I just wanted to share that I used to have Social Anxiety Disorder, but I am "mostly" over it now, thanks to repeated exposure to social situations, a kind of desensitization therapy I guess.
Many years ago, when I was in middle school, I was diagnosed as Autistic because I would speak to no one outside of my family. I couldn't even tell you what time it was. If a person asked me for the time, I would just turn away and ignore them. Over time, I made a few friends who I felt safe to be with and open up to. Then I just got slowly better from there. I knew I had a problem (and I am definitely not Autistic). I really wanted a college degree, so my desire for the degree pushed me to confront the disorder. In every single class (except for math), I had to do a presentation up in front of the class. I was terrified, threw up before the presentations, forgot what I was going to say and more. But, I got better. At first, the instructor allowed me to sit behind a desk to talk. Then I was able to stand behind a podium a few semesters later. Then, I eventually worked up to standing in the open.
I would always turn a funny red color and stop breathing during the presentation. But with repeated presentations, I only breathed fast and my hands shook, and I remained a normal color. LOL!
I also remember that I had to take a speech class as a requirement to graduate, and I saved it for the very end because I was so scared. I found a "group communication" class (as opposed to the individual speech kind), and it also helped. The professor was brilliant. He had us go up in our groups to "report" on something each week, and while we were up there, he would start to talk and lecture. At first we were all confused and irritated at him for doing this, but after a while, we got clued in to what he was doing. When my group first went up, we were all shaking, couldn't breathe, and were very scared (I think many people like me had signed up for that class). But, after about 5 minutes of his rambling, we stopped shaking and could breathe again and became impatient. After he did this a few times, he explained that he was allowing us to stand up in front of class long enough for the flight or flight response to pass, and it really worked! For our final, big presentation, he allowed all of us to sit in a panel in front of the class. I find sitting takes away a lot of the anxiety.
I think my point is that after 6 years of college (went part time), I got over a lot of the social anxiety issues. Yeah! However, I still fight it. I just graduated recently and had to give a speech in front of about 100 people. I knew for a month in advance, but whenever I thought about it, I would start to hyperventilate, so, I wrote a speech, practiced it a many times, and visualized giving it in front of a huge theater (with many more people than I actually spoke in front of). I would say it in the car, in the bathtub, outside, in the house, etc. When the day came to give it, I just tried to block all the real people out and regurgitate my speech. It worked pretty well! I ended up having a terrible case of dry mouth though during the speech (from the Lithium) and ended up cutting it shortly when my lips kept sticking to my gums. LOL!
I am not over this social anxiety thing yet, for example, I was in our car recently, and my husband had his cell phone on speakerphone. He took a work related call, and his coworker wanted to congratulate me on graduating, but I just clammed up and could not even say thank you. My hubby got a bit upset while I just kept shaking my head back and forth. Thankfully, he covered for me. I just couldn't bring myself to talk to a stranger over the speakerphone in the car. It sounds weird to me now.
I plan on keeping working on this because I find it to be restrictive and limiting.
