Social Anxiety to Social Confidence

Continuing the story of my life, in this second chapter I talk about what life was like for me in secondary school (high school) in relation to social anxiety. I talk about friends, bullying, skipping lesson, eating in the canteen and lots more. You can watch chapter one which covers the primary school years here.

I have prepared this document which is intended as information for people who are new to the subject of social anxiety. It is mainly designed to help individuals educate their family, friends, carers and health care professionals about social anxiety and social phobia, but you may find it useful and interesting as a sufferer yourself. When trying to explain your social anxiety to the people who are in your life it can often be helpful to have to have some information sourced from neutral third party that clearly explains everything so you do not have to. This is what this document aims to do. It answers the following questions and can be downloaded using the link below.

• What is social anxiety and social phobia?
• How common is social anxiety and when does it start?
• Is social phobia a recognised medical condition?
• Isn’t social phobia just a term made up to sell medications?
• Are socially anxious people anti-social?
• Are socially anxious people just shy?
• Are socially anxious people fearful around everyone?
• How does social phobia develop?
• What is most likely to be the cause?
• Does anxiety involve your body as well as your mind?
• What happens in the body when you are anxious?
• What are the consequences of this?
• Is social anxiety the same experience for everyone?
• How do socially anxious people manage their fears?
• Do the safety behaviours used help?
• Is anxiety only experienced when around other people?
• What kind of thoughts do socially anxious people have?
• Won’t alcohol and just putting yourself out there sort it out?
• What kind of situations do socially anxious people find difficult?
• Why don’t they just snap out of it and pull themselves together?
• What other feelings accompany social anxiety?
• Does social phobia commonly occur with anything else?

Click here to download the ‘Information on Social Anxiety’ document

In these videos I start to tell my story of my social anxiety and how it developed throughout my life. Chapter one starts with my early childhood and primary school years.

This video simply provides a list of some of the situations people with Social Phobia / social anxiety find difficult and anxiety provoking. If you suffer with social anxiety but fear a situation that’s not on the list then I would be really interested to hear about it. Please leave your comments below.

Please note that the voting deadline has now passed

Please help ‘The Socially Anxious DJ’ raise awareness of social anxiety and help someone with social anxiety live their dream. The video below explains why and how. Please feel free to put it on your blog or website. Apologies that some parts do not make sense. This is because it was created for YouTube viewers. The link to use is below the video.

Click this link and then use the stars to vote. He only has a chance of winning if you vote 5 stars: http://www.letsmix.com/mix/28224/red_mist

This video is of ‘The Socially Anxious DJ’ talking about their personal experiences of social anxiety.

You can also further support his efforts to raise awareness of social anxiety by listening to, downloading and rating his excellent mixes at DJMix.net: http://djmix.net/SocioPhobicDJ

Thank you for your support!

In these three videos I explain why improving your social skills is not a successful method of overcoming your social anxiety. I also explain why people with social anxiety often struggle to perform well in social situations. I have already discussed this topic in the blog entry called, Improving Social Skills, but I wanted to revisit it on video and go into a little bit more detail.

I answer the question, “Can social anxiety really be cured?”, and discuss to what extent can social anxiety be overcome, what your realistic goal should be, how long it takes and also touch on pessimism in social anxiety.

In this video I answer the title question, “is it better to avoid or face social situations, even if exposure therapy is not working for you?” and talk about if exposure therapy is helpful, false progress and the effects of avoidance.

More videos, but this time about being yourself and social anxiety. I explore how people with social anxiety find it hard to be themselves and offer some thoughts on the subject. I talk about people pleasing, adopting others opinions, identity, intimacy, honesty and expressing your feelings.

After many frustrating hours of messing about with video encoders I have popped up again on YouTube. Here are a few words about having social anxiety during Christmas and New Years. I talk about buying presents, giving and receiving them, family get-togethers, eating, parties and dancing.