As someone who really has social anxiety, this is not it. I have absolutely no issues understanding non-verbal communication. I'm simply scared of certain social situations, for no rational reason. There are relatively mundane group scenarios that will leave my heart pounding and my hands almost shaking, though I do my best to hide it, and over the years I have become pretty adept at just dealing with it.
With that said, I do not mean to diminish the difficulties the author here has experienced. I just think that anxiety is not the most descriptive label for them.
Like if I'm in a hotel room and need to take shower, I have to take a deep breath and stare at it, telling myself "it can't hurt me" over and over again. The same kind of nervous I get in a plane that's about to take off. I still get a bit nervous to this day at 38 years of age. I suspect something happened to me at a young age but nobody seems to know what it could be. I've noticed that my 5yr old daughter is also scared of them when they make those whoosh-sounds just before water comes out. Maybe I was traumatized from that too.... I dunno...
> I've noticed that my 5yr old daughter is also scared of them when they make those whoosh-sounds just before water comes out. Maybe I was traumatized from that too.... I dunno...
If I may: it's more likely you passed along the stress you experience in these situations to her. She learned to that the shower head should be approached with caution because you tense yourself around it.
Moreover, irrational fears are not necessarily linked to the stress inducing agent. It might have been associated later (to prevent your psyche to directly relive the trauma). That psy territory though so I stop there before saying anything stupider ;).
Don't want to generalize, but this could be a form of OCD (which is very misunderstood and comes in all shapes and sizes). Your brain is lying to you. Channeling Yoda here but you have to be mindful of your thoughts :) What's worked for me is to label thoughts like that "that's an OCD thought" takes a while but eventually the thought won't trigger the hamster wheel. http://hope4ocd.com/foursteps.php
I'm always curious about stuff like this so I don't mean to be rude, but in all seriousness, how do you think a shower head will hurt you? I understand it isn't rational so maybe the answer is "I dunno" but figured I would ask.
I suspect it is a sensory-processing thing. I'm reading waaaayyyy too much into this, but people on the Asperger's syndrome spectrum--even slightly--and more likely to be in the HN commenter crowd--have peculiar sensory issues. Often you see it with things like aversion (or preference) for certain food textures, so it doesn't seem out of left field to hear that anticipatory auditory and sensory stimulus (like the death rattle of a showerhead, or the subsequent burst of lukewarm water) would be a trigger. And that it would be passed down genetically or by behavioral role models...
part of the struggles we're having with my autistic son center around toilet training -- I think in large part because the bathroom is full of things that make running-water type noises, and those freak him out.
My experience is this, As got in to mechanical work (lathe, milling etc) and computer. Before about 16 i thought everyone will do right thing only and not really cheat absolutley but the real work hit me and i found people will do mediocre job for no reason or simply lazy so when ever i see structure or car i double check break or think it may fall...
don't worry, you are too big to fit through the holes, so worst case they will just immobilize you until you yell enough that someone comes and kills the vine monster. they might see you naked but you won't die. :D
I also have social anxiety and this is exactly it (your comment). Most people say I come across as intimidating and it takes a long time for me to become "normal" around someone, and have been told that I don't show any emotion.
But really, it's because the only emotion I feel is fear, and I try very hard to hide it. That's it. Thinking about it logically, it makes little sense. Similar to how a person may have depression, and to the outer world, their worries/fears may seem minute; yet to that person, it's all about the feeling, and the feeling is very real.
I have the same, but I don't think the fear is totally irrational. For me the fear is of being disliked and/or embarrassed by something I say or do. This is exacerbated by having the opposite of what the author of the article has - I read too much into negative social cues and take them personally. I don't have much capacity for going "oh, they're just having a bad day" - I take it on board and in my mind it's because of something I did or said. Unless I know someone well already, then I know their moods and can remove myself from the equation when they in bad ones.
For me it's a catch 22 as well. If I'm not feeling socially anxious then I'm relaxed and it's easy to have confidence. Then there is nothing to fear and I'm not reading into anything or taking anything personally and it's all very easy and fun. But if I'm feeling socially anxious then I'm more likely to come across as unfriendly or weird, read too much into social cues and feel negatively about myself at the end of the interaction. Which feeds the cycle.
Something that helps a lot is meditation and being in the now. It's very hard to be in the now during an anxious social situation, because your brain is trying so hard to distance itself from the situation and get you out of it with minimal damage. But acceptance of the situation and reminding yourself there's no lack and literally nothing to fear in the present moment can help. And definitely presence after a (maybe just perceived) negative social interaction can help a lot as well to break down the cycle.
The fear in itself might not be totally irrational, in the sense that it seems beneficial to have the capacity for this type of fear (for evo psych reasons, etc.)
However, I'm sure you'll agree that the fear in its context is irrational (which is what defines it as an anxiety disorder).
"As someone who really has social anxiety, this is not it. I have absolutely no issues understanding non-verbal communication. I'm simply scared of certain social situations, for no rational reason."
i can't say i have social anxiety, but i feel very similar in this instance. and, if i can judge based on this statement alone- i don't think it's fair for you to say your fear comes from "no rational reason".
a very rational reason to be afraid of verbal communication as opposed to text, is that text is a much easier medium to control your message.
there are a dozen benefits: you have more time to parse and consider what one says to you, you have more time to formulate your thoughts clearly, you are less open to your words or tone being misinterpreted, etc.
are you anxious right now? this is very much a social setting. if not- and i hope this doesn't sound insensitive- i'm left wondering, whats the difference? and, would identifying the difference help you overcome your anxiety?
I think you'd be hard pressed to find anything in his post by which to dismiss nilkn's (and the medical community's) assertion that the fear comes from "no rational reason".
This is, after all, a defining feature of anxiety disorders.
Note that he doesn't say that this kind of fear in itself is not rational (propensity towards it might come in handy in certain social situations), but the degree of this kind of fear in the contexts that a diagnosis demands is totally irrational.
Even if we set aside the fact that the disorder in question does not deal with rational things, one can easily argue that (in this context) the text is more permanent, and can potentially reach many more than unrecorded spoken language.
Downsides include the opportunity to get stuck in a loop of doubt and rewriting the entire post. Misinterpretation of the written word is also common.
Therefore, the trademark anxious rumination is not less likely to occur by virtue of the medium alone.
Some sufferers of social anxiety might be anxious in these settings, others might not.
All in all: interpretation based on assumptions helps no-one.
Unless you're a practiced dissembler, I think tone is much less likely to be misinterpreted in person. This is the phenomenon where someone nods and says "yeah" in a conversation even though they didn't actually hear / misinterpreted what you said; your tone is still clear (we are friendly right now and this conversation is enjoyable) and they want to affirm it. Or why sarcasm is so hard to do right over the internet.
Why the downvotes? Look them up. L-Theanine is in green tea and taurine is in red bulls. Maybe they don't help, but they noticeably reduce anxiety in me.
You are diagnosing and recommending medical treatment to a complete stranger based on a comment on an internet forum.
Worse, you're doing so with all the experience and wisdom of an avid googler of nootropics.
Getting shitfaced on beer and Scotch works for some people as they self-medicate their social anxiety. For some people that turns from harmless social drinking to alcoholism and can destroy their lives.
In this particular case, excessive energy drink consumption (I personally tend to self-medicate with coffee to avoid the sugar in red bulls) can lead to heart attacks, high blood pressure and associated complications.
"Taurine is involved in a number of crucial physiological processes. However, its role in these processes is not clearly understood and the influence of high taurine doses on these processes is uncertain"
L-Theanine has more studies and is slightly better understood, but there still have not been full human trials and studies sufficient for you to provide medial information to a stranger.
Advancing a supplement as a cure can be harmful even if the supplement is harmless. If a person takes it for a cure instead of, say, talking to a therapist/doctor/psychologist, they could be missing out on an approach that actually DOES help. You may be familiar with Steve Jobs who delayed medical treatment for his cancer in an effort to use "alternative" cures.
Just because something is approved by the FDA doesn't mean that it's safe and effective. And, conversely, just because something isn't approved by the FDA doesn't mean it isn't safe and effective.
There isn't something magical about a clinical trial that suddenly removes all doubt about a substance. And this magical government agency isn't infallible, and has frankly made mistakes, some of them pretty major, in the past.
Let me share something with you. I've been suffering from severe RSI for close to 13 years. I've seen about five different doctors; I've had nerve conduction tests; I've had three rounds of physical therapy. Nothing works. I keep going back to the doctor, and they keep assigning physical therapy. Do you know why? Because, it's the only approved treatment that they can offer. Most of the doctors that I've seen refuse to even talk about anything else.
So I go out on my own, and I do some research, and I start trying things. Some herbal supplements, some alternative treatments. And you know what? This thing called trigger point massage therapy, in the span of about four months, improved my symptoms about 80%. I also found that B vitamin supplements helped with the nerve tingling issues. And that was several years ago and I'm still almost completely functional.
If I listened to people like you, I'd still be practically incapacitated and unable to support myself.
I think he's probably intelligent enough to look into any suggestions himself. After all, that's why people have ultimate control over their medical care. You're just being closed minded and pedantic, and your lecture on medical ethics is naïve.
So, if I may, get off your fucking high horse.
It's not like I'm telling this guy to go cut his left arm off. I'm basically doing the equivalent of telling him to go drink a bunch of cups of green tea and try a supplement of a compound that's so safe that it's approved for human consumption without a prescription. If it was dangerous, your precious FDA would yank it off the shelves in five minutes, right?
And if he tries my suggestion and it relieves his symptoms, even a little bit (even if it's placebo), then it's worth it. By all means, go see a doctor, but don't assume that doctors are all-knowing and all powerful and they are aware of and can prescribe the perfect treatment for your illness.
You asked why the down-votes, but clearly didn't parse what I wrote.
I made no statements as to the efficacy of your proposed remedy, just that the problem is giving medical advice is dangerous, even if the substance is ultimately harmless (or even beneficial!).
There's nothing wrong with pursuing your own treatments, and I'm glad you've found things that work for you. I don't wish RSI on anyone.
It is, however, extremely wrong to give medical advice to strangers based on a single comment on an internet forum. You know virtually nothing about the individual, their symptoms or really anything at all about the specifics of the situation at hand.
Experts will want to know more about the specifics before providing advice. Fools tread where angels fear to go.
I'm sure you're in an expert in something. Whatever it is, think about the people who think they're experts in that from reading a wikipedia or newspaper article. Or heck, the newbies just starting out learning about that something. They are almost always so confident that they know the answer and share it with everyone around them. That confidence can be endearing and usually nothing horrible in consequences.
Not in the case of people's health. Consequences are too severe.
But should not people know what exists?, similar to the case above i had/have severe sinus almost blocked all of em. But symptoms are veery mild but all the english medical doctors (Allopathic) mentioned was that i need to go for surgey many of them not even willing try longer one week medicine where i had great releif with something like naso clear. But they would not try anything else but recommend surgery and tell me that it is not permenant cure??... so based on recommendation i tried Homeo it work only when take medicine and i did not like the achohol or similar substance in those medicines so tried Ayurvehda (did not want Siddha due to diet restriction) and took a 10 day message etc in ayuvedha medical college ($250 for 10 days can u beleive in with 2 bed and flat tv in room and neat and clean)... now i feel far beter... and have no headaches and can sleep well... yeah i think it is ok recommend but receiver should verify or go to experts
"Be civil. Don't say things you wouldn't say in a face-to-face conversation. Avoid gratuitous negativity.
When disagreeing, please reply to the argument instead of calling names. E.g. "That is idiotic; 1 + 1 is 2, not 3" can be shortened to "1 + 1 is 2, not 3." "
Some folks here use downvote when they disagree, not to indicate that something is wrong with the comment. It helps in creating groupthink, because nobody likes being downvoted.
pg has said on several occasions that downvoting for disagreement is OK.
Personally, I use it not for mere disagreement, but for "I want HN to have less comments like this" -- things like gratuitous errors, gratuitous negativity, unneeded incivility, empty comments like "I agree", and especially comments that just repeat talking points without adding any original thought or substance.
http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=117171 "I think it's ok to use the up and down arrows to express agreement. Obviously the uparrows aren't only for applauding politeness, so it seems reasonable that the downarrows aren't only for booing rudeness."
http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=658691 "IIRC we first had this conversation about a month after launch. Downvotes have always been used to express disagreement. Or more precisely, a negative score has: users seem not to downvote something they disagree with if it already has a sufficiently negative score."
I'm not aware of a comment where he said downvoting for disagreement is a problem. I recall comments about gratuitous negativity, and comments about how certain excessively rude comments were getting upvoted when they should be downvoted. But it's possible I'm behind the times on that front.
I can't cite sources, but the reason comment scores are no longer shown was because having comment scores was getting pg dragged into chest-beating karma competitions, so he hid the scores to have to deal personally with less of that. Having no scores showing prevents the scores from being a way that each "side" on an argument can keep score of "who is winning" so upvotes don't fuel those kinds of ego-based arguments anymore. It was effective in getting him what he wanted, though it was decried by many people for depriving them of information concerning comment quality that they had previously valued.
> My plan for dealing with downvoting is just not to display points on comments any more. The hard part is that to make that work, I also have to come up with alternative ways for people to find the comments they're most interested in on big threads.
But as you say there's probably more to it than that. I'll have a noodle around with search later to see if I can find more.
I am really, really terrible at finding things on HN, but I am inclined to remember things about social dynamics. Somewhere, he said something to the effect that he is being dragged into these arguments fueled by upvotes less often, so he feels that comment scores being hidden was successful in getting him what he wanted because he was spending too much time on that, so, no, comment scores are not likely to come back. You might look for some kind of follow up question of the Ask PG variety where people were hoping he would bring them back. It might have been something like that. (/Real hand wavy clues -- enjoy the hunt.)
Hmmm. Much of what is described here is not social anxiety. He is really describing what seems to be Asperger's. The two are very often co-morbid and can be confused as being the same but they are not. While they often occur together, they do not always occur together. You can have one and not the other.
I have social anxiety but not Aspergers but I have spent time with others who have Aspergers. The thing about staring into someone's eye and not understanding social cues/norms is a trait of Aspergers and not social anxiety.
- Nonverbal communication problems != social anxiety (disorder)
EDIT: Forgot to mention that the article is great in the sense that it describes the author's experience vividly. It just doesn't seem to be generalizable to all those affected by social anxiety disorder.
It's a morbid fear of social interaction. Some situations are worse than others. And, for me, it isn't caused by confusion over what to do in social settings (although when I was younger I had confusion due to lack of experience in social settings).
I don't have any difficulty with social cues or understanding innate human interaction. I am popular in the workplace because I'm forced to interact with others. Almost all my friends are from work. By contrast, none of my neighbors know me and probably think I'm odd because they never see me. That's because, when I have a choice, I will always pick avoiding social interaction due to fear. Whenever I leave, I check the peephole to make sure no one is around. I have gone a week or more without leaving my home. If not for needing food and to go to work, I could probably go months without leaving. And this is driven by fear of human interaction.
I can appear completely normal in social interactions. I understand eye contact and not to linger too long. I understand the need to balance talk and listening when having a conversation. I get jokes and subtle humor. Fist pumps get me excited. No one had to teach me these things. And most of my co-workers think I'm completely normal in social settings, though on the quiet side. But when given a choice I withdraw due to fear. In High School, I spent every single lunch hiding in the library or a bathroom stall. I did not know what the cafeteria looked like. I didn't go to a single party or a single date due to crippling fear. But this fear was not the result of feeling confused over social cues or behavior.
Out of curiosity, roughly how old are you? You describe me at an earlier age, and while I can't say it gets BETTER...it gets "better" as you age.
The other thing I'm really interested in is a deep examination of your comment "When I have a choice...due to fear." Is it always due to fear, or due to preference? That could be a breakthrough for you, to examine this...there's a difference between the two, and a lot of times I would ascribe that feeling to fear, it was actually preference...a choice to avoid the fear. If I could push through that--rarely by my own will, but more often just by circumstances--the fear would subside and I would realize that the preference was what was broken. Not that it is fixed now, or anything...
That describes my situation too... But I'm not sure I'd label it "social anxiety" in the same sense as an "anxiety attack" -- it's not a flight/fight response.
Rather, it's like a pervasive pessimism. A more-cerebral problem, where you tell yourself that social interaction requires a safe reason (classes, work) and avoidance due to fear of some future hypothetical failure.
Asperger's is now called Autism Spectrum Disorder (High Functioning Autism). Please don't use the outdated term anymore. It has become mislabeled and misused over the last decades and is thus very unspecific and misleading.
Autism Spectrum Disorder is an encompassing term for all different types of autism. It makes the point that autism has different forms and falls along a spectrum. Asberger's falls on that spectrum.
As someone who was diagnosed with Aspergers Syndrome in my teens, please shut up. It's not offensive to anyone if it's not being used as a derogatory term.
Please stop advocating for less-descriptive language.
You are confused. It has nothing to do with offensive. It has precisely to do with less-descriptive. Aspergers was misused by therapists for over 40 years while others in other parts of the world used it correctly. The terms I mentioned were introduced in the last 10 years to clean the mess up.
First off, do you have any idea how insulting it is to tell someone with a disorder that they're "confused" about it? Kindly go fuck yourself.
Secondly, you're an idiot.
Aspergers is a specific form of HFA/Autism, not the other way around. Not all people suffering from Autism have Aspergers, but all people suffering from Aspergers have Autism.
It'd be like saying "thumb" is less specific than "finger", which is plainly stupid.
So again, shut the fuck up. Stop speaking for a group of people you have ZERO RIGHT to speak for.
In my twenties, I discovered that a large part of getting over this stuff was learning to completely dismiss yourself as an actor while talking to other people. Forget you exist. Focus your thoughts entirely outwards. Don't worry about playing "hot potato" with the conversation; let yourself become a black box with no inputs back into that anxious, tumultous part of your brain that has to analyze every little detail of every social encounter. Allow the conversation to happen outside your head.
For me, once I figured this out, all that stuff about body language, social time, and not feeling "weird" just naturally fell into place. These behaviors were mostly functions of a mind trying to micromanage every single little thing. I'm still very bad at actually getting into social situations, but when I somehow end up in one, it's almost always OK.
I think this is why alcohol helps. When you're inebriated, you simply don't have the concentration to reflect every thought back inwards.
A line that struck me as familiar: "I should add that my hearing’s getting worse. Which doesn’t help at all."
I wonder if the author is sure his hearing is actually getting worse or his perception is getting worse?
I once thought the same thing. tldr: Nope. My hearing is fine. Anxiety causes my brain, afaict, to always be on the lookout for threats. No sound was being filtered from my conscious. The perception was that I "couldn't hear". I could hear fine, but I couldn't filter out unimportant from important. The result is something that seems like bad hearing.
Taking anti-anxiety drugs solved the problem for me. Like magic I could hear fine. Conversations, even in noisy situations, became easy to perceive and follow.
I couldn't find any documentation on this at the time. The doctor didn't think much about the idea. I wonder if anybody else had the same experience?
This is a very interesting hypothesis. I've noticed my hearing has degraded in recent years and I'm definitely prone to anxiety in social settings - particularly in settings of new and/or recently acquainted people.
But, I've also been listening to deadmau5 for several hours each day since the summer of 2012.
Conversely, I'm hard of hearing and it does cause social anxiety for me, because when I can't follow the conversation, I don't know how to act correctly. The exhaustion of struggling to process speech also turns me into an unresponsive zombie after a while.
I was like this, to an extent, as well in my early twenties. What I realized was that I _didn't_ want to be like this, and like anything - it takes practice.
I consider myself smarter than the average Joe off the street, and you do too. Otherwise you wouldn't be reading HN :) So social cues, reading a crowd, and being engaging, it all takes practice. Yes, some people develop this naturally and don't need to consciously practice, but others don't. So just like programming, stop saying "No, I just don't get it", and instead reason why you don't and next time nail it.
I had a life-changing moment at 12 or so when I saw a local "human interest" TV show about a kid who had trouble reading body language so he decided to manually figure out body language and social queues, just like you describe. As I saw this I thought to myself "You can do that?!" and set out trying to train myself. It's definitely possible if you put your mind to it.
I'm self-diagnosed only, but have believed for a while that I may have a form of Aspergers. Pretty much ever since I knew what it was. And certainly have, since early 20's, had a mild form of social anxiety.
These days I'm several years removed from the peer pressures of having a robust social life, though I can't complain about those years. I did have a great core group of friends throughout college.
The "condition" certainly in many ways has been a curse over the years, but at the same time, now that I think I understand it, I feel it's a blessing. I have many things I want to accomplish in life. The blessing is, given that these days I'm highly focused and motivated with my projects, it would almost be impossible (and imagine I likely would have abandoned them) had I felt those efforts were in any way infringing on the social needs (status?) a typical person seems to seek out.
But I can see how, without those same motivations / aspirations I have, it could easily be considered a disease and something a person would have a hard time coping with.
It makes me happy that the author is better understanding himself and not hiding behind blanket terms like "social anxiety" as if he were forever prisoner to the label.
> I think probably because I stop caring about being weird or not — and there’s a big, obvious lesson right there for me.
I think this is the key for most people.
Everybody is different. I started dating this girl who's a real sweetheart, but called herself awkward and weird. I said, "But that's not what I think. And so if that's what you think and that's what I think, then isn't it arbitrary?"
Labels are incredibly arbitrary and I wish people would treat them with more care. Hey, person reading this, you're an asshole! It's ok -- it's a meaningless label and bears no consequence on reality.. unless you let it.
The more you tell yourself you're "this" or "that", you're simultaneously blocking yourself from who you really are. If the canvas (mind) is blank and you're filling it with negativity, what do you expect to happen? Your expressions only follow what's felt within.
Everyone has a unique purpose, vision, and perspective here; as a result, when focused, everyone has a different way of applying themselves to the world. Years of learning X things combined with Y perception creates a unique human.
However, it's not about being unique either. That's just a label and means nothing in reality. The pursuit of specialness is properly defined and labeled as vanity. There's something better than that in all of us -- some drive to help other, to improve our own lives to improve others' lives, to guide others into doing the same, the desire to connect, the desire to love, the desire to impart wisdom onto others. There's always some good inside of us that wants to be _expressed_.
Expression is limited when a mind clouds itself with arbitrary labels that promote fear. One day, we'll all learn that all negative behavior stems from fear. One form of this fear is fear from your own labels or others' labels (also known as others' judgment). I ask you who's reading this, if you have a good heart with good intentions, who cares if I think you're an asshole? Do you really think it makes it true? Now you should be on the way to confidence and a healthy lightheartedness.
I think one of the most difficult aspects of having moderate-to-severe social anxiety is that people often misinterpret the anxious quietness as standoffishness — then of course after you've experienced that enough times you learn to compensate by being overly friendly or enthusiastic which ends up weirding people out just as much.
When you're attempting to be social and someone brings the attention to how weird/awkward you are and then pauses like they expect you to respond to it when you're just trying to float around in the background.
There are a few things that have helped me deal with social anxiety:
1. Talking more with people that work in stores when I'm paying for something - Cashiers are great people to practice talking to. You don't have to do it for very long, and if you say something stupid, you rarely see them anyway, so no harm done.
2. Noticing what socially adept people talk about - I think about the subject matter that social people bring up after I've seen them engage in conversation. I've realized that most of the time it's pretty trivial stuff, and that most people don't hold that against them.
3. Avoiding people that hold you back - people that often say that I'm shy, or coming out of my "shell", just make me more self-conscious and awkward. I'll end the conversation quickly with such people and will not pursue interaction beyond the bare-minimum pleasantries. Even if they are well-meaning, they have a negative effect on me, so I'll avoid them unless they are closely related.
I haven't tried it personally yet but I recently read an article about a startup trying to help folks with Social Anxiety. If that's something that affects you, check it out: https://joyable.com/
I find the idea of providing mental health to people as a startup somewhere between horrifying and intriguing.
They are essentially offering to provide a doctor-patient relationship with "coaches" to make it so that "in just 12 weeks, you can lead the life you deserve".
I suspect no serious practitioner would be willing to state it quite that boldly.
Their copy reads like homeopathic/vitamins/magic/juju gobblygook filled with cherry-picked facts, figures, and good intentions.
On the plus side, the site has clear pricing information!
> "I wonder if all I’ve done here is to describe why introverts frequently describe being social as tiring. Extroverts have no problem with any of this"
This is good, but he loses me with this line at the end.
Extraversion is defined as "being predominantly concerned with obtaining gratification from what is outside the self."[1] Someone can have high social need without high social skill.
Stopped reading as soon as he shifted from a description of his horrific symptoms, to bragging about his intelligence and creativity. The dichotomy wasn't endearing, but I got it.
The author's initial belief that they were somehow special (even if special in a bad way), plus the author's fascination with their own nature (to the extent that they write a blog post about it and how unique their insights are) smacks not of social anxiety but of narcissism.
What is the point of posts like this? So we can all get together and say, "oh boy, I really relate to that"? There doesn't seem to be any insight or useful takeaway from this article besides being relatable for a certain class of people who feel misunderstood.
Most of the things in this article that the author describes as being harrowing cognitive loads, like how long to make eye contact for or hold a handshake, are things that I have heard very socially skilled people talk about in a humorous manner. They have those same reservations and insecurities, the difference is they don't obsess about them. Look around. There is no such thing as "a normal amount of eye contact". Everyone is just winging it.
The point is that it gives you an opportunity to better understand someone else's subjective experiencing. That can be an enriching experience whether you relate to it or not. If you do relate to it, it might be comforting to know that you're not alone. If not, it might help you be more empathetic toward others. At the very least, it is interesting to many people to understand how others see the world.
Regarding eye contact and such, there is no officially mandated normal amount, but there are certainly social norms, which some people are able to follow much more instinctively than others. That said, I agree that a large part of the issue can be that people with social anxiety, or just insecurity, tend to worry about it more than others.
I agree with your overall sentiment, but do think there's value in others relating to each other and then talking about it.
> There is no such thing as "a normal amount of eye contact"
Yep. When you really learn that everyone is just about as insecure as you, you start caring less about this kind of stuff and just try to make the most of situations.
You literally just described the point. The author was not sure about those things and you just explained it to him by saying that everybody feels that way about it and he shouldn't obsess with it.
That's the point, he described what his problem is and people are giving useful comments and suggestions on how to solve that problem.
Folks, this is why you invented texting, email, online community, almost the entire web world and mobile revolution is due to people having social anxiety like you.
Yet software eats world, digitization eats world, you conquered, and there is a purpose you're born this way, that's why you strive.
Having some arrogance will help in your situation. Take pride of what you're, change world to suit you, don't change yourself to suit the world. The funny thing is, the world is moving towards this direction already.
Screw the social norm, screw those extrovert psychopath, they're the root cause all human evil. Stop whining about who you are, you only need to prevail.
Anxiety is a complicated subject, and can be interpreted differently depending on the sufferer's knowledge of certain areas of neuroscience and psychology. I've been lucky to study anxiety deeply enough that it no longer has control over me. As a sidenote, anxiety comes from the German word for anger, and is the result of unaddressed internal dialogue within the sufferer, closely related to cognitive dissonance, or witnessing too many paradoxes throughout the day. Avoid paradoxical thinking - it gets in the way of the task at hand, which is usually something mundane like getting in a lift, or even walking the dog.
According to Wiktionary, anxiety comes from Latin "ango" ("to anger" - which also has the same root!), which in turns comes from Proto-Indo-European "*h₂enǵʰ". Closely related German words are "eng" (narrow) and "Angst" (anxiety).
Except for the effort with non-verbal communication, I feel like I wrote this.
I read non-verbal communication about as well as spoken word. I hate getting just the voice. Phone conversations are the worst.
Here's the thing... other people really do judge you. Some people make everyone else in the room feel at ease. I'm not that way. Sometimes I can fake it, but generally people don't seem to enjoy conversation with me.
It's very stressful alternating between saying nothing and too much, which unfortunately makes it harder to practice this skill of conversation that some people just find so easy.
generally people don't seem to enjoy conversation with me
Based on what evidence? Have people told you this or is it your perception that they don't enjoy conversation with you?
If multiple people have told you that they don't enjoy conversation with you then... GREAT! You have data! Go ask them what it is they don't like. If you can agree that they have valid concerns then you can work on fixing those things. If you don't agree then that's ok too. You're being yourself.
Eh, in my case I think the problem is that I'm interested in things other people aren't and other people are interested in things I'm not.
In other words, being myself is generally the ticket to eye-rolling, exasperation, and boredom from others.
My trick has been to keep others talking about what they're interested it in as long as possible. That usually works well because it's fun to hear what people are passionate about.
Then again, last week that got me trapped in a conversation with a person who advised me to buy gold and bury it around my yard because paper money isn't real since we left the gold standard. Nice guy though.
If you've ever read How To Win Friends and Influence People you'll know that a great strategy is to listen while others talk about themselves. So, in fact, you're probably well-liked when you do this.
A social anxiety group therapy setting can be really useful for practicing social skills. For example, you might have a semi-scripted conversation with another person in the group, and then the rest of the group gives you both feedback. You'd either find you're better at conversation than you think you are - which helps with confidence - or you'd get useful practical tips.
What, and have to TALK in FRONT of a group of people. :)
I've not actually been diagnosed, and honestly not sure if I would be. The key for me will likely be just practice in areas that work well for me. It will make the work into habit and probably make me more comfortable.
Now to find the energy/courage to walk out that door to practice...
Just stop caring what people think. It's up to them to signal you to stop. Talking about synths too much and they get uncomfortable? "Oh sorry I'm just really passionate about synths and I can fly off the handle sometimes!"
That roughly how the first part of your advice comes across. You are not the first and won't be the last. I bear you no ill will for saying it, but it's on the level of telling a depressed person to just stop feeling sad.
I don't know if I'm diagnosable as actually having Social Anxiety. Heck, I never even heard those words until some drug commercial came on TV, so I'm a bit suspicious of the label.
I do know that I see social experiences as different than most people. I've always been that way. Just a bit different in the head I guess. I like different things, think differently, and behave differently. It's part of who I am.
I'm very much the old-school nerd. The one that everybody rolls their eyes at when he starts speaking. I care about things they don't. I don't care about things they do. So it's work for me to communicate with others in a way that doesn't make them roll their eyes. Yes, it's a skill. I'm better at it than I used to be. I could probably be even better at it. But it sure won't be because I stopped caring. If I do that that I'd become an oblivious blowhard.
A somewhat related article that I just happened to come across yesterday, including a novel treatment for social anxiety that is apparently helping some people by exposing them to uncomfortable situations that are much more uncomfortable than the ones they have been having trouble with.
I don't know if it would help this person, however.
The treatment that article describes is called exposure therapy. It's pretty much the standard of care for treating anxiety disorders. If you're afraid of flying, you fly. If you're afraid of people thinking you look weird, you walk down the street with your clothes on inside out and backwards. If you're afraid of inconveniencing people, you drive really slowly and just imagine what the people behind you are thinking.
Eventually all this rewires your brain so it figures out you are not in fact going to be eaten by a saber-toothed tiger every time someone laughs at you. It's a lot of work, it's painful, it's hard to stick with, and it works really, really well.
The problem is it still doesn't become "fun". It always feels like work for me to talk to people I'm not already comfortable with, so I generally avoid it out of laziness. And I don't see enough gain in forcing myself to. You can't collect people like you can collect money. I think the biggest issue I have is socializing feels like a wasted effort to me. Like I put energy into something that is fleeting and then gone. There were times in my life when I had really good friendships, but now it feels like too much work and uncertainty to establish new ones.
I used to feel much like this. After dealing with my social anxiety, I looked at it in a different light - that there isn't any pressure to make friends. It's more about just enjoying the time you are with other people.
It might involve a little joke, or an observation you share or is shared with you, that means nothing but a chuckle, or you get a smile and nice feeling, and move along.
When suffering from social anxiety, this can be difficult as my brain was too occupied worrying about what the other person was thinking about me, and that anxiety leads one to not be very capable of being themselves.
Let that go and I found my brain freed up to actually be me in the moment. I found that my prior rationalizations ended up just being that. I found people actually are quite enjoyable, as is small talk. What I didn't like previously in those moments turned out to really be all about me.
I should add because I try my best to talk freely about it - I decided to deal with my social anxiety by going to a therapist. She had me go through the exposure therapy, and after about 3 months of going once a week and talking with her, and performing her tasks - I was done. I very rarely get anxious. Usually only in big public speaking events now. But casually, or in large business discussions - not at all.
It has improved my life more than most anything else I can think of. I think therapy results for many disorders might be mixed, but for social anxiety, exposure therapy can really, really work. I suggest anyone experiencing social anxiety to go to a therapist, and try it.
I used to be very scared of talking to unfamiliar people, but I no longer feel the fear. I'm thoroughly desensitized to it from lots of socializing in the past, and being employed at various companies for years where I need to talk to coworkers. I guess it's been replaced by an aversion to the whole situation, a mild distaste for meeting people. It's like I have a lot of mental baggage holding me back, which perhaps came from lost friendships and relationships. Maybe it's also remnants of the strong anxiety I used to have.
I know that I also dont maintain a lot of close friendships outside my family and SO. I am relatively self contained and don't seek a lot of advice or counsel. In that sense I'm very much a lazy friend as well, I don't want to put a ton of effort into them. I don't know if that is similar to what you are describing.
Perhaps being somewhat more self contained than others is a learned behavior to have helped us deal with being socially anxious. Would make sense. I accept it and it doesn't bother me about myself.
I read the whole thing. Honestly, so what? You're beautifully awkward. You drum to your own beat. Thats actually cool. Unlike you, I consider myself very socially adjusted. Just because you're not doesn't mean I wouldn't want to chat with you, or be friends. In fact, I'd find you more interesting. Most people aren't judging. If they are, its a reflection of how critical they feel others are of themselves. Own it
I have a theory that at some point in their development everyone has this type of anxiety however most people in their early youth have selected for themselves a particular strategy to avoid being perceived as 'weird' which they adopt for life. Many people adjust this as they go throughout life, or adopt several strategies, but others simply stick with whatever worked for them at an early age.
The rationale is that it's always better to be perceived as anything but "mal-adjusted and weird". Here are some strategies which are considered considered better than "strange": "tells too many bad jokes", "too negative", "drama king", "never stops talking about his own achievements", or even "jerk".
"Oh he's just another class clown, or just another person who habitually points out flaws in others", or just another <insert stereotype here>. Basically as long as you can make yourself conform to an easy to understand conceptual framework then other people mentally model you together with an archetypal social role so to speak, and then you'll be perceived as normal.
While it's easy for me to summarize the negative sounding "non-awkward" strategies I must also point out that for every negative one there is a nice strategy available too. Choose wisely.
The nice versions require more patience, and practice to execute convincingly and there greater room for error. The primary benefits of selecting a nice strategy usually only surface over the medium to long term whereas the benefits to being a bully for example show up immediately (you're mean not weird, you're less likely to be picked on yourself, nobody thinks your shy, etc)
Any of these strategies once incorporated can make you seem well adjusted and can with time become second nature. Once you have one of these in your repertoire then you can just reach for it whenever you would have otherwise experienced anxiety over possibly being considered weird.
This whole situation presents a problem for people who feel like they might want to develop a more moderate or atypical personality. They hear the advice "just be yourself" and they think "oh, that means the world is my canvas and I can just paint whatever I feel like" but no in actuality "just be yourself" only works if you've already trained yourself to project one of these preordained social personas. In that case you can gradually begin to incorporate your own style into it but anything else going to end up being labeled as weird.
It's not a hopeless for those who want to have a distinct personality, all you have to do is FIRST learn to successfully wield at least one of these socially preordained strategies and then later layer your distinctness on top.
Of course nobody is willing to admit any of this, because generally speaking to let the cat out of the bag does two things:
1. it makes people feel silly or embarrassed, and lowers their feeling of self-worth (even though it shouldn't)
I have a default of dreading social interaction, even doing things with people I've known for over half my life, but I have noticed that there is a pattern where I dread something before doing it, and then I enjoy it. So the dread is irrational.
You know what's worse than people thinking you're weird, or dumb, or dorky? So many things. A million things. Words only hurt if you let them. (Of course there is a limit to this idea, but not in this context really.) So whatever the dread is directed toward, it's a fake idea.
A lot of times people try to address social anxiety by giving advice like "people don't think you're weird, they don't even think about you". There is truth to that, but also, people will think you're weird if you act weird. So you have to get used to the idea that people are going to think that about you, if you're a weird person- and weird people know who they are. (Funnily enough, if you don't care whether they think you're weird, you'll start to act less weird.)
However, the downside of not caring what people think of you is that you have no interest in being the life of the party or anything like that. So you can actually travel through the other side of this situation back into not being social.
Ultimately the key is being able to control your own thoughts, to interrupt the fear thought and shut it down, recognize it for the nonce that it is. I'm not sure what the process is for getting to that point, but you need to be able to do it.
With that said, I do not mean to diminish the difficulties the author here has experienced. I just think that anxiety is not the most descriptive label for them.