Overcoming Social Anxiety Disorder: The Next Step

You’re probably skeptical right now that you can ever expose yourself to social situations without feeling like you’re going to collapse. Overcoming social anxiety is not easy, that’s true. I know, because I’ve suffered with it in various phases all of my life, beginning as a shy child.

I’m here now to tell you that you can beat it. I did and my life has never been so fulfilling. It meant venturing into an entirely new career at the age of 38. What’s more, this new career exposed me to some very difficult social situations. After all, I had to put myself right on the line to interview people, attend meetings, photograph community events, and more.

So how did I do it?

Well, my therapist got me started when he treated my anxiety disorder. The rest was up to me. I put myself out there.

With some trepidation, I entered my first day of journalism class absolutely convinced that everyone was eyeing me. After all, I was the oldest student there.

I found one other person who was close to my age and we struck up a conversation. I did that a lot… looked for someone who was a little reserved as opposed to those grandstanding attention-seekers. This helped tremendously. We hung out together a lot.

Gradually, I met a few more people. Because the work occupied my mind so intensely, I had surprisingly few thoughts about what people thought about me or my presence. I put my head down and got my work done.

When my first test came back with top marks, I was so uplifted I thought I’d float away. I’d never received good marks in school. In fact, I was very bad. This proved that I was not the dumb person I’d thought I was.

If you can find your strengths and focus all your attentions on them, you will discover as I did that society is not all that important. Knowing and proving that you are good at something and that you can overcome anything you set your mind to is a huge step in the right direction.

So find a way to take your mind off of what everyone thinks and establish within yourself a true confidence and strength based on your massive potential.

Overcoming social anxiety isn’t easy, but it really isn’t impossible either.

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