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Social anxiety isn't about being liked

chrislakin.blog

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Re: Social anxiety isn't about being liked

#221

Post by gemstones »

ants_everywhere wrote: post #56
abxyz wrote: post #47

The problem with using clinical phrases to describe normal behavior is demonstrated in this post. "Social anxiety" has a specific clinical meaning that is not covered by this post. The post is actually discussing a very natural and rational nervousness that normal people have in social situations. The post is providing a way of thinking about that nervousness that can help reduce it, for the nervous person's benefit,…

I agree with you as a general rule. But this is actually pretty close to how Social Anxiety is defined. It's about the fear of being negatively evaluated or embarrassed. For example the DSM definition https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK519712/table/ch3.t12/ or the Mayo Clinic explainer page https://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/social-anxiet... . I think what this blog post is getting at is describing for…

It's about a specific type of debilitating fear. The DSM has a rule for criteria that, to be considered as having a condition, it must seriously affect your ability to live a normal life.

Most social anxiety is not debilitating, and would not meet the diagnosis. This is why therapists receive so much training - you must encounter enough people with a truly debilitating fear that you know when to diagnose it.

Re: Social anxiety isn't about being liked

#222

Post by mocha_nate »

bunderbunder wrote: post #43
epiccoleman wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wish I could find the original source on this, but I remember reading a tweet or blog that I thought had a really good metaphor for this kind of "male friend ribbing." The metaphor went something like this: men making fun of each other are actuall y showing that they understand their friends deeply, because they know how to stab without hitting an organ. That is - in order to make fun of someone without actually hu…

Reminds me of Scalzi's Law: the failure mode of 'clever' is 'asshole'.

lol that’s good

Re: Social anxiety isn't about being liked

#223

Post by trogdor »

eszed wrote: post #190
trogdor wrote: post #179

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> after about the fourth interaction, something about me registers as "off" to other people and they start to distance themselves from me. I have never understood why I’m not sure it would be helpful, but have you tried asking anyone?

Speaking strictly for myself, it's because I did eye contact wrong. As a teenager, with standard-issue high-function ASD eye-contact aversion: fake it, by looking only at the bridges of people's noses. After learning, from doing theatre, that vulnerability is amazing, actually, and eye-contact is powerful: try for it, by looking fixidly at one of their eyes. After being told by a kind friend, in my early twenties, th…

That’s really interesting. Thanks for explaining.

Re: Social anxiety isn't about being liked

#224

Post by moribunda »

trogdor wrote: post #179
smeej wrote: post #165

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> sometimes outgoing autistic children develop social anxiety after their peers reject them repeatedly. As a middle-aged woman who can't figure out what the benefits would be that would outweigh the costs of pursuing formal diagnosis at this stage, I related a lot harder to that line than I wanted to. I've always been extraverted. I always do fine in new interactions, because I'm chronically interested in anything I…

> after about the fourth interaction, something about me registers as "off" to other people and they start to distance themselves from me. I have never understood why I’m not sure it would be helpful, but have you tried asking anyone?

I second this suggestion. This might sound obvious but during my therapy my psychologist asked me to do this, but in a non-personal/non-threatening way for the relation. Just by telling them that I'm working through my issues and I'd like to get an honest (best would be written/no-interaction type) feedback - what makes them uncomfortable etc. This helped me a lot - to see how different the transmission was on the receiving end from my intentions.

Re: Social anxiety isn't about being liked

#225

Post by cortesoft »

hilux wrote: post #210
cortesoft wrote: post #3

I hadn’t heard the word countersignaling before, but it matches something I had observed many years ago. My closest groups of friends always make so much fun of each other. We make negative comments about the worst traits about each other, the things that we are most self-conscious about… yet every time my friends make fun of me for something I worry about, I actually feel better and more comfortable with myself. Whe…

Yeah, I don't know about that. I had many people in my life (including close friends and relatives) who continued to be abusive "it's just fun teasing" even after I asked them to stop. They are no longer in my life. I don't miss them even a little bit!

Anyone who doesn’t stop when asked is not a true friend. I would never tease anyone who didn’t seem to be enjoying it.

Re: Social anxiety isn't about being liked

#226

Post by mcdeltat »

The way my psychologist explained social anxiety to me was it's based off an innate system in our brain which is sensitive to social rejection. Rejection is potentially very bad because that might mean we get kicked out of our group and die (at least that is true thousands of years ago). Anxiety is overthinking and subconsciously trying to control all the outcomes to reduce rejection. And this includes avoidance as a response.

This social anxiety pattern can be reinforced over time with negative or even neutral experiences, particularly through childhood. The system becomes attuned to unpleasant confirming evidence. Some brains may be particularly prone to this too.

I think this explanation is consistent with all the experiences people are sharing in this thread. The core model at work is still the social rejection system, even if the exact behaviours and rationalisations you have are a little different.

And the treatment is exposure therapy to get more neutral and positive experiences. Which can be very hard because your brain can be very strongly configured to avoid rejection. You may have to start very gently from steps which may not be particularly challenging (e.g. have a friend in a new coffee shop).

Re: Social anxiety isn't about being liked

#227

Post by vldx »

thewebguyd wrote: post #42
elevatortrim wrote: post #34

I have social anxiety and it is completely unrelated to likeableness. I do not think people would not like me, I do not try to avoid people disliking me, that's not the point at all. Quite the opposite, I'm sure I'm an interesting person and I'm confident people would like me if I could take the step. Problem is, there is something that physically prevents me from saying "Hi!" to a stranger. I literally cannot get my…

I have the same exact experience as you. It's like some weird physical barrier, but I can't really articulate the feeling or explain it. The exposure therapy method here doesn't work because "just do it a bunch of times and you'll get more comfortable" isn't even possible for me, I can't "just do it." For me though, it takes more than a few beers to be comfortable approaching someone. I'd have to be completely sloshe…

If you’re open about it, maybe you can take a look into Phenibut — it’s somewhere between alcohol and lightweight MDMA in terms of disinhibition effects. It can help tremendously in the context of aiding progressive exposure. Do you own research, though: it can get into slippery slope fairly quickly.

Re: Social anxiety isn't about being liked

#228

Post by bunderbunder »

lucasban wrote: post #161
bunderbunder wrote: post #145

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you cause a car wreck, you failed at driving. It doesn't necessarily make you a bad driver in and of itself - everybody makes mistakes - but if you also refuse to acknowledge and own your error then that certainly suggests a lack of competence. If you ship code that blows up in production, you failed at programming. It doesn't necessarily make you a bad programmer in and of itself - everybody makes mistakes - but…

I mostly agree but I think the nuance with comedy is that there can be a mismatch in audiences, sometimes the others participating are not the intended audience, but are instead used as props. In that case it could be successful comedy independently of if they enjoyed it. Whether or not that’s ethical in a given situation is a separate question.

I think sometimes you get a mismatch between the audience the person thinks they have, and the audience they actually have.

For example, if you make a public post on social media, your actual audience is effectively the whole world. If you wanted a smaller audience, you should not have chosen a public post on social media as your venue.

Re: Social anxiety isn't about being liked

#229

Post by LorenPechtel »

ranger_danger wrote: post #200
LorenPechtel wrote: post #199

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have not noted his comment history so I'm only addressing this in a general fashion: A lot of things actually are black and white, but people invent shades in them in order to avoid having to admit there's a problem without a solution. I've been accused of black and white thinking many times, almost never has the accuser been able to actually show a nuance to the situation.

> A lot of things actually are black and white My issue is with people who take this to the extreme and apply it to the vast majority of their responses, the so-called "know-it-alls" that Dunning & Kruger told us about. I think if we want to be seen as truly intelligent, we need to have much more humility and empathy, and accept that we can't know everything about everything, and not try to act like we do. > almost n…

Thought here: Very often if you see something that's not black and white it really is multiple issues mixed together.

Re: Social anxiety isn't about being liked

#230

Post by smeej »

moribunda wrote: post #224
trogdor wrote: post #179

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> after about the fourth interaction, something about me registers as "off" to other people and they start to distance themselves from me. I have never understood why I’m not sure it would be helpful, but have you tried asking anyone?

I second this suggestion. This might sound obvious but during my therapy my psychologist asked me to do this, but in a non-personal/non-threatening way for the relation. Just by telling them that I'm working through my issues and I'd like to get an honest (best would be written/no-interaction type) feedback - what makes them uncomfortable etc. This helped me a lot - to see how different the transmission was on the re…

The annoying thing is that nobody I've asked can pinpoint what it is.
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