Doing Things That Scare You

[scarlettgirl]

Does this method help anyone at all?
Today I'm going to do something wild; go to an event in which I don't know anyone but one person (and even that person not very well). I'm feeling very sick and nervous right now. I always hope that by the time the event is over i'll have some sense of success, but I know it'll just be a huge relief that it's over!
Does it actually help to challenge yourself to do these out of character things all the time? Or will I always feel this apprehension? As the years go by I'm beginning to think the technique doesn't help me at all!

[Franz of Franzylvania]

I think it is important to do things that scare you sometimes, but that on it's own it can only take you so far. I was listening to a podcast recently where they talked about how exposure therapy isn't as effective as therapists used to think it is, and a lot of it depends on the attitude you're able to develop towards it. So what I tend to do, just gritting my teeth and white knuckling through stuff, feeling like a failure if i'm still anxious, expecting it to turn me into a different person etc., probably does me a bit of good but not very much. But they said if you try and approach it with more of a sense of acceptance and curiosity, like, "yeah, this is probably never going to be something i'm exactly comfortable doing, but I'll try and see how it goes.", it becomes a little easier to be with the anxiety. Can't say I've been able to fully think like that but it did make sense to me, and made me understand more why I'm still anxious despite forcing myself into situations that make me uncomfortable all the time.

I guess it also helps if it's something you'd really want to be doing without the anxiety, then you have a motivation other than fear to help get you through it. It's OK to accept that some things make you anxious but are worthwhile trying anyway, and other things make you anxious and also just aren't your cup of tea.

[scarlettgirl]

Originally Posted by tatzelwurm

I guess it also helps if it's something you'd really want to be doing without the anxiety, then you have a motivation other than fear to help get you through it. It's OK to accept that some things make you anxious but are worthwhile trying anyway, and other things make you anxious and also just aren't your cup of tea.

Thank you for the advice! I think this rings true especially. The event I'm going to is entirely in support of a friend today, so it will help to focus on her since thats what it's about. I can push through anxiety if I know what I'm doing is to help someone else. And yeah like you said, if it is something you really want to do sometimes anxiety can be forgotten temporarily.

I will try to think of it as an experience and try not to have an expectation about it. Then there's no disappointment as well

[Sisyphus]

Hi scarlettgirl,

Well done for doing scary stuff, either way.

It does help me quite a bit. Not that it makes my life less scary, it makes my life bigger. The more scary stuff I do, the bigger my comfort zone gets.

I have not reached the point where I enter a virtuous circle and things get easier to do; and I am not sure if that is practical for me. As soon as I stop pushing, my comfort zones snap back very quickly.

Another thing that helps me is to keep a journal and in it record how bad I feel prior to the event and then record how bad the actual experience was. This has shown me that I invariably overestimate the risk and in reality things are actually far less scary to do than to anticipate. Looking back at my musings over the years shows just how far I have come.

It has been around quite a while and yet I still think 'Feel the fear and do it anyway.' by Susan Jeffers is still the most helpful book in my collection.

As tatzelwurm points out, the key would appear to 'accept' the fear rather than trying to make it go away. Best I can do at the moment is to accept that I have to find a way to accept all this mush that bubbles up out of my past when I try to move forward.

[Marco]

Doing things that scare you can sometimes backfire if your anxiety overwhelms you and subsequently the fear becomes reinforced. That's certainly been my experience. However, if you face up to your fears in a controlled manner and keep at it, pushing the boundary out slightly again and again, it's surprising what you can achieve over time. But it does take persistence, which is why I think you need to be highly motivated, perhaps by trying to achieve something that you really desire or believe is worthwhile. You can override your fear with passion.

[Moksha]

Originally Posted by scarlettgirl

As the years go by I'm beginning to think the technique doesn't help me at all!

Ditto. Maybe it depends how bad your SA is and how young you are. If your SA is relatively mild, and you are still a teen, forcing yourself out the door could be a good thing. Then again, it also depends on what happens. That teenager forces himself to go to a party and then a group of people laugh at his dancing, or a girl loudly rejects him, or he gets punched by some drunken idiot, etc and this sends his SA through the roof. What we really need isn't so much exposure as positive reinforcement. I forced myself to go to a boxing club a few years ago, but even after a year I still felt every bit as uncomfortable as I did on the first day.

Rather than "facing the fear," people need to learn to care less what others think of them. Nothing helps me so much as saying over and over to myself "I don't give a **** what anyone thinks of me." The one good thing about getting older is that you really do care less and less.

[Sisyphus]

Hi Moksha,

For me "facing the fear" is everything. If I look at it any other way it is a recipe for avoidance. My avoidance permeates neary evey aspect of of my life and whatever trick, threat, or encouragement I use to tackle any specific issue, the root cause is that I want to be able to do it without the fear. And that simply isn't the way it works. The only way forward (for me at least) is through. I have spent a long time in denial about this, insisting that there was some other way, all the while avoiding taking action.

[Moksha]

Originally Posted by Sisyphus

Hi Moksha,

For me "facing the fear" is everything. If I look at it any other way it is a recipe for avoidance. My avoidance permeates nearly evey aspect of of my life and whatever trick, threat, or encouragement I use to tackle any specific issue, the root cause is that I want to be able to do it without the fear. And that simply isn't the way it works. The only way forward (for me at least) is through. I have spent a long time in denial about this, insisting that there was some other way, all the while avoiding taking action.

I do know what you mean sisyphus. It's like with addiction – your mind lies to you (ah, one little drink won't hurt...etc). Avoidance is a deeply ingrained part of my personality now. In fact, I'd say I've had a full-blown avoidant personality disorder since my teens, with shame at the heart (i.e I avoid because I feel ashamed and then my avoidance fills me with shame, which makes me avoid, and so on).

I guess context is everything. In some cases, you should force yourself – "the only way forward is through"...I like that. But in other cases, as Fungus says, it can cause harm. Pick your battles wisely, that's the best advice. No doubt there have been people with SA who followed their therapist's advice and threw themselves into new and frightening situations with disastrous results. And in other cases it transformed their life.

[Sisyphus]

Hi Moksha,

Ah, shame, I know that one. Shame and guilt were gifts I received from my primary and secondary school teachers in abundance. Have you read any Paul Gilbert?

When I did my CBT therapy it was stressed that the chosen challenges were to be taxing and yet within my current capacity. A bit like going to the gym where you do not try to deadlift 120Kg first time and without a warm-up.

Again like the gym where it never gets easier, the weights just get heavier. If you are not struggling then you are not making progress.

Yet again like the gym, if you don’t keep it up then you are going backwards.

To give the gym analogy a good workout your personal trainer is like you CBT therapist, they can only teach you what to do, they cannot do the work for you. That is entirely your responsibility.

My CBT course was about learning about myself and learning tools that would make it easier to oppose the unhelpful habits I had learnt.

Much to my chagrin CBT was not a cure for what ails me and doesn’t promise to make the pain go away. It simply gave me a set of weights. If I use them each day I get a little bit better. If I do not I get a little bit worse. Whether I do or not is entirely up to me.

[Toxic]

I sometimes/eventually push myself to do something that scares the crap out of me

I'm not sure it does anything positive for me personally. More a huge sense of relief its over and done with and I might not have to do it again I don't think I've ever done something terrifying and thought, great lets do it again!

[hollowone]

Hello, regarding

Does it actually help to challenge yourself to do these out of character things all the time? Or will I always feel this apprehension? As the years go by I'm beginning to think the technique doesn't help me at all!

It will definitely help, but doing such things once won't fix you. One reason just 'putting yourself out there' might not be helping or giving you the results you want might be because you might not be addressing the specific things that you find difficult or that cause you uneasiness & conversation trouble spots.

I'd also add a note about 'safety behaviours' which you might or might not have heard of. Sometimes in social situations we might believe;
-That people are always looking & noticing x
-that if people notice something about me they'll think something bad
-that if people were to comment, they'll mean something mean by it
-if people give me a hard time it's 'proof' that they're right
We might do things to try and hide how we're feeling, try and excuse our behaviour, try to avoid silences, try to justify being quiet etc. Whilst this might make us feel safe in the moment, in the long term it keeps such ideas intact in that these things may not allow us to have experiences the DISPROVE them. I don't know whether any of this is relevant to you but I hope it makes sense. Hope this helps and as others have said, this is not something that can be fixed overnight. Have patience, you'll get there.

The main takeaway is, do things that scare you, but find out specifically what's scary about said situation.

[scarlettgirl]

Originally Posted by hollowone

Hello, regarding

It will definitely help, but doing such things once won't fix you. One reason just 'putting yourself out there' might not be helping or giving you the results you want might be because you might not be addressing the specific things that you find difficult or that cause you uneasiness & conversation trouble spots.

I'd also add a note about 'safety behaviours' which you might or might not have heard of. Sometimes in social situations we might believe;
-That people are always looking & noticing x
-that if people notice something about me they'll think something bad
-that if people were to comment, they'll mean something mean by it
-if people give me a hard time it's 'proof' that they're right
We might do things to try and hide how we're feeling, try and excuse our behaviour, try to avoid silences, try to justify being quiet etc. Whilst this might make us feel safe in the moment, in the long term it keeps such ideas intact in that these things may not allow us to have experiences the DISPROVE them. I don't know whether any of this is relevant to you but I hope it makes sense. Hope this helps and as others have said, this is not something that can be fixed overnight. Have patience, you'll get there.

The main takeaway is, do things that scare you, but find out specifically what's scary about said situation.

Thank you for this! And everyone else's incredible advice. I wasn't expecting a big response.

I believe it is a case of not addressing the reasons, or not wanting to confront them. It is often a case of paranoia in my case, but then the question of why!!
I do know that I feel a good sense of relief once the social event is over, rather than the sense of guilt that lasts a good few days afterward if I don't go to a social event at all.

It makes total sense I have to be more patient and maybe take a different perspective on it too.

[gregarious_introvert]

Hi scarlettgirl, I know I'm a little late in responding to this thread, but I've not been online for a couple of weeks; I hope the event you attended to support your friend went well and that you feel good about having gone?

I had years of trying to overcome anxiety, getting knocked back and therefore using avoidance, until I realised that anxiety is a normal response and it wasn't so much having the anxiety (although I do seem to have less of it now - most of the time - unless I just don't notice it as much) which was the problem as how the anxiety affected me. I notice that CBT has been mentioned, but it wasn't the right therapy for me (although I recognise that others here have benefited from it) as the basic premise of CBT is to make one think.differently; although I have discovered it relatively recently (thanks to Ajax Amsterdam's posts on these forums), I'm more an advocate of ACT (Acceptance and Commitment Therapy), which seems to adopt a less "head-on" approach.

I've been making a different life for myself over the past three years or so and although I still get setbacks, I find them much easier to handle; I do tend to agree with tatzelwurm, that repetition doesn't make the anxiety disappear, but it does make it less intrusive in your life (sorry for the crude reappraisal of your post, tatzelwurm).

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[BritishPeace]

It***8217;s actually the recognised treatment for SA. For instance, scared of dating, go to a dating event.

I***8217;ve done it a lot, and still do. What***8217;s the worst that could happen?

[scarlettgirl]

Originally Posted by gregarious_introvert

Hi scarlettgirl, I know I'm a little late in responding to this thread, but I've not been online for a couple of weeks; I hope the event you attended to support your friend went well and that you feel good about having gone?

I had years of trying to overcome anxiety, getting knocked back and therefore using avoidance, until I realised that anxiety is a normal response and it wasn't so much having the anxiety (although I do seem to have less of it now - most of the time - unless I just don't notice it as much) which was the problem as how the anxiety affected me. I notice that CBT has been mentioned, but it wasn't the right therapy for me (although I recognise that others here have benefited from it) as the basic premise of CBT is to make one think.differently; although I have discovered it relatively recently (thanks to Ajax Amsterdam's posts on these forums), I'm more an advocate of ACT (Acceptance and Commitment Therapy), which seems to adopt a less "head-on" approach.

I've been making a different life for myself over the past three years or so and although I still get setbacks, I find them much easier to handle; I do tend to agree with tatzelwurm, that repetition doesn't make the anxiety disappear, but it does make it less intrusive in your life (sorry for the crude reappraisal of your post, tatzelwurm).

Sent from my SM-J530F using Tapatalk

Sorry for the late response!

I felt good for having gone, only when it was all over, though! I was pretty anxious through the event and kind of kept to myself. But to be fair there wasn't much mingling between anyone. Most people seemed to be glued to their phones anyway?

I do believe that the 'acceptance' treatment might be the way for me. It doesn't feel like I'm overcoming anything by repeating things at the moment, and it probably is that I have expectation that its supposed to get easier. I have been trying to come to terms with the idea that my anxiety is to be expected and is part of the norm to some degree. If I can just learn to accept myself as that kind of person that might be better. It's very difficult though. I'm very envious of folk who seem to get over things so much more easily, or can breeze through conversation as if it's nothing.

But thank you for the wise words, everyone!