People who are insulting, they are manipulating people with insults. For someone with social anxiety it may seem like they confirm my guilt, shame and wrongness, but they are unable to know me, so instead feeling guilty I should be alert they are trying to modulate me to be their slave and subordinate to their desires and wishes to serve them.
In social settings (anywhere outside, anywhere with less known people around myself) be alert that I will automatically get strong sense that I am in the way, that I bother others, that I disturb them so therefor I mustn't be there, I should not be outside, I am not allowed. This belief is so strong that this is actually mental illness without realizing because the belief is so ingrained, it appears too real. If I am not aware, I make choices based on it and - I stay out, I cripple myself with my own decisions and it feels safe, good and normal to do so. The thought is so pervasive, that even if I go with CBT, Exposure and ACT methods the beliefs still lingers in any second being somewhere outside comfort zone even though I am aware how ridiculous this thought is. It's as if my mind is programmed to behave in certain way, as if I am an actor in movie that is already taped and I cannot change it no matter what.
This leads to the next belief, that it is important for me not get into conflict with someone, to argue and that I should obey automatically. Usually, if I do argue, people will insult me. Since I never argue, I agree with insults and people manipulate me and take advantage of me easily. Which I solve by self isolating myself, go into comfort zone and never go outside. If I do, I have strong sense I don't belong there even if I don't make a step outside, the feeling of not belonging is already inside.
Of course, due to chores and errands, I can't be locked inside. So I do go outside. This makes me feel as if I am walking on egg-shelves, as if I walk on needles. So I react to those needles, notice them and becoming very aware of them. I cover as much as I can automatically, without thinking about what I am doing, I have strong desire to hide no matter how ridiculous it is, since in most cases there are not even people in near proximity to myself. When I am aware of this ridiculous thoughts, I usually stop with one thing to hide, yet I usually then find myself yet again feeling unquenched feeling that there is something wrong with me, how I look, how I act, how I walk, what I am wearing, what am I looking, anything and everything being wrong about me and that someone will pop out of somewhere and thinking about me and tell me making fun of me, mocking me or even attack me since I am so wrong, guilty and disgusting. So I make more and more choices and decisions not to bother anyone, do my stuff as fast as I can without taking a moment to think or go through list if I need something to do more. With time on occasions I stop this shame cycle and I convince myself that who cares, I will make fool of myself, that no matter what I do I will always do something stupid or strange, and in conversation with people no matter what I do, no matter how much I try I will always say something stupid or do something stupid. But that does not last long. Few days, some incident, and I am back on the shyness track again.
I try to be happy and careless but almost always anxiety kicks in. Sometimes it feels as if I am punished to be carefree and deciding not to care what people think anyway. This is another problem - the depression and feeling guilty and ashamed for imaginary and real incidents. The beliefs and thoughts are so strong and real that this is also mental illness and I am aware this is crossing boundary of psychosis (state of mind where something imaginary appears absolutely real to me). For example someone yelling at me or when someone is rude to me. I can tell myself who cares, but the feeling of wrongness and shame is way too strong.
The is a hack quick and easy - when I am not alone, if I am with someone I know and feel trust with one or more person, I don't feel social anxiety in such level as when I am alone. I feel I can do more and I care less what someone known or unknown will think about me.
This hack works only outside when there is imaginary threat. If someone's reaction is wrong and negative I feel weak and want to hide, I take it too seriously, even if it is a small thing. I'll be overthinking about it. I get invaded by useless memories, as in all other cases, Pure OCD is running wild in my mind when faced with negative reaction by others, imaginary or real. Discovering Pure OCD underneath it all helped a lot, since there are ERP, ACT methods that help in dealing with it.
It is as if I have a script in my head, a program that tells me that everyone is connected, that I must be friendly with everyone. So I must obey whatever someone might like and do according to what everyone thinks how I should be. Even though people pleasing is not realistic and even though I am aware how ludicrous it is, I believe in it automatically. I forget realistic thoughts, like they are not my mom, they are strangers, so who cares, we are not connected, we have no obligations to care or to do according to what someone might want, think or desire. As one one side psychopaths and sociopaths have a chronic lack of empathy, I have it in so much excess that it is hurting me in so much that it is actually drowning me.
With such skewed views about people, for most of my life I had unrealistic expectations from people and without realizing it, when I observe other people I had totally wrong impression how people are connected. How they form friendships is in my head totally wrong. In my mind it's too intense where in real life it is relaxed. Where in real life is bond, in my head I imagine it very loose. To me, friendships looked very much connected, people who knew each other, seemed to me like they are extremely close which in real life it ain't so. I see threat if someone is reacting with shouting when someone might push them, when it's in reality comically slapstick situation. Being pushover and people-pleaser means attracting toxic people which doesn't help at all to my already skewed views of connecting with people.
Fear of making mistakes found a good ground on this kind of thinking. Being afraid what someone thinks, being afraid how someone will respond and react naturally leads to over reaction towards mistakes. And once you are afraid of making mistakes, you sabotage yourself voluntarily. It's about being afraid someone might react violently, aggressively. And it seems to me that most people usually do react aggressively, since they don't care at all what others around them might think, feel & possibly hurt inside and thus they don't stop and think how others might feel since in their opinion the other person made a mistake - and they feel that person must be punished for mistake by an act of aggression. It is easy to focus your train of thoughts of all the bad people in our lives who are inconsiderate and it is easy for us to connect with them since I might appear in other people's mind as arrogant, strong and someone who can handle their wave of aggression. Yet I am very easy to be threatened by aggressive people since I don't produce any resistance at all. I am easy target for psychopaths. In that way I attract negative people even more. Which then seems to me that in general, all people are negative and bad.
I know I must stay away from toxic people. I know I must respond and alert the other person when they cross the boundaries - and leave if they don't change. I know I must do what I plan to do no matter what, even on force. Logically, if my social anxiety started with people leaving me and mocking me, I know this is now my main fear in social settings. I know I have to flow by this feeling and stop making me sabotage myself by refusing to go out there. I know that being beaten up in the streets make me feel afraid of violent people, that I have to gain physical strength and knowledge about such rare occurrences. I know that when I get automatic memories of past traumas and bad experiences, that these are intrusive thoughts and should be dealt with as Pure OCD even though they might seem like alerts or something I need to observe and take notice and think about it over and over. Because those thoughts carry the hurt along with them, that I must be prepared in the future for similar bad experiences. I know I must slow down&take my time when outside when voices tell me to rush and run&hide. I know I will respond better when I am totally calmed down and cool about everything, I will make better decisions and better arguments. I know when my shame tells me to stop doing something, that I should do it over and over again. I know when I make mistake and I am ashamed by others, I should do it over and over again. I am aware that my social anxiety shame thoughts are mixed in with regular thoughts so that makes it hard to do the right thing and ignore hiding and make it easy to smuggle running away decisions. Which would be great to have all the rules in general - such as, don't run away, don't hide even if it feels like I must and it would feel good to run&hide because I would convince myself that I am under stress. If someone is insulting me, instead of subordination which would be social anxiety call to respond, I know I should put such people under toxic people category and ignore them and their demands. I know I need to be genuine, which means having conflict and people will respect me more even though it doesn't seem that right in that moment.I am aware since I am extremely sensitive that I will pick up everything at much deeper level and it will hurt me just by an act of observing.
Also I am aware of importance of positive thinking. I am aware that thinking about past hurt doesn't bring anything good but negative atmosphere. It is like creating good memories right now, living in the moment. Despite sadness to force myself somehow out of rut. I am aware of distorted thinking and its many facets. Because of depression and lethargy it is lose - lose situation with social anxiety. Since if you are not aware and if you don't pay attention to your thoughts, you keep doing the wrong things and deepen the wrong way to live. However if you are aware and alert and mindful, you are creating bad mood since you are now more aware of past mistakes and everything that is wrong inside.
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