What is it to be alone?

[JohnLuke300]

Hi Diane, thanks again for your support. And you are right, many of the members have shown me much sympathy and empathy. Regarding the mentoring, when my therapist suggested doing it I was terrified. But I knew that the best path for me was always going to be the hard path. I have gotten to where I am by taking the easy route and avoiding many of the situations that triggered my anxiety. The only way to undo the damage is to start doing the reverse. The first month of mentoring was very intimidating for me but over the months I have become more confident. I just realize I should not think too much of what each new situation might entail. And believe in my ability to cope even when my anxious mind tells me different.

So thanks again,

John

[Eclipse]

One of the most moving things I've ever read!

[trickyvicky]

Poppy C

I have social phobia, it's very stressful and disabling - would you mind me asking what meds you take as I don't find mine help me.

trickyvicky

[Bill]

John,

I'm glad Dan and I helped to inspire you to write the piece because otherwise I and many others would never of had the pleasure of reading it! You should write more! Maybe I can find more ways to inspire you!

I must admit I don't know much about social anxiety so I don't know if my experiences would compare but when I was in my teens I was very shy and could never get into conversation with anyone. I hated crowds and speaking in front of them, and I was terrified of speaking to girls too!

As I grew older though, I started to train others and hold meetings. I was even in the local paper and interviewed on the radio about research I'd done but I still prefer "one-to-ones". I'm nothing like I used to be though but I think it's just come from age and experience. Like I say though, maybe social anxiety affects you and others far worse which is why I'm raising the following so I can understand better.

One thing you said got me thinking....

I liked your idea that I might share the company of a female social phobia sufferer but fear you might be setting me up for THE most uncomfortable first date in THE HISTORY of uncomfortable first dates!

I'm sure you must be lonely and hurting otherwise you would never have produced such a brilliant piece of work so I was thinking, who would you feel most "comfortable" with other than yourself?

I pictured this...

Imagine you entered a room and in front of you was a glamour model. Would you want to run and if so, what would you be afraid of? What though if the glamour model told you that she suffered from social anxiety too? Would it be so uncomfortable because you would feel terrified of each other? What then if someone locked you both in? What would actually happen? Would you sit in silence in opposite corners pretending the other isn't there? What then if you were locked in together for hours which became days then weeks and months? Would you still feel uncomfortable together and not talk....or would you eventually get used to each others company?

I know you say you would feel very uncomfortable....but what would Actually happen that makes you feel so afraid?

I'm being serious because I want to learn more so I can understand more about this form of anxiety.

[JohnLuke300]

Hi Bill,

You and Dan were inspirations for me to write the post but I would have reservations about wanting you to inspire me more. I tend to be at my most inspired when my mood is very low, so you would need to make me miserable to get the best results. And don't worry neither you or Dan were responsible for my low mood, you just made me want to contribute.

The problem with shyness Bill is that I don't actually suffer from it. That might seem a bit odd as most people think shyness and social anxiety go hand in hand and most research into social anxiety will tell you that the sufferer tend to have been shy in childhood. But social anxiety and shyness are caused by different mechanisms. You can treat social anxiety with CBT but CBT as very little effect on shyness. There as been a lot of research done on social anxiety but very little on shyness so the experts are not sure why they should be so different when they have so many similarities. I used to think that I was shy but when I did CBT I learned to question everything that I do or think. I learned to look for evidence to either support or contradict why I behaved or think as I do and it made me realize that many of the beliefs that I had about myself were inaccurate. I noticed that when I start talking to people, including women, I can become very talkative. When I was doing CBT my therapist got me some volunteer work so that I could expose myself to social situations. I am still doing the volunteer work and many of the staff at the organization know that I suffer from social phobia. Once they got to know me they would say they were surprised I had a phobia as I seemed very confident and amiable. Much of the evidence that I identified suggested that I am not shy and neither am I particularly introverted. This may seem a little illogical but the more I learned about anxiety the more sense it began to make. So to avoid a long story (Oops! Too late ), thinking I am shy is just a misconception.
Which brings me to the Glamour Model. I love the idea and if you can set it up I would be more than happy to go along with the experiment. But I am afraid you might have made you second misconception. I assume you are suggesting that I have rationalized my phobia. That I believe that if I was in such a situation I would want to get away from her or think something awful might happen. It is true that we socially phobic do 'catastrophize' (think about the worst case scenarios) but most of us actually realize that such extreme outcomes are unlikely and the worst thing that is likely to happen is that we will embarrass ourselves. Although that is actually rather horrific to the socially anxious. Unlike most phobia sufferers, social phobia sufferers rarely rationalize their phobia, we realize that our fears are irrational. So if I am not shy and I don't rationalize my fears this leaves the question do I really want a girlfriend? Well put it this way, if you were to offer me £20 million pound or someone willing to be my girlfriend, I would take the girlfriend without hesitation. I know the money will not make me happy, but the girlfriend might.

So lets sum up all the evidence...

I am not shy.
I am not introverted.
I do not appear nervous around people.
I come across as amiable.
People keep telling me they think I am intelligent and articulate.
I am not unattractive. Women have approached me in the past and tried to talk to me. And I think some of the women where I do my mentoring are sweet on me. I am tall (6' 4") and athletic (I've always been active i.e. done Boxing, Kung-Fu, played Sunday League Football, Rugby, Scuba Diving, Mountain Walking and since January I have been going to the gym).
I also do not rationalize my fear.
And I want a girlfriend more that anything else.

So it begs the question... Why have I never had a girlfriend?

Well there are two reasons.

The first is if a woman that I am not familiar with tries to approach or start a conversation with me and I was not anticipating the encounter I become anxious. The more attractive I find her the more anxious I become. If she then tries to strike up a conversation I become aware that she might be interested and become concerned about saying the wrong thing. This escalates my anxiety and pushes me into panic, triggering the 'flight or fight response'. I fear she will see this happening so I often try to get away from her and it often appears that I am not only uninterested in her but that I am offended by her advances. Of course the opposite is true but my body language will suggest otherwise. If I do manage to force myself not to get away from her the panic affects my ability to think and I come across as either confused or strange. I often end up answering questions that I am not being asked or saying things that don't make any sense. And they will give me a strange look and walk off. This does very little for my confidence and self-esteem.

The second reason is the most difficult aspect of my anxiety to deal with and why I have a diagnosis of Social Phobia. Social Anxiety is when you become very uncomfortable in certain social situations and this makes you reluctant to stay in these situations or deal with them. Social Phobia is when that anxiety becomes so strong that it triggers the 'Avoidance Mechanism'. Avoidance is common with anxiety sufferers but it is particularly powerful with the phobia sufferer. It becomes so strong that it can stop you from doing something even if it is the most important thing in the world to you. It seemed to me to be very irrational but then when I learned about anxiety and phobias I realized that it is all very logical. Anxiety and panic are self-preservation mechanisms. Avoidance is part of that mechanisms and prevents me from putting myself in harms way. I can not overcome it by simply believing I will not be in danger because the mechanism works equally on the Cognitive (the part of the mind that we think in and are aware of) and Behavioral (the part of the mind we are not aware of, but it affects our behavior) levels. So as you can see approaching women or putting myself in the situations where I might be approached by a woman are very difficult because of my phobia.

Thanks to my CBT and my understanding of my conditioning I am now tentatively putting myself in the social situations I fear. I find that I am now dealing with situations better than I have in the past. And I know if I continue to expose myself I will develop new coping mechanisms and my phobia will slowly cease to exist. The problem is my phobia was not created overnight but over years and it is likely to take me years to undo the damage. Which means although I have waited for over 25 years for a girlfriend I may have to wait a while longer yet. On the plus side having waited and desperately longed for a girlfriend for so long might make me one of the most passionate and considerate boyfriends ever.

I must thank you Bill for wanting to know about my illness and trying to help me. I wish everyone in my life was as warm and considerate as you and many others on this site. I think eventually I will overcome my phobia and find salvation in the arms of a women. Until then I will just have to persevere with my loneliness and try and let it inspire my posts.

Take care,

John

[Veronica H]

what an interesting thread! Thanks for the insight into your illness.What a poignant peace of writing. My friend of 5 hears told me recently that she has battled social anxiety all of her life and has meds to help her, and yet I would not have known and only recently confided my illness to her. She always seems confident and outgoing.

6'4 and athletic who needs conversation. Sorry couldn't resist....on a more serious note, the only way to overcome a phobia is by exposure and I commend your efforts to get out there and to stay socially grounded. The problem is a tricky one having read your expanation, in that it is at the point when the girl speaks to you that your fight or flight kicks in leaving you tongue tied. If we replace beautiful girl with a wasp (wasp phobia) then the experts would say stand your ground and prove to yourself that nine times out of ten the wasp will not sting you and if it does then it really isnt the end of the world....unless you are allergic but I digress. If you stood your ground and didn't speak then you would get the same result as if you did what you normally do which according to you is to say the wrong thing, which gives the impression you are not interested. Either way the girl would feel uncomfortable and move off.
So if we are not to deprive the female population of a sensitive, intelligent good looking athletic man forever, then how about a new approach... Up walks beautiful girl...she speaks and you respond quite honestly with Hi etc...Maybe you already know that I have a social phobia which means I will appear shy and awkward as I adjust to your presence, so please don't feel uncomfortable and bare with me if I appear distracted or just appear to listen more than I respond for a while.
A sensitive intelligent woman will stay while a shallow immature girl will depart....thus acting as a natural filter for time wasters.
You might feel silly having to explain yourself and you might take flight before you can explain at times but hey no pain no gain.
Hi to the lovely Bill and Dan and glad you are all able to support each other in this.

Veronicax

[JohnLuke300]

Hi Veronica,

When I read your posts I always think you and I think very alike with our understanding of anxiety. And true to form you go and do so again. Since I learned and understood about anxiety and my phobia I have been inclined to tell any woman I met during my mentoring that I am socially phobic. I realized if I was to forewarn them about my phobia and how it might effect me they might react different to me if I were to go into panic. And in the process this would help to undermine my phobia. Which in turn would make it less likely that my anxiety would become high enough to trigger the 'Flight or Fight' response. The only thing I am concerned about now is that they might decide not to be flirtatious or forward with me so they do not cause me any distress. Which might result in me not realizing if they were interested in me and then because of my phobia I would be reluctant to try and find out. I did tell my therapist about my idea about telling people about my phobia and how it might lessen its impact. But she warned me that it might become a safety mechanism and I may become reliant on it before I talk to people. And to become socially confident I will need to discard safety mechanisms and realize I don't really need them. But for the moment I will continue with it and see what happens.

Thanks for your post, I liked your idea about a filter for time wasters.And if I painted the idea that I am some sort of sensitive Adonis I may have exaggerated slightly.

Take care,

John

P.S. Do you get commission on Dr. Claire Weekes Book sales, lol! Great book though, not so useful for treating social phobia but highly recommended for most anxiety disorders.

[Bill]

Hello John,

I found your reply to my post very interesting and enlightening. From what you've said, and forgive me if I'm wrong as I'm still learning, social phobia appears to be more of a phobia of social interaction (talking) with others. I can see how it affects you with the opposite sex but does it also occur when you talk to men as well? I only wondered because of the sports you play and how you get on with the other blokes. If you were in a room with just you and me, would your phobia surface or is it just with women?

I can understand now how shyness isn't involved and I think I can see how you realise the phobia is irrational just as Veronica described about a wasp. To me it's like someone being afraid of a spider when there's really nothing to fear but they can't understand what they're actually afraid of- they just are.

It appears to me that your phobia affects "close" relationships no matter who they are whether they are your family or a lover because the closeness makes you feel threatened because of your phobia. Is this I wonder because you feel you "have" to interact with them to be sociable but also because it's important to you to feel close to them but your phobia then forms a barrier?

It also seems that when a close relationship feels important to you, your anxiety comes into play because you're afraid of losing that closeness, or is that wrong? I wonder if you feel under pressure because the relationship feels so important and it's this feeling of importance that raises your anxiety level making you feel you have to escape and then you feel so low because you lost the opportunity that was in front of you?

I can understand how you would lose concentration when talking to a woman who was interested in you because you would feel too panicky to socially interact with them.

When someone has a phobia about spiders, they never want to see one or go near them whereas with your phobia to form a relationship with the opposite sex would normally be a natural thing to want to do so although it's an irrational phobia, I wonder how and why something that is natural becomes such a phobia?

I can understand that it's nothing to do with shyness and that it's a phobia of actually being able to converse without panicking but I feel like all phobia and anxieties, fear is involved that creates the phobia but how does social phobia form when talking to the opposite sex should be natural? Do you think it stems from your childhood- how you were treated or brought up?

I still feel if I could find a glamour model, I'm sure they'd want an athletic bloke like you so I'd still put you both in a room, throw away the key and let nature take it's course because whether the phobia is rational or not, one way or another I'm sure you wouldn't be able to keep your hands off each other which would relax you and you'd be cured!

Hope what I've said is ok because I'm just trying to understand the phobia better as I still feel there are elements I can't grasp as yet. I know the phobia makes you very low but I must admit I am finding it very interesting learning more about it so I want to thank you for sharing with me.

On a lighter point, (forgive me!) as Veronica says....why should a 6'4" athletic boxer and rugby player need to be able to interact when they just need to show their chest to a woman so she can do all the talking with her hands!?! I bet they'd be a queue! They'd certainly be ignoring me!!!

[JohnLuke300]

Hi Bill,

You are right social phobia is a fear of social interactions but not just talking. Any type of interaction (i.e. talking, body language, appearance, writing, e-mails, interactions on the NMP forums, etc) where I can be observed or evaluated by others. That is what social phobia is, a fear of people evaluating us negatively due to our appearance, our behavior or what we say. The social phobia sufferer doesn't actually fear panic like many do (i.e. we do not feel it might kill us, harm us or cause us to lose control) but we have identified that it can effect our ability to think analytically and recall facts (when the 'Flight or Fight' response is triggered). And if we are interacting with someone while this happens we are prone to making errors, acting irrationally, talking incoherently or forgetting facts. And we fear that those that observe us will think negatively of us (i.e. think we are stupid, odd, weak, uneducated, etc) because of these problems. Often these errors are very minor and people do not notice them but we blow them out of all proportion due to several common anxiety mechanisms. Firstly like many anxiety sufferers we are perfectionists and fear making even the slightest mistake. If we get over our avoidance of a situation we are often guilty of negative self-talk. With me this can be quite subtle as I will often just rehearse what I am going to say or do in my head to ensure I don't make a mistake. Then I start 'Internalizing' which is a common social phobia mechanism where I become so obsessed with my thoughts I become less aware of what is actually going on around me. This becomes a problem because then I am not truely aware whether people are observing me or how they react to me if they observe my mistake. The final mechanism happens after the event and is often referred to as the 'Post Mortem', it is where we keep trying to piece together what actually happened in the situation and whether people thought negatively of us. The problem is because of our 'Internalizing' we are never truly aware of what went on. And, because we are anxious, when we try to analyze the situation and fill in the blanks in our memory we only look for evidence that supports the theory that they would think negatively. We don't notice most people fail to observe the incident or those that do rarely show any negative reactions. And as we can't mind read there is rarely any evidence to suggest that people actually think negatively of us anyway. It is just our anxiety that makes us believe they do. You can see that social phobia actually as many anxiety mechanisms.
There are two categories of phobia; specific or simple phobia (i.e. an insect phobia, a fear of heights, etc) and there are complex phobias (i.e. Agoraphobia, Generalized Social Phobia). Social Phobia is a complex phobia because it has many more mechanisms involved than simple phobias. So it is difficult to treat it by just addressing the normal phobia mechanisms (i.e. Avoidance and Panic), you have to address them all to be truly effective.

In answer to your question if my phobia makes me anxious around men, yes and no. It can make me anxious around men but never to the level it does around women. The reason for this is my phobia developed around the age of 11. At that time I had many male friends but as most 11 year old boys I had very little interest in having female friends. When I talk about my phobia I often refer to 'Protocols' and I will say, if I know the 'Protocols' of the situation I will be less anxious. What I mean by this is if I have experience of a situation (i.e. have been previously exposed to that specific situation) and I have knowledge of how to interact (the protocols), then I become more confident. Because I had male friends when I became socially phobic I knew the protocols so I was more confident of male interaction. When I became interested in girls, I had very little experience and so was much less confident, more anxious and thus avoidant. And because I never truly overcame my avoidance my phobia grew. There is another factor that you have to take into account when realizing why I fear interacting with women more than men. I want a girlfriend so much that my fear of making a mistake becomes even more acute. After all if a woman's first impression of me is a negative one, what chance have I of turning it into a relationship.

Ultimately my phobia causes a degree of anxiety with everyone I interact with including my family. And my behavior tends to make me withdraw from people over time. In the past, if family or friends did not actively try and stay in contact with me we would drift apart. My therapist also identified a problem which is not directly related to my phobia but is known to cause anxiety problems. My father left when I was only 3-4 years old. And the first signs of anxiety started to manifest when I was 7 and then social phobia around 11. I have a problem with feeling any emotions for people close to me. I can feel emotional after seeing a sad film or watching a sad news item but I never feel anything for anyone close to me. It is not because I have animosity towards them, I just feel nothing emotionally concerning them. My therapist pointed out that when my father left, because of my age, I might have had difficulty dealing with my emotions. And that I could have developed a fear of abandonment. To protect myself from the emotional impact of being abandoned again I then might have began to repress my feelings. If this is done over a long enough period it leads to 'Emotional Detachment' or 'Emotional Numbing'. This is a condition where I am no longer able to identify what emotion I am feeling towards people I am close to. And because I can not identify the emotion I am unable to express it. If we don't express our emotions they are converted to nervous energy (i.e. Anxiety). So it is highly likely that this is the root cause of my anxiety and phobia.

I hope that gives you a greater understanding of my condition. So if we were to use that model to analyze what might happen in your glamour model experiment. I would say after 15 mins of 'Negative Self-Talk', 'Internalizing' and a panic attack. Nature would then take its course in spectacular fashion due to 25 years of frustration and muscles well primed by the 'Flight, Fight or (what was the third response? I am sure it was another F word.... Oh! yes of course) Freeze' response. Then I would spend the rest of the day in the 'Post Mortem' phase convincing myself I had done everything wrong and she would now be thinking negatively of me. Which in turn would reinforce my phobia and avoidance.

Ah well, you can't win them all.

Take care Bill,

John

[Veronica H]

Hi John

hehe...don't get me started on Dr weekes, I love that woman. What a genius. My anxiety buddy and I refer to her as 'mother'. Almost 50yrs on and her work is still so relevant. A physician and scientist with nervous exhaustion, who was able to study her biochemistry and work out how to alter her stress hormones by a positive attitiude....I can't believe that having been nominated for a nobel prize twice she did not win it. I owe my recovery so far to her work and the support of the people here at NMP....sorry back to your thread. This is just my opinion and I am not a therapist of course, but I would definitely continue to spread the word with your new social groups that you have this phobia. Taking the tension out of the situation with honesty has to be a positive thing. It is a good thing I have done it.You can work out how to wean yourself off of these safety behaviours once you have a lovely lady shareing your world. This will do more for your phobia than anything else afterall.
What springs out at me is your deep understanding you have of your condition....The problem is because of our 'Internalizing' we are never truly aware of what went on. And, because we are anxious, when we try to analyze the situation and fill in the blanks in our memory we only look for evidence that supports the theory that they would think negatively. We don't notice most people fail to observe the incident or those that do rarely show any negative reactions. And as we can't mind read there is rarely any evidence to suggest that people actually think negatively of us anyway. It is just our anxiety that makes us believe they do....this overthinking and negative thinking is at the heart of most of our problems and the hardest to control. You of course also over think the over thinking because you are also cursed with intelligence. Have you looked at mindfulness?? It has helped me to check myself more when I go into over thinking mode.
Are you a Star Trek Generations fan 'JohnLuke'? Deanna Troy Ships Counsellor would be perfect for you. You wouldn't have to say anything.

Veronica