Ask HN: If you used to be socially awkward and shy, how did you improve?

I used to be really anxious and nervous until sophomore year of high school, when I had to take a marketing elective aimed towards juniors. We had to present our products via PowerPoint each week in a group. My first two presentations were terrible, so I racked up enough courage to ask my teacher on whether I could present alone next week, which he allowed.

Every week or so, I'd ask him to present my products as a single-person group in front of the class and every week I got pretty good feedback which led to getting better grades. That increased my confidence, and also became the pipeline towards learning how to reduce the amount of (pardon my language) fucks I gave about unnecessary things. (Also, trying to convince your classmates and teacher to buy a fake product every week or two works wonders for your anxiety.)

I did know how to be a team player and collaborate with other people, but the group I was usually assigned to sucked and I refused to let them affect my grade average.

I also started going to the gym that year, did nothing too serious though. I'd go after school and would either use the treadmill or pretend that I knew how to lift weights, haha. It made me feel better, and I was diagnosed with ADHD later on, so the exercise bit checks out even more.

Tl;dr: find something that you feel strongly enough for, and use that to take-off into the anxiety to less anxiety pipeline. Also, exercise. It doesn't have to be working out intensely, but even a walk around the neighborhood can make you feel better.

NOT going way out of my comfort zone and forcing myself to socialize. Fuck that.

For me, it was finding the right gang, with a shared passion. Still very close friends with ... 6 of them? 20 years later. We completely forgot about the shared hobby, btw - I have different relationships with each of them.

Recently I got into the same context that used to make me feel awkward and surprise - still awkward and unpleasant. Better at dealing with it, of course, but mostly better at getting out fast.

Ah, and you're allowed to dislike certain kinds of extroverts. It's not envy, and you should definitely not emulate them. You just don't click.

Age has also brought a deeper understanding for me.

I was shy because I was very sensitive to loud noises and bright lights - they overwhelm me. Not in a psychological sense but in a raw sensory overload type way.

The gain on my brain is set quite high and the hustle and bustle of school completely overwhelmed me everyday, year after year.

That led me to believe I was socially completely incapable - which led to social anxiety. Once I was able to understand and not shame myself for needing quiet everything started to change.

I now know that I fear parties and pubs not because of the people so much as because of the overstimulation. The social anxiety is an extra layer over that - and that falls away with age and acceptance of my biological nature.

Do you lose the ability to think and speak in social settings? Like everything becomes utterly confusing? Does it not happen in more intimate gatherings - low light, small room only a few people even though they are strangers? Then you might be dealing not with social anxiety, but with overstimulation.

Overstimulation cannot be beaten, it is a raw innate characteristic of your mind, great for some things bad for others.

I've not really had any success trying to speak to therapists. Just getting an appointment feels like trying to draw blood from a stone. It costs more than my rent just to see somebody for an hour a week, and the waiting lists are literally months long. The one time I got to the end of a waiting list, I didn't check my emails the day I was pinged for it, and by the next morning my place had already been offered to the next person. This is all after a hospital referral for severe depression, I can't imagine how in the hell somebody could get an appointment for the kind of self improvement people talk about. Presumably by being very wealthy indeed...

It seems that heavy usage over time would do damage. That seems fairly obvious, to be honest. What would be surprising is if a single dose had long lasting negative effects.

You have to also consider that people like me are essentially broken. Being completely unable to socialise with people puts you on a path of loneliness and misery. Maybe curbing some of my brain's "abilities" is exactly what I needed. I've often noticed that stupid people are happier.

I didn't become stupid, though. If I became stupider then it doesn't matter because that is completely offset by being more able to apply my skills properly. There's no point being a genius if you can't communicate with people.