I No Longer Have SA.

[Eta Carinae]

IF you want to overcome SA- It's easy just do what I did (maybe not everything, because some of the things I did were extreme.)

Everything written here is true. If you don't believe me - too bad.

I managed to overcome my SA on my own without medication/therapy. First let me give you some background info about me. My SA started at around the age of 11-12. From there until the age of 20 I only had few, most of the time zero friends. I was made fun of at school because I was so quiet, I had zero self-esteem and confidence. I spent most of my time behind a computer playing online games.

One month ago I decided it was time to end my pathetic life. I was sick and tired of my life. But right before I managed to cut my wrists I thought to myself If I'm going to die tonight I might as well try and have some fun before I die. So I decided to go out and flirt/smile with the first girl I see and ask her out on a date, and then if I fail to do this I will come back home and kill myself. I went outside and It didn't take me long before I saw a girl near a bus station. I said '**** it', took a deep breath, walked up to her and asked her out. She smiled at me and said: "I'm already seeing someone". I said "OK.." and walked away with a big smile on my face, I thought to myself this was actually easy. I felt great and when I got back home I decided I will give myself one month to get rid of my SA.
My plan was to basicly FORCE myself to do whatever it takes. And it worked. First thing I did was quit my job so I had all the time I need.
In order to get over my phone phobia I spent an entire day calling random numbers (making prank calls) and just talk about random things like pretending to be salesman/ long lost friend/boyfriend/ whatever seemed funny to me...I must have spoken to over 300 people that day. By the end of the day I was exhausted but also had zero anxiety when talking to someone over the phone and I ended up having some very interesting conversations lol.
Over the next few days I spent most of my time in public making a complete fool out of me in order to get over 'my fear of what others think of me'. First three days were hard than it became easy and turned into addiction.

Anyway, here are some of the things I did: I would laugh at random people on the street, scream in public, sing songs out loud, walk up to some random person and asked them questions like "so how are the wife and kids?", wore pajama in public, pretended I speak some weird language and asked for directions in the street, pretended I was homeless person and begged for money, I went to random houses knocked on the door and pretended to be a salesman, drove in car by a street where a lot of people hang out such as bars and clubs and just yell out random things. I gave high fives to random people and asked them where they're going and if I can tag along. I tried to exchange random objects with strangers like phones or watches. By the end of the first week my anxiety was gone and I became really good at this.
Hmm, what else? I pretended to be disabled, I walked around with crutches and then suddenly fall on the floor in front of somebody (to my surprise most people are actually nice and will run to help you). I bought a fake beard, some creppy glasses and pretended to be a serial killer/rapist - I would stare at people with a weird look on my face and follow them around (dumb, I know but it was hilarious to see their reactions). I pretended to be dead - I would go to a crowded place and lie down and be completely still until someone called for help/asked me if I was ok. I pretended to be mentally ******** and would made a dumb*ss expression on my face and slutter when talking to someone - it was ****ing hilarious how people treated me.
I pretended to be a drug dealer and would ask random people on the street if they wanted to buy drugs - this was a bad idea because I was arrested and ended up spending a night in jail. Which was awesome by the way because it didn't bothered me at all. I am laughing out laud as my typing this.. good times. When I was released the next morning I immidietly went back to doing crazy ****. I bought myself a nice outfit and in the next few days I went to random events like weddings/parties/charity events/courthouses/companies and just walk around and talk to people pretending to be someone like employe or I just made up random stories of who I was and what I was doing there. My social skill were improving and I was able to hold normal conversations with just about everyone I met. I am 100% straight but that didn't stop me from pretending to be gay. I flirted with everyone and I mean EVERYONE. I would ask and go on a dates with random girls. I lost my virginity and had sex several times since then.

I went to thailand where I spent my days smoking opium with an old man on a mountain. This last sentence was a joke .

Beside spending a night in prison I was also robbed and beaten up, several people threatened to call the police on me (some did), also ended up doing drugs with random people. But I've had the time of my life.

Everything is possible. Social Phobia is 100% curable. I no longer have it and I feel simply amazing.

[rusty2000]

great for you , shame about the people who had to interact with your antics, so, one of the things you mentioned , randomly laughing at people, well I hope none of them are suffering from SA or depression , you probably caused them a lot of anguish , it seems your cure is to turn yourself into one uncaring to**er,
f*ck everyone else's feelings as long as your ok! rather be here working on a decent way to overcome problems.

If thats who and what you want to be though, fair enough, we all know people like that.

russ

[groove88]

I have to agree there Rusty..

What i do like about this story to say the least is Visualization! Its the same as the guy who just found out that he has cancer and only has xx time amount to live.

I strive to improve my visualization skills everyday..
Without them, and emotional stability.. dark days will remain.

[Seagull]

Forgive my cynicism, but it sounds like complete bollogs to me. The whole nature of the post is too outlandish to be true, although our man did stop short of taking a shuttle to Mars and freaking the locals out by pretending to be a one-eyed serial rapist of spotted space elephants from the outerlying galaxies. That said, I_like_mittens is right, the more you put yourself out there and all that - so the underlying premise of the Eta's post has some merit.

Happy Yuletide one and all

[Diluted]

[Passionate]

Thts what i do when im not feelin anxious..i try stupid things and things tht i can't even imagine in my anxious state..everyones reaction is great to me..they all like me ,,they want more and more of me as i make them laugh and make the envirnment positive....but its only for limited time...then again i start feelin depressed and all those feelings......

[luke]

seems too easy and too good to be true plus the fact this is his first post makes it more unbeliveble but i mite be wrong i am a negative nelly, i would like to belive this is true.

[groove88]

Desire? ? isn't it? i would guess obviously..

[wd40mk17.4]

Right, this reminds me of David Mckenna
you can go TOO far with fear challenging actions.
The problem with this is, you are now recognised in your town as the local loony who follows people around, shouts things, dresses up, gets arrested and makes a fool of themselves in insane ways.

That would make my SA ten times worse, if you go so far in your SA -busting exercises that people may recognise you again after the act.

I would be up for doing silly things to challenge my fears, but not to that extent and definitely not in my home town.

[Stepford]

So you cured you SA by making other people scared to go out the house. Sounds to me you just swapped problems. :rolleyes:

[Fructis]

Originally Posted by Seagull

Forgive my cynicism, but it sounds like complete bollogs to me. The whole nature of the post is too outlandish to be true

I agree, it all sounds pretty ridiculous tbh.

[threadbare]

sounds to me like you've had a manic episode and narrowly escaped being sectioned.

[AAAli]

Nice post m8 it was enjoyable to read

if you really did all those things then congrats you must have had the time of your life. If you didn't then thats a little sad that you have to lie, go out and make it true

But it doesn't matter if true or not after that you probably won't have any SA left.

[monty_rp]

AAAli took the words right outta my mouth, well done Eta!

I've gotta say though, regardless of the loony-like approach to Eta's methods, it reminds us how far we can get by facing our biggest fears directly. Can't you guys see that all of the reasons against Eta's methods given in this thread are exactly what Eta would have ignored?

Maybe it takes really powerful thoughts (like contemplating suicide) to give us an overwhelming drive to take extreme measures. I just hope I don't get those dark thoughts regardless of how much I envy Eta for going on such an awesome journey!

Well done anyway.

[bubbler]

Hi Eta,

You say you got beaten up? Well i'm not ****ing surprised mate. I'd have ****ing well decked you myself if you'd come up to me and started laughing in my face.

[Kop4]

Steady on

[FuzzyDuck]

I don't agree that this sort of experiment is a cure for SA. Ultimately, all this person has done is, for a short period of time, created a character for himself. He's not really being himself, so any negative consequences resulting from his behaviour can be shrugged off knowing that it wasn't the real him doing it.

This might be an effective tool to overcome shyness or self-consciousness, but SA is more complex than that. SA is also about shame, guilt, self-esteem, fear of rejection et al. and making a fool of yourself for a short period of time isn't going to sufficiently deal with these underlying issues. It may help but it's not a complete solution.

[Vinylogist]

This is either a joke, or this guy just experienced a manic cycle of bi-polar and is about to crash badly.

Was a funny read though

[IRIS]

ha ha - yeah , he has no SA but is a complete lunatic :D

[simon1989]

Best read I'v had In a long time, I actually laughed out loud whilst reading it, so thanks for sharing your story whether it's true or not. Although some of your action's could make other's question themselves, which isn't a good thing.

[Amber Fyre]

Hehe, that made me laugh. Good imagination there! "beaten up, mugged and thrown in prison" = "time of my life"

If this really happened you're my new best friend.

[Billyonastick]

You say you have done these things but just think of the harm you may of caused to other people, you should look before you leap.

[pboy]

I agree with what someone else said about self consciousness, facing fears like that does seem to (for a while) reduce anxiety, it's like your fight-or-flight response gets switched off for a bit. I don't know how long it takes or if it would ever become a permanent thing though.

[monty_rp]

being labelled as the town loony seems like a very small price to pay for overcoming SA. You'd at least have the confidence to go somewhere else and start off new

[pboy]

I agree. I think even though I really want to overcome SA, sacrificing my values to do so is a no-no. You can overcome SA without being an a***hole.

[ekko]

classic

[monty_rp]

I've got respect for society, but it just goes I'd like to have a little more respect for myself, which is why it sounds better in theory to take the risks the OP did. Come on it's hardly life-shattering evil this guys committing

[anotherben]

Aside from the pretending to be a rapist part which is a little extreme and laughing in people's faces which is risky for obvious reasons in neighbourhoods like this one i don't see what the big issue is.

I myself have done that with the telephone - making crank calls to numbers out of the phonebook and talking about anything and it does work to help you get over telephone anxiety.

Alot of the books i've read on social anxiety talk extensively about "Embarressment immunization" arguing at the centre of social anxiety is the belief you'll embarress yourself in front of someone. In order to get over this they advise you do wacky things like walking a banana on a leash or wearing outfits with embarressing statements emblazoned upon them in order to conquer feelings of shame.

Alot of people have made comments about not wanting to appear to people as the town loon however surely this is just social anxiety at work again making you care so much about what you think others might think you won't even contemplate the idea.

Its a difficult idea to grasp because it means you really have to challenge yourself to do things that would be unbearable from the perspective of someone with SA.

[Elusive Dreamer]

Originally Posted by threadbare

sounds to me like you've had a manic episode and narrowly escaped being sectioned.

That's exactly what I was thinking.

It made interesting reading though