What Is Social Anxiety Disorder Or "I'd Rather Stand On The Sidelines"

2024 Author: Harry Day | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 15:43

Sociophobia is a fairly common phenomenon in which we not only worry in ordinary everyday, social situations, but experience increased anxiety, which makes us assess this situation not very positively, we can experience physical discomfort and try to avoid similar situations in the future. For example, when meeting with strangers, and if you also need to say something at the same time, it seems generally unbearable. Or it seems that everyone is looking at you, studying and scared to do something wrong, otherwise everyone will laugh.

Social phobia is a type of phobia, but since it strongly affects people's lives, it is even singled out as a separate problem. Its manifestations are varied, but one thing is important: fear is so persistent and noticeable that it entails significant undesirable changes in life.

How social phobia can manifest itself:

Firstly: for example, it is scary when you imagine before a performance that you will forget the text or something is wrong with your clothes. That is, you just disgrace yourself in public and everyone will just say how stupid and absurd it is. Or you go out into the street, and everyone is just looking at your coat or legs (and even not plucking eyebrows), evaluating you and you want to quickly get home, because it is so cozy and calm there. Even making a phone call and making an appointment with a doctor is a great feat, and you can prepare yourself for it for several days, better online.

Secondly: if, nevertheless, such an undesirable situation for the psyche happens, then the person is already worried and anxious in advance, and during - and even worse, even a panic attack may occur.

Third: somewhere deep in the soul, such a sufferer knows that his fear is unfounded and excessive, but this understanding is muffled and fear enters the scene.

And after this - the fourth sign: a person begins to do everything to avoid situations in which he may experience anxiety and fear. And for this he finds a bunch of "reasonable" reasons why you shouldn't go, for example, to a friend's birthday party or take a walk along the spring streets with a friend. And you don't have to go for a haircut. “There they will take a very close look at me and say that I have terribly naughty and complex hair,” says the “harmful” part of the head, but a person suffering from social phobia will surely find an explanation why you shouldn't go there: “long hair is in vogue now ", Or" I thought it would be much more economical to buy a typewriter and myself, all by myself ", the options for excuses can be very extravagant. But if the situation is inevitable, it is accompanied by strong feelings.

And fifth: everything would be fine, but everything that happens significantly affects your personal life, work, study, communication with friends and in general it is very difficult when you are so limited by fear in realizing your desires and behavior.

Important! If you are not yet 18 years old and if this lasts less than six months, then these are probably temporary difficulties that you can cope with on your own or they are due to prolonged stress and fatigue.

This is not social phobia if: you simply do not want to communicate with people who are specifically unpleasant to you or their interests and ways of spending time, their values do not coincide with yours. You just don’t like their behavior and you don’t date them. Not because you are anxious in their presence. If you are just worried about a performance or an exam, if you do not refuse a performance or go to an exam, then this is not yet a social phobia. You have the right to experience and experience excitement before an important event. And that's okay.

Social phobia can be limited to one or more situations. For example, you are anxious to eat in the presence of other people and you do not go to a cafe with friends, because it seems to you that everyone is just watching what you order ("do you eat meat and cakes? In the evening? It's a nightmare!"), How are you chewing, what if you choke or drop your fork? This is stupid and humiliating, you think, and refuse in favor of a home-ordered pizza. Although you and your sister do not mind sharing this pizza and finishing the meal with an eclair. That is, with loved ones everything can be different.

Or there may be another option - generalized social phobia, when the range of situations is still wide: it is difficult to go on a date, and even it is difficult to appoint one, or to answer “no” to a date offer, because if I refuse, they will think something wrong about me, I can not refuse my friend to lend that favorite dress, although I know that I will not return it. But, the most important criterion in both cases is the fear of publicity.

We all experience anxiety from time to time in such situations, but this does not prevent us from acting, that is, we can overcome this fear, and people with social phobia prefer to avoid these situations.

We are all worried in different situations, and for each of us this excitement is due to a specific, meaningful situation specifically for us. But problems begin when a person experiences increased anxiety, which takes away a lot of mental energy and affects not only the psychological state, but also the physical well-being and behavior.

That is, our psyche assesses the usual situation as "dangerous", remembers it (a habit of thinking like that, a template is formed), then this situation becomes emotionally negatively colored in the future, and then we try to avoid this and similar situations (avoidant behavior), if it is it is impossible for some reason, other mechanisms turn on - we begin to feel very bad during such situations, or even in advance - physiological manifestations turn on - from redness, increased sweating, tremor, dizziness, to states when a person is forced to call an ambulance - it's like an "emergency exit" - if I can't cope with the situation now or avoid it, I need to get "official permission" not to do what our psyche is trying to prevent (not going to work, on a date, not making new acquaintances, etc. t n).

But this is only the tip of the iceberg: the basis is always a general dissatisfaction with life, that is, a person's life is not what he would like to live. And in these circumstances, it is necessary either to change something in life, or to change the attitude towards past or present events. Those manifestations of anxiety are a signal of trouble. As pain is a signal of trouble in the body, so increased anxiety is a signal that something is wrong in your life.

As an example, I remembered Eldar Ryazanov's film "Office Romance". The heroine of the film, played by Alisa Freindlich, “mowed down” all her friends after one of them “stole” her loved one from her. Unpleasant? Yes. A frequent situation in our reality? Frequent enough. Does everyone behave like Kalugin? No.

She decided not to allow a similar situation to recur in the future and not only cut off all social contacts, she also looked and behaved in such a way that almost completely excluded the very possibility of establishing close friendships and romantic relationships (of course, not consciously). She devoted herself entirely to work, where she did everything better than in interpersonal relationships (this is called compensatory behavior), alone she felt more comfortable (to a certain extent) than in society. But in reality, this is just that very avoidant behavior. Remember her "confession" on the balcony of your office? How, in fact, it is not easy to live like this, and it doesn’t work in any other way (the head is “forbidden”: “girlfriends, relationships with men are painful, scary, so let's better not try again and again”, “what if it’s will repeat again”,“nothing good will come of it,”and so on). And only the coincidence of the participation of Andrey Myagkov's character in them change her possible scenario of a lonely life.

What to do? There are 3 levels of manifestation of anxiety, as we have already said - at the level of thoughts, anxiety can manifest itself from the side of the body and through our behavior. We work in these three directions at the same time! That is, work at the level of thoughts and beliefs (we change the attitude to the situation), at the level of behavior - we begin to act differently (in each specific case, we analyze the behavior that does not allow us to achieve the desired result and develop instructions), and work with physiological manifestations anxiety - again, there are special installations, exercises that help get rid of them.

Of course, this disorder can manifest itself in different ways, and in each case it is necessary to understand individually.