problems a lot of SAers have is using the phone; perusing my phonebook, I see about five percent of the psychologists listed have e-mail addresses they can be contacted at. That's a minor point. The major problem is the one-size-fits-all CBT they like to use. Unfortunately, it's not quite that easy. SA has specific issues that need to be addressed, and using the generic treatment for anxiety disorders doesn't cut it. Which brings me to another glaring hole in the treatments available: the utter lack of SA CBT groups.

I see this said a lot as well - "Only you can help yourself." This is a hollow platitude. If someone jumped out of a window low enough to survive, albeit barely, as you were passing by, would you say this to them? Doubtful. Just because you cannot see the mental wounds and trauma of another, doesn't mean it isn't there, and it doesn't make it any less serious. As you have probably experienced at one time or another, this leads to accusations of malingering or overreacting which serves to continually knock down whatever little progress you have made on constructing a foundation that has already been kicked down multiple times. And we roll the stone up the hill one more time, knowing it will inevitably tumble to the base once more.

 

[charlieHungerford]

I don't really understand the purpose of this post.

I agree with frizboy - when you read someone's comments about how they believe you overcome SA, you immediately know if that method is accurate and applicable to your own situation. I know I read people's post with interest on how to overcome SA, but often feel no that really is not appropriate for me. So of course I will not look into this. I remember doing hypnotherapy for a few sessions because the hypnotherapist told me she would make me overcome all my lack of confidence and feeling anxious in certain situations/around certain people. She said that all I have to do in order to overcome my anxiety is to tell myself 'I am confident, I am confident, I am confident'. And if I am going to have to do public speaking to rehearse what I have to say over and over and over again so that I know it 10000% so that I will know exactly what I have to say and not mess up. What a load of rubbish! This is probably good advcie for people who are confident already and want to improve. I told her this was so inaccurate for how I suffer and she claimed it was correct and I had to trust her and give it a try. But it was such a load of rubbish that I told her that she doesn't understand.

What you say about the fight against anxiety, I just cannot relate to, we must suffer differently? I don't hate myself or want to be like everyone else, I just want to overcome my lack of confidence/SA and be myself because I like so much about myself and feel when I have the confidence to allow myself to be myself I will succeed in everything.

Anyway, I am glad you posted that, its an interesting debate and killed half an hour of my boring day at work!

 

[frizboy]

Well since I know acceptance therapies are successful with some individuals, I won't discount it. What I will recommend, simply, is that we not make blanket statements about what will work for people. Since saying, "This worked for me," or "Well, that didn't work for me," isn't making a recommendation so much as it's stating a personal fact, let's agree on this point: acceptance and fighting are two valid strategies, but they will vary in their validity from person to person. Acceptance would never in a million years work for me just because I think the premises amount to a false conclusion. But that's more based on my personal circumstances than anything. You have to LEARN about your options, and look for a FEELING that something will work or not.

 

[phoenix1]

Thanks for the interesting responses.

So true about there being a lack of decent services available to SA. For such a widespread problem, you would think that there would be more options available.

I think it may ultimately be a little unhelpful to be saying that everyone with SA suffers different and have different problems to work through and because of that, the solution should be individualized. I mean it is important to realize differences, but also extremely important to look at commonality and similarities that are prevalent in the majority of cases. By doing so, you can see the core of what is SA and what is your own mental deviations and know how better to deal with it. Probably the biggest reason why there isn’t some kind of big movement to create some big service to people with SA is because they don’t know exactly how to help the majority of people, so they keep it individualized. Sure there will always be exceptions to how the majority of people with SA work, but I think its extremely important to try to find similarities among the masses.

What you say about the fight against anxiety, I just cannot relate to, we must suffer differently? I don't hate myself or want to be like everyone else, I just want to overcome my lack of confidence/SA and be myself because I like so much about myself and feel when I have the confidence to allow myself to be myself I will succeed in everything.

I’m curious about that. So when you come home from… say a party and you were afraid to be ‘yourself’ you are not mad at yourself from being shy or scared or not living up to your potential? You don’t beat yourself up for not reaching your own standards? You simply just ‘want’ to be normal and be confident and go about your day like the party was nothing? ‘fighting’ is the retribution you give yourself or the pain you feel that tells you that something wasn’t right. It’s the fuel that give SA its standard wings.

I would be more than confident to say that the majority of SA people ‘fight’ themselves in that way. We dislike being shy or scared or not being who we think we should be and feel pain, we feel anger and feel guilt. What that does it create more anxiety to make you more weary next time, so you will be even more scared and more shy.

 

[charlieHungerford]

Phoenix - I think I would be fine at a party to be myself, as long as I knew someone there to not feel like an extra, but also after a couple of drinks I would be myself. I feel hugely more confident and less anxious in informal situations, I feel its light hearted and easier.

My real fears only really come about in formal situations, things such as public speaking and if I have to train someone up at work and have to be really confident speaking as well as chatting to women who I fancy but don't know all that well. But I am working on these in huge detail, I spend 2 hours every night working on SA and I have done for a while now, you may have seen my posts which are always positive and constructive. I would be surprised if you see a post I have written which is either negative or not aimed at overcoming SA. I have made huge progress from when I started, I couldn't use the phone whatsoever (now I can make phone calls when people are all around me at work when its quiet), I couldn't look at people in the eye (now that is not a problem unless its a girl I have liked for a while and then I get nervous around her), I couldn't go to hairdressers or shops in the past - hence why I went 3 years without a haircut once (now I do this all the time, get haircut every 4 weeks, I love to shop), I couldn't speak to people one on one - I simply got too nervous that I wouldn't get my words out - this is something I can do very well with the exception of some people like authority or women who I may fancy for instance (the people make me anxious hence I feel anxious when speaking)- then I may get very anxious - but I am sure a lot of people suffer this - but its something I am going to be working on in great detail. I was so self conscious over how I looked, I have overcome that now, I used to always hide my face and avoid people seeing me, I have overcome that, I accept myself and feel it doesn't matter. I still have a long way to go, but I am getting very close because I can feel I am really becoming more and more confident speaking and starting to gain a higher value on myself, less self conscious, etc. I am going to work on desensitising people and situations I'm anxious around/in.

I won't class myself as overcoming SA until I can do public speaking and that absolutely frightens the life out of me still, but I have a lot to work on with regard that, its not something I have worked on specifically yet as I rarely have to do it. I think for instance the word public speaking sends fear to me because of past terrible experiences and failures, and the anxiety just linked to that situation is what scares the life out of me and therefore speaking is so impossible. But I will aim to desensitise that and not fear public speaking. I believe I can do it.

I am sure I don't suffer SA like many people do. I don't say this to sound like I am boasting or anything, but there are 35 people in our office and I recently was speaking to my boss about maybe leaving because of a change in my job and he said to me that I would be a great loss because I am probably the most popular person in the office. I have huge confidence in myself for a lot of things, I love my personality (with the exception I wish I was totally confident), I like so much about myself in terms of intelligence and looks, but I do have insecurities still which I now understand and am working at overcoming them and its working. From my rock bottom where I was struggling so badly to my ultimate goal of overcoming SA, I believe I am over 50% of the way there. It has taken time to make this much progress, I am 100% committed to working on this as much as I can until I have overcome it. I know this is probably sad but I often taken a week off work just to work on overcoming this. I do not resist methods of overcoming SA whatsoever, if something seems right I am just so excited and cannot wait to work on it.
As for fighting the anxiety - I understand why I get anxious, when I am anxious I will not get angry or fight it, I use it as an opportunity to understand in even more detail so that I can aim to correct it. I will write down what caused me to be anxious immediately and then analyse it as soon as I get chance and keep working on it. I will analyse in my mind at the time why I am anxious and try and ease my fears. I am simply always searching for answers. I mean for sure I dislike being anxious and feel scared when I am, but I will not dwell on it or feel angry or guilt whatsoever, I look at it as a great opportunity to learn how I can beat it.

Well, that is my situation, I don't know if that is different from you or others, but I will never resist solutions to overcome SA. This will sound really stupid but I am so passionate about overcoming SA that it has probably turned into my favourite interest. I just love working on it and love the rewards I get from this - the rewards being confident and able to perform in situations I have struggled so incredibly badly with in the past. I want to overcome SA and aim to become qualified to be a therapist to help people with confidence issues. I am not sure if that will happen because financially it will be hard to go back to university. But I am going to overcome SA and when I do I am going to buy the biggest bottle of quality champagne to celebrate. I hope it will be sometime this year.

 

[random]

I feel like this post is aimed primarily at the posters who objected to Morty and/or powerwithin's threads, myself included. It should be noted, as has already been made apparent, that most, if not all of us, want help and have no objections to good solutions. Bad solutions are a waste of time, however. So let's make sure we're making a distinction here. Do people with SA resist bad solutions? Yes! And they should. So if someone comes to this forum offering a bad solution, it is incumbent upon us to demonstrate its shortcomings and offer better alternatives, lest someone fall prey to some false or overblown promise and end up wasting resources.

I agree with Frizboy 100%.
About 3 years ago when I tried to 'give up' and accept that I would never get over SA, I started having frequent heart palpitations which went away when I resumed the fight against SA. So acceptance doesn't work for me personally. I have read that a 'mature psychological defense' may include delaying dealing with something until the time is right. I have wondered if this why some people report relief using techniques to ignore their emotional pain, SA etc.
My SA seems to be based largely on my personal history and false beliefs about the past and how the past defines me. I have had alot of healing of my past from God, writing, books, and weekly therapy - all of it tailored to my issues. I have also had to face the way my current environment is still contributing to my SA in an unhealthy way (I created my present life based on my past and false beliefs). Other people seem to have other causes or driving factors behind their SA and are facing different envirnoments today, so I do not adhere to the belief that there is a common basis and therefore a common treatment suitable for all. If there was unversality, I imagine there would so much more similarity of posts on this thread.

 

[Scottish_Player]

Have you ever wondered why we (who are socially anxious) naturally resist solutions to our problems? If you don’t believe me, just scan the threads and see where someone tries to directly help (with more than just sympathy) and you will see a lot of resistance and anger and sarcasm towards anyone who thinks they have a solution. I’m certainly no exception either. Every time someone says they know how to change social anxiety, I get all defensive and want to pick them apart.

Great post man one of the best i have read in along time and i agree 100%, i have also noticed the pattern you speak about and you put it into words well, i was trying to think of how to put it but i couldnt.

2 things that are helping me overcome SA are acceptance and positive thinking. When i learned to accept who i was thats when i could begin helping myself, i accepted myself for the quiet, shy, weird, stange guy etc that people may have seen me as and i built on it but until i accepted it in myself i could do nothing.

 

[phoenix1]

Thanks Scottish_Player

CharlieHungerford,

That was really interesting and insightful. I think you are well on your way to becoming who you want to be. The fact that you don’t give in to guilt or anger and just try to analyze instead is amazing in itself and I’m sure if you stick to that you will be able to overcome what you need to overcome.

Random,

I never said acceptance by itself is the key to overcoming anxiety. Acceptance of something you believe is bad, is not helpful at all. In fact, it wont do a thing at all to fix SA if you still believe that what you accept is terrible – such as giving up to the world because you cant fight it anymore. It may stabilize things temporarily (just the raw anxiety part of it) as your mind tries to readjust, but at no point would it fix it – atleast that’s my experience and my belief.

However, if you could accept that who you are is not something terrible and not feel the pain and guilt and anger everytime you go out, then that’s something that would help. Its something that is a commonality for the majority of all SA suffers.

There are plenty of similarities and commonalities between SA people, including root causes and how our minds work to try to overcome anxiety and how it originated. Perhaps not in this thread, but in the thousands of others. There’s always exceptions and the exceptions are the ones that usually make themselves known. I really think there can be a common treatment, but tailored for the individual.

Atleast we should be open to the idea of such. Can you imagine the possibilities for a common treatment, how effective it would be on a large scale for the good of everyone? Even if it wasn’t perfect for everyone? Individualized treatment is something that is so difficult for a person with SA – not to mention solely effective based on the ability of who or what is guiding you - Even for the simple fact that we have to interact with professionals and figure out what it is that we need most. Most of us are too afraid to do that to any large degree.

There are so many striking similarities for the average SA person that you just can’t ignore. Common unrealistic perceptions, common reactions, common ways of how our minds deal with social anxiety, common thought patterns. It may have started different and from a different context, but its developed into very similar patterns. I just think we need to be a little more open minded that a common solution is possible to some degree. I, for one, believe its possible.

 

[random]

I am open minded - but my open mind can't quite agree with you. I accept that others have different first hand information and experience and therefore base their opinions on different information than I do - and so I can respectfully disagree.
I can indeed imagine the possibilities for a common treatment "on a large scale for the good of everyone" but my hearts desire cannot create in me the belief in me that one exists. I agree a universal cure is a wonderful thought though, I am open to the idea, and I continue to listen and learn from others and from my own experiences and reading - maybe one day I will encounter objective data that changes my opinion.
Perhaps my insurance company - which pays for 90% of my therapy -will notify me of a treatment program that works well for a significant number of people with SA (thus saving the company $$$$); I would have no qualms about participating if that happened. I am not able to comment much on the 'common treatment, but tailored for the individual' 'even if it wasn't perfect for everyone' because I think the definition has flexed past the compromise point and the implied desire for perfection is not familiar to me in this context.

 

[JamesMorgan]

If you understand that everyone is in their own world and what they see is true for them, you can also understand why it is so difficult to accept that things are different to how they appear. Their ideas and thoughts of themselves, their world and others are true for them but not necessarily for others.

Pride and attachment to what others think are two biggies for most people who suffer from SA/SP because it is largely based on perceived qualities of oneself and others. They see me differently why dont they share my view? They think bad of me, why are they so wrong? Whats wrong with me, why dont they see me for who i am? Our pride makes us unhelpable because we feel that others dont see us the way we see ourself and that bothers us. We care what people think of us, this is so apparent, yet we always think we are right.

The truth is of course our view cannot be correct at present because we still experience anxiety. So everyone is our teacher revealing to us in a subtle way what our truth really is, how we view our world. And that truth is that we haven't really got a clue, if we did, we wouldn't suffer as much. So we should choose to be open minded and loosen our grip on 'our own' reality.

James

 

[ignisfatuus]

If you understand that everyone is in their own world and what they see is true for them, you can also understand why it is so difficult to accept that things are different to how they appear. Their ideas and thoughts of themselves, their world and others are true for them but not necessarily for others.

Pride and attachment to what others think are two biggies for most people who suffer from SA/SP because it is largely based on perceived qualities of oneself and others. They see me differently why dont they share my view? They think bad of me, why are they so wrong? Whats wrong with me, why dont they see me for who i am? Our pride makes us unhelpable because we feel that others dont see us the way we see ourself and that bothers us. We care what people think of us, this is so apparent, yet we always think we are right.

The truth is of course our view cannot be correct at present because we still experience anxiety. So everyone is our teacher revealing to us in a subtle way what our truth really is, how we view our world. And that truth is that we haven't really got a clue, if we did, we wouldn't suffer as much. So we should choose to be open minded and loosen our grip on 'our own' reality.

Er....no. Not even close, big guy. This is wrong on so many levels, I'm not even going to try to formulate a rebuttal.

 

[random]

JamesMorgan,

This description of self perception and reality are new to me...I've never heard the experience of SA described this way. I am interested to learn how others experience SA. Do you have SA or are you describing your recover from SA?