Posted by caraher on January 26, 2006, at 9:59:54
In reply to Re: Social Anxiety, posted by Berberis on January 26, 2006, at 9:27:13
> I wish I knew what to say to make things easier for you but I'm in the same boat. Medication and therapy haven't helped either.
What kind of therapy have you had? I know that the same thing can work well for one person and not at all for another... in my case therapy has been immensely helpful (basically a CBT approach).
Alexandra, when I moved in 2003 to accept a new job I was far enough along in therapy that I was able to view it as a chance to project a somewhat different, yet genuine, social persona than I habitually do. It takes an effort to behave with more confidence than you feel. But I've found that this is an area where developing the habit of acting as if you weren't anxious or uncomfortable, to the degree that you find possible, seems to precede actualy becoming less anxious. Part of this was telling myself that yeah, I'm going to commit the occasional faux pas, but that's OK, and if someone is going to hold it against me forever I probably wasn't going to get along with him or her anyway.
So I hope you can find a way to turn this challenge into an opportunity to live more the way you'd like to live.
poster:caraher
thread:602943
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/relate/20051204/msgs/602978.html