Social anxiety

Just get out there! If you show the world you have something to say, they will listen.

There a blllions of people out there to choose from…

Just remember that we are all out there rooting for you!!! and if you need a good old pick me up, just come to the CR and we will take care of you KEEP SMILING!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!:-)

you never mentioned whether you take any sort of medications or not. altho i never suffered from social anxiety, i did suffer from general anxiety and phobias which led to panic attacks. it randomly started when i was 22 and i was already in shidduchim and i actually once had a panic attack on a date. i went to a therapist but it didnt really help much till i got put on (the right) SSRI. once the meds built up into my system it seriously felt like all my racing “what if” thoughts just took a nap! they didnt go away completely, but they didnt make me feel overwhelmed either and once i was able to work out my issues i was able to go off the meds. depression and anxiety are very much linked together and treating one helps treat the other. altho for strict social anxiety and social situations, propranonol (sp?) is very commonly prescribed. like i said i dont know whether or not your taking any medication but if not its definitely worth asking your doctor about.

im sorry if i misunderstood you but in your last post you wrote “im feeling realy down.i have so many problems besides for social anxiety which basicaly means im always self consios al the time!.i always have a self esteem which doesnt exist no confidence no friends.so many social and emntional problems.”

that sounds pretty intense. so either your making it sound more serious then it is, or your in denial of the seriousness of the matter. i am not you and dont know your true situation but sometimes your brain cant work naturally because its lacks in certain neurotransmitters. im not telling you what to do nor judging for the choices you make. in fact i sincerely empathize with you becuase ive been there. i am not a therapist but i am a therapist’s daughter and chances are if you keep cycling into this “monthly depression”, he/she will probably refer you to someone to prescribe you something anyway.

keep climbing,

I suffered from anxiety for about 2 years at which time I saw a therapist and took medicine for around 6 months (which I was hesitant to take, but my Rabbi recommended I take).

Number one, the most important thing to do is daven. Reading the words with an Artscroll Interlinear Siddur helps instill an understanding of, and feeling for the words which you say every day. The words of davening and Tehillim can help you feel closer to Hashem, and slowly build you up.

Number two, try to involve yourself in organizations which do chessed for others, or even look for ways to do chessed on your own for others. There are many people out there (older people, disabled people, etc) who need help. When you help others and exert yourself for them, it can develop your self worth.

Number three, when you aren’t davening or helping others and you need time to relax, use your time wisely by reading educational matters (such as history, sciences). This will make you wiser to understand more about how the world works.

Another thing you can try to do is travel to another city or Israel, to grow there. A change of scenery also can help get out of a stagnant situation.

Good Luck.

@ keep climbing. It really sounds like you have it hard.its probably difficult to get up in the morning and face a new day especially when you spend it in school feeling that others are looking down at you. I cant imagine exactly what youre going through. However, id like to offer a suggestion. Every day, make up your mind to do one thing that youre normally scared of.it could be however small you want but each small goal makes a difference. I just read a good quote.when you get to the end of your rope, tie a knot and hold on. You could do it!!

@keep climbing. Many people have such questions. I do, at least. And I wish there were answers. I had a really hard year too with friends and other things and I can assure you of one thing. You will definitely come out a better and stronger person because of the hard times that youre having. Bill gates was considered the biggest nerd when he was in school! Hashem knew what he was doing when he created you because he saw what you can become. You still have your whole life ahead of you. Marriage, children, job/learning and hopefully wherever you end up youll be successful and happy. Each day of our lives is a learning experience. We need to take lessons from everything in order to become better people and at the same time not allow certain things to bring us down. You never know where people end up. All those who dont befriend you and see your virtues might not stay the type of person whos in a position to look down at others and. Try to believe in yourself and know that although times are hard, you mean the world to some people and one day, youll have a family of your own and youll see that they will never be able to imagine life without you

i was gonna write something else (which i saved and was gonna send later) but after reading your last post im gonna go in a different direction. first of all i truly hope your opening up to your therapist as much as your opening up here. but even so, he/she can only help so much. this is obviously not just simple social anxiety. i think even you are aware of that even though you didnt want to admit it at first. for simple social anxiety, yes CBT alone can help. but this goes way deeper. you really should be on meds. please reconsider your beliefs about them and ask your therapist to refer you to someone who can prescribe you something. i know from my own experience (id rather not get into details but i had it bad too) and even my mother who sees so many adolescants (and adults!) with similar issues admits that the ones who go on meds have better success with therapy then the ones who dont.

@keep climbing:why do you make believe that everythings ok? Would you feel bad telling your parents? Feel guilty? And youre 100% right about wanting to enjoy life now, not just in 10 years. Actually,the only way youll enjoy life in the future is if you learn to enjoy it now!whoever tells you thats easy is lying! Because it might take time and work but the end result is worth it. I had to start seeing a therapist recently for something and in the beginning I was really not happy about it. I felt like a failure. But theres nothing like having a sounding board and somebody to give you an objective opinion. If youre still seeing a therapist, give it all youve got!!! Be open to change, new experiences, and pushing your limits. Once you do that youll see your true capabilities.

Its so hard to trust people. Unfortunately life throws us situations which makes us believe that everyones out to get us. And its true that there are many, many people who do have only their own interests at heart. But therapists by law are not allowed to disclose anything they hear to anybody unless youre a threat to yourself or others. Life is not manageable if you hold everything in. Because when an opportunity arises for you to open up, youre going to explode.

It doesn’t have to be like this. You cant live your life this way. The first step towards solving a problem is recognizing that there is one and youve already done that. Is there someone that you respect and can learn to trust over time like a rebbi, a rav,an older friend etc.?

If you feel you are not connecting with your therapist you may want to consider changing after awhile, a therapist should be completely non judgemental and guide you to being who you want to be.

Did something happen that you dont trust anybody?

Wow. Youre really feeling bad about yourself. You feel like you were born a loser and youre destined to remain one for the rest of your life. But that’s not so! And by seeking advice, that’s not weakness; its the greatest sign of strength. As for shortness,that could be one of the reasons why you feel inferior. Many successful people were short… it didnt take away from their quality of life. In regard to children, genetics have a funny way of working out. I know many people who are short and have tall kids. Being shy can actually be a virtue. So many loud people get themselves into hot water by saying the wrong thing at the wrong time. You obviously think before you speak. Trusting people is hard esoecially once youre exposed to people who have let you down. I would suggest first putting your feelings to paper and that would be good practice for getting it out of your system. Another idea is to imagine yourself in a few years from now. Where would you like to be? You want to be happy! The more you think about it and the more you turn it into a goal, the easier it will be to go about achieving it.

Thanks for the compliment! Actually, not everybody wants a loud boy. Such boys are often very arrogant and no girl wants that. Most girls want to have a husband who will listen to them and respect their opinions. They dont want to be drowned out.secondy, loud and confident are not necessarily synonymous. Some people are really loud and totally not confident. Others are confident and not loud. The more important part is the confidence. I know you feel a lacking in that area but I feel like that’s a teenagers way of getting to know themselves. And if you will allow yourself to open up to somebody no matter how hard it may be, youll gain the confidence you deserve. Make a list of your virtues and things that you have going for you. Take pride in that!! Youre here for a reason! The world wouldnt be complete without you! Im not putting down your feelings of inferiority and telling you to just let it go because I know exactly how it feels. Its hard work to build yourself up but its definitely possible. Youre right that life so often feels unfair. It seems that way because bad things happen to us. Since were human, those bad things get to us and get us down and hurt and angry. We percieve bad as whatever doesnt work out for us. But it really isnt that way. Nobody and I repeat nobody has a perfect or fair life!! What is a struggle for somebody else is easy for you. And theres always somebody whos jealous of what you have, believe it or not.

Oh my gosh! Reading this I feel like I’m reading my biography! Throughout school, I had little or no friends, was picked on, and had very low self esteem. Today, while there definitely are times that I have low self esteem, and I am not “the most popular guy in town,” I am bli ayin hora married, with kein eina hora 2 beautiful children, and I have a circle of friends, Boruch Hashem! It isn’t easy to pinpoint what caused things to improve, but I can list 2 of them:

1. Most of the bullying and picking ended or subsided after I turned 20 & was in yeshiva/college. Teenagers & kids do this type of bullying & picking on people, but as they get older, they realize that they’re just being idiots! There are those that exclude me by not letting me into their clique, but it’s much less severe that out and out bullying. As these morons that pick on you actually grow up, they’ll realize how idiotic they are, and will stop the severe bullying.

2. The delay that I had in social skills, that was 1 cause of this bullying, went away when I taught myself social skills and learned what to say in certain situations. Eventually, I memorized geshmake mayselach (interesting stories) so that I would say things for which people would like me socially, and I accumulated so many of these stories, that once when I told some of these stories at a Shabbos table (& I’ll never forget this moment) someone at the table said to me “You’re a geshmakeh guy!” (you’re a popular, likeable guy). NOBODY HAD EVER SAID ANYTHING LIKE THAT TO ME BEFORE IN MY LIFE!! Try to form a collection of interesting or funny stories that would make people laugh or be impressed, and use them at appropriate moments in a social gathering. This ability to look for the right thing to say led me to become a good ba’al tefillah by searching for the right niggunim, and (believe it or not) to be a good speaker! I hate speaking in public, because I grew up shy, as you said you are, and I still have some of that shyness in me, but because I’m so scared of speaking, I rehearse my speech (at a simcha or whenever I’m asked to speak) several times, and I have several of these stories that I accumulated that I fit into the right points in my speeches, and so I perfect it, to the point where several people complimented me on my speaking and davening talents, an ability that I COULDN’T HAVE DREAMED OF when I was younger! I still try to avoid speaking, but when unfortunately I am asked to speak, I do better, using the same skills that I used to overcome my social challenges.

Being sensitive, as you said you were, actually helped me. When I was a chosson, I once spent a Shabbos with my kallah, in which she told me that she didn’t like to associate with a certain friend of hers because the friend was so blunt. I felt that this shidduch was so bashert, because I knew EXACTLY what she was feeling before she even fully described herself, because I felt the same way! Knowing exactly how your wife feels because you’ve felt the same way is very valuable in a marriage. Maybe your bashert is going through the same feelings as you, and your experiences will enable you to relate to her, and will help you find your zivug faster!

All this I did WITHOUT THERAPY OR MEDICATION! I should note that I have both seen a therapist and taken meds for another issue – a very difficult work environment that I had to deal with. I, too, was very reluctant to see both of these professionals, but it wasn’t nearly as bad as I thought, and it was very helpful. That having been said, you don’t need to see a therapist, as I got through this challenge without therapy. Are there still moments that I feel shy and have low self esteem? Yes. Are there still some social situations that I avoid at times? Yes. But I’ve come much further than before, and I have a circle of friends, as I said. There are still those that exclude me because they think I’m “not cool.” At times this bothers me very much, but at times, I think “that’s their problem – these jerks are so cliquish that I don’t deserve to belong to their crowd.” This is another skill that will help deal with exclusion – look down upon the excluder as having some sort of problem that causes him to not act like a mentsch. Perhaps a change of scenery would be good, i.e. to be in a different yeshiva where the students don’t look down upon you, and you can get a fresh start. The most important things are to be motivated to pick up social skills, even if it will take a long time, to be motivated to improve your self esteem and social situation, and most importantly, DAVEN, DAVEN, DAVEN!!!! Hakodosh Boruch Hu can do anything, and He CERTAINLY can provide self confidence, social skills, friends, and a shidduch to someone lacking in these attributes. My brocha to you is that you will be just as successful, if not more successful, that I was, bli ayin hora, and that you will only hear bsuros tovos from now on! I will be happy to continue to help you in any way I can with these issues.

Those are very loaded questions. And before I attempt to answer them, I want to say something else. You feel like a loser but seriously, these questions prove exactly the opposite. Youre obviously a very deep thinker who is constantly working on himself to become a better person. Thats extremely admirable. I can guarantee you that all those real losers who make you feel bad about yourself dont have the golden character that you have. So a friendship usually begins when two people have something in common. It could be something simple like a habit or something deeper like an experience. It usually starts off slowly and as time goes by you learn to trust each other and you grow closer. When your friends talk to other people its very logical to feel like theyre putting you down. You might be scared of rejection. I totally get you when you say that its a horrible feeling when you feel like you own them. I feel that way too sometimes when my friends talk to other people especially since a few of my friends dropped me in the beginning of the year. Sometimes I catch myself getting so nervous and scared that the next friend is going to drop me so I exercise a lot of self control and leave my friends alone. And then I realize something. The fact that your friends feel able to go talk to others shows that they trust you that youll always accept them back. It proves that they feel comfortable with you and that they dont feel like they need to please you all the time because youre real friends. Its actually a comoliem for you! When you say that you feel like a fake, what do you mean? In terms of yiddishkeit, as a person, that your actions are based on what others want from you? Please explain