"I do believe anyone can learn to deal with this."

[Chach]

Today I'm sharing a positive guest post on my blog. Here it is.

I'd love to know what you think of it. Does it make you feel good or not? Do you agree with her view at the end - can anyone learn to deal with this?

The best place to comment is on the blog, but if you prefer, you can comment here. I'll be back to read the comments and summarise them - with no names mentioned, of course.

[Mr. Nobody]

I can relate to getting over the whole phone anxiety thing by simply having been forced into using it,
(that's something I found interesting, as, left to my own devices, I would probably still be fearful of it, so it got me wondering about other aspects of SA, and how much was I simply suffering from not challenging myself to do things I found difficult or awkward?)
in my current job I have had to use the phone an awful lot,
at first, I used to have to tell everyone to leave the room, or I would have to go into another empty room to make a call,
because that was the only way I could do it, I felt I need to be alone, with no one watching,
but pretty soon that wasn't possible and I had to make and take calls in front of groups of people,
after a while I noticed it didn't bother me any more,
the thing I've noticed is that it's essentially just 2 people, remotely connected, and you're basically trying to communicate, that's all,
there's very little body language involved, no eye contact, so it's simpler in a way than 1 to 1,
it was all about just focusing on the words alone, and nothing else, just focusing on the words and thinking of replies.
in my position, I'm usually helping people, so it kind of feels good to be doing that,
so it's beneficial too to be using the phone.

[Kevin Hodge]

burst out laughing when she had to get her husband to make a phone call, oh lawd! xD the humanity.




jo fenton sounds like she was a bit shy, and never suffered from any actual "mental illness". it all reads a bit like "at first i found it difficult to tie my shoelaces, but i persevered and now i can do it every day!"

she skipped the bit about hating yourself so much that all you can think of is doing yourself in, non-stop, for several years, having no partner because you can't even bear the humiliation of letting anyone see what a trainwreck your life is, etc etc etc.

i wont go on, lots of people on here have had it far worse than me and im sure they can fill in the blanks for themselves.

from the bottom of my heart its nice that jo has been able to improve her life but what she describes there is not even mental illness in my view. what she describes is like a bit of hay fever, and for many, mental illness is terminal

[Kevin Hodge]

Originally Posted by mutedsoul

^Excuses, I don't want to sound offensive but other people who seem to have worse problems than SA also get through life.

Yeah and many of these people commit suicide or go to amsterdam and get euthanised. Billions of people have lived and died miserable, struggling to the bitter end never finding any relief, never getting over their problems. And thats the point. Making a blanket statement that everyone can make a recovery is just silly. There is no reason that everyone gets to get better, some people are just fcked

By all means everyone shld try to get better but theres no reason everyone gets to have a good life

[Kevin Hodge]

You dont get to say how bad someone elses sa is.

[Chach]

Thanks for the responses. I was bothered by that statement, because we're not the same people and we haven't gone through exactly the same experiences, so no one can say, "If I did it, then you can."

To summarise: Yes, in principle, everyone can force themselves, with small steps, to do things they avoided and eventually take control of SA. But they need support, which many don't have, and they need favourable feedback. Also many have other issues, like depression and generalised anxiety, which hinder or prevent progress.

I hope that's a fair summary. Thanks again.

[Seagull]

I thought this subforum was supposed to be the positive one on SA-UK! God help us all. We're all doomed. Maybe this needs moving to the main SA thread...