Koskela
Member
- Joined
- Oct 7, 2021
Is here anyone who has experience with SA? I would like to hear your takes.
I have had problems with moderate social anxiety for years, but I have been able to reduce it by lot. Basicly when I was 19 and moved to my own I got anxious to go even jogging or to supermarket to buy food during the first week. Starting conversation with strangers was something I just couldn't do (not even drunk), and I was constantly thinking what others think about me. There was general anxiety too, like perfectionism, catastrophy-thinking etc. Today, after years of infrequent but still purposeful training I can, for example, ask time from stranger in not that crowded place, can go to gym alone, hang on public places, I don't think constantly about others opinions, I'm not perfectionist anymore and can relax instead and I don't do catastrophe-thinking but remain quite positive. I was never a loner, I have always had friends but social situations with strangers were complete pain to me quite often. I still have some SA left but it doesn't affect my daily life, but I'm determined to get rid of even from that remaining part since I want complete social freedom.
I realized I have some form of SA during early 20's, and tried to get rid of it by simply being more social and trying not to care about others opinions. It was clumsy and took years before effects were real. Last few years I have felt pretty "normal" during social situations, but opening conversations with strangers remained still an issue for me. I found first time about PUA during 2016 or something, but couldn't do any cold approach because of remaining SA. During last february I decided that this has to change, so I put on paper a different sets of "stranger openers" - asking something from store clerk, saying "nice weather" to cashier, saying "hi" to someone during jogging, etc. and started to log them on a Word file, keeping a 100 interactions as a goal. I reached that goal eventually, which was great. I had to take breaks from these rehearsals because I got busy with other things, but now I'm continuing them, like asking directions or time on the street, and developing new ones and raising the bar whole time, until I'm finally free from the remaining SA.
I don't have official SA diagnosis and I have never seen councellor. My symptons match/used to match to moderate SA pretty well, especially when I was younger. In hingsight, councellor could have been good choice. But I really don't care about looking backwards, what matters is what you can do now.
I have had problems with moderate social anxiety for years, but I have been able to reduce it by lot. Basicly when I was 19 and moved to my own I got anxious to go even jogging or to supermarket to buy food during the first week. Starting conversation with strangers was something I just couldn't do (not even drunk), and I was constantly thinking what others think about me. There was general anxiety too, like perfectionism, catastrophy-thinking etc. Today, after years of infrequent but still purposeful training I can, for example, ask time from stranger in not that crowded place, can go to gym alone, hang on public places, I don't think constantly about others opinions, I'm not perfectionist anymore and can relax instead and I don't do catastrophe-thinking but remain quite positive. I was never a loner, I have always had friends but social situations with strangers were complete pain to me quite often. I still have some SA left but it doesn't affect my daily life, but I'm determined to get rid of even from that remaining part since I want complete social freedom.
I realized I have some form of SA during early 20's, and tried to get rid of it by simply being more social and trying not to care about others opinions. It was clumsy and took years before effects were real. Last few years I have felt pretty "normal" during social situations, but opening conversations with strangers remained still an issue for me. I found first time about PUA during 2016 or something, but couldn't do any cold approach because of remaining SA. During last february I decided that this has to change, so I put on paper a different sets of "stranger openers" - asking something from store clerk, saying "nice weather" to cashier, saying "hi" to someone during jogging, etc. and started to log them on a Word file, keeping a 100 interactions as a goal. I reached that goal eventually, which was great. I had to take breaks from these rehearsals because I got busy with other things, but now I'm continuing them, like asking directions or time on the street, and developing new ones and raising the bar whole time, until I'm finally free from the remaining SA.
I don't have official SA diagnosis and I have never seen councellor. My symptons match/used to match to moderate SA pretty well, especially when I was younger. In hingsight, councellor could have been good choice. But I really don't care about looking backwards, what matters is what you can do now.