Sharing my breakthrough with my social phobia

[melody]

My biggest surprise in learning about positive thinking which has helped me to heal is to learn that sometimes positive thinking may be different to my perception of positivity in the pursuit of finding a place of realism.

Sometimes It means recognizing when others are doing things such as lying, manipulating, putting down or angrily accusing me of the flaws which both them & me possess-seeing parts of themselves they dislike in me. Whatever their ongoing habit is.

This is not to judge, it is simply awareness. If I can open my eyes up to the truth, I can make an informed decision if I am willing or able to put up with this, or if I need to make up an excuse & get away as fast as possible.

I used to think that seeing things this way made me nasty or judgmental, but it is becoming clear that this is not so. It is only learning to be more perceptive. In this way I stop my old habits of internalizing every social encounter & blaming myself whenever other people cause me to feel unhappy or angry.

I have the freedom to pull away from any person who causes me to feel any hurt. It's up to me if I feel I have to say anything or not. Sometimes truth helps if it's in their best interests. Very often the person may not be able to help it, so the truth would not be appropriate in that case. If the issue was something that I had a personal problem about, but the other person did not, then the truth may be the best answer & probably wouldn't upset them if it was clearly stated & stuck to the basic facts.

Anyway I thought I would share this, it has taken a long time to get to this point. By facing up to the truth about others, I am less cruel to myself, I feel calmer. I am more easily able to separate where to draw the line & to stop allowing negativity of other people to define the way I see myself. I have managed to let go of a lot of resentment by letting go of my idealism & acknowledging the truth about others. It was hard, because people always say that you have to forgive the other person & this kept making my anxiety worse. I had to forgive myself of any blame I was holding onto about my actions & words.

[maddie]

Well done melody. You seem to have gained a good insight into the cause of your problems.

Everyone has to be responsible for their own words and actions, but they cannot be responsible for how others perceive them. We all form opinions that influence our reactions according to the individual experiences we have had. No-one we met can be expected to know all of our ingrained attitudes and responses.

We all also react to others through learned behaviours. We expect people to behave a certain way according to the situation we meet them in. We assume others will respond in social situations as we do, but this is not always so.

I hope your breakthrough continues.

[mad4it]

Hi Melody
First of all just want to say well done. I also had a similar realisation. I used to allow people to imprint their moods, feelings and opinions on me. I really used to absorb it all and obviously I ended up feeling like crap with no self esteem. This was especially true of my husband in the past 5 yrs. After his dad died he became quite abusive (verbally never physically) towards me. At first I put it down to the grief he was going through and again absorbed all of his ill-feeling, thoughts and words towards me. Unfortuneately, it didnt get any better with time. It carried on until recently. I finally realised that he was trying to hurt me as a direct result of how he was feeling about himself. Whether it is self esteem or he just doesnt like me anymore it is his problem and not my fault. Anyway last time he had a 'go at me' I told him that I would not be taking on board nor listening to his hurtful remarks anymore and put the truth out there to him. 'His dad died and he has been taking it out on me ever since' This really hit him. First of all the length of time it has been going on. 6 yrs in january. and also the fact that he cannot think of it as a series of unrelated incidents anymore but that is has been one long incident with a start and now an end. I feel more confident and do not take onboard what he says anymore. Prob divorce but have kids so not sure about the future.

[markko]

Hi Melody,

Good post. I certainly found that I would blame others as a defence mechanism. It was only when I faced the fact that it was my own negative thought patterns that got me into that situation did I start to get better.

It's a long road, but breaking that negative habit and creating a positive frame of mind for which I alone was responsible was the beginning of finally getting my social anxiety under control.

Thanks,

Markko

[Kerrigan]

Your message is inspiring, I've developed social phobia over the past 7 years but didn't know what it was until I saw that video 'what is social anxiety?' then I knew I had it, I had had a thing about swallowing, the tension in me would build up and up and then I'd swallow and it would go away but then build up again and I'd choke from trying to control it.

Anyway, I thought I must have 'pure O' form of ocd when actually it was just me worrying if people could hear me swallow and taking this to extremes.

I'm now ready, willing & able to get better. It will be hard because the road ahead logically speaking would have to be equal to the time it's taken me to get into this mess. Maybe recovery will take less time but the thought that I could get my life back is worth ten thousand lives! My college tutor said I have a great thinking mind and should be a philosopher, if I can find my way back to a healthy mind then I could even be rich one day!

It seems harder to convince myself that I could have love though, that does seem imposible because the swallowing thing would get in the way of having sex and kissing, right? Even if I got better I would still become aware of it cause I'd spent all those years thinking of it...

Social phobia is weird cos it stops you doing what you want and need to do to live a simpler life!

But that video opened my eyes and I wish you and everyone who suffers from this awful condition lasting and blessed luck, joy and peace of mind. I really wish you love and happiness.

XXXXXXX :hugs:

[Lion King]

Well done all,

Some inspiring stuff, I have experienced similar issues and the relief of being just partly free cannot be replaced by any other feeling, when I felt better I felt like I had a new lease of life, its just a matter of remembering what you have learned to keep on progressing!

All the Best everyone

LK