Focus of Attention and Social Anxiety
August 28th, 2006 by Ryan Oelke
In situations, individuals with social anxiety tend to focus more people then anything else. I observed this in myself today during one of my first class sessions for the semester. Of course, this is not a real surprise to those with SA but I find it helpful to notice how partial my attention is and how many other aspects of any given situation I could focus on. For instance, in my class I was meeting all new peers with whom I will spend at least four semesters, side by side. And these are smaller, more intimate classes, so we will have relationships a bit deeper than might be typical. For me I focused on trying to figure out how I fit in, how I “size” up intellectually, how I might be judged, how I could avoid that or quickly establish something about myself in order to avoid any judgment. In essence I was looking at all the ingredients and projected causes of my SA. But when I thought about how these things - people - were only one part of all that was happening during that period, it helped me to take a mental step back and not feel trapped in by this limited view.
What is doubly entrapping about this contracted perspective is that I miss out on paying attention to aspects that I am comfortable with. And if I were, I would be helping myself out tremendously by relaxing and finding out that I need not anticipate and fret about what might be, which will probably in itself by a self-fulfilling prohpecy. I’m going to make effort to notice this in my life and try to make a tangible shift in perspective. Perhaps it will help, or maybe it will be to difficult for other, more subtle struggles.
Have you noticed this tendency within yourself? What has your experience been?
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Aaron wrote on 08/28/06 at 6:22 pm :
At a less self-forgiving time I used to refer to myself as being driven stupid by anxiety. I’d be so focused on what might cause me anxiety that I’d miss much of what else was going on. And it would often make me seem much more foolish about other things than I actually was.
In fact, I developed a whole theory about it as it seemed that lots of my friends had traits (or fears) that drove them stupid as well.
It’s nice to see it from a more positive perspective.