Distress and SAD
About a week ago I got a rather nasty bout of food poisoning. It wasn’t the most pleasant of experiences, but it did illuminate a few interesting points about my social anxiety.
First, the choices I make about how to deal with my anxious feelings are often made when I am at my most desperate. Second, there are real and serious benefits to having established some distance on my social anxiety.
January 25th, 2007 by Aaron
Dealing with Social Anxiety One Technique at a Time
One challenge that I have continually faced in dealing with social anxiety is finding consistent time to devote to techniques, journaling, and reflecting. Of course, I regularly deal with social anxiety in my life and so I am working on things in the midst of life, but I have found that social anxiety really does take giving specific time to simply pause and reflect. Finding the time to do that has been difficult for me. School, work, projects, relationships, and so on end up taking priority. Also, I have other practices too, exercise and spiritual specifically. This semester - I tend to mark periods of time in semesters, professional student you know:P - I am focusing on one technique and one technique only: 15 minutes a day of slow talk is my goal. Small, achievable, and effective. Too often I would get frustrated with my lack of consistency that I would just give up altogether. In reality, I was setting too high of expectations for myself. I’m hoping that setting a smaller goal and focusing on only technique will really help me in my life. I chose slow talk because, as Shawn said, like many folks with SAD I talk very fast and at times it really feeds into my anxiety. On the other hand, speaking slowly makes me feel much more relaxed and less anxious. When I speak fast there’s more of a chance of me saying something or speaking in a manner that makes me more anxious. Whereas when I speak more slowly I feel more confident. So, I’ll see where this leads and be sure to share with you.
What has your experience been like in working with social anxiety admist the busyiness of life?
January 22nd, 2007 by Ryan Oelke
More on Writing to Cope
After writing last week’s post, I decided to keep up with the writing practice and see where it took me. Each night since then I’ve set aside an hour to write on anxiety. As before, I wrote quickly, not allowing myself time to reflect on what I was writing.
It’s been an interesting experience.
January 11th, 2007 by Aaron
Writing to Cope
Feeling anxious from recent encounters, I tried something new the other night. Usually, I concentrate on reminding myself that the negative thoughts I have are learned and, most likely, inaccurate. This time I sat down with a laptop and tried to write out everything I was feeling.
I didn’t shy away from the negative. In fact, I indulged it. Usually, conscious of not wanting to seem to screwed up by anxiety, I try to appear, sound, and think of myself as reasonable. When I wrote, I decided I would write as unreasonably and unfairly and angrily as needed.
January 4th, 2007 by Aaron
Generalized Anxiety
I’ve been reading about Generalized Anxiety Disorder (found through the Social Anxiety Institute’s newsletter) and seeing how I have trouble with this as well as social anxiety. I’m not sure how the two interact. They seem similar. And if I dug in a bit, I bet a lot of the general anxiety I go through can be traced back to the fear of what various (sometimes very specific) people would think of me if they knew of my numerous failings.
December 28th, 2006 by Aaron
Anxious Writing
For the last few weeks I have been working on a writing project and going through the usual stresses this brings. When I work to get out a first draft, I put intense pressure on myself and create a lot emotional turmoil. I wind up miserable, longing for the later stages of the process. When the first draft is done, the fear of whether it will work at all is over and I can concentrate on refining my writing into something worthwhile. Before the first draft is done, it feels like the whole thing could go to pieces at any moment.
December 21st, 2006 by Aaron
Tonglen and SA
I wanted to share with you all a technique that I have found very helpful recently in dealing with social anxiety and our fears. The technique or practice is actually a type of meditation taught and practiced in Tibetan Buddhism. It is called tonglen. The word tonglen literally means “sending and taking” in Tibetan. Pema Chodron, a Buddhist nun, explains the practice as follows:
December 15th, 2006 by dashh
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