I have just started a new job and feel my old fears returning again.
I haven't posted on this forum for 7 years because of panic attacks and social anxiety. Those posts from 7 years ago were sad to read and I have come so far and overcome so much. At that time I was petrified of talking to a shop worker or even my family. Since then, I have held down jobs and went to university where I achieved a first-class degree and I even did presentations in class. I am not at all shy and people describe me as loud, outgoing and confident (of course this is from faking it because of my anxiety), but it has helped me achieve so much.
I graduated this year and even managed to get a graduate role in a big company where I would need to do tech work and talk/present to clients. At the time I thought I could do it because I was doing so well, but now that I have started I am getting panic attacks again. I get scared when introducing myself or talking when other people are listening to me. I even have panic attacks when I watch people present or watch TV as I can only focus on the actors talking and can't relax. I am in fear of the job even on my days off and am just waiting in fear for the day they make me present or speak in a meeting etc. I find everyone intimidating, scary and confident.
I want to do this job so bad and I am so proud of myself for getting it, I just worry that this feeling will not go away or my panic attacks will get the best of me. I just can't understand why I feel fine talking in some cases and not others. I have reached out to a therapist, so hopefully will get the help I need right now. Does anyone have any advice or are in a similar situation?
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Denimdungarees
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I love hearing that from you. It’s great to see people getting past their previous deep-rooted fears. I used to meditate and found it to be so helpful, so I am going to get back on that.
Your story is extremely impressive, bravo for accomplishing all of that including presenting in front of class (something I actively avoided most of my life). It sounds like with a bit of help you are going to really kick arse. As for advice I made the mistake of avoiding dealing with my public speaking phobia and it did cause me problems. You have made the right decision going to therapy because phobias like that can be tackled with things like flood therapy.
You could even join your local Toastmasters club (which I absolutely promise you is full of people with active or former public speaking fear) they are usually extremely supportive and will give you the chance to gradually practice speaking in front of others, they say by speech 20 pretty much everyone's fear of speaking just goes. They also build you up slowly to making a speech so it is not too intimidating. There is also VR therapy (you need the app and some vr goggles) where you just practice speaking in front of a virtual crowd, you can do that pretty much every day if you want to i've heard that is also pretty effective. Good luck you sound like you are going to very close to conquering a big hurdle and taking off.
This is some great advice. I am thinking about joining toastmasters/acting group to get over my fears in a fun and relaxed environment. It’s just very hard to force myself to do something so daunting on my off days but I know it’s for the best. I am very headstrong and will battle through it for sure, even if I stumble all the way through.
Hi, I just wanted to thank you for writing this. Rarely do you hear of updates from someone with social anxiety. So thank you for this!
What is it that helped you climb out of social anxiety the first time around? I have a college aged daughter dealing with this and don’t know how to help her. Barely comes out of her bedroom. What did you do last time to help yourself and might it work for you now again?
I was in the same position 7 years ago where I literally couldn’t even leave my room because of a fear of others and I quit my apprenticeship because of it too. The worst thing to do is to avoid everyone and everything and to get into the negative spiral. Doing easy things like going to the shop when you are scared. Little baby steps. I then eventually said to myself that if I had to work an easy service job for the rest of my life I would be happy. I accepted that my journey and the journey of others is not the same. That regardless I would be happy. I ended up getting a shop job that pushed me to get more and more confident. I wobbled in this job and ran out crying when we had a whole team meeting because I was too scared to introduce myself, but I stayed in the job still. I then got confident to go to another job and eventually university. I faked confidence the whole way until I started to believe it. I started taking medication and therapy in university too to help. Also opening up about it to others and knowing people aren’t as scary as you think. I would go up to present and out-loud say I was scared to the audience to lighten the situation for me. It’s doing whatever makes you feel good no matter what others think. I would say however that this is very hard to do when you have depression and a low mood mixed in with social anxiety. That should be treated first before you can make goals for yourself. This only works if you have an inner positive outlook and determination to do this, so contacting a doctor is always a good first step.
I had social anxiety for years and what helped me was learning that it was due to my distorted and erroneous thinking about how others perceived me and how I perceived them. I was also suffering from low-self-worth and an inability to stand up for myself and validate myself. I also learned to never believe my anxious thoughts because they are lies whose purpose was to protect myself but now as an adult I don't need that kind of protection. I was astounded one day at work when I realized how much people liked me and valued my company when I thought just the opposite was true.
My suggestion is to find a therapist that specializes in treating SA and work with them, they may use group and exposure therapy as part of the process. If there isn't one near you, you might check out Sebastiaan at social-anxiety-solutions.com, he has some very good info and even an online program available and also good youtube videos. There are also other online SA programs available and good info on youtube about treating/healing SA. The more you educate yourself about it will help your healing.
Another helpful thing is to figure out why and how you developed SA so you undeerstand it more and can get any additional help you need. In my case I grew up in a emotionally and physically repressive/abusive household and was punished and shamed for any kind of normal anger or trying to stand up for myself. I was also bullied in school which all led to my developing SA. I started healing my SA but also realized I was dealing with trauma/c-ptsd and had a lot of repressed anger, rage and shame that I needed to process and heal. I found a therapist that specialized in treating trauma/c-ptsd and worked with them and he used emdr as part of the therapy that was very helpful.
The other thing to do is to work on healing your low-self-worth, assuming you have it because it's quite common with those with SA. There is a lot of good info/resources on youtube about how to do it and heal.
Yes I have discovered recently that I have low self esteem and compare myself to others a lot. I also tend to believe people don’t like me and then I make myself isolated because I do not reach out to others because of rejection. I also do no like conflict and do not trust my own belief systems or myself. As I open up to others about my fears you do find it’s not true and everyone has a completely different outlook of who you are in a positive like. I will work on this with my therapist .
Sounds like you are doing good things to make progress. Some of the people on youtube that have helped me are Dr. Bernadette Sewell, I did her Break Free Program and found it very helpful, Bernadette Logue and Emma at Therapy in a Nutshell.
For the panic attacks you might check out the DARE Anxiety program youtube and there is also a book available. It made a difference for me learning that panic/anxiety is a paradox so the more you struggle or fight it or try to deny it the more it persists so the solution is to allow the panic to happen even though it's uncomfortable, and reassure yourself that the intense feeling/adrenalin will soon flow through you and dissolve. I found that what helped me a lot was daring the panic/anxiety to get stronger and last longer, essentially calling it's bluff.
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xx
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