Social anxiety anyone? Rant

I was just thinking to myself about how much more cautious I am about leaving home than I’ve ever been. I used to go outside because I LOVE being outside. I still do love the outdoors. But it seems lately I am more nervous about things like going to the store, picking up a to go order, paying a bill in person. Lots of times before a normal shift at work.

Well today I don’t have to get anything from the store, no take out, bills are paid and no work. And I am STILL anxious to go outside. I just wanted to go outside to spend some time on the new longboard I got and immediately I decided I didn’t want to go outside because the neighbors would see me. I was so excited to learn longboard and now that I have it I’m too scared to go practice.

I thought I just had trouble with things that involve “adulting” specifically those tasks that require direct communication with strangers that made me nervous, but now it’s seeping into the activities I love:( Big sad.

I hate hate HATE anxiety. I wish I didn’t have it.

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My default state is to stay indoors. However preferring to stay indoors is different from being really anxious about going outdoors. That’s the situation now for me. I get really anxious about the distancing rules, and what you’re supposed to do if you go in a shop. I can see the need for the regulations, but get really anxious about inadvertently breaking them and someone having a go at me. As it is I can’t walk far anyway, but if the back pain went tomorrow I’d still be avoidant about going out.

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ah for me going outside is really hard too… i always need somebody with me or i get really scared… so i don’t go out by myself.

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I have constant social anxiety, that has never gone away. The good news is that you can learn to deal with it and overcome it. I used to spend five minutes psyching myself up to make a phone call when I first got my insurance job. Now I’m so used to phone work that it doesn’t bother me to be on the phone and collect money from someone who is behind on payments, and those can be emotional calls.

Identify your problem areas.
Form a strategy.
Try implementing it in an interaction.
Analyze the interaction, what worked, what didn’t?
Adjust the strategy.
Repeat.

You’ll get better over time!

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You know that action plan seems so so obvious as I read it but I’d never thought of it like that. I never broke it down into so many steps. It’s always been identify the problem and do it. Those were the only steps for me.

I will try your way. It really seems like something that will work quite well for me. Thank you @shutterbug I think I’m going to show the steps to pdoc so she can help keep me on track with it. I crave this kind of structure.

Thanks again:)

I still sometimes get scrambled during a call if someone is really yelling at me. I have a binder full of different prompts for different types of phone conversations that I can refer to to get myself on track. If you’re in a crowd of people, plan ahead and keep things on your phone. Ideas of things to talk about and fallback ideas, etc. It really does work and eventually it starts to become habit.

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I do so much better with panic inducing situations when I have some sort of plan. Even if I never use it, sometimes I do better just knowing I have a plan. I like the way you think.

I’ve recently put together that a lot of my social anxiety is from being autistic. I’ve been learning that non-autistic people are getting constant feedback from other people in social situations and are able to naturally take perspective when interacting with them. For me, I’m not picking up on that feedback, so the interactions are more fraught and likely to cause paranoia.

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