When Social Anxiety Becomes Too Much to Handle
Do you feel nervous or uncomfortable engaging socially in large groups? Does the thought of making new friends cause a lump in your throat? Is it hard to converse with others because of constant racing thoughts and internal dialogue? If you relate to any of these experiences, you may struggle with social anxiety.
Social anxiety can heavily impact the way you view yourself in social situations and the extent to which you make an effort to connect with others, especially people outside of your immediate circle. However, it is common and treatable. It is easy to feel like everyone in the room is flowing and that you’re the only one overthinking, but more people experience social anxiety than what is let on. Living with social anxiety is hard, but it does not need to control your life.
What can happen if social anxiety goes unaddressed?
In reference to the image above, the cycle of anxiety starts with fear and discomfort leading to avoidance of a certain behavior, which leads to short term relief and the perpetuation of this cycle until the anxiety becomes chronic and the avoidance becomes habitual. In terms of social anxiety, if it goes unaddressed the consequences can include social isolation, low self-worth, or an ongoing fear of social interaction.
The root of social anxiety
Usually, social anxiety stems from negative core beliefs about oneself. Some common core beliefs that fuel social anxiety are:
“I am not good enough to be someone’s friend”
“I look dumb or awkward”
“I am boring, why would anyone want to know me”
“I am always going to say the wrong thing”
“People will not accept or like me”
These are only a few, but the possibilities are endless, and living your life based off of these principles can be disempowering and limiting. Thoughts, behaviors, and emotions are all strongly interconnected. For example, if you believe you are not good enough, you may feel insignificant and worthless, and in turn you may distance yourself from social groups and prevent new connections from forming.
So, how do you address your social anxiety?
Social anxiety can be addressed by acknowledging that you experience social anxiety and understanding what that means for you and just how much it is impacting your daily life. This means paying attention to the dialogue in your head and identifying the thoughts that have the most power in your life. What thoughts are holding you back from meeting new people or engaging in social settings? What is your biggest fear or worst case scenario?
When is it time to see a therapist?
If unpacking the root of your social anxiety feels difficult or overwhelming to do on your own, it can be extremely beneficial to speak to a therapist and work through the thoughts and feelings preventing you from interacting with others in a meaningful way. Cognitive behavioral therapists can help you challenge the negative beliefs you have about yourself and replace them with new thoughts and ideas. Once you’re able to create new, more realistic, and healthier beliefs about yourself and the world, it can shift your emotional experience around social engagement, making it easier and more natural to interact with others and form new relationships. The beauty of cognitive behavioral therapy is that it identifies where in your life you might be stuck and changes those thoughts, ultimately changing harmful behaviors and creating new habits towards a more fulfilling social life.
If you struggle with social anxiety and would like to begin the cognitive behavioral therapy process and gain professional support, you can schedule with one of our providers here.