Ask a therapist > Anxiety > What can I do to help ease my social anxiety issues?

What can I do to help ease my social anxiety issues?

I seem to be getting worse and being so hard on myself for anything I may say or act like in social situations. Now it seems any situation I will leave and be self critical with things I said or how I acted. It’s almost like I want to punish myself or something and immediately now will find a fault with any situation. I then berate myself for saying or acting a certain way. So now there are situations that I don’t even want to go into or if I do just stay with who I’m comfortable with in order to leave and not lay in bed at night and feel panic over what I said or what people will think of me. I don’t want to care or worry about what people think of me, but I feel I’m torturing myself with it anyhow. Now it’s just so automatic.

Asked by Saralynn

Anxiety

Answered

08/01/2022

Dear Saralynn,

First of all, I am so glad that you have reached out for help. Coming to Better Help for therapy is a brave step and I think you will find that working one on one with a counselor here will really help.

It is completely normal to feel anxiety around new people (and people you already know).This can result in shyness *or* sometimes acting overly social and sharing too much to compensate. Often this stems from a worry about being judged or about being disliked. It seems like social anxiety has increased dramatically since the onset of the COVID 19 Pandemic since many of us have had more limited interaction and spending time with strangers was *literally* unsafe prior to vaccines (and even since then for some). As such, it is important to know that you are not alone in this. When you see people walk into a social situation with a smile and a warm handshake, often they are employing the “fake it ‘til you make it” approach. Further, we live in a society that makes us all feel like we need to be extroverts, whereas it is just fine to be a person who only needs a few close friends instead of a large group. Oftentimes when we are in our 20s we start to recognize whether we are the kind of person who feels recharged after spending time with others (extrovert) or who feels recharged after spending time alone (introverts). There is no one right way.

Social anxiety becomes a serious problem when it starts to inhibit you from doing activities you enjoy, from succeeding at school or work, or from general happiness.

Over time, your therapist will likely recommend that you also track “what was the automatic thought,” or the instant thought that just popped in to your mind that might have made you feel even worse (such as “everyone here is going to hate me.” Or “They all think I’m stupid.”) Your therapist can help you identify themes and come up with alternative cognitions or thoughts to battle these automatic thoughts.

I see good things in your future. You have already taken a huge first step and I’m confident that you and your therapist here on BetterHelp will be able to figure out better patterns for you.

Best,

Julie

Note: If you are in crisis and feeling like hurting yourself, please call 911, go to your closest emergency department, or call the suicide hotline (the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline) immediately at 800-273-8255. You could also go to their website to chat at https://suicidepreventionlifeline.org/.

Dr. Julie Kinn