Recovering from Social Phobia
Instalment Three: Upsetting Mental Images, Criticism, Assertiveness, Blushing and Changing Behaviour

Advice About Blushing

It may be that the problem with letting my hair fall in front of my face and wearing heavy make-up is that it actually makes me more fearful. Thinking about it, it's possible, because every time I put make-up on to hide my blushes, I think that I have to do it because otherwise, I'll look silly and people will think I am. But I don't really know whether they will or not. The school bullies said they thought that, but I think they were just using it as an excuse to pick on me really. It just gave them a good opportunity. So it wasn't my blushing that was the real issue, but their desire to be nasty, for whatever reason. So now, when I'm in an environment where I don't really think people do want to pick on me, my blushing shouldn't be too much of an issue like that.

If instead of worrying about it, whenever I blushed, I thought, "So what? Who's going to remember it in five minutes anyway?" it might help.

One of the magazine articles gives a few tips on how to stop blushing, or at least not to mind it happening. It says that we can stop it getting worse because we're embarrassed about it if when we feel a blush coming on, we try to relax, since tension makes them worse. So it says it can help if we drop our shoulders, relax our bodies, and push our stomachs out. It says that can take a bit of practice, but we should get better at it.

Push our stomachs out?

It says a lot of people have a problem with blushing at some time in their lives. It says that hiding blushing can make it worse, since if we think it's a shameful secret, we're more likely to be embarrassed about it. So it says that another thing we can do is to try to make light of it, announcing it in a humorous way when it's just about to happen, if it's convenient, saying something like, "Oh, I'm just about to blush again. Must be the old nervous system playing tricks on me again".

It says that if we can accept it as part of ourselves, then it should start to go away. If we can think of it as just a funny little quirk we have at the moment rather than a shameful secret, we won't be so anxious or embarrassed about it, so it shouldn't happen so much. If we can get to like it more as a part of who we are, thinking things like, "At the moment, I'm a blusher", then it won't cause us much anxiety any more, so it'll be more likely to fade away, since it's anxiety and embarrassment that keeps it going.

Anyway, if anyone refuses to take us seriously just because we're blushing, what kind of a person are they anyway?! One who thinks too much of outward appearances and not enough about deeper things like what a person's actually saying, probably. But then I've got no evidence that people in the meetings, or anyone else I meet nowadays, will think badly of me anyway.

The magazine article says that if we do any relaxation techniques, we can do one when we have free time, where when we're feeling relaxed, we can help ourselves re-train our bodies if we can imagine ourselves blushing, and at the same time imagine relaxing and feeling accepting of ourselves. It says we can also imagine how we'd feel if we saw someone else blushing, and imagine feeling that way about ourselves. It says that if we practice that a few times, we'll get used to feeling like that, so it might be easier in places like meetings.

Point 3: "I always rehearse what I want to say several times before a meeting, and hope no one will ask me a question I'm not expecting, because then my mind might go blank with anxiety and I might not be able to say anything sensible, and then I'll look incompetent."

A Suggestion or Two on Preparation for Speaking in Meetings

One of the magazine articles says it can be good to make notes beforehand of what we want to say. It says that rehearsing the whole thing, though sometimes useful, can sometimes be a less good idea than making notes, because if we forget something, we might not be able to pick up the thread of what we were saying again, and so we might lose our place completely. Just writing notes to remind ourselves of the main points we want to make and then improvising more means we won't have that problem.

If someone does ask me a question I'm not expecting, I don't suppose it would make me look too bad if I said something like, "That's an interesting one. I'll have to think for a few minutes about that."

But then I'm worried that people might ask me questions that should be easy to answer, but I won't be able to answer them because I'm too anxious to think. I think if while everyone's talking, I make a conscious effort to keep my breathing very slow and regular, while at the same time not forgetting to listen, it should help relax me, so I won't have to worry so much about that.

Point 4: "I don't like to express my opinions anyway in case they get put down and people get critical of me. I'll feel as if they're rejecting and mocking me because I don't come up to standard. But then I get depressed and frustrated, because I'd like them to know my opinions, and not telling them makes me feel as if I'm not getting what I want out of meetings."

Expressing Opinions and Refusing Requests

The self-help book says that if we don't try to express our opinions, we'll carry on being convinced that people will be critical of us when we do, whereas they might support us a lot of the time if we do really. It says that not expressing our opinions because we're scared of what people will think keeps us feeling anxious, because we never find out whether our anxious thoughts about what will happen if we do are true or not. We never find out anything that contradicts our worries.

Yes, maybe doing things to help myself stay safe like keeping quiet keeps me convinced that something bad will happen if I don't. So one way I might be able to cut down my anxiety is by gradually expressing more and more opinions, and finding out what happens. Thinking about it, other people express opinions and don't get shouted down. So there's no real reason why people should treat me any differently, because I don't really think my opinions are any worse than anyone else's.

But if anyone does say harsh things to me, it might be more to do with them than me. Maybe it'll be because they're in a bad mood, or because they're just a short-tempered person, or because they're jealous that they didn't think of what I've said, or because of some other reason that doesn't have anything to do with me. And I'm sure I could learn how to deal with that kind of behaviour.

The self-help book says we shouldn't be afraid of saying no to things we don't want to do, like extra overtime or taking on responsibilities we don't feel happy with, or anything else. It says we should try to be as fair to ourselves as we are to other people, and that it won't mean we're uncaring, or rude, or selfish, or uncooperative, or bad in any way, if we say no to things, because we're treating our needs as if they're equal to those of other people.

It says that every time someone asks us to do something we're not keen on doing, but we're tempted to say yes because we're worried about standing up for ourselves, it can help us muster up the courage if we think about what we could be doing instead if we don't do what they want, the thing we'll miss out on if we do, even if it's just spending valuable time relaxing. And we should think about how we'll feel later if we agree to what they want.

I find it difficult to think of acceptable ways of saying no though. I always think it'll be offensive if I say it, or they might argue with me and make me look bad.

But the book says that there are ways of saying no with more confidence, that are likely to be more persuasive than just a simple refusal, or being too apologetic, which might make them think we're just making excuses.

It says that one way of saying no nicely is to make it clear that we appreciate being asked when we say no.
So maybe if they ask us if we'd like to take on a particular responsibility we're not keen on, for example, we could say something like,
"Thanks for asking; I appreciate you thinking of me, but I'd rather not this time."
It says we don't have to feel obliged to give reasons why; it's often good enough just to say no.

Or it says it can sound better than just a simple refusal if we say we understand they're in a difficult position.
So, for instance, if someone was off sick and we were asked if we'd mind doing their work as well as our own, but we thought we were too busy, we could maybe say something like,
"I know it's important to you that this gets done; I understand the difficulty; but I'm really very busy with my own work at the moment."

It says it can be good if we can give a short explanation like that for our refusal.

It says it can also help if we make a suggestion as to how they could solve the problem, or offer to help them out with part of it.

The book says it can also be a good strategy if we ask for time to think about whether we can do what they want. It says that often, people seem to want immediate decisions, but really, very few decisions have to be made immediately, so it's reasonable to ask for time to think, and to ask how much time they're happy to give us. When we're not feeling under pressure, we'll be able to think about it more carefully and decide what we really want.

Discussions That Might Get Heated

It says it can make us feel more confident and manage things better if we learn some negotiation skills. It says the first thing we should think of when we're doing anything like negotiating with someone is how we can both come out of it with something, rather than one person thinking they've won, and the other feeling as if they've lost. If we do that, it can prevent arguments.

It says that the first thing we ought to do in such an exchange of opinions where we both want to get something out of it, whether it be at work or anywhere else, is to think about what the other person wants. It says if we don't know, we should ask their point of view rather than guessing.
Then, we can tell them exactly what we want. Even if it feels risky to ask their point of view because we know they'll disagree, it can help in building up trust, because we'll both know where we stand.
It says we shouldn't avoid the difficult issues, because they'll be the reason we need to negotiate.
It says that if we're prepared to give something up, the other person might be more willing to give something up as well, and it may be that we can make bargains.
It says it can be best if we try to make sure the conversation doesn't dry up.
It says that no matter how annoyed we are, we should try not to make personal attacks against the person we're exchanging ideas with or take what they say too personally. It's best if we can try to be as strict as possible about sticking to the issues, rather than turning the conversation to their faults.
It says we can stop ourselves reacting in anger before we've thought about what they've said properly if we summarise it before we put our points across. That'll tell them we're listening as well, which will help to build trust.

It says that if people criticize us or complain about something we've done, we should be prepared to admit to weaknesses, without either exaggerating them or dismissing them as irrelevant, because after all, everyone has them. It says it might be difficult to do if we're annoyed with the person criticizing us, but we can stop ourselves being so annoyed if we try to get what they say in perspective. It says that we can often take remarks far too seriously because we think they've got more significance than they have. It gives an example, asking whether if someone showed they were pleased with us and said something like, "Thanks for being so helpful. That was really thoughtful", we'd think they meant that thoughtfulness and helpfulness were general parts of our character. If we wouldn't, then we shouldn't think it's any different if people say things like, "That was really thoughtless. How could you be so insensitive?" or if they sound as if they're making a comment on our character like, "You're so careless", or "forgetful", or "messy", or "inefficient", or whatever. It says that people often talk as if they're making a judgment on our characters when all they're really doing is commenting on one particular thing we've done wrong. It says we shouldn't think much of criticism like that, because apart from the fact that it probably won't be true, everyone does rude or careless things from time to time, and so on, so we shouldn't think we're being singled out as being any worse than anyone else. We should accept what's true about the criticism and apologise where appropriate, but reject the rest. It says it might help us do that if we imagine what an impartial judge who knew all the facts would say on the matter.

It says that when we're apologising, often, just saying, "I'm sorry I upset you; I didn't mean to" is enough.

It says that if we want to criticize others, it can help if we just stick to the facts, rather than saying anything about them that could be perceived as an attack on their character. So if we think they keep expecting us to do too much work and don't take on much themselves, for example, we could just say, "I feel I've been doing more than my fair share of the work recently. Please can you take on more of it yourself?", rather than calling them lazy or anything.

The book says there are times when conflict can't be avoided, but if it comes to that, there are things we can do to lessen the chances of it getting too bad. It says one of these is to find out from the other person exactly what's making them angry, and then tell them exactly what's making us angry. It says that instead of assuming we're right and they're wrong, it can calm things if we think of our opinions as just different points of view, and that might help motivate us to find out more about theirs, so we understand them better.
It says that it can help if we keep to what's strictly relevant, not starting to discuss things from the past or other things that aren't really to do with what's happened this time.
It says we should try not to use blanket statements that make it seem as if we're blaming them for more than they deserve, like, "You always" or "You never" do this or that, or saying, "You make me really angry", when it's really our feelings that are doing that, not them. It says we should try not to say anything malicious, since we'll probably regret it later, especially since it'll make it more difficult for them to forgive us.

It says that if we think we're too angry to talk politely to them, or they're too angry to talk politely to us, we should take a break, not storming out, but just explaining that we think we can better resolve the matter if we're both calm, and maybe asking if they'd be happy to discuss it with us in the near future, offering to set a time with them.

It suggests that if possible, when we go away to cool off from our anger, we calm ourselves down by physical exercise, listening to relaxing music, doing relaxation exercises, or going away for a while in our imagination somewhere nice, like day-dreaming about being on a beach in the sunshine or in a nature scene with beautiful plants and trees all around.
It says that if we notice ourselves feeling anger again, we should just remind ourselves that we're having a break to cool off. It says thinking over what made us angry will just make us angry again, so that's not a good idea.

It recommends we use those techniques for calming anger in all sorts of situations where we might get angry.

Point 5: "I always keep my eye on the door, because I'm always thinking about getting away if things get too bad."

Experimenting With Doing Things Differently

Concentrating on doing things that I hope will keep me safer must stop me concentrating so much on what's going on around me, so I'll be less able to make a good job of things, and that'll just confirm my opinion that I'm no good. So if I could try to stop doing that and other things I do to try to keep me safer, it'll help me concentrate more on what's going on around me, so I can make better contributions.

And sometimes, I know they've made things worse, because people have noticed me doing them and asked me why, and that's been embarrassing.

The self-help book says we should try doing little experiments in doing things differently, and then afterwards think about what we found out about what happened when we did, asking ourselves if what we thought would happen really did.

It says we should start each experiment by thinking of something we do to protect ourselves from something we're worried will happen, like keeping quiet all through a meeting so we won't get criticized. We should ask ourselves exactly what we do to protect ourselves now, and then ask ourselves what we imagine would happen if we didn't do it, and why we think it would happen.

I suppose with meetings, for me, I'm worried that if I speak up, I'll be ridiculed, and if I don't look at the door, it'll be more easy for people to catch my eye and ask me questions I would have to answer. I'm not sure why I assume they're going to be hostile though, because they've never been nasty to me before.

The book says we should try to work out whether any memories of bad things are contributing to us feeling uncomfortable enough to want to protect ourselves or avoid things now.

I think the bullying must have made me assume people are likely to be hostile.

The book says that then, we should imagine that what we fear will happen is just a theory we have about what might happen, and we're going to go into a situation curiously, doing something differently to see what happens, perhaps like a scientist doing an experiment, prepared to weigh up all the evidence for and against our theory.

So for me, I could just think of myself as having a theory that if I don't look at the door, people will get the better of me somehow. I could go into the next meeting thinking of myself as doing an experiment involving not looking at the door, to see if people do ask me more questions; and if they do, I could imagine I'm curious to find out how well I can answer them, and whether people do mock me if I can't.

It says that after each experiment, we should have a think about what happened, and ask ourselves whether what we thought would happen did.

It goes into more detail about how we can do experiments on each of our behaviours in turn.

It says that common behaviours that socially anxious people use to try to protect ourselves can include looking down so no one will catch our eye, speaking quietly, doing something with our hands to stop people realising how nervous we are, and letting our hair fall in front of our face to hide our blushes. It calls these things safety behaviours.

It says that safety behaviours can be such habits that we don't even realise we're doing them. It says they can include things we don't do as well as things we do, like not telling jokes and not talking about ourselves. It says that we can try to identify safety behaviours we do without even noticing we're doing them by thinking about a recent situation, and working out what we did to make ourselves feel less vulnerable.

I suppose one of mind could be when I wouldn't go round to see my neighbours until I felt sure not many of them would be around; and another could be when I started mumbling when I was speaking to people at the wedding reception, maybe because speaking up might have meant they took in what I said better and were more likely to criticize it, although I didn't really think of it like that at the time; I just did it automatically.

The self-help book says we ought to think about places we've been to recently and work out what safety behaviours we've done, write them down, and add any new ones we think of when we remember them. It says another thing that might help us think of them is if we think of how we have assumed the situation could have been worse if we hadn't done certain things, like if we hadn't rehearsed what we wanted to say before we said it, perhaps. It says we can also ask ourselves questions to help us work out what our safety behaviours are if we think that will help, like:

• If we feel suddenly at risk, what's the first thing we do?
• What do we do to try to prevent other people noticing our anxiety symptoms?
• What do we do to try to make sure we don't do anything wrong?
• What do we do to hide our problem or to stop it showing?

It says that when we've thought of safety behaviours we do to try to protect ourselves, we should try to think of what we fear would happen if we didn't do them. It says we could help ourselves by thinking of a past event where we did them and trying to work out what we were worried would happen if we didn't, or thinking of a future event where we might do them, and trying to work out the same thing. It says we can ask ourselves questions to help us if we like, like:
What are we worried will happen if we don't do them? What could go wrong?

It says the most important question we should ask ourselves is:
What's the worst thing that could happen?
It recommends we write down our answer to help us remember it when we're thinking it through.
It says that sometimes, when we really think about the worst thing we fear, we can realise it doesn't sound all that bad after all, or we can realise it's so unlikely that it isn't something worth fearing after all, like that everyone will point at us and start laughing. But it says that some predictions might be more likely, like if we're worried that people will make fun of us for blushing because school bullies did that in the past.

It says we should word our predictions in phrases that will make them easily testable, for when we do the experiments to find out whether our theories about what will happen are right. So they could be things like, "I think I'll shake and spill my drink", or, "People will think I haven't got anything worthwhile to say", and so on. Or when our theories are about other people, plain ways of wording them would be things like, "They'll stare at me", or, "They'll ignore me". The things we predict will happen need to be easily observable.

It says that if we want to test out people's thoughts and attitudes, we'll have to think out ways of doing that, but it'll be more difficult, because we might think people are thinking one thing because of signs we've picked up about their thoughts that might really mean something totally different. So, for instance, if they yawn or turn away, we might think they think we're boring or they don't want to know us, whereas there might really be lots of different reasons why they could be doing it, like tiredness because they didn't get much sleep last night or they've had a hard day, or the room's stuffy and they need some fresh air and there's a window near them on the other side, or they just think the subject's boring, not us, and so on. So it might be better to stick to testing behaviour, or our own feelings.

The book says that then, we should think about how to do the first one of our experiments where we risk not using safety behaviours to see what happens. It says we should first think of something we'd like to be able to do differently, like plucking up the courage to start a conversation with someone, or eating in public, or talking on the phone when other people are listening in the background, perhaps. It says we should make specific plans about what we'll do differently. So, for instance, we could decide to eat something, or tell people what we think instead of just agreeing with them, or try to relax instead of tensing ourselves up to control our shaking, or introduce ourselves to someone, and so on. When we do those things, we'll be able to find out whether we really needed to be afraid of what would happen or not.

It says it can seem risky, but it's worth doing, because we might discover that we're better at adapting to new situations than we thought, and that will help us build up confidence. It recommends that if we feel anxious at first when we do an experiment, we do the same thing some more times to see if our anxiety gradually dies down.

The self-help book says we should write a list of all the things we can think of that we'd like to be able to do eventually, in all parts of our life, once we're no longer avoiding things or trying to protect ourselves in various ways like keeping quiet when we'd like to speak up. It says then, we'll have something to aim for, so we'll know that if we try to change our behaviours and it's a bit difficult, we'll know we're doing it for a good reason.

It says we don't have to worry about not doing things in the proper way, because there's no right way of doing a lot of things in social situations; once we've learned to relax and be less inhibited, our way might end up being just as good as anyone else's.

It says that the thing we should do last in our mini-experiment is to think afterwards about what happened when we did something without using a usual safety behaviour. It says we should make sure we stick to the facts, and don't jump to conclusions based on what we think people must have been thinking, or think worse things happened than they did, because we felt anxious so we feel as if people must have noticed and thought we were stupid, or something, when we won't know that.

It says it helps if we write down what we think about how accurate all of our predictions were. Then, if they weren't all that accurate after all, we can read what we've written next time we plan to do an experiment like that, and it'll reassure us.

Things to Bear in Mind While Planning the Experiments

The self-help book says we might worry that the worst thing we fear really might happen to us, but it rarely does to people. It says it's more likely to happen if we keep on with our safety behaviours. It gives the example of someone who thought he always ought to tell jokes, because he was scared that people would reject him if he wasn't lively; but once he started to be his normal quiet self, he realised that people hadn't liked his jokes, and they were more likely to ridicule him for telling them, since they weren't very good, than they were for his being quiet.

It says that another thing is that if the worst thing we fear does happen to us, it might not be nearly as bad as we think. It gives an example, suggesting we imagine we were always too scared before to reveal our feelings and thoughts to people, but one day, we did reveal them to someone, and they seemed to just dismiss them as if they didn't matter, or they seemed bored, as if they didn't think they were serious enough to be interested in or didn't care. It asks how we'd really know what they thought, and what they felt, or what their reactions really meant. They might have misunderstood what we said, or they just might not have realised how important confiding in them was for us and so didn't treat our feelings and thoughts with the importance we thought they should have. It says that people often don't respond in the ways we'd like them to, but there are many reasons why. It says that even if people appear to be insensitive, it doesn't mean we're any less acceptable as people, or that our thoughts are less meaningful and important. It says it's best to try not to take things too personally, since we won't really know why the person's reacting in the way they are.

The book says we can do the same kind of experiments with things we'd usually downright avoid doing, whether the avoidance is obvious, like not going to various places for fear we'll meet people or not eating in public, or whether it's more subtle, like not starting conversations with people, or getting out of talking to people at parties by helping with the food.

It says that when we start changing our behaviour, it's best to do easier things at first and then build up to doing harder ones when we're more confident. It gives the examples of starting by greeting people when we meet them and gradually moving up to having full-length conversations with them, or starting by listening to other people and watching what they do, and building up slowly to asking if they'd mind us joining them for lunch. It says it can help us gain more confidence if we find someone we'll have quite a lot in common with, like if we're both studying the same thing in an evening class, so we'll find it easier to find things to talk about; and that will make us more confident for when we talk to people with less in common with us.

It says it's easy to dismiss the progress we make towards doing what we'd like to do as insignificant, because we think that other people do those things with no problem, so we might think it's not really significant that we can. So it says it's important to write down all the worries we have about what we predict will happen before we go into a situation, so if we've achieved it with no problems, we can find out how much progress we've really made, and be pleased with ourselves instead, because for us, it was difficult, and yet we managed it. And knowing that, the next time we decide to do a mini-experiment, if nothing too bad went wrong last time, we might be more optimistic about what'll happen than we were before.

It says that if we keep written records of the results of our experiments in a notebook, we can look at them from time to time and be encouraged by how much progress we're making.

It says another type of experiment we can do is to deliberately make it seem as if our anxiety symptoms are worse than they really are, to see what happens, like making ourselves shake enough that people notice, or deliberately stumbling over our words or repeating ourselves. It says we should make a prediction about what we fear will happen before we do those things, and then think about whether we were right afterwards.

It says that many people with social phobia find that difficult to do, because many are worried it'll mean doing the wrong thing, thinking there's a right way and a wrong way to do things. But if we do do things like that and find out that nothing bad happened after all and people didn't pay much attention, it can really reassure us.

It says the idea of the experiments isn't to learn how to do things right, because no one gets things right all the time, and often, there isn't one right way of doing things anyway. And it says that the idea isn't to learn how to prevent bad things from happening to us, because no one can do that; everyone will suffer the odd rejection occasionally, or feel really embarrassed, or be boring because they can't think of anything interesting to say to someone, and so on. So it says that if those things still happen to us sometimes, we shouldn't think it reflects especially badly on us. It says that as we grow more confident, we'll stop thinking these things are so serious, and just treat them as trivial things we can easily forget. It says that we can make a lot of mistakes without people even noticing, and mistakes can be good, because we can learn from them, for instance if we trip over something, we can learn to look where we're going better.

Working Towards Recovery

The self-help book recommends that busy people even give up something to enable them to work on curing themselves. It says it's best to work out and write down a plan of recovery, deciding what to do when, because otherwise, we might go from one thing to another without trying anything well enough for it to work, and then concluding that nothing does. So it's best to write out the things we plan to do, and make a schedule as far as possible about when we're going to do them.

It says that some people give up trying to change their behaviour because they don't think they're making any progress, but sometimes, other people can tell they are, but it might be gradual. So it encourages us to keep going. It says that progress can sometimes start off slowly but get faster and faster. It says that one problem people can have is that it can be much easier to remember things that went badly than to remember things that went well, because they can give us much stronger feelings because they can be upsetting; so if we write down the things that went well, we can remind ourselves. It says that if we learn to praise ourselves even for little things we've achieved, our confidence will grow faster.

It says that sometimes, people can under-rate their successes because they think they're things most people wouldn't have any problem doing, so we should remind ourselves that it was extra difficult for us. It gives some examples of upsetting thoughts we might get, and thoughts we can think to stop ourselves believing them:

• Yes, but anyone could do that.
  Not if they felt as anxious as me.
• I should have done it better.
  I will, in time. Now I will do what I can. No one could do more than that.
• No one else would think that was important.
  Maybe not. But I know how important it is to me, and I know it's important to me for a good reason.

And so on. It says we'll just make ourselves feel bad by unfairly belittling our successes, and then we'll have less motivation to keep on trying. So thinking of them in terms of what they'd mean for someone as anxious as us rather than thinking about whether normal people could achieve them can help us get things in the right perspective. It suggests we think about how we'd encourage someone else with the same problem trying to recover the same way, and then we'll know that encouragement will be appropriate for us as well.

It says that if we feel anxious while doing new things, we should remember that the anxiety is very likely to be temporary, and it will go away when we get more confident.

It says everyone trying to recover from social phobia has setbacks, where something they did successfully one day feels more difficult or even impossible the next, because it makes them more anxious for some reason. But we don't need to be discouraged by them, because things can easily change back again. It says that setbacks can sometimes just happen because we're tired or not very well, which made things more difficult. Or it might be that other people put us in situations we weren't ready for, like if someone invites us out when we don't feel ready to go, or if someone asks us to explain why we disagree with a decision that was made at work. It says other people will be far less aware of our anxiety than we are. They might not even notice it. So we don't have to feel too bad if we didn't do as well as we were hoping.

It says that if we feel we need a little break in between experiments to build up our courage again after the last time, that's fine, as long as it doesn't end up being an excuse for putting things off.

It says that if we feel stuck, unable to make progress, it might be because we're trying things that are too difficult, and we ought to go back to trying easier things for a while to boost our confidence.

It says we shouldn't worry if it takes time to change our thinking patterns and behaviour, because that won't be unusual, and it won't mean progress isn't being made.

It says we can recover more quickly if we practise behaving confidently and changing our behaviour whenever we get the opportunity, as well as doing specific experiments. So we should take the chance to talk to people in bus queues or join in conversations more, and so on, if we can. It recommends we stop doing our safety behaviours as much as we can in everyday situations. So, for example, we might exchange a few words with shop assistants instead of buying things without saying anything, and start conversations with people at work in their breaks.

Things That Can Make the Experiments Easier

It says that if this kind of thing makes us really anxious, there are a few things we can do:

Before an experiment we're planning or event we're going to, it can help if we distract ourselves as much as possible from it by keeping busy in any way we can, so we're not worrying and worrying about it, thinking about all the things that could possibly go wrong and making ourselves more and more anxious. A lot of the things we worry about might never happen, so it's best to just try to keep our minds off things once we've made our plans for our experiment.

It says that afterwards, we should try not to start dwelling on all the things we imagine might have gone wrong, since we can exaggerate their significance in our minds and we can end up thinking they were much worse than they really were and feeling much worse than we need to. So it says that again, we should try to distract ourselves by doing other things, preferably things we enjoy or will get absorbed in.

It says that during the event where we're doing our experiment, it can help if we try to pay as little attention to our feelings as we can, trying to pay more attention to what's going on around us than we do to our thoughts, interpretations of what's happening and feelings, since again, we might be exaggerating the significance of the things that happen and feeling much worse than we need to.

It says that when we start to do things that will help us recover from our social anxiety, it's best to work at them continually rather than taking much of a break from trying, since that might become an excuse for not facing up to the problem or not making the effort to work out how to get rid of it.

Imagining Doing the Experiments Before or Instead of Doing Them for Real

One of the magazine articles says we can do this kind of thing in our imaginations first. It says we should make a list of all the things that scare us but that we wish didn't. Then we can work out how to work up to doing each one gradually in our imagination. So if what would scare us is speaking up in front of five of our work colleagues in a meeting, we can first imagine speaking to one, and then two, and then three, etc. And then we can do that for real, going to make conversation with one, and then two, etc. It says we can break that down still further into very little steps if we want, first imagining just being with a work colleague before imagining expressing an opinion to them.

It says that when we imagine doing these things, we should sit somewhere comfortable, close our eyes, and try to make the scene as realistic as possible in our minds, first imagining something very brief that doesn't make us feel very anxious at all, like walking towards someone and smiling at them on the way past them. We can imagine doing that repeatedly until it doesn't make us anxious at all, and in fact it bores us.
Then we can imagine ourselves walking past them saying hello to them several times until that no longer makes us anxious and in fact it bores us.
Then we can move on to imagining ourselves stopping to talk to them, making a few comments on the weather, and then walking past. And we can do that until it bores us.
Then we can move on to something a bit bolder, like expressing an opinion to them, or whatever. And we can practice that several times till it no longer makes us anxious and in fact bores us.

Then we can start doing those things in real life, building up to expressing opinions to people. It may be that once we've done them to the point where we're bored of them in our imaginations, they won't bother us in real life, if we imagined the scenes realistically.

It says that if we like, after each time we've imagined a scene, we can open our eyes again, and do a few minutes of breathing exercises, breathing in and out very slowly and evenly, every time what we're imagining begins to make us anxious, or before we imagine doing any new thing. That should help us, since slow, controlled breathing calms anxiety.

It says it's best not to do too many new things in one session of that if we think they're going to make us more anxious than we're happy with. But it says we can make notes of how well we're doing, so we'll be encouraged to carry on. And it says that if we're doing quite well, it's allright to skip some of the little steps we've thought up and go on to bigger things. So for example, if we were working up to expressing opinions to five work colleagues by imagining speaking to one first, then two, then three, then four, but then we find out that imagining expressing an opinion to one doesn't really bother us at all, we can go straight on to imagining expressing an opinion to three people, skipping past two. But then if we find doing bigger things too daunting, we can always go back to smaller things again for a while.

It says another example might be going up and talking to the boss. It says we can sit somewhere comfortable and relaxing, and then first perhaps just imagine walking past the boss smiling till that doesn't bother us, and then imagine stopping to say a few friendly words, etc.

It says we can apply these exercises to any type of social situation that bothers us.

Well, I'll do a bit of planning. I'll write a list of the things I'd like to do if I wasn't scared to do them, and then I'll think about each one, trying to work out how I could imagine doing things that got me gradually closer and closer to doing it until I was doing it. I could write all the little steps I think of down so I don't forget them.

One of the magazine articles says we can plan to give ourselves little rewards whenever we've done something that makes us a bit anxious as part of our recovery, so we'll be encouraged to continue. That sounds like a nice idea.

It says it can be a good idea if we think back to a time when we were doing something successfully, and try to create an image of that in our minds. And we can think about how we imagine we'd like to behave when we've recovered, and build an image in our minds of the kinds of things we imagine we'll be doing that will make us happy. Then we can often think of those images, especially in times of stress, along with reading about the progress towards recovery we've made so far, and they should encourage us to continue working towards recovery by reminding us of how good our reasons are for wanting to get better.

Point 6: "I'm always worried before a meeting that my voice will start trembling, or that I'll forget what to say, or that someone will ask me something I don't know about, or lots of other things like that."

Forgiving People Who Upset Us In The Past

I think it was the bullies and my teachers that made me worry so much about this kind of thing. And my parents made it worse by criticizing me and not understanding. I feel very angry about those things sometimes.

One of the magazine articles says we can cut down on the amount of anger we feel and make ourselves feel more cheerful if we forgive our parents and anyone else who did unkind things to us.

We might not think they deserve it, but it says it's for our benefit, not for the benefit of the people we're forgiving. It says that if we carry around anger with us, it can damage our relations with other people and eventually contribute to health problems like heart attacks.

It says one thing that can help is if we reflect that whatever the effect was on us of their behaviour, they probably didn't realise what it would be when they did the things we're angry and upset with them for. They might not have been out to deliberately cause us harm, but their behaviour would have been partly a result of the way they were brought up, what they were afraid of, what they were trying to achieve, and so on.

Maybe the teachers who called me stupid when I got the words I was reading mixed up in class really thought that would motivate me to do better. Or maybe they were brought up to believe that that's the best way of talking to people when they don't do things right; or maybe they were impatient because they were stressed about their work. Those aren't good excuses for their behaviour, and it doesn't justify what they did, but at least I might be able to be less angry with them if I can understand them better.

So maybe people's insensitivity isn't all their fault.

The magazine article says that dwelling on the past will only make us miserable. If we can say, "It's over. From now on, I'm focusing on how to give myself a brighter future", we'll be freer to concentrate on what will make us happier.

I think the more I get over my social phobia, the easier it will be to put the past bad things out of my mind, forgive people and move on.

There's one thing I want to make sure of though. I don't want this suffering to have all happened for nothing. I want it to at least have been worthwhile in some way. When I get better, I want to make sure something positive comes out of it. Perhaps when I get well enough that other people talking about their phobias doesn't upset me because it reminds me of how bad mine was, I could try to help other people recover from phobias.

Notes and Links

The Backstory

The Distressing Way Things Are Before They Begin to Improve

Louise has developed a social phobia. Her fear seemed to get much worse when she was in her mid teens. Now, at the age of 23, she still lives with her parents, even though her father criticizes her for still living at home, saying they wish she'd move out. He just doesn't seem to understand her fears. It isn't as if 23's all that old anyway, but she still feels inadequate because of his unreasonable criticisms.

Her mother was always over-protective of her, constantly warning her not to stay out after dark or go out without a coat when the weather got colder, or go near her schoolmates when they developed coughs and colds. Her mother's very anxious herself. Louise thinks this might have contributed to her social phobia.

But also, her father was in the army for most of her life, and they had to move from place to place, which meant she didn't have much of a chance to develop new friendships and learn good communication skills by interacting with familiar friends.

Worse, she was bullied at every new school she went to. People made fun of her because her accent wasn't like theirs, because it was like the one in the place she'd just left. And they called her ugly and fat, even though she wasn't really, or other unkind things.

Because of her anxiety about being at school, Louise began to stutter and her mind would go blank whenever teachers would ask her to say something, which gave them the impression that she was stupid, so they often criticized her unkindly. So she became more and more anxious, thinking she just wasn't acceptable to people and was inferior and stupid.

When she did do a good piece of work and took it home, sometimes she'd be praised, but sometimes she'd be criticized for not doing even better, so she could never be sure what was going to happen. The uncertainty made her more anxious.

She felt a lot of uncertainty in other ways also, since sometimes when she went to her mother about a problem, her mother would sympathise, but sometimes, she'd shout at her for being a nuisance while she was busy, or for not being able to cope with it herself; and it took a while for Louise to work out how to predict when she was likely to get what reaction and only go to her mother when she knew she was in a good mood. So she felt insecure.

Because Louise never got the opportunity to develop good friendships with people and improve her communication skills, she began to feel inadequate in company where she felt she wasn't as witty and good at conversation as everyone else. She thought there must be something odd about her and that no one could like her.

However, she wasn't nearly as bad at communicating as she thought. The problem was that the more anxious she became, the more she focused on her supposed inadequacies, and so the less she concentrated on taking part in conversation, so she never got the chance to become confident in her conversational skills. Her growing anxiety turned into a phobia.

Now, she thinks she's a hopeless communicator, and thinks she must be fat and unattractive. She's sure no one will want to know her once they start speaking to her. She's got no confidence. She has got a job, but it's boring and repetitive, not at all what she'd like to have done. But she doesn't feel she's got the confidence to go for anything better, because it would mean having to meet more people and be trained, and if she found it difficult to do something she was being trained to do, she feels it would show up her inadequacies and make her look bad and feel worse, because people would judge her and criticize her.

She's become scared to converse with people in public, worrying that she'll make a fool of herself or they'll think she's boring or silly or unintelligent, or she won't be able to think of anything to say.

She gets panicky at the thought of eating in public or of doing anything where she's likely to be the focus of attention or might do something wrong, in case she looks bad.

She stays in a lot of the time, because going out where she might meet people frightens her so much.

When she does go out to social occasions, she does things to try to limit her anxiety, like turning away when she sees someone coming who she worries about talking to, so they'll think she isn't interested and hopefully go away. She doesn't like to walk into a room alone, so she waits for someone else to go in and then creeps in behind them, hoping they'll get all the attention.

For hours before she goes to a social occasion, she worries about what might happen - whether she'll make a fool of herself by not being able to think of what to say, or by not being able to hide her trembling and blushing, or whether people will ask her to talk about things she doesn't know about.

Afterwards, she thinks through what happened, criticizing herself for every tiny little thing she feels she did wrong, like if she didn't look at someone enough, or was too anxious to concentrate on what she was saying properly so she got her words mixed up. She feels sure people must think she's stupid because of it, so she feels stupid herself, and can criticize herself for it for ages.

A lot of the time though, she doesn't dare go out at all. So her life's boring, because she doesn't develop new interests. And she sometimes feels lonely, but she doesn't know how she can feel comfortable meeting more people. She feels as if she's a failure, and that everyone seems to be more capable than her. She knows her fear's way out of proportion to the real risks, but she feels as if she just can't help it, and this makes her feel even more inadequate and inferior.

Sometimes, when she does meet people, she accidentally puts them off her by being aggressive towards them, because she expects them to be hostile towards her, and so she behaves defensively.

She gets depressed at the thought that she could have the anxiety disorder for years and years. She worries that it'll mean she'll never achieve anything in life.

When Positive Change Begins to Happen

One day, her mother buys her a self-help book, and gives her a few articles on social phobia she's found in magazines, in the hope that she'll get over her anxiety problem and become more confident. Louise finds them interesting, and starts to put what they teach into operation.

Over the coming weeks, there's a big improvement in her mental health.