Social anxiety advice

Hello @chewinggum0907 Welcome to 7 cups! It's great that you joined us and I'm so proud of you for making your first post. I remember how nervous I was when I posted my first thread (can you tell I have social anxiety too?). It will get easier to reach out for help once you see how supportive we are to one another on the forums.

As I already mentioned, I also suffer from social anxiety. I thought I had overcome a lot of it but it suddenly came back after I was forced to deal with a lot of other things in my life. And it stinks because social anxiety takes so much from us. We are worried over things that many other people don't give a second thought, we harm ourselves with negative comments over the smallest things, and we stop ourselves from living lives we otherwise would have had if we weren't afraid of judgement. I get it. I am also a university student and lately I haven't been doing as well in my classes because large portions of the course requirements involve public speaking and open discussions. Suddenly those are things I can't seem to do anymore.

I'm sorry that your university is making you wait so long to get the help that you need. That is incredibly frustrating and it seems unfair. I have been fortunate enough to see someone since my anxiety has gotten out of hand and I am more than happy to share with you what I have learned. :)

What's worked for me and is now my go to solution when I am feeling anxious is to run "reality checks". Sometimes a thought can be running over and over in our head and it's easy to let fear and anxiety grow from that thought. But as soon as we say them aloud or try to rationalize it, it seems to fall apart. My most persistant thought up until recently was that my partner left me because I wasn't good enough and I didn't deserve to be in a relationship with him. But it's silly to think that I am undeserving of love because I am stuggling with anxiety and depression. The more I thought about what that thought meant, the sillier it seemed. Now I realize that my partner left because they were the one that couldn't handle tough moments. Every relationship will have them and until he learns to be supportive of people on thier bad days, he will keep running away. The break up wasn't a reflection of my worth or whether I deserved love, the break up was a reflection of his character.

I do this often when social situations spark insecurities in myself. Common thought is "I don't want to ask them ___ because I don't want them to think I'm an idiot" But do you know what? I have never been called an idiot before. In the past I can think of countless examples where I have asked for help and the other person graciously obliged without making me feel bad in return. I can think of many more examples where I have helped someone when they asked me and never once have I ever said or even thought that they were an idiot. So with all the evidence pointing to people NOT thinking I'm an idiot, why should I be afraid now to ask for help? This exercise has helped me finally engage in actions I wasn't able to do before. Sometimes the effects only last a little while. I use it to "pump myself up" so I'm motivated right before I go to ask for help. Most likely I'll need to remind myself of all of this the next time I go for help too. But over time, the thought process gets shorter and it takes less time to convince myself that I can do something. Eventually it will be a simple action again that you don't need to think twice about (like how I feel about my breakup now).

I have a lot more "tips and tricks" that I have learned from my counselor. If you're interested, I don't mind sharing. I just thought I would share this one first because, to me, it's been the most effective. But everyone is different and what works for me might not work for you. Maybe some of the techniques that didn't work for me will work really well for you. We can figure it out together.