Cornered.

[LifeLife]

Hey guys. I am really cornered into a box at this moment and I don't know how to escape this mess. Hopefully someone can help me or at least offer their opinion. All my life I have been dealing with completely debilitating anxiety - and I am not exaggerating. I haven't been able to make any friends or connect with people because of this. To keep optimistic I have always neglected looking at my problem as anxiety, to strive to accomplish things. 

Whenever I bring up the problem people always refer me to see a psychologist. This is my problem. I have no other problems in any other area apart from severe social anxiety. But what do you do when (this is the situation I am in ) when you are 20 years old - Your parents are kicking you out, you cannot make friends, you have no job, all jobs you have been fired from due to your anxiety - so no experience, no one wants to hire you (I have literally applied to hundreds and changed up my resume multiple times), no money to consult medical help you are literally completely debilitated from society.

Seriously scared I can go homeless soon here.

 

Thanks

[AndreiC]

Hey,

 

I have no idea what advice to offer you, but maybe I can help you with something.

Send me your resume, I'll ask a friend to review it and give you some feedback. Should help at least in finding a job.

[Michael569]

The advice people are giving you might actually be correct but you should call it different. In our modern culture , it is not viewed positively if somebody is consulting a psychatrist. Many people see their patients as nuts and completely "out there." Similar to crazy people locked in Sanatoriums. 

Where in reality the true is that these are one of the bravest people because they know they want to uncover their deepest fears and go the extra miles of facing them under a guidance. Instead of psychiatrist, call them therapists or medical professionals because that's what they are. 

If you read "The Road Less Travelled" from Scott Peck you will understand that this way you can achieve amazing results. I strongly encourage you to look into that book if you need a motivation. A lot of time our anxieties stem from our youth, from the way we were raised but also can be based on as little as single negative experience in childhood or adolescence. 

I strongly encourage you to seek out a therapist. You don't have to tell anyone about it and No, you are NOT CRAZY if you admit that you need help and will work with a professional, far the opposite, you are wise because you want to work on your problems. 

Just a food for thought

 

[Leo Gura]

@LifeLife  Take ownership of the problem and commit to solving it without even knowing how you'll do it yet.

That's step #1.

I guess step #0 is convincing yourself that you can change.

And step #2 would be doing lots of deep research on your specific issue to brainstorm possible lines of solution.

You don't need a fancy expensive shrink. All psychological problems you can fix yourself. In fact, it's the best and fastest way.

With contemplation, journaling, reading, meditation, self-inquiry, and a plan for increased exposure to social situations, you should be able to cure yourself of that completely with time.

Start with contemplating: Why do I feel a need to create society anxiety?

No bullshit... what's the bottom line? Why are you doing it?

[LifeLife]

On 2017-5-5 at 5:16 PM, Leo Gura said:

@LifeLife  Take ownership of the problem and commit to solving it without even knowing how you'll do it yet.

That's step #1.

I guess step #0 is convincing yourself that you can change.

And step #2 would be doing lots of deep research on your specific issue to brainstorm possible lines of solution.

You don't need a fancy expensive shrink. All psychological problems you can fix yourself. In fact, it's the best and fastest way.

With contemplation, journaling, reading, meditation, self-inquiry, and a plan for increased exposure to social situations, you should be able to cure yourself of that completely with time.

Start with contemplating: Why do I feel a need to create society anxiety?

No bullshit... what's the bottom line? Why are you doing it?

Wow that's very empowering. And really good advice. Okay I will do that .

&

Mmm I contemplated that hard. It kept me up it was funny. I found alot of my anxiety ( which I was creating ) was trying to look famous - I think it was just  subconscious thing from watching too much self developmemt on youtube. I'm going to try to be more aware of that and drop that. Aswell as trying to accomplish things with people, causes alot of resistance -that could possibly have something to do with pick up. I will keep questioning and stay open to being wrong or in a blindspot - continue my exploration. 

 

[jack k]

@LifeLife I've dealt with social anxiety too. Best thing thats helped me is probably meditation, healthy eating, and exercise. Start with meditation if you don't already and if you do, do more. Anyways, don't try and not to be socially anxious. Instead be ok with it as who you are and just let it happen. When it does just watch it. Keep watching and watching and over time it will start to dissipate. Also maybe try picking up Alan Watts' book  The Wisdom of Insecurity, helped me so much. Social Anxiety is a bitch but a blessing for serious growth :-)

Edited May 15, 2017 by jack k

[PetarKa]

@LifeLife I have some suggestions:

1. Write your goal down on a sheet of paper: It will drill it into your subconscious and it will increase your chances of accomplishing it by 10x. Won't go into the details of that. Watch Leo's video How To Set Goals and do this EXACTLY for your goal.
2. Practice self-acceptance: The Power Of Self-Acceptance. It will help a lot, seriously. It has in the past; I've overcome social anxiety using these 3 things 1-2 years ago.
3. How To Become Confident

Wish you the best!

P.S. Where there's a will, there's a way.

[JTL]

 

On 5.5.2017 at 9:16 AM, Leo Gura said:

 Take ownership of the problem and commit to solving it without even knowing how you'll do it yet.

That's step #1.

I guess step #0 is convincing yourself that you can change.

And step #2 would be doing lots of deep research on your specific issue to brainstorm possible lines of solution.

You don't need a fancy expensive shrink. All psychological problems you can fix yourself. In fact, it's the best and fastest way.

With contemplation, journaling, reading, meditation, self-inquiry, and a plan for increased exposure to social situations, you should be able to cure yourself of that completely with time.

Start with contemplating: Why do I feel a need to create society anxiety?

No bullshit... what's the bottom line? Why are you doing it?

@Leo Gura I have started doing this, I have racial trauma/ anxiety, for me meaing that I avoid alot situations and have a ton anxiety symptons in my body e.g thight muscles, dizziness, intrusive thougts and more. But I began questioning my anxiety what is the porpuse of it? why do I do it? So yeasterday on my way to the psychologist I got an answer, to protect myself! to protect myself from feeling the racist hurt agian, so know that kinda know why I do it? how do I stop it? I have started doing things that make me feel anxoius and that work.  but yeah, hope you have a good advice for me      

[Ulax]

Long term treatment wise: IFS therapy with an IFS institute practioner

[Yarco]

First step is exposure therapy. Whatever you're scared of, start gradually forcing yourself into situations where you have to do it.

For example if you're scared of driving, just drive more. I know somebody this worked for. But for me it didn't work. I drove an hour to and from work all day for over a year and I didn't become desensitized. While I became a bit more risk-taking, the underlying feeling of powering a multiple-ton vehicle that could kill yourself and others if you lose focus and concentration for just a couple of seconds never went away.

My workplace anxiety never went away either. It sounds like mine wasn't as bad as yours, but it was pretty bad.

I have an extremely avoidant personality. Whenever the phone on my desk would ring it'd make me jump and fill me with adrenaline. I hate the fact that it's so time sensitive, you have 3 rings to pick it up. Then you don't know who is calling or what they want, so you can't be prepared and it's very easy to be caught off-guard or not knowing how to answer. I would save all my emails during the day and send them at 4:59 pm on my way out so nobody could call me about them. Just one example of my workplace anxiety.

So what I did was just start my own business so I didn't have to leave the house any more LOL. Especially after covid it's 10x more accepted that you can work from home now, either at a job or working for yourself. Just find a position that doesn't require video calls and all correspondence is via text chat or email, or whatever will help you to not be anxious.

Nowadays with UberEats type delivery services you don't even have to ring the doorbell, 80% of my drivers just set my stuff down and leave. 

Get creative and you will find lots of solutions that allow you to survive and thrive as someone with severe anxiety, even agoraphobia.

At the end of the day, anxiety is a survival defense mechanism that is very hard to shake. If you're genetically predisposed to have it strong enough, then nothing short of medication, years of ongoing therapy, or somehow convincing yourself to stop caring so much will make it go away. You just kind of learn to set it aside during the critical times when you need to function, and then you can pick it up and be anxious the rest of the time.