1.7.2022
"they want to be jerks, they do it because what they do they feel is right. They are entitled, feel that they are special, and centre of attention, charismatic, aggressively controlling."
If we step back - we can see that they are actually children, spoiled children mindset trapped inside adult body. Then it makes sense why they behave like this. They simple evolved their child self that was arrested in development and they adopted their child self to adult world - with sex abuse, drug abuse, temper tantrums and violence now in adult settings. Their logical, adult part of brain is repressed - and small parts of adult thinking inside their brain is enslaved to serve child mindset of greed and instant pleasure. The trauma creates this disorder - and they consciously decided to be evil to handle the world and problems.
Yeah, they wear mask of adult person - but it is mask, this Persona is made in shape of adult person.
Similar to the Tom Hanks movie "Big". When you talk to this person, you think it is adult - but inside there is trapped 8 year old boy with mindset of a child.
They will sniff out the exact opposite: traumatized people who did the opposite from them - it is when our adult brain is in total charge, and we suppressed our child parts that are not evil - yet we decided that being bold is evil - so we suppressed it. Now we will be the polar opposite from narcissist - and there will be magnet force between.
Persona mask is not evil nor bad by default.
Persona functions is to serve us as a communication tool with other people - similar to Star Trek universal translator - to adopt our messages to others. So we might feel bad and depressed or scared - but when we talk to random people - we will not act bad, depressed or scared - especially if we need some information from them - since we do not want to scare them away. Or perhaps we are intelligent and very sensitive - if we show our true Self to others, we will bore them to death. We need to pretend a little bit to be more stupid or less sensitive - in order to find balance and on par communication balance with people who are not so smart or sensitive.
Narcissistic - since they are kids trapped in adult body - never grew up and they never learned the purpose of mask. They abuse mask to take advantage of other people - because they quickly did find out that if they throw temper tantrum or if they allow their child to be brutally honest and without empathy - they noticed that many people get scared and fawn to such people - and narcissist are convinced that other people are weak - and can be programmed and hypnotized into submission so that they can exploit them.
Narcissists do not realize due to egocentrism which is part of child mindset - arrested in development - that they are actually parasiting over other people. In their mind they are superior and other people are weak and stupid.
We on the other hand - are not aware of Jung's Persona - and we have no clue that we are seeing the behaviour and word coming from a mask - and there is scared little spoiled brat behind it.
I would say as years go by, this child stays child - and it can be become very dangerous - since it has been isolated from common sense, it is trapped inside its own fantasy world -
and I think this is where psychopathy stems from - serial killers etc.
We live in magical world full of synchronicity and imagination that intertwines with reality, yin yang dynamics that are far too perfect to be created on its own, the world of sixth sense and paranormal mixing with science and objective truth - and narcissists with their child mindset interpret this dualism dynamics as fantasy world of horror - similar to the movie "The Cell" with J.Lo from 2001 (Stephen King's novel). They are mentally ill but their mask is keeping their head above the water.
We need to be aware when we communicate with people - if their mask is part of communication translator or if the mask if cover up for mental illness.
This is why education about narcissist is very crucial life skill that no one told us that we need to educate ourselves about.
CBT will explain to us that we are delusional if we feel symptoms of fear after the abuse. And CBT will instruct us to expose ourselves to all people - without telling us how to retort to difficult people neither how to recognize them nor what to do when you cannot run away from them.
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Jordan Peterson comes from the place of hate and fear.
Truth is not "Nasty and harsh". Truth is brutal. Nasty and harsh is when you do not put a mask of kindness when the other person is toxic or you perceive it as toxic.
This element is unknown to Peterson since his mindset is full of toxic shame and resentment. Grudge is virus in his mind and he tries to copy paste mental illness in other people - by explaining them that reality and being honest is "nasty and harsh".
You can deliver the message with kindness - and this is what Peterson is unable to understand because he is narcissist and has issues with borderline.
One YT commentator (Nikki H.) said:
"Honesty without kindness is cruelty.
Kindness without honesty is manipulation."
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Many times we base our reality on confirmation bias - thus our values are delusional.
We have to learn Descartes message and instruction that we doubt everything, including our own definitions and conclusions.
He said when we doubt, we will start to think.
If we decide that our reality is the only value - we are in danger to become evil and toxic, we will attack others who see the same issue from totally different angle. This does not mean that they are wrong - they simply are looking number 9 from opposite side where we see number 6.
People worry how people think of them - this is because of toxic shame inside us. It is virus of resentment. This feels like fear - and we fuse it together with our value. This is how narcissism is born, and mental illness. Toxic shame is when we connect together action and core value of soul to be the same.
It is not that the world is cold - it is that any action will be mistaken, mistakes are part of life. When we have toxic shame we are taught that our mistakes are the same as our value as human being - and this makes us feel wounded and vulnerable. Then we will try to cover it up - and we will end up with mental imbalance - since this is not natural way to live. Because mistakes, flaws and ignorance are natural and normal.
If we do not allow mistakes - we will not tolerate them in other people - and then we will become aggressive, because we will be convinced that we defend our "values".
This is how racism is created, Crusader wars, or Putin trying to destroy Ukraine.
That is how problems occur.
"The belief that one's own view of reality is the only reality is the most dangerous of all delusions."
Paul Watzlawick
Confidence and self esteem is not something you develop. If you develop it - it is overcompensation - which is part of inferiority complex.
Instead, confidence is something that comes from within you, it is internal locus of control.
You get manipulated and taken advantage by toxic people. You will not be manipulated nor taken advantage by kind and mentally healthy people. Kind person will not walk all over you, even when you are on the ground.
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Problem is
1) when they are manipulative and when they use gaslighting - so they are aggressive in covert manner - such as borderliners
2) when we cannot cut contact - and when you need something from such people - it can be job situation, family, third party, you need service from them that no one else can give, or information.
Then standing up for ourselves in these situation come with pre-warnings:
1) that we need to have money to support ourselves
2) that we can expect that some mentally ill people (and people who mock others are mentally ill) will stab us in the back - the same as Amber did to Johnny Depp when he left her.
So we have another problem to take into consideration:
we need to be aware of how to recognize toxic people (red flags) and how to handle them (document abuse) and how to retort to them in functional, healthy and proper manner.
Many times the other person is narcissist and they live in their fantasy land, and they are egocentric and stubborn and they operate from different reality than normal and healthy people. They are kids trapped inside grown man bodies.
When we do not realize this, that we are faced with sick spoiled child who is holding narcissistic mask of aggression and superiority complex - we get scared and then they take advantage of us - because we are convinced that their demands, logic and words come from adult place - we think they are logical.
They only learned how to hold mask, simulation of logic - and this is how they manipulate us.
Once we know this mechanism, how it works, it will be much easier to refuse their requests - since we will know to look for logic, demand logic and seek logic: objective truth and facts.
Toxic people hate transparency, honesty and truth.
We do not need to respond with wars, hostility, aggression and drama. The best way is to cut contact but as I said, in certain situations we are stuck with these psychopaths and we need to know psychologically healthy way how to handle them instead of automatic fawning and self-censorship.
"Jean Paul Sartre says in "No Exit" that hell is other people. Well, our task in life is to make it heaven. Or at least earth."
Alan Alda
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"people hate you when they want to be like you but they can never be as good as you. When they got a threat from you."
1)
Try changing this toxic programming that stems from toxic shame and someone's untreated mental illness into more positive programming that is more realistic and objective:
"When our friends excel us, that gives them a feeling of importance; but when we excel them, that gives them a feeling of inferiority and arouses envy and jelousy.
German proverb: "Die reinste Freude ist die Schafenfreude""
If you want enemies, excel your friends; but
...if you want friends, let your friends excel you.
FRANCOISE DE LA ROCHEFOUCAULD
2)
if we are threat to them - if they see us as threat - are we?
Are we rude?
If we are not rude - and they see us as threat: that means two things
a) either they are mentally ill and delusional or
b) they have hidden agenda and wants us to exploit and take advantage but they are afraid to get discovered.
In both cases - the other person is toxic and abnormal and we are not dealing with someone who is mentally healthy.
So our task would be to recognize ted flags and become aware, like body becomes aware of virus inside the body - you restrict the information and data and resources that such person can attain from you. In job, family, service, third party situations - where we cannot cut contact and expel and reject such parasites - we need to be extra careful what they do in our life and how much damage they can inflict on us.
"Natural reaction when somebody insulting you is getting aggressive, isn't it?"
Nope.
Kind, nice, healthy, positive, friendly people respond with fawning and trying to understand how to resolve someone's temper tantrum, and they lean on self blame. The anger is suppressed as resentment and holding on to grudge. There is no anger since anyone who is mentally healthy has learned until now that anger is evil and wrong and it causes butterfly effect, domino effect of bad karma in the future.
"You raise volume"
Again, you totally miss fawning response.
The paradox is that people who use fight response will never ever watch videos like this - they find quick easy solution to handle toxic people. And us, normal people with fawn automatic response will try to seek answer how to handle toxic people - and you will offer us advice that is meant for people who use fight response - you will instruct us to fawn even more.
"Do you react with anger"
Nope.
People who seek solutions to how to handle toxic people do not react with anger.
"How you handle with anger. Communicate that you are angry, that you do not want to indulge in conversation with that person"
Ok, what you do when you have job where you must deal with angry people? You hang up the call or ignore them?
You will get fired.
So cut contact will not work in this case - and you have no solution for that problem - when you cannot cut contact with angry, stubborn person.
"Think logically"
Brain skips to amygdala, it is called amygdala hijacking. This means cortex brain is offline. This means you cannot think logically.
I think you need to study this topic a little bit more. A lot of crucial information that you missed.
"That insult meant to give us genuine feedback"
Ok,
but what happens when there is criminally insane person on the other side? Person who is stubborn like a child with temper tantrum? When this person is borderline and will stab us in the back when we leave them, like Amber did to Johnny Depp.
What positive feedback is in that angry outburst and inappropriate mood swings?
When you try to see order in chaos - you will not find it, and then you will self blame - you will think you are responsible for their mentally ill behaviour and somehow you must find order in their evil. That way we will get gaslight and manipulated by toxic people.
"find fine line between constructive feedback and insult"
When someone is insulting - there is nothing constructive about it. Such person is mentally ill.
Normal people do not insult others. There is something seriously wrong in the brain of person who is insulting others. You cannot find vitamins in excrement.
"Do not take any constructive feedback"
Seems to me that you are confusing insults with feedback.
"sometimes criticism acts like favors"
Criticism and insult is not the same.
"always be open to listen to different feedback"
ok,
but the topic here is "How To Respond When Someone Insults You?"
I think you are explaining it in the wrong way.
You want to convey that sometimes we have cloud and veil over our mind that does not see reality clearly. And that we are delusional - and we see insults where there are none.
So - solution to this - is be objective and seek transparency.
From what I learned is - that we can listen to our body too. Accumulation of toxic people and toxic behaviour will make us more sharp to recognize toxic people in the future. So I would trust our instinct. If we feel evil from someone - there is probably evil there behind the mask of temper tantrum.
"Ignore them"
Ok,
but this is leading to enabling.
Toxic person , narcissist will interpret your silence as green light to continue the abuse.
Also when you do not retort, you are giving your mind proof that you are unable to handle life - and this will toxic shame use up as self blame. So I would be careful with ignore advice
"Is it really insult"
Yeah that is what you tried to tell us in the beginning.
"Respond in better way"
But what is the way when your job is to be in contact with angry people?
"Laugh on it"
This will not work with violent people.
"Read the tone"
You use a lot of CBT self pathologizing take. Ignoring your soul is not healthy.
"Words don't stick you"
they do.
Long term narcissistic abuse causes brain injury - google it.
"Your reaction keeps you trapped"
Self-pathologizing.
Horrible take, it will end up as trauma and fawning, as CBT leads to people pleasing and becoming pushover - you become a slave to toxic people.
"Explain you are not ok with it"
How?
Why don't you speak this part in detail?
"Block them completely"
What if you can't due to job?
Since you censored the most important part "Explain you are not ok with it" I will fill in the gap.
We can actually retort to narcissistic, toxic, parasitical people in proper, healthy, functional manner - without damaging our own psyche and traumatizing ourselves.
We can retort by these words:
"You are not helping."
"You are being rude."
"You are being hysterical."
"Stop it."
"What did I do to upset you?"
"I don't know"
"What you expect from me to do or know?"
"How am I suppose to know this"
"What makes you god to order me around or tell me what is correct since you obviously never said it before"
"Why is this my responsibility?"
"I have followed all of x's regulations to the best of my ability."
"Meh!"
"I disagree with you."
"I agree partly with you."
"You are being paranoid."
"I am doing this for the first time, I cannot know it as someone experienced"
"It was your fault for not explaining it to me."
"It's your stuff, not mine."
"I just want to work here, my focus is task - not gossip/paranoia/bias."
"No, you can't."
"I don’t care."
"What you say/do is insidious form of abuse"
"Enough"
"I will not you let me treat me this way "
"You are having inappropriate outbursts of anger"
"You are being jealous of me/my success/being better than you in handling people/problem"
"No, what you are saying/doing is devaluation"
"You feel fake, worthless, inept so you want to feel good by hurting other people"
"What do you want (from me)?"
"I'll do it better next time"
"What is going on with you? What is going on in your head?"
"Is it ok to create drama because of my mistake?
"It does not give you right to scream"
"You have no right to abuse/ yell/ scream"
"Is it true? Is it 100% true? Would I prove that in court of law? Would the whole world agree upon that?"
"Maybe you're the problem."
"You have serious mental problem hidden with hysteria and hate and treating people like crap" "You are sick"
"What you are doing is sick, abnormal, normal people do not do this"
"It takes two to make it all go right
But with you, it's always my fault"
"Unfortunately I am not able to make it."
"Thank you, but unfortunately i cannot make it today."
And also by learning the background process:
quietly direct conversation toward defining and solving problems
You can forgive someone and not tolerate their behaviour.
When you are dysregulated and c-ptsd has hold of your thinking, you're never in charge of what you are thinking about, trying to stop or calm down creates more anxiety and fears
when I pathologize my reaction, even when my reaction is wrong - I am destroying my self worth
hypnosis, where I am lead by triggers controlled by other people. Compulsive reactive state. So anybody can cause anything within you. That I must explain myself and defend myself against criticism and judgement and overcompensate to show as strong leads to inferiority complex.
toxic critics target innocent & natural mistakes, inner or external out of control flaws and lack of knowledge as catastrophe and they perceive it as paranoid personal attack
--
This guy helped me process Complex trauma, last year - one year exactly july 2021 - I listened to his series for the whole summer , of how to deal with trauma. Excellent advice and help and instruction. And it took me time to process information.
Thank you.
I see anger as resentment, grudge.
We think we have got rid of it with "forgiveness" but resentment is parasitical emotion, it is very slick and morphs and hides inside - it has its own life and autonomy. Kinda like devil on the shoulder. I see it as evil.
Resentment builds toxic shame - which distorts our reality and thoughts.
"They repress that anger – they don't repress only anger, they repress cortisol in their body, now they have trouble concentrating, other physical symptoms – agitation, pain. It seems like it is working, but it isn't."
Yep.
We need to find way how to handle anger/resentment-grudge in proper healthy functional way - other than repressing it.
It is like we need to accept, integrate anger/resentment - but in functional manner.
When we reject it - we become perfectionists and we are easily manipulated by others and we end up with codependency - since we do not believe ourselves.
"If child never expresses anger, that is very concerning thing. Something else is going on there that is not healthy, causing them to suppress all of that anger."
CBT will explain to socially anxious people to ignore and suppress resentment - in fact they will not focus nor reveal that there is resentment and anger inside. This is making CBT extremely damaging therapy and psychologically very dangerous,
since it instructs us to suppress.
Also, we seen in 1960s-1980s that expression of anger leads to chaos and imbalance. Cursing, being violent, throwing temper tantrums etc. does not dissipate anger/resentment - it solidifies it and creates trauma to people on the receiving end and passer-byers.
I see solution to accepting the anger and resentment as part of life. Not something to reject or destroy with our trials and tribulations - we will make mistakes and we will create damage to ourselves and others with our actions, mistakes, flaws and ignorance. If we have no ability, capacity for anger or resentment - we won't learn from the evil that evil is wrong.
So solution is to make better life choices based on experience and knowledge - without having anger and resentment inside yet feeling gratitude and love for anger and resentment, for the evil and bad things - not to accept it or embrace it - but to see it as Stockdale Paradox - it is part of life, it is outside of our control. We simply do better decisions which are based on wrong decisions in the past. We see wrong decisions and bad experiences as contrast and as ground to walk away from.
If we do not do this, we will stay with the evil and try to change it. It cannot be changed, it is not our job to change evil.
We only can react in life, we are human beings, we are not gods. We can do only so much.
We cannot be the judge if we do not work in Court. We cannot put someone in prison if we are not working in prison system facilities.
We can only walk away from evil, retort to evil, warn, alarm and cut contact when our finances or shelter do not depend on toxic people.
"There are other ways to express anger that does not result in people getting hurt. There are other options in expressing anger that do not evolve hurting other people."
With complex trauma we learned that there are only two options:
1) drama, explosions, temper tantrums, fight response
or
2) fawning, self censorship, self blame, isolation and avoidance.
There is alternative to these.
I trust that with toxic shame we repress part of our persona and self that we labeled as evil - that to us appear as anger and resentment - and without these parts that are falsely labeled as evil and repressed into our shadow - we are unable to see alternative to reacting to toxic people who cause anger and resentment inside us.
"If you give into tantrum you just taught your child to use anger and tantrums to manipulate you. Now you fed a monster. Next time they have tantrum it will be more difficult to stop it. In their mind it will work again."
This is the opposite to what happened to people with complex trauma and social anxiety.
We were experiencing relentless criticism 24/7 that was unfair and we witnessed adult hysteria -
"If they lash out in hurtful way, there needs to be a consequence that is appropriate. It is not about I will hurt you, that is punishment, that will not help. Child needs to realize that decisions they make have consequence tomorrow."
"If they lash out in hurtful way, there needs to be a consequence that is appropriate. It is not about I will hurt you, that is punishment, that will not help. Child needs to realize that decisions they make have consequence tomorrow."
Again, this is the opposite from complex trauma and social anxiety - bullying that causes avoidance.
The abused child is programmed to think anything that child does is wrong - and thus toxic shame is born and inability to act.
Isolation and avoidance and fears and panic are the only resource and reaction to the order and command to be "good".
I see solution as realizing that our thoughts, opinions, decisions are not evil - as we were being programmed to believe.
We were being punished for expressing ourselves freely and now we repressed parts of our behaviour - which are totally normal and fine - and we need these parts in adult life - when we meet someone , in social life - when we go for interview, when we handle unknown and mysterious situations.
If we have social anxiety and complex trauma issues - it is crucial to realize that we have toxic shame inside us as fake persona and fake self. Fake self is easy to detect: when we are rigid. Being healthy means being flexible.
"Don't just make focus on their anger. Keep praising their good stuff. Give them a lots of praise for the other things in their life that they're doing well, it is important."
Yep, this is important to know when we are dealing with toxic and or difficult people, too.
I see that the lesson here is to learn how to handle difficult situation in life - from our intuition, that we do not need to learn specific steps. And I believe we have issues with anger and resentment - because we have virus in our mind that is thwarting our reality, it is like veil, black transparent veil over our face and we are unable to see reality clearly with clarity.
The grudge inside is this veil. It is well hidden and transformed and transmuted into different and transparent thoughts, like a chameleon, it blended with the background but it influences our thoughts and emotions as we make decisions in life.
The parasite needs to be removed.
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We need this message - to be aware what is going on and to learn how to retort.
You are correct -
without knowing what you said in this video I never knew that I am allowed to say simply:
"I disagree with you" when someone was unreasonable and demanding.
CBT is telling socially anxious people that their symptoms are delusional and that we must expose to other people to heal anxiety. I ended up being people pleaser and pushover - since I never been taught how to retort.
So let's say you are very intelligent, highly sensitive person or indigo child - and this means you notice wrongdoings - you will suppress your natural reactions to keep peace and not to rock the boat. Then this will not solve toxic people who are abusive and are predatory - and CBT will explain to you that you are the sole problem because you are hallucinating toxic people.
The message from narcissistic society we get is that we can only react in two ways:
1) fight response, explosions, drama
or
2) being passive, people pleaser, fawning.
There is alternative.
When it comes to toxic people - they are problem.
Our desire to help and to be busy and to work - is being used against us - and we are being exploited by toxic people.
I would go to no contact and minimizing contact.
I see our ability to handle toxic people - requires us to be without toxic shame inside us. Toxic shame is built on resentment and this will attract toxic people and we will be in what resist-persist energy.
When we have toxic shame inside us - we do not have our Real Self inside. There is False Self.
We can easily detect imposter inside by looking for when we are rigid. Health is being flexible.
When we have False Self - we will feel anxiety, fears and inferiority complex - and this will prevent us from action.
Also, with toxic shame inside us, we will repress parts of our persona and personality that we need to retort.
Without these repressed parts being active and online and alive inside us - we will be unable to say who cares when someone is rude.
When we have toxic shame - we seek approval and validation from external locus of control.
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(4.7.2022)
Socially anxious people are already zoomed onto other people.
CBT is thwarting our own social anxiety and tries to hypnotize us with their explanations and wrong definitions that they hope will match social anxiety to be delusion. That way it is easier to treat it with band aid therapy : throwing money to pills and self help books.
With social anxiety we are zoomed onto other people because we expect their criticism and negative evaluation. Even DSM describe this core fear. It is not fear of not being funny.
Social anxiety is not about fashion or shyness or being vain.
It is a product of complex trauma, we were bullied for being different and we never grew up properly in balanced way, instead verbal abuse over pruned ourselves and become adults too soon without inner children inside us.
Now we feel fear with other people who are expressing their inner child without problem - and we can't stand it since it triggers abuse memories from the past. We feel their inner child as threat - since we were punished when we expressed ourselves freely in childhood (mocked, yelled at, ashamed, criticized, invalidated).
---
"Fake it till you make it"
It is not possible for social anxiety since the root cause is trauma.
It is being raised in toxic environment where you are hypnotized into suppressing your inner child.
"Do more presentations"
With exposure you calm down your panic symptoms - but the social anxiety stays inside. It ends up with people pleasing and being pushover - this is because social anxiety is response to toxic people. And now you do not know how to deal with manipulative people - people who nitpick your natural mistakes, flaws and ignorance. Due to trauma, you are trained like circus animal to shut up and self censor - and society who is mostly narcissistic and egocentric values extroversion - and it sees introversion as sickness, something to cure. This Crusade against being quiet adds up to trauma and neuroticism.
"Engage more"
It does not help - since problem is complex trauma. You simply end up more afraid - since you will meet someone who is rude - and you do not know how to process it other than self blame.
"Try new things"
Since trauma happened in the childhood - child brain was unable to process negative evaluations, constant and relentless criticism 24/7 in any other way than creating safety mechanisms and suppressing true Self. Parts of Self and Persona were labelled as evil and dangerous, first by abuser and bullies, then by socially anxious individual. This ends up with socially anxious person not having True Self. Instead there is toxic shame inside or False Self. With False self - you do not know what you want. You have external reference locus of control - which means you seek approval and validation from other people.
This also means that socially anxious person won't know what he really wants. There will be no desire that stems from inside, there is no intrinsic locus of control. So when you say to socially anxious person try new things - this will sound vague and the person will try to seek guidance from other people to say what these new things mean.
This can end up doing things that socially anxious person does not like at all, and it ends up with even more neurosis - since this is form of conformism and groupthink and herd mentality.
"Set goals"
Again, with toxic shame inside, this is impossible goal.
There is no true Self inside - so the person inside does not know what is intrinsic value.
"Body language"
Social anxiety is result of trauma - this means there will be safety mechanisms. These mechanisms are natural and normal reaction to abnormal people, abnormal situations and abnormal events.
I would not pathologize them - since they provide us with survival.
Just imagine if Johnny Depp decided to think positive and heal his trauma with Amber by speaking clearly and shoulders back - he would be broke now, labelled as abuser by the whole world and his career would be over.
Self-pathologizing our reaction is not healthy and I would not recommend it.
Just because we do not understand what is going on inside other people minds, we will do more damage by trying to fix them-
traumatized people went through severe invalidation and toxic shaming. If you "explain" them that they are freaks and different from "normal" people, you are adding up to trauma and invalidation.
Please if you could try to work on your own egocentrism and realize that empathy and put yourself in other people shoes means that you do not fix and correct people who are not neither violent nor unkind - so there is no pathology there.
Social anxiety is reaction to abuse and bullying. Problem is in the external factor - abuser and bully, not the scared person who went through the abuse.
"Be fully present in the moment"
Again, due to trauma this is impossible. Long term narcissistic abuse causes brain injury - google it. With wound inside, you mind gets stuck in overthinking and pessimism. So to say someone who is stuck that this person must be present in the moment - this socially anxious person will be present with overthinking and trying to make sense of abuse and trauma. Trauma gets stuck in the body. This is not something you can clear up with good intentions and being chirpy.
"Social interaction is not something you should be scared off"
This statement is not totally correct. There are predatory types of personalities out there.
There are abusive people, narcissists, manipulators, Machiavellians, emotional vampires, borderliners who are aggressive, psychopaths, sociopaths -
socially anxious people are kind, nice, friendly and open - and toxic people will sniff these traits since this is their sole job in life - to parasite over nice and kind people who seek validation and approval due to abuse.
So when you try to force someone who went through trauma and abuse to be friends with everyone in the world - you are doing more damage - since you are forcing them to be people pleasers and pushovers as goal to be friendly and engage in social interactions with everyone. Just imagine how many Ambers are there in real world. If we miss red flags - we will destroy our lives with such parasites.
"Pay attention to the world around you"
Socially anxious people are already zoomed onto other people. This is because they expect threat - due to previous abuse.
In fact it would be good to zoom out. Now they are microscopically zoomed onto other people - watch their tone of voice, their expressions on face, their manners, their cursing, nervousness, mood swings - all these things are monitored by socially anxious people due to bullying and abuse in the past - and inability to deal with toxic people due to programming in childhood due to Complex trauma.
"Be vulnerable, practice this with people you trust, with your friends"
People with social anxiety do not have friends.
You are keep mixing up shyness and social anxiety.
There is difference.
Shyness is having social fears before the event - but the fears soon dissipate as soon as you engage in social interaction.
Social anxiety - is having social fears before, during and after social event and fears does not go away and you ruminate what happened and see every mistake as judgment of own character - due to complex trauma and toxic shaming.
Social anxiety can be seen as Darwin evolution - the trauma and experience of being in toxic environment and with toxic people - simply makes your senses sharper - and you are now more able to detect danger - you sniff out unkind and violent people - simply through gesture and manners, that are not noticeable to "normal" people.
You may judge this ability as wrong and sickness - but with time, unfortunately, no matter how confident and non socially anxious you are, you will meet Ambers in your life.
If you are not aware of Machiavellians - you are probably already their victim and you have no idea that you have plethora of parasites sucking your energy, time away from you.
Think of it as immunity and body's ability to recognize virus.
Who is more in advantage? One who can detect virus or someone who can't recognize danger?
Socially anxious people need support and validation, self love - and this means accepting your social anxiety in full, 100%.
We cannot change otherwise. Self pathology leads to more neurosis.
People are not fascists- we are not all created to be the same. People have their caprices, quirks, perks.
If we decide that shyness is sickness and then to heal "shy" people - we are then abusers and aggressors. And we are also mentally ill - since this urge to control other people is part of mental illness.
As the psychologist Carl Rogers put it “The curious paradox is that when I accept myself, just as I am, then I can change.”
"Since most non-HSPs do not seem to enjoy thinking about solutions, they assume we must be unhappy doing all that pondering.
Preferring toughness, the culture sees our trait as something difficult to live with, something to be cured."
The Highly Sensitive Person,
Elaine N. Aron
---
Problem is not isolation and withdrawal.
The problem is abuser and bullies on the other side.
Relaxation will not help - since you are pathologizing the person who went through the abuse.
You will add up to neurosis and anxiety since you will be telling the scared person that they are freaks and different and that they must be part of herd mentality and groupthink, to conform to social values that are vague and uncertain on its own.
Socially anxious need acceptance and validation, not self-pathologizing.
Social anxiety is part of complex trauma, and trauma gets stuck in the body. You cannot wish it well with positive chirpy thoughts - since it would already be done. Trauma heals when we as society scorn the narcissists, and abusers and bullies -
but as narcissistic society is cowardly - it is easier to blame scapegoat.
Just because someone appears confident, loud and aggressive - this does not mean that this person is healthy. In fact, it is more common that this person suffers from superiority complex, and has psychopathy inside.
In the same way, just because someone appears scared and quiet - it doesn't mean we are allowed to fix them without learning about psychology and trauma first. The urge to control other people is part of mental illness, and messing up with someone's mind without knowing psychology will do more damage than good.
"Any attempt to dictate what thoughts, feelings, and sensations are proper or improper creates a breeding ground for guilt and shame"
Peter Levine
If we react to anxiety with rituals such as relaxation - we will create OCD. Anxiety, intrusive thoughts, fears - are signal that something is wrong outside - there is bully or mentally ill person who is untreated that is abusing the target.
Just imagine if Johnny Depp decided to "heal" his symptoms of panic when living with Amber - with relaxation techniques - he would never leave her. He would be broke now, he would be labelled as abuser and his career would be over.
Or imagine yourself being in a room with serial killer. Would be wise and intelligent to calm yourself down and convince yourself to stay in the same room as with psychopath? And force yourself to interact with such person?
Jung said that anxiety is message from inside, from autonomous parts inside ourselves - anxiety tries to tell us something important, something that we miss and we are unable to see, that will help us to handle issue at hand. If we neutralize it or shift focus away from it, we will create disbalance.
Please, do not be egocentric and try to be open to mental health more than narcissistic society tries to cure us with pills and selling us self help books and corporation techniques to relax and other narcissistic trash.
---
"Presentation"
Social anxiety is not the same as fear from presentation. That is separate condition, it is even explained on Wikipedia:
"Some people with a form of social phobia called performance phobia have been helped by beta-blockers, which are more commonly used to control high blood pressure. Taken in low doses, they control the physical manifestation of anxiety and can be taken before a public performance."
Social anxiety is fear of having someone yell at you, scream at you, nitpicking your natural mistakes, flaws and ignorance, someone throwing temper tantrum at you, mocking you, bullying you. That is social anxiety.
"Speak in front of audience"
Again, this is not social anxiety. This is related to performance based anxiety.
It seems to me that you mix up terms. Let's check them:
Shyness - when person feels social fears but it soon wears off and you do not think about it.
Social anxiety - when you feel social fears all the time due to negative evaluation and criticism and you ruminate about it.
Social anxiety disorder - when you feel fear even with safe people in environment that is safe - and it is part of paranoid delusional disorder.
Narcissistic disorder - when you feel social fears but due to egocentrism you do not realize that you are rude to others so when others alarm you about your abusive behaviour, you feel social fears - and have no idea why they are rude to you
Autistic disorder - when you live in your world - but you do not realize that people are rude to you because you do not smile back to them or you do not say Hi back to them when they greet you - since you are not aware of other people around you and what they are doing.
All these groups google their symptoms and they get mislabeled and misdiagnosed with social anxiety disorder - thus get wrong information.
"Primary reason is being judged"
There is something more primary that happened in the past:
Social anxiety is part of complex trauma.
This is not something that has fallen out of heaven. It has it scientific root cause - being exposed to relentless criticism 24/7 while growing up when persona was forming and being exposed to adult hysteria which child brain was unable to process it in any other way than developing safety mechanisms.
"CBT"
CBT does not help. It is band aid therapy that was meant to heal panic symptoms and it is indented for couple of hours, not as lifetime therapy. CBT is similar to fictional Ludovico Technique described in Clockwork Orange (1971).
There is humanistic therapies that actually work - since they are focused on self worth.
"Exposure therapy"
This ends up with people pleasing and pushover.
"PTSD"
This is one time traumatic event. Usually related to wars. On the other hand,
Complex Trauma, or CPTSD is exposure to repeated invalidation and abuse and mocking and criticizing.
As the psychologist Carl Rogers put it “The curious paradox is that when I accept myself, just as I am, then I can change.”
"Since most non-HSPs do not seem to enjoy thinking about solutions, they assume we must be unhappy doing all that pondering.
Preferring toughness, the culture sees our trait as something difficult to live with, something to be cured."
The Highly Sensitive Person,
Elaine N. Aron
---
Withdrawal and isolation are the first steps mind will take when there is disbalance and perhaps external factor - someone who is abusive and narcissistic, mentally ill.
So social anxiety might be mislabeled and misdiagnosed with some trauma going on there. Social anxiety is comorbid with many symptoms and diagnosis.
Social anxiety is telltale sign of toxic shame.
Toxic shame is ingrained internalized belief you are wrong by default.
We heal toxic shame by self love, self validation, self acceptance and building up true Self. Toxic shame builds up simulation of persona inside, it is fake mask - and we can recognize it as being rigid.
Mental health is being flexible.
---
True
What resists, persists - JUNG.
Any reaction to anxiety will add up to hypervigilance and neurosis.
Anxiety is messenger from deep within, from autonomous parts of our brain, as discovered by Freud and Jung.
Anxiety tries to speak to us, but we do not understand the panic and fears - similar to the movie Arrival (2016): Louise Banks, a linguistics expert, along with her team, must interpret the language of aliens who have come to Earth in a mysterious spaceship.
When we are calm, our cortex brain is online.
With hypervigilance and triggers and trauma - our brain amygdala get hijacked - and cortex brain is switched offline.
Without cortex brain active we cannot think ideas and solution.
In the same way, when we suppress parts of our persona and self as evil - we do not have balance inside our mind - and in social situations we do not have child parts of ourselves that can communicate on others - in any other way than boring, formal adult part. We need all parts of ourselves to be active to deal with situations which will cause panic to adult part, since childish chaos and unpredictability is not something that adult part knows how to handle.
---
"Social anxiety disorder is overwhelming fear of social situations"
This is incorrect statement.
This is because CBT is giving us false information about social anxiety.
Let's separate it:
Shyness - when person feels social fears but it soon wears off and you do not think about it.
Social anxiety - when you feel social fears all the time due to negative evaluation and criticism and you ruminate about it.
Social anxiety disorder - when you feel fear even with safe people in environment that is safe - and it is part of paranoid delusional disorder. Only 1% of people has it.
Narcissistic disorder - when you feel social fears but due to egocentrism you do not realize that you are rude to others so when others alarm you about your abusive behaviour, you feel social fears - and have no idea why they are rude to you
Autistic disorder - when you live in your world - but you do not realize that people are rude to you because you do not smile back to them or you do not say Hi back to them when they greet you - since you are not aware of other people around you and what they are doing.
All these groups google their symptoms and they get mislabeled and misdiagnosed with social anxiety disorder - thus get wrong information.
"Worry"
This has not fallen out of heaven.
There had to be some trauma, complex trauma that started all this. When we are exposed to relentless criticism 24/7 while growing up and being exposed to adult hysteria - in times when child brain was developing and forming Persona and Self- this process will be interrupted, arrested in development with safety mechanism as solution to the abuse of untreated mentally ill people around.
So we are talking here about trauma - not symptoms, as the problem.
"Panic attacks"
If we self pathologize our natural reaction to abnormal people, abnormal situations, abnormal events - we will add up even more neurosis and anxiety on top of the existent one. Self pathologizing is not healthy, it leads to mental illness.
"CBT"
Is wrong therapy. Self pathologizing and nitpicking our natural reaction to abnormal circumstances is not correct therapy.
Social anxiety is part of complex trauma - so the problem is outside. Our thoughts and behaviours are not negative - they are totally normal reaction to the abuse. If we stigmatize ourselves we will repeat the cycle of abuse: invalidation and self blame.
CBT is like fictious Ludovico Technique from Clockwork Orange (1971). It is meant as quick lobotomizing operation intended for hooligans, criminals and psychopaths.
If we are nice, kind, open, friendly, without ill will - there is nothing to fix. The nitpicking and criticizing will only add up to toxic shame already internalized inside.
"Any attempt to dictate what thoughts, feelings, and sensations are proper or improper creates a breeding ground for guilt and shame"
Peter Levine
Instead of CBT there are Humanistic therapies.
The fact that mental health industry chose CBT as main default therapy for social anxiety is sign we live in sick, deceptive, narcissistic society which is run by money greed and altruistic narcissists - that cause social anxiety in the first place.
---
Shyness - when person feels social fears but it soon wears off and you do not think about it.
Social anxiety - when you feel social fears all the time due to negative evaluation and criticism and you ruminate about it.
Social anxiety disorder - when you feel fear even with safe people in environment that is safe - and it is part of paranoid delusional disorder. Only 1% of people has it.
Narcissistic disorder - when you feel social fears but due to egocentrism you do not realize that you are rude to others so when others alarm you about your abusive behaviour, you feel social fears - and have no idea why they are rude to you
Autistic disorder - when you live in your world - but you do not realize that people are rude to you because you do not smile back to them or you do not say Hi back to them when they greet you - since you are not aware of other people around you and what they are doing.
All these groups google their symptoms and they get mislabeled and misdiagnosed with social anxiety disorder - thus get wrong information.
"Give yourself more credit"
Toxic shame prevents this.
Toxic shame builds up false self and seeks external validation.
1:42 "Everybody has flaws"
When I wrote topic "All people have social anxiety" - my post got banned on main social anxiety forum at reddit.
I got a lot of negative reactions that confident people have no flaws.
So this information does not cannot penetrate the mind of certain people - because social anxiety is comorbid with other disorders - such as narcissistic disorder - people who live in their own fantasy world and they believe in their thoughts to be 100% correct - which leads to delusions.
3:30 "Start socializing more"
Social anxiety is part of complex trauma.
This means there was abuse and bullying in times of early child age when persona and self was forming.
This means - as adult, socially anxious person will not have inner child parts of persona - since it is stifled down - and you are unable to deal with social situations - which require parts of inner child - to be goofy, authentic- With fears and anxiety our adult logical part of brain is running the tyranny inside - and this causes social anxiety.
Without knowing that you need to rescue inner child parts of yourself by bringing them up alive and active,
you end up with people pleasing and pushover issues.
Any negative event in socializing will add up to the list of fears and danger.
I see this as Darwin evolution.
6:11 "There are jerks, they will see your niceness to be mean to you"
That is problem
Socially anxious people never learned during growing up due to trauma how to retort and stand up for yourself.
In such situations, amygdala get hijacked and cortex brain is switched offline- which means you get crippled and immobile.
7:46 "You'll get triggered" "99% of time it is not"
Think about it more.
If we were abused - we will have more knowledge and experience how to pick up toxic people - even at the microscopical level.
I see this as advantage - that can be harvested - not suppressed.
8:38 "The reason why it is amplified is because you don't engage with everybody else"
This is incorrect statement.
Socially anxious people are zoomed onto other people. This is due to trauma and ability to detect danger and toxic people.
Socially anxious people are very keen to notice patterns in tone of voice, expression on face - they are zoomed microscopically on other people and can detect small changes that can lead to criticism and negative evaluation.
Again, I would use this to our advantage - I would not suppress this super-ability.
Just imagine if Johnny Depp rejected his fears and symptoms with Amber - he would be broke now, he would be labelled as abuser since he stayed with her, and his career would be over.
There are predatory types of personalities out there.
And if you think that it is not so common, you are probably victim of Machiavellians without actually knowing that you have bunch of parasites leeching from you right now.
"You don't see other people are suffering like you"
This is due to toxic shame. Which is product of complex trauma - bully and abuse events in early age when child brain was developing.
Toxic shame rejects True Self and replace it with a simulation of Self - False Self. Since this entity of persona is fake - it cannot sustain on its intrinsic values - it seeks external validation and approval from others - and other people are seen as superior and gods - and you cannot find fault in other people - thus social anxiety is connected to codependency issues and dependency.
9:10 "That's what you are suppose to do as human"
Says who?
Why would humans be fascists and all be the same? Why must we be conformist? Groupthink and herd mentality is not healthy either, as much as isolation and withdrawal is not healthy.
Our caprices, quirks perks, particularities make us human , it makes us special and unique.
IF everyone was the same bland, if everyone wore the same, if everyone was egocentric - that would be disorder too.
Life itself is dualistic, it is yin yang. We can't be chirpy and happy all the time, that is abnormal, and it leads to mental issues. Toxic positivity is mental illness, too as is being constantly pessimistic.
9:32 "Lost of zest of life"
It is not so simple. Sometimes toxic people influence your ability to live, too. I call it external factor.
People can stab you in the back. People do use manipulation and gaslighting and use your needs to control you.
IT seems to me that you are not aware of this fact. You'll learn it the hard way.
I see social anxiety as Freud and Jung talked about anxiety -as message from within.
It is a voice and message from autonomous entity that lives in all of us.
It is a doorway to imagination and sixth sense - and something much more larger than us, it is door way to another dimensions - which Plato named Ideal World.
When we do not know what to do in life - we need inner GPS. Not other people - to explain us - since it can lead to manipulation, not our fears - which isolation can lead to distortion and physic's law tells us that isolated elements lead to get distorted.
When we accept our anxiety - and all psychology resources will tell you to accept it - you will will found out that it is similar to the movie Arrival (2016): Louise Banks, a linguistics expert, along with her team, must interpret the language of aliens who have come to Earth in a mysterious spaceship.
Anxiety tries to tell us that during programming in toxic environment, we repressed parts of our social self that we need to handle social situations - parts of our personality - we labelled it as evil, wrong or embarrassing - and now we cannot handle social situations without it.
Every one of us has 1000s of little people inside of us. Some of them want to come out and be wild, and some want to be sad or happy, or even just go dancing. That's why we have so many urges at so many different times.
STAR TREK THE NEXT GENERATION, "Cost of living"
---
People with social anxiety need information how to retort to toxic people. How and what to speak back when they are rude and intrusive - in correct, functional and proper manner, without explosions, without drama, without isolation and without withdrawal.
Sometimes socially anxious person will do all things correct - but still feel guilt inside.
This is due to toxic shame internalized.
We are talking here about sick narcissistic society - bullies and narcissists who are true cause of social anxiety -
I would not go into direction of self-pathologizing.
Humanistic therapies are best solution for toxic shame and social anxiety - since it is focused on finding value inside and trusting your own capabilities to manage life, people and events.
" Humanistic therapies"
"This group of therapies encourages an individual to resolve their problems and issues and achieve greater fulfillment by recognizing, understanding, and using their own capacity to develop.
Humanists believe that not only is a person capable of making changes and achieving personal growth but it is their responsibility to do so. This idea places the individual fully in control of their choices and goals."
I see social anxiety as message from within that tells us that we have false self inside.
An imposter that acts like persona and self.
It is toxic shame. Toxic shame will make us turn to external validation and seek approval from other people - this is why social anxiety cannot be shaken off - other people's criticism is stuck like a leech.
This happens because our true Self is buried and chopped off and hidden in Shadow.
We need to pick up parts of our personality which we decided are wrong, due to abuse and criticism, and now we do not have parts of our persona to handle social events.
We need to resurrect it.
Then we will have inner child persona self that can communicate and handle unreasonable people who act like children - which scares us - since we do not know how to handle them.
We are convinced that we are scared little kids that live in scary adult world full of nervous adults - but in reality
we are too much adult, we have too much of our logic brain active - we have no foolish, inventive, innovative kids parts of persona inside us. And most people are stuck with their child parts - so they act erratically, hysterically - since they have the opposite problem. They are children trapped inside adult body - and their mask tries to imitate and simulate adult world.
Then we communicate with that mask of superiority hidden in hysterical people - and we think we are communicating with adults who are aggressive and dangerous.
This we feel as social anxiety - fear of criticism and negative evaluation - by someone who is reasonable and superior to us
We do not realize we are superior to them - since we are truly adult, we have logical brain active.
The solution is to be on par with everyone -
and we can be on par with dangerous, violent, hysterical, monsters - by knowing they are scared little kids trapped in adult body - and we can bring up our own hysterical, loud, children parts of persona alive - and this way we will be able to handle social situations.
I would go with Jung and his discovery of Persona, Self and Shadow - as helpful tool for social anxiety.
Persona is fake, made up part of ourselves that we use as a communication tool - to communicate with different types of people. Similar to Star Trek universal language mechanism - we interact with different types of people - by activating our own parts of persona and self - ranging from kids to adult parts. Depending on situation.
With social anxiety - we are stuck with adult parts - we have no inner children inside us - we sentenced them to prison and locked them.
Now they try to come out - and we feel that as social anxiety. We need Yin and Yang to be balanced.
If we have only one side active - there will be imbalance.
What we resist, persist. JUNG
---
I see social anxiety as Darwin evolution.
Social anxiety starts due to complex trauma - being exposed to narcissistic abuse when child brain and persona and self was developing - thus arrested development happens, trauma gets stuck in our body due to relentless criticism 24/7 and being exposed to adult hysteria.
So now with social anxiety we have ability to detect fake, toxic and manipulative people.
You seem to connect social anxiety with "conversation".
This tells me that you mix up shyness with social anxiety.
Social anxiety is not mere fear of events or conversation.
Social anxiety is fear of someone yelling and screaming at you in job type of situation where you cannot leave.
Shyness = feeling social fears at social event but fears very soon wear off. Fears here are related to conversation and talking.
Social anxiety = feeling social fears all the time and it is connected to Complex Trauma. Fears here are related to potential temper tantrum and verbal abuse and violence due to your expression of opinion, natural mistakes, flaws and ignorance about something.
Social anxiety disorder = feeling social fears even with safe people and at psychological safety environment. 1% of people suffer from it, and it is connected to Paranoid Delusional Disorder.
Narcissistic disorder = when you feel social fears as reaction to what appears to you random events and with random people - but in reality you do not realize you are being rude to others and they are simply reacting to your abuse. From your egocentric point you believe that your rudeness is being macho, social, friendly, strong, competent, superior - while other people are background characters and you cannot connect with inferior low beings since they are unworthy of your grandiosity
Autistic = you feel fear at work from people - but you do not realize you are ignoring unwritten social norms such as saying Hi back to people when they greet you. From your point, you only see your own world, and other people are mere shadows and non important.
All these will google their social anxiety symptoms and google will misdiagnose them with social anxiety disorder. They will all receive wrong instruction, wrong explanations, wrong therapy.
CBT lumps all these different phenomena in one entity, good and bad - and treats it like it is criminally insane.
Thus CBT is doing incredible damage to people who feel social fears. It is extremely suspicious that traits and characteristic as fused and mashed.
So now we have people who self diagnose themselves and google misdiagnose them, too and CBT does not help - it joins into hysteria.
Social anxiety is fear of criticism and negative evaluation.
Social anxiety is not being afraid of what to talk about.
"No one care"
Yes there are toxic people who care.
There are manipulators out there. There are predatory types of personalities out there.
If you are not aware of this, unfortunately you will learn it the hard way.
Just think if Johnny Depp explained his fears and uncomfortableness with Amber as delusion - he would be broke now, labelled as abuser and his movie career would be over.
Social anxiety is ability to detect fake, toxic and dangerous people - so it is part of Darwin evolution - you simply develop thorns as the rose did in order to protect itself.
"You are not in charge of conversation"
Yep. you are definitely mixing up shyness with social anxiety.
Social anxiety is fear of criticism and negative evaluation google it.
Social anxiety is not shy issue with talking.
"Conversation"
ok. since you are fixed about it-
this happens due to trauma again. Jung discovered that we have Persona and Self.
Persona - is kinda like fake mask that help us talking with people. Think of it like Star Trek universal translator - that allows you to communicate with different sorts of aliens - that you talk with their language.
With trauma - being exposed to relentless criticism 24/7 in child age when persona is supposed to develop - we suppress it and it does not develop. Instead we get stuck with toxic shame - which is false self.
Then we do not know how to talk to other people - since the parts of our inner child are locked away and suppressed inside us.
We need to resurrect them alive. Then we will have ability to communicate with people who are new, hysterical, unreasonable, difficult - because with trauma we only have our adult self - that is logical and boring. It has not ability to think with imagination and tries different methods.
"Every one of us has 1000s of little people inside of us. Some of them want to come out and be wild, and some want to be sad or happy, or even just go dancing. That's why we have so many urges at so many different times."
STAR TREK THE NEXT GENERATION, "Cost of living"
I would not self-pathologize ourselves. It leads to neurosis and hypervigilance.
Sometimes it is best not to have conversation.
If we picked up clues that someone is like Amber - it is best to avoid and not talk to borderline aggressive personalities. They are sick and they will destroy us and suck our energy, time and money, since they are parasites.
So not talking and isolating is not always sickness or something wrong. Sometimes it is healthy to avoid toxic people and stay away from them - and to have ability to detect them in the first place. That is why social anxiety is awesome ability that must be accepted, it must not be suppressed or pathologized.
---
People pleasing is symptom of trauma and being exposed to toxic people.
"You don't have to do what you don't want to do"
This works if you have money. If not -
you get thrown out of car,
you get beaten up in the street,
you get fired from the job,
you get yelled and screamed at,
you get mocked,
you get labelled as weird and whatever diagnosis,
you get pathologized.
So - yeah we live in narcissistic sick world that controls our shelter and money to do as we are being told to do - of face the consequences: being abused by sick mentally ill people who even can become presidents in USA as Trump or mafia overlord Orban in Hungary.
People pleasing is not all that bad.
People pleasing works as diplomacy - and if the other person is healthy - they will not tear off your arm when you give them a finger.
So other people are also problem is people pleasing occurs.
I would stay of from self-pathologizing propaganda that narcissistic society tries to cover victims with.
---
(5.7.2022)
Your rules seem very unhealthy and you will built mental imbalance with time.
You miss external factor, manipulative and toxic people.
Yeah, they influence and control us.
"It's better to be an hour early than a minute late"
Once I was kicked out when I came 10 minutes earlier.
"Move before you're motivated"
Where? This seems to me like Jordan Peterson advice to by hysterical - it is like all cars on the road drive fast erratically everywhere - well, what about cars coming from side street? Those cars would never be able to get out - due to everyone being motivated to run everywhere.
Also, what happens when you are not motivated? You will feel bad and depressed for not meeting your perfectionist unrealistic standards.
" If it won't matter in 5 years, don't spend more than 5 min worrying about it"
This is paradox - then nothing matters at all in 5 million years.
Why bother about anything at all?
"Never go to bed angry"
Resentment is bad if you stifle it and pretend it is not there.
This is very bad psychologically destructive rule- I would encourage you to re-think it.
"Never use two words when one will do"
Fixed mindset such as never, shoulds etc leads to hypervigilance, anxiety and false Self mindset.
Life is unpredictable and sometimes we need to do something that we don't usually do.
"Learn to laugh at yourself"
'You disarm everyone around you' - but then the question is why you have armed (toxic) people around you in the first place?
"Give yourself three years to reach big goals"
If those goals are based on those armed people that you chose to be around you - to impress them, it is toxic mindset.
"You are responsible for everything"
This will attract manipulative people who will use your natural mistakes, flaws and ignorance against you -
you will end up being pushover and people pleaser since they will make you feel responsible for everything.
" Never skip a workout two days in a row"
Again, fixed mindset is pathway to mental imbalance.
"Assume the best in people"
Yep, you definitely have codependency issues. It is great to have empathy and to know that we never know what other people are going through - but this does not prevent us from speaking the truth, being objective, being transparent.
If you try to spare someone's feelings by not being authentic - you will actually make them damage - since they will make big mistake eventually. You can always choose to express your truth in kind and reasonable way, without explosions or drama.
---
What does it mean to “accept my anxiety”?
Yeah, it is interesting to hear anxious people what would happen if they accept it.
And it is revealing to learn what we need to overcome anxiety.
The anxiety comes down to being exposed to toxic people - we do not feel being in psychological safety environment.
Fear is coming from someone aggressive, rude, hysterical, violent - someone like Amber who backstabs Johnny Depp with lawsuit and false allegations when he decides to leave her.
I see anxiety as voice from deep within, as Jung and Freud discovered - we have unconscious entity inside us - it is autonomous, it has mind of its own. So anxiety is like from sci fi movie from 2016, mysterious entity that tries to communicate with us but we do not know the language - since it stems from unknown and different dimension, the plot to Arrival movie:
"Louise Banks, a linguistics expert, along with her team, must interpret the language of aliens who have come to Earth in a mysterious spaceship."
Also I see anxiety as a part of Darwin evolution - we need to adapt to it in psychologically speaking healthy terms: that the solution is functional, proper and healthy. Darwin evolution is based on our body reacting to predators - and then it adapts so it is able to avoid predators.
Anxiety is part of our ability to adapt to predatory types of personalities.
So - we can actually test this:
anxious people do not know how to retort to toxic people. Anxious people do not know what to say when they are embarrassed.
Mind is racing fact because of dysregulation: our cortex part of brain is offline and our amygdala hijacks our brain - it is called amygdala hijacking. This means, we observe this as storm - we cannot control it. Once we know about this Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde transformation - we no longer force our amygdala to think like cortex part of brain can - because it can't.
If we force ourselves to relax - we will react to anxiety - and any reaction to anxiety adds up to anxiety and any ritual as response to anxiety will turn into PureOCD, intrusive worries.
Just imagine when you cannot relax - you will have additional neurosis for not being able to relax.
What we can do is to learn what triggers us into panic -
and what can we do to do in life - how to react to danger.
So we can actually learn and educate ourselves about Machiavellians, narcissist, narcissistic abuse and codependency and how to opt out of Karpman Drama Triangle.
We can write - since writing will help us clarify our thoughts.
If we have panic attacks and anxiety - it is clue that we have higher intelligence than most of people - and writing it down helps it to clarify and actually turn on the light in our dark room where our fear lies.
I would not nitpick our subconsciousness or try to correct it or tell it how it should be - it is autonomous and knows more than we know with our logic brain.
"Any attempt to dictate what thoughts, feelings, and sensations are proper or improper creates a breeding ground for guilt and shame"
Peter Levine
As the psychologist Carl Rogers put it “The curious paradox is that when I accept myself, just as I am, then I can change.”
" In 1983, the American philosopher and psychologist Jerry Fodor (b. 1935) reached a stunning conclusion. the mind could not possibly be a single, general-purpose program. instead, it has to be a collection of many special-purpose programs each with its own rules.
According to evolutionary psychology, the various mental modules are
adaptations designed by natural selection. Every adaptation is designed to solve
an adaptive problem. An adaptive problem is something that an organism needs
to solve in order to survive and reproduce.
Avoiding predators is a very important problem from the genes’ point of view.
What would a predator-avoidance module look like? It would have to be able to
detect possible predators, distinguish those that were real dangers from those that
weren’t, and – in the case of real dangers – trigger avoidant or defensive
behaviours.
The first module in the predator-avoidance system would detect possible
predators. With any detection system, however, there is a trade-off between
accuracy and speed. Think of a burglar alarm.
The more accurate the alarm is, the slower it is. Conversely, if you want a faster
alarm, you will have to put up with a higher rate of false alarms."
Introducing Evolutionary Psychology: A Graphic Guide, Dylan Evans, Oscar Zarate
----
(6.7.2022)
This will work in healthy environment and when the other side is not narcissist or manipulator.
Angry person is not always mentally ill, as you talked in your examples.
However there are angry people who are mentally ill, criminal - and when you do not have resources to calm them down.
What then?
People who seek information how to overcome fear of confrontation seek information how to deal with angry people when
1) they cannot be calmed because they are mentally ill
and
2) you cannot cut contact - due to whatever reason (job, service, shelter, help, resources, third party).
What you do when they do not calm down even when you let them know you understand their pain?
There are mentally ill people who feel joy when they inflict mental pain on their targets. You do not talk about these situations.
You assume all people will calm down when you show empathy to them. Well - what to do when the other person does not calm down? And you cannot walk away or block them. What then?
You do not address issues that people seek to understand:
What happens when you put good people in an evil place?
Those in the position of power will naturally use (and abuse) their authority.
Those in a subordinate position will submit to authority.
Normal, healthy people start to behave according to the social roles assigned to them.
It is the power of social situations, rather than the dispositions of people, that leads to evil behaviour.
PHILIP ZIMBARDO
DK THE PSYCHOLOGY BOOK
I think this is due to traditional approach to psychology that lives in fantasy land:
"Liberation psychologists claim that traditional psychology has many inadequacies. It frequently fails to offer practical solutions to social problems; many of its principles developed from artificial settings in wealthy countries, main goal to maximize pleasure rather how to awaken"
DK THE PSYCHOLOGY BOOK
Also, assertiveness is hoax, it is marketing ploy. If we assert ourselves all the time - we will become annoying,. Who would want to listen someone's dislikes all the time, annoying nagging and complaining?
Instead of assertiveness there is moral and ethics - that you speak the truth, you are authentic all the time, objective and when you state facts all the time, being transparent and voice out the elephant in the room.
Regarding fear of confrontation -
it is connected to codependency - belief ingrained due to Complex trauma (being exposed to relentless criticism 24/7 when child mind was developing) and due to toxic programming - you will not become able to form attachment with other people on par - you will develop inferiority complex. This is mindset set on toxic shame - and the anti-dote to toxic shame is self love and self acceptance. Which means - people with fear of confrontation will feel guilt even when they did everything correct - this is due to codependency and toxic shame. Codependents feel responsible to fix other person's emotions -
and your advice goes into that direction. Instead we need to separate our Self from the other person. If someone is screaming and yelling - that person is trying to manipulate the other person.
So - if I try to fix this person's temper tantrums, I will be manipulated and taken advantage of them.
The solution is to state what I can do for them - fair and square
and most obvious - is that I state the elephant in the room: that screaming is not helping.
I found out that retort is not taught in our society at all.
We are instructed in narcissistic society that we handle conflict only in two ways:
1) to be aggressive, with explosions and wars
or
2) to be passive, to be pushover and people pleaser.
As if there is no third way, as if there is no alternative available.
I trust this is because we live in sick, narcissistic society full of greed and mental illness, spoiled children trapped in adult man's body who use their temper tantrum to get what they want in life - and kind , nice, friendly people are allowing them to prosper - since we try to solve things and not to rock the boat. They pull out our limb of interdependence, health and friendliness and beat us up with it.
So I started to make a list of retort how to handle mentally ill people, aggressive jerks who use violence to get what they want in life because they learned that abusing others is super way to manipulate and control normal people. Retort list is:
"You are not helping."
"You are being rude."
"You are being hysterical."
"Stop it."
"What did I do to upset you?"
"I don't know"
"What you expect from me to do or know?"
"How am I suppose to know this"
"What makes you god to order me around or tell me what is correct since you obviously never said it before"
"Why is this my responsibility?"
"I have followed all of x's regulations to the best of my ability."
"Meh!"
"I disagree with you."
"I agree partly with you."
"You are being paranoid."
"I am doing this for the first time, I cannot know it as someone experienced"
"It was your fault for not explaining it to me."
"It's your stuff, not mine."
"I just want to work here, my focus is task - not gossip/paranoia/bias."
"No, you can't."
"I don’t care."
"What you say/do is insidious form of abuse"
"Enough"
"I will not you let me treat me this way "
"You are having inappropriate outbursts of anger"
"You are being jealous of me/my success/being better than you in handling people/problem"
"No, what you are saying/doing is devaluation"
"You feel fake, worthless, inept so you want to feel good by hurting other people"
"What do you want (from me)?"
"I'll do it better next time"
"What is going on with you? What is going on in your head?"
"Is it ok to create drama because of my mistake?
"It does not give you right to scream"
"You have no right to abuse/ yell/ scream"
"Is it true? Is it 100% true? Would I prove that in court of law? Would the whole world agree upon that?"
"Maybe you're the problem."
"You have serious mental problem hidden with hysteria and hate and treating people like crap" "You are sick"
"What you are doing is sick, abnormal, normal people do not do this"
"It takes two to make it all go right
But with you, it's always my fault"
"Unfortunately I am not able to make it."
"Thank you, but unfortunately i cannot make it today."
---
"This made me realize they think I'm a people pleaser because I'm considering their feelings and needs period."
Yes! Think about it more deeply.
People use their definitions and perceptions - and many times these are often wrong - because people are prone to confirmation bias, prejudices, quick jump to conclusions without taking into consideration all available facts.
Problem starts when we believe them and their definitions.
This is signal that we have problem inside us - we see other people as superior, we think they are gods, that their words are authority.
In philosophy we learn that there is no truth. Unless unkind or violent - anything goes in life. There are no absolute truth, and Münchhausen trilemma tells us that nothing can be proven.
Once we understand this - we can as Descartes instructed us - doubt everyone and even our own thoughts and our own conclusions.
For me personally, I always thought that other people are correct, no matter what they said. That is form of people pleasing. I learned that I can actually say: "I disagree with you." And leave it to that.
I was convinced that unless I have absolute 100% of my own opinion, that I am wrong automatically.
It never occurred to me that people are allowed to be whatever they are, unless unkind or violent.
So, I would use in your case: "I disagree with you" argument without fixing their emotions or beliefs. Try it out.
---
6:16 "3F response in conflict"
There is 4F actually.
If you let out Fawning from awareness, you will lose understanding that governs a lot of people who have issues of people pleasing, people with complex trauma and your conclusions will be skewed, as CBT is.
7:38 "Anxious your boss thinks less of you"
There is more Maslow need behind it - material and shelter finances resources.
That you will lose your job if you are honest and authentic.
8:54 "How much does it matter if you are not nice"
This is complex question.
When I was not fawning - my experiences in life was:
- I was thrown out of car (when I said to angry driver's instructor that I cannot drive when he is yelling at me - making mistakes that are natural if you drive for the first time in life)
- I was beaten up in the street (because I tried to cure my social anxiety and avoidance by forcing myself to go out and we met drunken guy who didn't like me smiling)
- I was fired from my job (when I told my boss that it is abnormal for her to trying to change me into "a man" as she believed was her task)
- I was abandoned by kids I used to play with when they mocked me for being "sissy" and this started my social anxiety and avoidance
- I was slapped in face at (for telling I do not care about something)
- I was yelled and screamed at repeatedly when I did not know how to do something, called names and belittled
- I was humiliated publicly and mocked by person in authority and blamed for mistake that I never done at all
So yeah - toxic people will punish you when you are not acting in accordance to their mentally ill vision of world.
So if you decide to not be people pleaser any more - you need to have money to support yourself, to relocate.
So financial issues are connected with it.
I guess in western world these financial issues are often overlooked by therapists who lost their touch with reality:
"Liberation psychologists claim that traditional psychology has many inadequacies. It frequently fails to offer practical solutions to social problems; many of its principles developed from artificial settings in wealthy countries, main goal to maximize pleasure rather how to awaken"
DK THE PSYCHOLOGY BOOK
However I find this question very much liberating:
"How much does it matter if you are not nice"
It will work in healthy environment and this question will heal social anxiety in normal and healthy ambient with psychological security.
Think about Zimbardo experiment - what happens when you are put in evil place, where you need to conform to being nice and people pleaser:
"What happens when you put good people in an evil place?
Those in the position of power will naturally use (and abuse) their authority.
Those in a subordinate position will submit to authority.
Normal, healthy people start to behave according to the social roles assigned to them.
It is the power of social situations, rather than the dispositions of people, that leads to evil behaviour."
PHILIP ZIMBARDO
DK THE PSYCHOLOGY BOOK
What then?
What you do when there are sanctions when you are not people pleaser to mentally ill people who hold some certain resources (job, shelter, money, help, service, third party etc) and you depend on them?
People who are stuck in these types of situations seek for answers what to do then, and you casually claim that is is ok to leave them and cut contact -
but what if you cannot? What then? Can we get a straight answer what to do then?
People pleasing is not all that bad.
People pleasing is form of diplomacy and it allows us to form relationships with difficult detached people.
10:34 "Conflict is often needed"
I would be careful with this statement.
In codependency - conflict is way of life and you get stuck in Karpman Drama Triangle.
If someone is demanding, criticizing all the time - that is not normal.
Long term exposure to narcissistic abuse causes brain injury - google it.
Afterall, Complex trauma is caused by unnecessary conflict that is presented as necessary by mentally ill people.
11:13 "Screaming and yelling"
It seems to me that you are totally unaware of Machiavellians. Dark triad - people who use Dark psychology. Evil, mentally ill people are not always overt aggressive. Some of them are covert, insidious and hard to spot. They use empathy in directed focused, narrow way, they sprinkle their abuse with honeymoon phases - and it is hard to recognize what is going on there.
We need to be aware of that type of predatory personalities, too.
We cannot assume that what people are speaking and how they behave - that we take it all at face value. Sometimes they lie, they act, they have hidden agenda that is not visible to us, until it is too late.
Our mindset to be good and kind and friendly is abused and used by these manipulators.
You need to become aware of these toxic people.
12:00 "You won't be able to build skills necessary when conflict is unavoidable"
Seems to me that you miss information about Complex trauma.
When child is faced with adult hysteria in times when child brain is developing, when child is yelled and screamed at for natural mistakes, when there is relentless exposure to criticism 24/7 - your mind will develop trauma, codependency, people pleasing - your mind will be programmed to fix other person's emotions and thus avoid conflict.
That is why people who have issues with conflict seek and search in videos and topics like this: to learn how to retort.
And you do not offer information to them how to - what to say specifically, how to act,
Also with complex trauma inside you, you will feel irrational guilt even when you deal conflict in totally awesome and correct manner. This is another topic that you are not aware of at all.
Toxic shame is problem with people pleasing - and unfortunately you have no idea about it.
You cannot change people pleaser mindset by magic wand and tell them face conflict.
Because there is hypnosis in the brain to be people pleaser - and we need to unravel it.
12:22 "de-catastrophize your fear of what people will think of you." "So what if that happens"
That is what I am talking about. You are totally unaware of complex trauma, codependency, external reference locus of control and toxic shame internalized inside.
There will be guilt inside.
13:02 "It is not in your best interest to be nice"
Or.. you could get physically attacked, lose your job income money, shelter. Then interest is much larger than choosing not being nice.
Think of Stanford prison experiment.
Would subordinates there be treated better if they were not nice?
13:24 "incremental exposure to things that frighten you"
That will not work in settings such as Stanford prison experiment.
You will get the opposite result: you will become people pleaser and pushover to survive.
Exposure to evil settings will train your mind to be even more afraid of violent authority who can control your shelter and income.
CBT is horrible approach in psychology. I would advice you to check Humanistic psychology instead.
CBT is form of lobotomy, is was intended for criminally insane - similar to fictious Ludovico Technique in Clockwork Orange (1971) - where we see that desensitization will only make you pushover.
13:30 "Make list of everything you fear"
This god awful CBT advice leads to more fears, because you will become aware of more fears, and hypervigilance and anxiety is next.
One more proof that CBT/Ludovico Technique desensitization will only make you pushover.
14:05 "and start working yourself out"
You can't. Confirmation bias keeps us trapped in cave. We cannot become aware of different reality if we are not exposed to it. Similar to fish in water - and other asks how's the water - and the first one will reply - what is water?
14:08 "Telling a man it is bothering me"
Think about it more deeply.
What if you are very intelligent - everything will bother you. Imagine the hell you will cause to other people with your complaints?
What if you are very sensitive - everything will bother you. Imagine how difficult and toxic you will appear to people when you demand perfectionism from them?
It seems to me that your view is very egocentric - since you never been abused - you think all people have natural ability to think how to retort to other people.
So you never showed in your examples - what happens when the other person turns their back and they do not listen to what you want to say?
You do not have example when other person is stubborn and does not respond to logic.
I think this is more problem of Jung and Persona - which you never mentioned here.
---
Evil people will try to rationalize their ways and to silence us into silence.
It is battle between light and dark.
Intelligent and highly sensitive people know that small changes lead to catastrophe - Butterfly effect or domino effect.
We know that rudeness and inconsideration is infectious - and we try not to add it up to already sick world.
What is missed in CBT videos like this that there is better way to respond to toxic people.
Narcissistic society will try to explain us that we can react to toxic people only in two ways:
1) by being rude, with explosions and drama, fight response
or
2) by being passive, shutting up and self censorship, fawning to others.
There is alternative, there is better, third way -
and that is described in Zoroastrianism: be authentic, speak your truth, speak your opinion, your side, be objective, be honest - there is nothing to hide since we are not evil and we have no ill will nor evil agenda. Toxic people hate transparency since it exposed their evil self inside, their evil plans - and that is why they are toxic.
If we voice out the elephant in the room (something that is obvious but nobody speaks it) we will find our third way how to deal with abusive people.
And it does come with the cost.
Amber sued Johnny Depp when he decided to leave her. Toxic people will do everything to hurt us when we cut their narcissistic supply - we will need money to cut contact - so this people pleasing is also socio-economic issue.
---
"Reduce anxiety by becoming aware of this bias"
Nope.
You will cause the opposite result:
The self-absorption paradox describes the contradictory association whereby higher levels of self-awareness are simultaneously associated with higher levels of psychological distress and with psychological well-being. Wikipedia
Anxiety is message from deep withing that tries to communicate with us, but it cannot give us message in logical way, since it stems from unconsciousness.
Think of it like sci fi movie from 2016 Arrival: Louise Banks, a linguistics expert, along with her team, must interpret the language of aliens who have come to Earth in a mysterious spaceship.
If we see anxiety as danger - we will create rituals against it and we will end up with OCD and more anxiety. That is egocentric thinking - since you are unable to observe anxiety from the different angle.
"in reality most do not pay close attention"
Well, the social anxiety problem are exactly toxic people who do pay close attention.
With social anxiety we have ability to detect and spot toxic people who do pay close attention.
Then anxiety starts to be as smoke alarm detector - we have ability to detect fake people, people who are manipulative, who control others through gaslighting - they need every detail about you to gaslight others - that is why they pay attention.
So social anxiety can become our friend, ally - how to deflect and cut contact with toxic people immediately - while they still cannot cause damage later on.
---
"You are your own abuser. You're the person saying you're worthless, you're the person saying you're unlovable, never amount to anything. You are in your own mental prison talking trash to yourself a lot of times."
that is internalized Toxic shame.
It is pervasive - because we are not explained that since the day we are born we built up house inside ourselves - which contains Self, Persona, Shadow and other Jung archetypes.
With toxic shame (when we are exposed to relentless criticism 24/7 when growing up) we do not build Self - and instead we run simulation of Self, it is False self.
That is why there is self blame and self abuse - it is stemming from this false image inside us, imposter, hallucination that appears real to us - and nobody explain us that we need to have True Self inside.
And we have no idea that we are not being Real.
We have no idea that we are fake.
We go along with our thoughts and we fuse them with our behaviour - which is toxic shame:
that we equate behaviour with self worth. Our mistakes become our character -
and we belittle ourselves when we make mistakes, when we have flaws and lack of information - we automatically equate these with us being bad person.
That happens when we grow up in toxic environment, with someone who was untreated mentally ill and had access to children's mind.
Instead of learning self love and self acceptance we were toxically ashamed when growing up and we stifled parts of our persona down. We need to seek these repressed parts and bring it out alive, in the light.
Often times we were being told that we are arrogant when we would speak our opinion. Then we pathologized our honesty - and replaced with logic, adult parts - that are unable to handle difficult people who are kids trapped in adult body. Logic cannot deal with darkness in functional, proper, healthy manner. We need all parts of our Self to be active and running to deal with difficult, scary, unknown situations, events and people in life.
Paradox is that without abuse - we would not comprehend this False Self issue.
We would logically understand it, but it would be hard to grasp how can someone fuse action with self worth.
Then this poses problem later in life - for people who were never abused - they are prone to be manipulated and taken advantage - since they are unable to recognize red flags.
Toxic people exploit our mistakes, flaws and ignorance, they exploit our need to make friendships, peace and diplomacy, our urge to do task without harming anyone - against us and they pull our empathy out and beat us up with it.
And people who never been abused - who grew up in healthy environment - will not understand what is going on.
They will have no ability to detect virus or parasites that is destroying them from inside out. They will be prone to conformism and herd mentality that can lead to Milgram experiment - and thus unwittingly giving supply and support to narcissists and abusers.
---
"Shame can make you hide things that you need to expose. "
Yep.
Complex trauma makes it complex.
When we are constantly criticized 24/7 when growing up, we do not develop Jung's Self. Instead we build simulation of Self, False Self - toxic shame - and we are not aware we do not have self worth - instead there is imposter inside.
Then we get trapped in codependency because we are not able to know what we truly love, want and accept.
These parts get thwarted and skewed due to toxic shame internalized inside.
Toxic people will use our urge not to harm others - and we will end up with being perfectionist.
They do this hypnosis by nitpicking and criticizing our natural mistakes, flaws and ignorance. And we think they are helping us - by nitpicking our actions - instead we end up being immobile and passive - we think other people must tell us how to do something, since they will use double binding to force us believe in our guilt.
Toxic people are here crucial element - with toxic shame we attract them and we stick in toxic ambient.
---
"social anxiety disorder as something positive"
Seems to me that you are mixing up the social anxiety terms which CBT meshes up deliberately so that corporation can make money out of desperate people:
1) Shyness - it is feeling social threat feelings at some social event, but social fear wear off quickly and shy person is not bothered by it again
2) Social anxiety - it is feeling of social threat before the event, during event and after event. Fears do not wear off and you keep ruminating about it. This is due to trauma, condition called CPTSD and it is not hallucination neither delusion nor illusion.
3) Social anxiety disorder - it is feeling of social threat at safe events, when you know that person around you will not harm you. For example in safe, empty room, and you are with Oprah or Mandela or Mother Theresa or Gandhi - the safest person you can ever imagine - but you still feel threat that they might harm you. This condition is part of Paranoid Delusional Disorder, and only 1% of population has it.
4) Narcissistic disorder - it is feeling of social threat triggered when someone warns and alarms you for being intrusive. Due to confirmation bias you are not realizing that you are rude and arrogant and intrusive - so you conclude that you feel social anxiety due to unknown reason from random people.
5) Autistic disorder - you live in your world and you are not aware that you appear threatening to people, for example you do not say Hi to them or smile back to them. So you feel social anxiety because you feel tense and awkward in social situations and you have no idea why.
Now people will google their social fear symptoms and Google will misdiagnose them all and direct them to Social anxiety disorder.
Also, CBT (as main default social anxiety therapy) will do the same - it lumps all different conditions into one - hallucinations. CBT means self help books and online resources such as this video.
If we ever pay attention to the small print - we will see that the therapist is the one who can diagnose us with social anxiety, when all other comorbidities are excluded
"seek help to combat it."
Yet, Jung said: "What resists, persists"
Every single OCD advice will tell you to accept anxiety.
Even CBT third wave called DBT is based on acceptance, not on self-pathologizing your panic symptoms.
" Anxiety disorder is rooted in events of overwhelming adversity."
Sure, if there was trauma , there will be triggers and dysregulation.
The trauma is not invention of someone - it is the result of abuse.
There is abuser who is causing trauma.
Long term narcissistic abuse causes brain injury - google it.
"But daily life is not overwhelmingly hostile to us."
Yet, if you were abused in the childhood (being exposed to relentless criticism 24/7 and being exposed to adult hysteria) you will now spot hostile people easily - even at the detail of recognizing it in its infancy stage.
"And relying on anxiety to guide your behavior is unhealthy and will drastically reduce your overall life quality. "
If you transform this anxiety as guidance - then you can choose to become scientist and seek for objective facts - is there danger. Recognizing red flags.
" You are likely to misclassify people as "toxic" or "fake" because you are wired to do so - even when under usual standards they aren't."
In the same time if you are unable to recognize toxic people out there, you will be manipulated and taken advantage of.
There are predatory personalities out there, no matter how much you like to make yourself believe that you are safe.
"Third wave CBT"
"Rather than focusing on reducing symptoms—though this is a
benefit—they help the client step away from unhelpful thoughts."
"Two therapies that come under the third wave CBT umbrella are ACT
(acceptance and commitment therapy) and DBT (dialectical behavior therapy)."
"They see us as timid, shy, weak, or unsociable. Fearing these labels, we try to be like others. But that leads to our becoming overaroused and distressed. Then that gets us labeled neurotic or crazy, first by others then by ourselves.
The Highly Sensitive Person, Elaine N. Aron"
"Sooner or later everyone encounters stressful life experiences, but HSPs react more to such stimulation. If you see this reaction as part of some basic flaw, you intensify the stress already present in any life crisis.
This deeper processing of subtle details causes you to consider the past or future more. You "just know" how things got to be the way they are or how they are going to turn out. It can be wrong, but your intuition is right often enough that HSPs tend to be visionaries, more conscientious, cautious and wise people.
It is important not to confuse arousal with fear.
And often we think that our arousal is due to fear. We do not realize that our heart may be pounding from the sheer effort of processing extra stimulation.
I really suggest trying to view it as neutral.
HSPs must spend far more time trying to invent solutions to human problems just because they are more sensitive to hunger, cold, insecurity, exhaustion, and illness.
Since most non-HSPs do not seem to enjoy thinking about such things, they assume we must be unhappy doing all that pondering.
Spend enough time putting yourself out there in the world - your sensitivity is not something to be feared.
Carl Jung believed that when highly sensitive patients has experienced a trauma, they had been unusually affected and so developed a neurosis.
Preferring toughness, the culture sees our trait as something difficult to live with, something to be cured. HSPs differ mainly in their sensitive processing of subtle stimuli. This is your most basic quality."
The Highly Sensitive Person, Elaine N. Aron
---
"I feel this in my soul..."
Correct,
and narcissistic society will brainwash us into self-pathologizing ourselves,
with toxic shame internalized inside us, we are easier to control and to exploit.
Paradoxically,
whenever we would protest, we would feel ashamed for being people pleaser. We would feel guilt for being normal, kind, friendly and open and being diplomatic.
So borderline narcissists will try to turn us into them, having hard core resentment for other people and ourselves.
All people have their caprices, perks, quirks, particularities.
If we allow other people to label us and then fix and modulate our personality - this is very dangerous and it leads to being subservient to loud parasites who live off other people 's energies by creating drama out of nothing.
Unless unkind or violent - there is nothing wrong with us, there is nothing to fix.
The only problem are violent and unkind people - not us.
---
Problem starts with the other side -
person who turns their back so they do not listen to you at all.
Or person being stubborn and not listening to you at all.
Or person nitpicking your mistakes, flaws and ignorance - and thus they hypnotize, gaslight and manipulate you into feeling guilt and they thus try to make you feel responsible for their feelings - which glues you into codependency and Karpman Drama Triangle.
When we are put in position to be assertive - that happens because there is mentally ill person on the other side: narcissist, parasite, Machiavellian who does not want to cooperate, does not want to reach agreement, does not want interdependent healthy relationship with others - there is only their way or highway.
Sure you can always cut contact with such toxic people -
however in real life these kind of predatory types of personalities mangle their way into power, so often you need something from them - job, service, help, finances, shelter, third party - whatever, there is a reason why you cannot cut contact with such people - and you became slave to them.
So when anyone talks about "assertiveness" there should be clarification how to deal with impossible situations - when you need to stand up for yourself - at the risk of being fired or being denied of some paper, object or goal that this person is holding and blackmailing you into submission and subservience. Unfortunately, "assertiveness" mentors totally miss this problem and they focus on our natural ability that we all have and sell it as assertiveness: being honest, authentic, being objective, transparent, voicing out the elephant in the room.
---
"What would be the best strategies to improve?"
There is nothing to improve.
Social anxiety is result of being exposed to trauma, long term narcissistic abuse.
The problem are toxic people, narcissists, manipulators, emotional vampires, aggressive borderliners - not survivors of their abuse.
Check out Little Albert Experiment.
Social anxiety is hypnosis - being conditioned to fear people - because we were exposed to mentally ill people who abused us over long period of time, often during growing up when our persona and self were evolving.
---
In toxic environment, aggressive person will prosper.
We cannot dismiss toxic ambient as important clue.
Assertive girl will simply be ignored in such environment. She may start to babble what she likes or dislikes - and the person in charge will simply turn their back and not listen to her at all.
---
It does not work, because:
1) person who has issues with assertiveness have toxic shame internalized inside.
This means there is False Self inside - which means - needs and wants are lensed through external referencing: approval and recognition and validation of other people.
2) people who have issues with assertiveness were raised in toxic environment (complex trauma) where they were programmed and conditioned to say yes frequently and to feel intense guilt when saying no.
3) people with assertive issues are already zoomed onto how other people perceive them. If they start to watch out their fillers, they will never say anything at all.
4) good posture is hard to maintain if you are in toxic environment - it is due to amygdala hijacking where cortex brain is switched off - which will render any tips about posture or fillers useless due to amnesia - cortex brain is offline
5) person with toxic shame and external referencing need to learn self acceptance and find internal locus of control - then speaking doesn't matter from where it comes from. If person with assertive issues starts to pathologize own speaking and belly - it will add up to new neurosis and new fears
6) when people need to be assertive - it is a sign that on the other side is toxic person - narcissist - which means parasites are egocentric, so whatever you say, do and use will not be noted by stubborn and mentally ill people who live in their own fantasy world where they are center of the universe. Matching word and gestures will be futile.
7) People with assertiveness issues due to toxic shame, complex trauma and exposure to long term narcissistic abuse cannot know their values, much less set any boundaries- since both were destroyed by toxic, untreated mentally ill people in their ambience over long period of time.
The only problem are toxic people -
we cannot change ourselves to crap fit into mentally ill people's world.
As Lundy Bancroft said:
"Abuse is NOT caused by bad relationship dynamics. You can't manage your partner's abusiveness by changing your behaviour. But he wants you to think you can."
----
My central point is that in healthy ambient - there is no confrontation - at least not the emotional one.
You argue with someone but it is soon forgotten since there is no sadism. Thus there is no trauma.
We notice conflict and confrontation and we notice problem with expressing our opinion or argument - only when there is untreated mentally ill person on the other side, someone stubborn - egocentric:
overt narcissist, sociopath, sadist, psychopath, parasite, passive aggressive narcissist or covert narcissist, altruistic narcissist, emotional vampire, aggressive borderliner.
So conflict itself is a sign there is mental illness there we are facing on the other side.
Good, kind, healthy people are open for cooperation and to listen each other, it is not pattern and most people will avoid conflict -
mentally ill people do not have this ability - only greed and egocentrism - and conflict will occur since they do not have part of brain - amygdala - that is functioning, there is no empathy.
So regarding conflict - we basically need to know how to retort to mentally ill people, sadistic person who is living in their private, autistic fantasy world.
---
(8.7.2022)
5:45 "Embrace who you are"
I aggree.
Ross Rosenberg (author of Human Magnet) claims that codependency does not exist. The true problem is lack of self love, there is no self worth - that causes behaviour that we may label as codependency. He says that we need to work on self-acceptance - since with complex trauma we were conditioned like Pavlovian dogs or Little Albert Experiment into self blame and self criticism and inferiority complex - observing other people as gods, while we are inept.
---
We are told by CBT that the threat is hallucination and that we can influence abusive people with our own thoughts - they call it ABC model - where we change our thought and we will change our reaction to the abuse and physical assault - of course this is abnormal approach.
You are talking here about natural response - be as tall as loud as you can to scare bully away.
Many people with social anxiety are told by CBT (which is main therapy for social anxiety) to self blame and self-pathologize feelings of fear when faced with mentally ill people such as bullies and other sadists.
So this is great tip for kids that can work with adults too.
---
What happens when intrusive thoughts are indeed connected to abuse and abusive situations?
We never get answer from CBT about those situations.
For example, if Johnny Depp rejected and smothered his intrusive thoughts about Amber, he would never leave her - and now he would be broke, he would be labelled as abuser by the whole world and his movie career would be over - simply because he'd ignore his intrusive thoughts.
Certain predatory personalities - sadist and other mentally ill people such as narcissists are very crafty in manipulation and gaslighting - meaning we end up doubting our own mind and we end up with self blame and self-pathologizing and rationalizing their abuse as something normal or our own fault.
I learned that if we feel anxiety and intrusive thoughts - that these are actually red flags. There is someone who is predatory -
we simply need to become scientist, or like Sherlock Holmes and look for clues -
when triggers occur.
I guess in most cases there is Complex Trauma behind it -
which means being exposed to relentless criticism 24/7 when growing up, when our persona and self and personality was developing - so now we doubt our own mind and our own natural reaction to criticism, bullies or psychopaths - and we lump all these together in one symptom of PureOCD.
We need to deconstruct what happened in our trauma childhood and start allowing ourselves to react naturally to intrusive people, instead of self pathologizing ourselves, as CBT instructs us.
---
Yeah, during childhood I was bullied - and bullying built up and up until at around I was 12 it caused me social anxiety and avoidance issues that I still struggle with being 45 now.
Most of my years I tried CBT to deal with anxiety (since CBT is main default therapy for social anxiety and thus it is in all self help books and online resources) and I ended up with being people pleaser, being pushover.
For example,
I would be in job situations where I would be accused of something I did not do - and I would never defend myself, instead I would self-censor myself or even smile - since I did not know how to retort - and in the same time CBT instructed me to believe that I am delusional if I feel attacked and that there are no toxic people out there, that I must have empathy for them and see them as wounded and leave them be without doing anything about it.
Your advice would help be as kid and save me decades spent on avoidance and hiding from the world.
No one explained it like that to me - neither as kid nor as adult, that I am allowed to defend myself by retort.
Instead we are inundated by being civil and "assertive" - while bullies are not civil and they do not follow unwritten social etiquette - and then people like me get stuck with wrong advice in life.
I actually came to the conclusion for the past 2 years that I might stand up for myself (I read Dr Aziz book about not being too nice any more) but feelings of toxic shame prevents me from "being loud".
So your video will help in so much ways that you might not be even aware.
---
(11.7.2022)
Performance anxiety is not social anxiety.
Social anxiety is connected to situation when someone might yell and scream at you and you cannot handle their temper tantrums - since social anxiety is connected to CPTSD.
Prescribing drugs is horrible and lazy approach to any psychological issue connected with social fears.
Like many CBT therapists, CBT muddles social anxiety fears.
Shyness - when you feel social fears but it soon wears off when you go to event
Performance anxiety - when you feel social fears when performing in public
Social anxiety - part of complex trauma and you feel triggers and flashbacks before, during and after social events
Social anxiety disorder - linked to Paranoid delusional disorder - this is when you feel social fears even at safe ambient with safe people
Narcissistic disorder - you are rude to other people but you rationalize this to yourself to be macho and strong
Autistic disorder - you are closed in your own world so you do not notice other people saying Hi to you and you do not interact with people, then you feel social fears as if other people hate you and you do not know why.
Google and CBT lumps all these together and treat it like social anxiety disorder.
CBT does not explain what happen when you are in abusive situation with someone who is toxic.
CBT does not acknowledge trauma, toxic shame, external reference locus of control - and instead it is focused on panic symptoms - which only makes anxiety worse: What you resist, persist.
9:30 "Cognitive distortions that feed your fears"
Everyone has cognitive distortions - this is not endemic to social anxiety. It is called Confirmation bias and logical fallacies.
With social anxiety there are Safety mechanisms, learned in childhood to survive the verbal and psychological abuse. This is normal reaction to abnormal situation, abnormal people and abnormal events.
CBT thus adds up to trauma, it re-traumatize the survivors of abuse and it adds up to toxic shame: by self-pathologizing survivor's symptoms.
9:45 "Exposure desensitize you"
Without working on trauma - desensitization leads to people pleasing and being pushover.
10:24 "You go to small gathering and you fear small talk"
She is describing here shyness.
She mixes up social anxiety with other fears. Social anxiety is fear of criticism and negative evaluation. It is connected to toxic people and inability to find psychological safety in toxic ambient- where you are not problem, other people are toxic.
10:58 "Small talk"
Here she explains route for shyness issues. This is not social anxiety.
Instead of CBT, there is Humanistic therapies - which narcissistic society suppresses since there is no money if you are healed from trauma.
12:17 "Order before than"
Yep, this is marketing ploy.
Altruistic narcissist making money on people who seek help.
"Altruistic narcissists fly under the radar because of their ability to fool people. They hide behind seemingly “good deeds” and friendly smiles, while hurting those close to them or plotting somebody’s downfall."
---
"Anxiety is not natural. "
That is incorrect.
What you resist, will persist.
Even the third wave of CBT, called DBT will tell you to accept anxiety.
"When someone is nasty, they are only acting according to their limited knowledge and capability"
As Mia Farrow wrote on twitter yesterday, she said: Hatred is not mental illness. It is not something you can hide behind and hurt other people without consequences.
Exposure to long term narcissistic abuse causes brain injury - google it.
What do you suggest to do with criminals - that we let them out of jails and sanitoriums to roam free?
If you abuse someone, that is criminal act. It is not something you ignore or pretend it does not exist.
"There is no need to blame or judge them, a rude person is basically confessing that they have a mental disability."
You are lumping blame with being aware you are with toxic person. This is common for someone who is brainwashed with CBT. You can actually love all people and be candor with them and warn and alert them when they cross their boundaries. You are not obliged to shut up and self-censor yourself to be "good" person. You can still be good person and cut contact with toxic people.
" So there is no need for you to be affected, if anything you should be happy that you are not toxic. "
Long term exposure to narcissistic abuse causes brain injury. So, you are affected by toxic people, like it or not.
You can be happy and in the same time be aware of toxic people. You are convinced that you must be chirpy and happy all the time, that is unhealthy. If something bothers you, if someone is rude, you are allowed to be angry about it. You can express your anger in proper, healthy and functional way.
" Don't put a rude person in control of your emotions, that makes you their slave"
Paradox is when you speak this words, you are putting rude person in control of your emotions - you are still slave to them. You choose to ignore them, and that makes them to command and to control you, without you being aware of it.
Also - CBT is obviously does not deal or explain this subject - and it is connected deeply to the core to social anxiety.
Question that socially anxious people seek is how to deal and manage toxic people without becoming slave to them, how to retort in functional and healthy manner -
ignoring is still form of reaction to toxic people.
You simply end up being pushover and people pleaser - that is how CBT ended up for me.
I explained any rude person as hallucination - and I did nothing.
I was accused of untrue things and I smiled back to them - that is not healthy. You end up last in line and your self esteem gets damaged when you choose to do that.
You can retort back to toxic people without becoming their slave.
Ignoring toxic person is part of inferiority complex - so you are making yourself to be slave when you choose not to do something to someone who is aggressive and predatory.
"As the toxic person is really a victim of his lack of proper upbringing, there is no need to hate or be angry with them "
Who is talking about hate? You are projecting your own resentment on others.
Resentment is the key here.
IF you hide resentment - it will not go away, resentment will fester. Rancour can turn you into mentally ill and both physically ill. You acknowledge the resentment and choose to deal with it in healthy manner, without drama, explosions or avoidance or hiding. There is better way - and CBT does not explain how.
Humanistic therapies and Complex trauma information explains how.
" if anything they deserve pity and compassion for their condition."
Think about real life situations:
if you are in a room with serial killer, would your pity and compassion help?
If you are Johnny Depp - would his pity help him if he had chosen to stay with Amber? He would be broke now, without finances, his movie career would be over and he would be labeled as abuser by the whole world.
If you are Ukraine - would your pity towards Putin help him stop invading your country?
IF you are Poland in WW2 would your compassion towards nazis help not concentration camps being built?
You can have pity and compassion and still express your anger in healthy, functional and proper manner.
Hiding the resentment will make you ill.
You are perfect example how CBT is non-effective and extremely dangerous for mental health.
CBT was invented to lobotomize criminally insane - it was band aid therapy, that is effective only for a couple of hours for someone hysterical to calm them down. Anxious people are collateral damage victims to CBT government ploy to lobotomize small percentage of population which is criminally insane.
CBT is like fictious Ludovico technique from Clockwork Orange movie (1971).
Anyone who is still supporting CBT after this information is like Milgram Experiment - you are keep electrifying the other person just because someone told you to do it - even though you know it is hurting the target.
Conformism and herd mentality are cancer of society.
Social anxiety is ability to sniff out predatory types of toxic people.
---
OK, you are starting to make progress.
The next step is to realize that there are predatory types of personalities out there.
The reason we have social anxiety is because we are made aware of toxic people -
due to Complex trauma experiences when growing up.
So natural next step - is to learn how to deal and manage difficult people in proper, healthy, functional manner - without explosions, without wars, without drama, without isolation and without withdrawal..
I learned that if I did not have social anxiety - I would still retain much of lifestyle I have today - I would still prefer quiet company and I would not like crowds much.
We must not equate being party animal with being psychologically healthy. Just because someone is extroverted - this is not sign of mental health.
We must not self pathologize our soul, our traits, our perks, quirks, particularities, likes and dislikes - this makes ourself as person.
Social anxiety is part of Complex Trauma.
Any fears are triggers and flashbacks that root back to original trauma-
as kids we did not know how to deal with narcissistic abuse.
That is our calling - to learn how to handle, manage and deal with toxic people -
when to cut contact, when to relocate, without drama, without explosions, without isolation.
We can care for other people and still allow ourselves to speak the truth and cut contact with certain people who are obviously toxic.
I would go in that direction.
Subconsciousness is not our enemy. It is corrective measure - that leads us to our destiny and building up the person who we truly are, our authentic self.
See social anxiety as lighthouse in dark waters, not as something to scare us away from sailing.
---
The next obvious step is to learn how to deal with critical and obnoxious people.
Social anxiety is fear of criticism and negative evaluation - therefore it is natural for us to learn how to deal with narcissistic abuse in functional, proper, healthy manner, without explosions, without drama, without withdrawal and without isolation.
For example - to document the abuse and then make plans to cut contact, change job and leave the abuser.
Long term exposure to narcissistic abuse can cause brain injury - google it.
Socially anxious people are kind and nice, they value social life a lot - hence so much anxiety about social situations.
When we are open to society - we will attract toxic and unhealthy people in our lives, predators and narcissists who will create Karpman Drama Triangle -
so healing social anxiety means accepting social anxiety as guidance, as inner GPS - to learn how to handle toxic people and opt out of Karpman Drama Triangle situations which are common in social life when there are sick, abusive and criminally insane predators.
---
Presentation is not social anxiety. That is special kind of fear, not related to social anxiety. It is called Performance anxiety.
Social anxiety stems from trauma, being verbally abused in childhood, being exposed to relentless criticism and adult hysteria when child brain was not able to handle it and process it in healthy manner - since it has no inner resources to sustain it.
"People who judge don't matter"
Unfortunately there are really toxic people out there who like drama - and they seek ways to trigger you into responding to them- some of them will get you fired, so it is good to know how to handle toxic people in healthy, proper, functional manner.
Social anxiety stems from internalized toxic shame - so feeling of guilt is crucial element of trauma that is behind social anxiety.
This means, you can do the most perfect thing in dealing with toxic judgmental people - and you will still feel internalized irrational guilt. And you cannot shake it off.
That is social anxiety.
It is connected to CPTSD and healing trauma means healing social anxiety.
I see social anxiety as help, as a guidance, as indicator, as smoke alarm detector - it tries to signal you that you miss and lack certain tools how to handle difficult social situations.
There are functional ways how to retort to judgmental people. If you decide to ignore them - we will stifle down our resentment - that is highly dangerous for our mental and physical health. If you decide not to do anything about toxic people - toxic people will interpret this passivity as green light to continue the abuse. In the same time, our toxic shame will interpret this as inferiority complex and we will spiral down into passivity and it will destroy our self worth. We will stay locked inside the mental prison of toxic shame.
For example,
we can always say to someone "I disagree with you".
We can handle the bully by shouting back and making ourselves larger than them.
So it is about evaluating with whom we are dealing with-
social anxiety is inability to make precise estimation about social situation - due to complex trauma we were programmed to be subservient and passive - we were punished when we tried to express ourselves every time - so we were trained like circus animals and Pavlovian dogs into fear and subordination and inferiority complex.
We never learned how to retort and deal with toxic people.
And this inability will attract toxic people in our lives - predatory types of personality sniff us out very easily - that is because they work on the opposite - they were also abused in childhood however they made conscious decision to be evil and to exploit others.
We are perfect match to them - since we have empathy and we want peace and interdependence - toxic people exploit this.
Those who never were abused cut contact immediately with such toxic predators, we don't. We stay with toxic people and we get hooked on honeymoon periods and being acknowledged.
Trauma is being invalidated - so we seek validation from others. That is what makes toxic people stuck with us. They artificially provide this validation that we seek from others.
Due to toxic shame we are unable to provide self love and validation to ourselves.
---
Mask is not that bad.
Mask is natural -
perhaps our real Self is boring to the most of people. So we need to enhance it to create connection with others.
Mask is not necessarily connected to being insecure so you hide it with mask:
If we have high intelligence - we will be boring to 99 percent of people. You cannot be true to them, since we would bore them to death with facts and things that interest us truly - while it is dull fest to them. In such case, we need to be considerate to dumb people in this case if we want them around us.
If we are highly sensitive - we will find 99% of people intolerable. So we need mask to handle loud, obnoxious, narcissistic and egocentric society.
Perhaps we are neutral - in that case - 99% of people will find us boring. We need mask to interact with other people if we want friends, connections, sex needs.
I see mask as Star trek universal translator - in order to communicate with aliens who talk in their own language.
Without is we would not know or acknowledge their world and we would not show respect to others.
Yes, mask can be exploited as tool to manipulate other people into liking them. It can be used as tool to get information from others.
Mask can be used as superiority - to hurt others who are deemed as weak or boring or loser.
I agree - in that case mask is false. It is detrimental.
but that is only in cases when there is someone who is criminally insane.
They will use anything in life to hurt and abuse other people, not only the mask.
We can be authentic and have mask in the same time.
We can express ourselves with our mask on.
We can be honest and still have mask on.
We can speak truth and speak it through our mask.
I would never go in direction of self-pathologizing ourselves. It will create toxic shame - and toxic shame is hallucination and it is road to mental imbalance and fake Self - which you mix up with Mask.
When we are aware of Mask concept - we can handle social anxiety better - since we will break off hypnosis that rude and obnoxious and loud people are like that - nope - these rude people only have mask on. They are inferior behind it.
True Self can have mask.
Yeah, you are mixing up mask with fake Self.
Trauma and abuse make us create toxic shame and fake self. It is hallucination, it is hologram of Self. Illusion of self worth based on clouds, there is nothing firm behind it.
That is conditioning and hypnosis that you are speaking here. It is fake Self. This is not Mask.
---
I see AvPD as part of Complex Trauma:
Being exposed to relentless criticism 24/7 and adult hysteria when child brain is unable to cope with it in any other way than creating safety mechanisms.
Seems to me like you are confusing social anxiety fears - since official medical community is making big pharma money by creating confusion about neurosis and then selling drugs to heal it.
Shyness - when person feels social fears but it soon wears off and you do not think about it.
Social anxiety - when you feel social fears all the time due to negative evaluation and criticism and you ruminate about it.
Social anxiety disorder - when you feel fear even with safe people in environment that is safe - and it is part of paranoid delusional disorder.
Narcissistic disorder - when you feel social fears but due to egocentrism you do not realize that you are rude to others so when others alarm you about your abusive behaviour, you feel social fears - and have no idea why they are rude to you
Autistic disorder - when you live in your world - but you do not realize that people are rude to you because you do not smile back to them or you do not say Hi back to them when they greet you - since you are not aware of other people around you and what they are doing.
All these groups google their symptoms and they get mislabeled and misdiagnosed with social anxiety disorder - thus get wrong information.
It seems to me you never had AvPD at all -
avoidants don't have jobs with customers, and they don't have friends.
Unfortunately medical community will enhance our neurosis and our fears - they are making big money out of mis-labelling our experiences and traumas - to make money out of our needs.
AvPD is connected to inability to react to toxic people.
You are speaking how you realized to find self worth - that is all great - but that is not AvPD.
AvPD is toxic shame internalized inside you, and it is being in toxic environment - and not being able to move away from it due to codependency issues and inferiority complex. Toxic people have a lot of influence in AvPD - there is external factor.
You never speak here
how you retort to difficult people. how you handle narcissistic abuse. How you defend yourself when you are accused of something untrue.
How you stand up for yourself when you are blamed for your natural mistakes, flaws and ignorance.
Irrational guilt that is programmed inside - that is AvPD, it is hypnosis - that you cannot shake off by watching You tube channels about some guy talking about fears and shyness.
There are toxic predatory types of personalities out there -
AvPD - think of it as cocoon against that threat. Until you master your ability to handle mentally ill aggressive people, you have this protection shield around you.
AvPD is not something you reject and feel disgust with, it is not a choice - it is subconscious tool to help you deal with trauma.
If you break you leg. you will not dance the next day - you will be at rest, immobile and avoid any activity.
That is AvPD: it is normal reaction to abnormal people, abnormal events and abnormal situations.
That is why I think you never had AvPD - you had bad experiences with toxic people, and luckily enough, it did not affect your persona, your Self, you did not develop toxic shame and internalized irrational guilt inside.
The avoidance is not the problem.
The only problem is trauma, not being aware of trauma and not taking care of yourself - you put other people on pedestal due to codependency issues, lack of self love. That is Avoidant Personality Disorder and social anxiety.
---
@Esther Omotola Oyinloye She is just horrible person.
Antagonistic and without ability to handle criticism - I think she needs treatment herself, very much borderline and narcissistic.
Licensed professional therapists have consideration and patience and they listen to others, they do not get hysterical or ignore them.
She acts like a little spoiled brat when you take a toy out of their hands. There is a lot of altruistic narcissism in such sick people.
I explained it all - it is like Milgram Experiment.
You know that your words are hurting others and it causes them pain - but you still do it because someone in charge told you it is good.
CBT caused me to be people pleaser and have pushover issues.
I was accused of something I did not do - and I would smile back and shut up to abuse.
That is what CBT is doing to the abuse survivors. CBT says that toxic people do not exist and that abuse is hallucination.
CBT is covert government invented tool for lobotomizing the criminally insane, and anxious people are here the collateral damage to this agenda.
There is humanistic therapies - that actually work for social anxiety and any anxiety.
And it was invented before CBT.
However we live in corrupt, narcissistic deceptive society that is making money out of our traumas.
It is like Trumps are running the world, cause trauma, abuse everyone - and then explain us that we are hallucinating it.
---
At first it seemed to me like you mislabeled avpd,
yet
AvPD is about being trapped and yelled at and screamed at - other people throwing temper tantrums.
From that angle, yeah, it is avoidance issue.
However,
Where I came from people are toxically ashamed as part of lifestyle - instead of masturbation - you are being ashamed for natural and normal everyday mistakes, flaws (which can even be external, out of your control) and ignorance (not knowing some job or task -since you do not have 30 years of experience behind it so you cannot know).
That criticism messes up toxic shame inside and personality disorder is born - not being able to handle toxic people.
I try to see connection with masturbation and general everyday criticism that is behind AvPD.. I can't.
---
Criticism in childhood is extremely damaging to our psyche.
It destroys natural construction of Self, Shadow and Mask. Instead we build up Toxic shame, false Self - and that internalized toxic shame is basically self hate, self hatred, invalidation, we reject our Self - then we crave external validation and approval from others.
Anti dote to toxic shame is self acceptance, self love, self validation, it seems to me that you are on that path.
I see it like this:
We got to get to the point where we see negative events and toxic people as invaluable stream of valuable data - not to approve it, not because we deserve it - but to learn from it and that we have knowledge not repeat it ourselves, it is knowledge which way to go in life by avoiding toxic behaviour we were exposed to.
Avoidance is cocoon that we protect ourselves with - until we learn how to deal with difficult people and difficult situations which scared us into avoidance and submission.
---
"People still act like kids as adults, yet somehow they are always the ones in charge. I've been told high school is where that behavior ends. Not true."
Yeah!
And social anxiety - due to complex trauma (being exposed to relentless criticism and adult hysteria while growing up) - we are unable to deal with difficult people and difficult situations.
This happens due to internalized toxic shame - where we are programmed to doubt ourselves and see other people as gods and superior to us,
We were hypnotized into submission and subservience like Pavlovian dogs or being inside Skinner's box where we were trained like circus animals to reject our Self and seek approval and validation from others-
Where most people are illogical, if not corrupt at worst.
I see social anxiety as being arrested in development. We were pushed to reject and repress our childish parts - and now we are too much adult, we rely too much on our logic - and this is causing social anxiety - since we have not child parts inside our mentality, inside our personality to counteract to illogical adults. We do not know how to handle them - since we are too much logical. We do not allow ourselves to resort to childish imagination and childish responses - which are required in certain situations which scare us now as adults.
Instead of taking drugs or going to self-pathologizing as CBT instruct us - I see the way through Humanistic therapies: that we accept ourselves. To stop seeing social anxiety as monster - and instead to look at it as smoke alarm detector that allows us to detect fake and toxic people-
with trauma we do not allow ourselves to cut toxic people out, due to toxic shame, we do not trust in our own capabilities, we distrust our own resources and abilities.
When we realize that people who scare us are actually scared children with mask of rudeness - we will start to handle our social anxiety in new ways and stop avoiding people and social situations.
-
Avoidants desire social contact - but are afraid of criticism and thus avoid social gatherings since negative evaluation from others is too painful.
Schizoids do not desire much of social contacts and prefer to be alone.
We are afraid of criticism because of external reference locus of control - which is trauma bonding and Stockholm syndrome. We see other people as our commanders and someone who is controlling our worth by their words or actions or criticism.
This happens because we have toxic shame inside us, instead of self worth - and then we seek in other people our value and recognition.
We crave their validation - due to invalidation in childhood where we learned that is normal mode of living with people: that we are rejected and discarded if we are not useful to others.
Intrinsic locus of control is when we have our worth inside us, when we do not depend on recognition, likes nor dislikes from other peoplpe.
Whatever we have - the same trauma is behind our fears.
Labels are here only to help us identify behaviour we struggle with - it is not to put us inside certain box where we must behave in according to our diagnosis. Labels can turn into self prophecy and keep us trapped into a role that we must act.
We got to get to the place where we accept ourselves as we are - in full, without rejecting anything. The "bad" things we dislike about ourselves - we can change only when we accept it, as Carl Rogers said.
You are making the good point - what is health?
What is our goal here?
CBT is explaining us that we are wrong by default because we have these fears and self blame - and it paradoxically create more of self blame. CBT is explaining that we are wrong since we have cognitive distortions - in reality all people have cognitive distortions, it is not endemic to socially anxious people. All people are prone to Confirmation bias and jumping to quick conclusions - this is not our thing that only we struggle with.
I see the goal - that we do not hate ourselves an that we are in align with our instinct inside - where both logic and illogic are in balance, both our adult parts and child parts have equal say - and where we solve difficult situations and difficult people by listening to our anxiety and trying to create balance between outer reality (difficult people) and our own traumatized self which now is very much aware of toxic people.
Once we get this, we will change our thinking and making decisions - we will cut contact with many toxic people and probably relocate or change jobs. The chances are due to self hatred and toxic shame we attracted a lot of toxic people in our life and we probably made self sabotaging decisions in trying to impress other people and seek their admiration and validation.
Check out the movie "3 women" from 1977 by director Robert Altman.
He is basically showing social anxiety types in 3 women - id, ego and super ego - before and after healing trauma.
One woman is totally avoidant (superego).
Second women is people pleaser and pushover (ego).
Third women played by Sissy Spacek is codependent, like a child, (id).
The most dramatic change in personality is depicted through Sissy's character.
The movie ends with being healthy - he shows us how we will be after we learn how to manage our avoidance and social anxiety fears.
I have short clip from that movie in my videos.
---
" I'm messing up and I just come off across as awkward."
That is social anxiety in nutshell - it is due to internalized toxic shame.
We have this irrational guilt inside us - and other people, especially toxic people can manipulate us easily - by triggering this guilt inside us.
They hypnotize us into shame and guilt.
This happens because:
We do not have Self worth inside us due to trauma. We do not have Jung's true Self. Instead there is toxic shame - it is deep core belief that we are invalid, incapable to manage life - this happens due to trauma when we were growing up, we were exposed to relentless criticism 24/7 and adult hysteria- and thus we never build up healthy Self worth inside us.
Piaget said that children learn when they are allowed to make mistakes. We were not allowed to make mistakes - and now we are afraid if making mistakes. We were programmed to equate mistakes with our character -
John Bradshaw talked a lot about religion and its role in toxic shame in his book "Healing the shame that binds you"
“The feeling of righteousness is the core mood alteration among religious addicts. Religious addiction is a massive problem in our society. It may be the most pernicious of all addictions because it’s so hard for a person to break his delusion and denial. How can anything be wrong with loving God and giving your life for good works and service to mankind?”
― John Bradshaw, Healing the Shame that Binds You
“Condemning others as bad or sinful is a way to feel righteous. Such a feeling is a powerful mood alteration and can become highly addictive.”
― John Bradshaw, Healing the Shame that Binds You
The anti-dote to toxic shame (which is social anxiety itself) is self-validation - it is the opposite from hypnosis treatment that we were exposed to during childhood complex trauma years. Self acceptance, as we are - so that we do not feel like we are messing anything up - it is acceptance of mistakes as natural thing in life -
mistakes are not connected to our character or our worth.
This is why CBT is so damaging.
CBT is adding up to our invalidation and self -pathology and tries to "cure" this by drugs and ignoring trauma - which only builds up toxic shame and doesn't resolve trauma.
CBT explains that there are not toxic people out there - but there are.
There are toxic, mentally ill people who are choosing to be evil, it is their clear choice in life. There are predatory types of personalities who choose to hurt and exploit easy targets: people who are kind, nice and open to other people without hidden agenda behind it.
Social anxiety is our ability to detect toxic people, it is smoke alarm detector.
The worse the abuse - the more sensitive detector.
There is nothing to reject, be ashamed of of cure about social anxiety - it is our guidance what to avoid, whom to avoid in life.
What we need to heal is Complex trauma: toxic shame, triggers, flashbacks, dysregulation and self hatred, self blame, perfectionism - it is all being imposed by untreated mentally ill people in our lives. It is not our fault to have anxiety issues.
With toxic shame we repressed child parts of our personality - and now we are unable to handle social life - because we need to have this illogical parts to be whole and complete human being - it is the only way to handle difficult and illogical people - so that we can be on par with them when they throw temper tantrums and when they behave unreasonable - the child parts will know how to retort and cut contact with someone stubborn - without feeling guilty about it.
--
I started to change attitude towards social anxiety. This happened when I discovered that social anxiety is part of complex trauma.
Trauma is problem, not social anxiety.
So it is work on trauma, not social anxiety nor avoidance.
Trauma says that we were abused through relentless criticism and being exposed to adult hysteria while growing up - and this caused us to be stuck with arrested development - we got stuck in logical brain, we forced ourselves to be adult, so we ended up being too serious and take life too seriously. We suppressed our child and childish parts deep down in our Shadow - and now we are unable to deal with social life, social event and people - since we need those child parts active in order to handle difficult situations, strange and scary people - logic cannot do it.
This happens because there are a lot of manipulative and toxic people - who are the opposite of us - they have children in their brain running their decisions with a mask of adult person - usually narcissist.
These types of people caused our social anxiety and trauma, and we have no idea how to handle these people - since we suppressed parts of our persona that could handle these difficult people.
It started with trauma and we are being re-traumatized - since we have no working parts of our Persona, Self and Mask. Instead there is toxic shame - which distorts our reality and we end up with panic and anxiety.
Anxiety here is alarm system - it is smoke alarm detector - it will never be "cured" or destroyed - it is part of life. It is Darwin evolution - it is method and technique that keeps us aware of predators and predatory types of personalities.
If we have both logical and illogical parts of our mind active, if we have both child and adult parts of our personality active - we would handle difficult and toxic people without drama and fear. We would cut contact with them - we would not rationalize it as we do now. We would follow our instinct, not our logic that tries to understand the illogical people, illogical events and illogical situations that scare us.
I see anxiety as part of Yin Yang system - both bad and positive are needed for achieving perfect balance.
With trauma we were programmed to suppress the negative - and now we end up with disbalance - we fear criticism and negative evaluations - since we do not have parts of our brain active to handle it.
We suppressed our mistakes, flaws and ignorance - and now we are afraid of making mistakes, being flawed and being vulnerable not knowing something -
this is trauma that is causing the disorder, not social anxiety.
Social anxiety is after-effect. If we nitpick and try to modulate and remove social anxiety - we will add up to toxic shame.
I see solution in self acceptance and self love, self validation - everything that trauma prevents us to do - since trauma itself is invalidation.
---
"People come to us using the words “social anxiety” to describe the things I talked about, this is one of the hardest parts of the mental health world, is not common language or objective measurements for the things people struggle with lol! I appreciate you clarifying though!"
And think about it more.
It is very serious blunder. So much that someone might end up in jail for fraud.
Medical community is the one that has to clarify these things - but instead they obfuscate it- in order to make money out if selling drugs.
The information that there is a difference between social anxiety and social anxiety disorder is criminally neglected and covered up.
I see now mothers diagnosing their kids for having "social anxiety" because their kids are afraid to remove mask in school. That is insanity. Term social anxiety is being used for any slight difference in social behaviour. That is very dangerous - since it can be used as a method to control people and their rights and free will.
You simply ashame their behaviour - and you control other people through guilt and shame of being different than default masses.
Social anxiety is biggest blunder of CBT (which is main default therapy for social anxiety) - we are talking here about the great scam, about anxious people being intentionally misdiagnosed to make money out of people in need for pharma profit.
It is like criminal mind such as Putin or Trump got in managerial seat of medical association and get their evil manipulation on exploiting people with mental issues.
---
Crappy advice by mentally ill person.
We all have Confirmation bias -
this keep us trapped in our dimension.
The only thing that can jolt us out is extraordinary experience -
such as criticism, cognitive dissonance, disagreement at worst
or at best: our desire to learn and to educate ourselves. That is the only way to "improve" and "get better" - to enlighten ourselves, as we see in human history during Renaissance.
This what Jordan is talking about is self hatred and road to alcoholism and drug addiction - he is hypnotizing you into becoming like him: chronic negative person with victim mentality and nagging and complaining.
What Peterson is doing is Dark psychology - he is narcissist and he is teaching young people to develop mental illness.
---
(13.7.2022)
I love this message,
it is shame that good resources are ignored by you tube watchers. While cheap thrill videos are highly popular, as Adler:
"Adler's ideas are not so popular as they often clash with conventional views."
I see "the courage to be disliked" as linked to self worth - and that we remove transparent black veil over our face that muddles reality, or as it is explained in video as "filter".
"He was using his bad experiences as an excuse to avoid any uncomfortable situation. They key to fighting any kind of trauma is to see how we are hiding behind our bad memories and avoiding reality."
I would make this information more broader.
Bad experiences do influence our brain: "Long term exposure to narcissistic abuse causes brain injury" - google it.
So there is brain wound due to "bad memories" which make survivor of abuse being stuck and pessimist.
I see solution in Adler's approach - where we change how we observe bad memories.
Bad memories are part of Darwin evolution. This means, we become aware of what is toxic. As roses developed thorns, as reaction to predators - so we can develop knowledge and better choices in life to handle predators.
Bad memories are here as alarm system - when we are aware someone is manipulator, narcissist, predator - aggressively mentally ill. So we can actually learn how to retort to such people - leave them, cut contact wherever possible.
With bad memories we get stuck with predators and narcissistic people due to codependency. And we attract toxic people - since they have ability to sniff out our fears and trauma.
When we see anxiety as part of evolution - we can start to observe bad memories, bad experiences and bad people as endless and valuable stream of data - information that gives us knowledge how to deal with difficult people.
We can cut contact with people and still love them.
We can speak the truth and still care for people.
With unprocessed bad memories we believe we can't. We believe that we must either hold grudge or pretend that grudge is not there - both approaches are highly dysfunctional and highly unhealthy both physically and mentally. Instead we can acknowledge grudge and find functional and healthy ways how to process it.
For example,
We can see all people as comrades and still in the same time cut contact with toxic people and avoid them - since they are predators.
---
Yeah!
I see it as Darwin evolution. Roses developed thorns to fight predators.
As we will eventually learn how to retort, how to deal with toxic people in functional, healthy and proper manner.
It is changing how we see toxic people - we can see them as endless stream of valuable data.
Data that gives us information how to deal with mysterious, strange and difficult situations, events and people in life.
I learned we can come up with new ideas only if we have open mind - without toxic shame and trauma governing our thinking.
So I learned that I can cut contact and avoid certain people - and in the same time love them and care for them.
With toxic shame, trauma and deceptive narcissistic world - we are being told that we can't - that we must deal with conflict only in two ways:
1) through drama, explosions, wars and fight response
or
2) through fawning, self-censorship, shutting up, people pleasing and being pushover.
As if there is no alternative to these.
There is.
I also Zoroastrianism connected to this evolution - that we realize that there is Truth and that there is Lie, deceit -
it is yin yang -
and lie and deceit must exist in order to progress. But we can make progress only when we learn intelligent way how to deal and manage difficulties in life - instead of being passive or aggressive.
I called the third way as Agreeableness theory. It is the sweet spot of being friendly, open, and having boundaries and cutting people off and avoiding them if they are clearly manipulators and toxic - but without drama and explosions. Being frank and telling the truth is very explosive and highly effective. So the truth is our weapon here, being honest, being transparent, voicing out the elephant in the room.
Without truth, we are receiving wrong information how to handle life.
For example, a lot of people suffer from anxieties, especially social anxiety - and the main therapy for social anxiety is CBT.
Where CBT is actually like fictious Ludovico technique from the movie A Clockwork Orange (1971) - so basically anxious people are getting completely wrong information and treatment to heal anxiety - it is a form of lobotomy, intended for criminally insane. Where anxious people are collateral damage here.
And basically you cannot rely on government or medical resources completely - you have to seek information and search for the truth to realize the deception -
and that is evolution.
Evolution comes with knowledge and education. Once we know how to deal with toxic people and bullies - we no longer see them as threat - we can see them as laboratory rats - to study the virus, how it gets improved and upgraded - and what can we do to make ourselves immune to its deceptive influence, hypnosis and conditioning.
Without education and knowledge - we are prone to be infected and spread the abuse and toxicity, without being aware that we might be toxic and bullies to others.
Where the truth is the anti dote to anything toxic.
The truth is cruel, but it can be loved, and it makes free those who have loved it.
George Santayana
"The truth is in the palms of our hands.
The light of the universe is our aura.
Who needs weapons, when we have our ancestors' spirituality to lean on."
Orisha
Truth is best of all that is good. As desired, what is being desired is truth for him who represents the best truth. Good thought, Good word and Good deed.
YT Zoroaster - Quotes
“In a time of deceit telling the truth is a revolutionary act.” —George Orwell
It's ok to be direct when it is in the best interest of your prospect and your business. Stop dancing around the head of pin and tell people the truth. Be assertive and be aggressive if it is honest and watch magic happen.
YT Claude Diamond
When we are assertive, we tell the truth about what is just. We don't follow others, we think for ourselves.
YT BahaiTeachings org
"Honesty without kindness is cruelty.
Kindness without honesty is manipulation."
Nietzsche said there is no absolute truth, Socrates also said it and I agree with them.
So - we are left with uncovering the deceit and lies. That way we can get the truth. And then we can see bullies and toxic people as valuable resource of deceit and lies.
I see videos about narcissist and narcissistic abuse very valuable - we can learn about bullies, how they think, how they operate - and thus learn how to protect ourselves and recognize red flags early on and avoid them or learn how to handle them in correct and functional manner - without them triggering our past traumas. That is what makes them valuable, toxic people build us up when we detect them and become educated about them - they make our evolution, they make us progress.
Without this information we stay stuck with toxic people inside Karpman Drama Triangle and we do not move, we get immobile and passive.
---
That is social anxiety. It is bully event, where you were accused of something - and then you try to find solution how to improve based on that criticism.
We got to understand that this would happen eventually in life - bully that traumatized would appear in another pair of trousers if it weren't them.
It is us that we must put first. Bullies took our self worth - we placed toxic shame inside us and fill it with self blame and self hatred. That needs to change. It is about realizing that there are really messed up people out there - even as kids - that are predatory - and it was not our fault for them behaving like jerks. We never deserved that treatment.
Now we need to learn how to retort to jerks and see jerks as mentally ill- if we do not do this, we will be filled with toxic shame and we will take their illness inside us.
It is time to put ourselves first and give ourselves respect and love that we did not find in our ambient.
---
(14.7.2022)
"how do you get rid of this"
Jung said: What you resist, persist.
Think of it like Chinese finger trap - the more you are panicked and want to rid of it, the tighter it gets.
That is why CBT is not working. CBT is main default therapy for Social anxiety and it is based on self-pathologizing our panic symptoms as something to get rid of.
It is about changing our mentality and it is about education and learning.
Social anxiety is part of trauma, Complex Trauma. There are triggers (something that push us into hypervigilance and rumination) and flashbacks - memories when we got hurt by critical and toxic people.
Peter Levine, Gabor Mate, Pete Walker - check them out, they describe how to handle trauma.
They practically say it is like Chinese finger trap - you loosen up, accept the situation and slowly wiggle the mechanism off from your fingers.
This means:
We accept our social anxiety.
Anxiety is message from deep within - we got to listen to its message.
Similar to sci fi movie from 2016 Arrival:
"Louise Banks, a linguistics expert, along with her team, must interpret the language of aliens who have come to Earth in a mysterious spaceship."
See social anxiety as Darwin evolution -
where toxic critical people are predators - and we are now aware that such manipulators exist.
Therefore - "solution" to social anxiety is education how to handle narcissistic abuse, how to retort in functional, proper and healthy manner - without explosions, without drama, without withdrawal and without isolation from society.
Without social anxiety I would never learn Polyvagal theory, external reference locus of control and intrinsic locus, dysregulation, and I would never have empathy for someone who is struggling with anxiety - since I know for myself how annoying and hard it is. Learning and educating ourselves about narcissistic abuse will give us tools how to handle manipulators and toxic people. Social anxiety by definition is inability to handle criticism and negative evaluation from others. So "solution" is ability to handle criticism and negative evaluation from others without falling apart when it happens.
With our knowledge we can teach others - whereas CBT is giving false solutions and false directions.
The correct therapy for social anxiety is Humanistic psychology, Humanistic therapies - so learn about it (Rollo, Laing, Maslow, Carl Rogers).
Learn about Complex Trauma and how we heal from it: it is through self validation - since the cause of social anxiety is being exposed to invalidation over long period of time, when we were developing as person.
Check out my videos - I put in my Psychology playlist helpful concepts to learn and educate ourselves that will help us handle social anxiety.
I see negative people now as endless stream of very important data that teaches us how to handle social life - since trauma made us suppress childish parts of ourselves and logic is now having tyranny of shoulds and perfectionism in our head, similar to North Korea or Putin's Russia. We suppressed childish parts of our character into prison, similar to Mandela - we need to set these free in order to handle social life - these parts are in prison now - and we are unable to handle childish people: difficult people, narcissistic people who operate on child level. We operate on adult level, there is too much logic and trying to understand - which our brain is unable to calculate and handle, thus we get stuck with rumination and hurt and pain - since we are too logical, we think all people are responsible - and then it hurts us when they are not, when they act like children, spoiled little brats.
That happens because we do not have active parts of ourselves our mind that would give us strength, imagination and ideas that only inner child can have.
In the end - when something would not work - that childish illogical part of our psyche would say Who cares and move on.
With our tyranny of logical mind we are unable to move on and we care - since we are too much adults, we are too much good, we try to be too nice, too responsible in a world that is not responsible and does not operate on the same values where we came from.
Then we are stuck in mis-communication - we do not speak "the same language" as most people - and this creates social anxiety - since we are egocentric and we want the world and social life to be orderly and with rules - whereas in reality the world and social life is carefree and has no rules at all.
That is why clowns and mocking are observed as funny and interesting - while our sincerity, etiquette and seriousness is scorned and rejected in social events.
We need to set free our inner clowns that we sentenced into prison after trauma and exposure to relentless criticism over our mistakes and flaws and ignorance when we were growing up in dysfunctional and toxic, too sanitized ambient.
If we allow inner child that we suppressed into Shadow to be active - that child would tell us to leave toxic people, toxic habits - we would not rationalize why we need to endure them. Inner parts of our psyche that spring up as anxiety - are telling us that we are not reacting naturally to threat and predators - instead we are acting on trauma programmed hypnotic messages that were implanted through toxic shame and abuse and criticism by untreated mentally ill people in our close vicinity.
Anxiety tells us that we need to be authentic and honest - instead of chasing castles in the sky that we created with our safety mechanisms and dysfunctional trials to handle toxic people.
"The first half of life is devoted to forming a healthy ego,
the second half is going inward and letting go of it."
Carl Jung
"What we call 'normal' is a product of repression, denial, splitting, projection, introjection and other forms of destructive action on experience."
R. D. Laing
“To be normal is the ideal aim for the unsuccessful.”
JUNG
Anyway, one day I woke up...
and I realized I was never going to be normal...
so I said, "F*ck it." I said, "So be it..."
Pump Up the Volume (1990)
Somebody made you feel bad about yourself for expecting a normal respectful interaction with people. Somebody planted this idea that you are damaged.
YT Crappy Childhood Fairy
It's in the group that something exciting happens. The group fights to be normal. Fights in some remarkable way to destroy the abnormality in each person, in each brain. It's because people realize that they need &care for each other.
The Caretakers (1963)
To please someone we must not have limits. If we have limits, they get upset. Limit is natural, normal thing. Dynamic where you are expected to provide specific supply to person, limits become threat.
YT Happiness After Codependency
Crap fitting – where you fit yourself to crap, to unacceptable situations or people.
What you hear is criticism. That is your trauma brain thinking. Trauma brain – if you see your own flaws, it will break you, normal for person with history of neglect.
YT Crappy Childhood Fairy
That is normal perception for person with history of abuse and neglect. You rightly became terrified of criticism. There is loving way to view whatever you chose, did, fail to do. It was never your fault being abused.
YT Anna Runkle, Crappy Childhood Fairy
Dysregulation can change your brain activity and your body systems, your immune system gets dysregulated. That's why traumatized people have higher than normal rates of autoimmune diseases & cancer. When you go through a lot you're more likely to get sick.
YT Anna Runkle, Crappy Childhood Fairy
Narcissists are very invested in trying to present themselves as beyond the average of normal kind of person. They are happy to point what is wrong in you. They can't say words: I'm flawed. Or I know I hurt other & it needs to stop.
YT Trapped Inside Self
"Is Social Anxiety always a bad thing?
No! Anxiety is a normal and healthy of being human. It mobilizes...
Social anxiety helps us to remain sensitive to the feeling and needs of others, which is a core foundation of cooperation and building relationships."
anxietycouch
---
"very often the most fragile ppl are those who have no problem hurting others."
Yes.
There are some who will consciously decide to hurt others and engage in Fight response - it is quick and easy method to get rid of anxiety and thus narcissists and aggressive borderliners are born - they will rationalize their abuse and criminal behaviour through other being "aggressive" to them. They feel attacked - they simply attack back - without thinking how the other person will feel and without taking time to exam what happened and whether there was any attack at all to begin with. They bite to anything that moves - they are toxic.
On the other side there are socially anxious and avoidant ones who will never ever cause other feel the same anxiety. Go through much length to self censor and shut up even when accused of something untrue. They know very well how much it hurts and they do not want others to feel that same pain.. This is also dysfunctional, since fight response is turned inwards, into self hatred and self blame, perfectionism and caring what other people think - and aggression inward is not perceived as aggression at all, and in the same way, this self aggression is being rationalized as normal reaction and validated as good moral ethical thing to do, since others are not hurt.
Unlike abusers who will never heal due to egocentrism, the latter group can heal from this dysfunctional rationalizations how to handle conflicts.
---
""shut up even when accused of something untrue" - this behaviour seems more stoic than fragile to me."
It just seems so.
What is happening really is resentment being shoved under, stifled down - and it turns into illness with time, both mental and physical.
CBT is explaining to socially anxious people to shut up and self censor, since we need to have care for all people - even abusive ones - and with time this dysfunctional approach turns into people pleasing and being pushover.
Stoic would rather be the one who speaks the truth, voice out the elephant in the room, being honest and authentic - and still in the same time care and love for all people. It is ability to cut contact with someone and still love that person.
We are being taught by narcissistic, deceptive society that this combination of care and discipline does not exist.
"You can care about other people without caring what they think.
How they see you, perceive, view you - it's got nothing to do with you, it's none of your business. We walk around with filter. None of us see reality - we just see what we want to see"
DAN LOK
"the most fragile ppl though, the ones you feel nervous to engage with cause everything seem to hurt them"
You are giving definition to narcissistic wound, narcissistic injury. These people will develop fake mask of superiority - and they will blame, shame and put toxic shame on other people - projecting their weakness on others and thus making other people mentally ill. They will accuse others of being too sensitive, being snowflake - where they are snowflakes themselves, they simply act cruel and aggressive to cover up the wound inside. And we buy into their act, we think they are superior, strong and competent - since they scream, yell and abuse others without thinking how other feels - in narcissistic, deceptive world this is seen and observed and perceived as a sign of courage: to be able to hurt other people without caring for them. Pure psychopathy and values turned upside down. This is abnormal and it creates disorder and chaos.
As INFJs we need to correct this in our ambient and society, explain the reality as it is, and what is normal.
-
"sometimes you just figure out it's best to not engage with overt or covert narcs, or simply distance from them without even saying anything to them."
It is hard for survivors of complex trauma - because they were programmed and hypnotized to be subservient and to observe perceived authority as gods and superiority, while in the same time they themselves are incapable to manage life.
Also, manipulators exploit needs of others (Machiavellians) and they are perfect at it.
And they nitpick and criticize your mistakes, flaws and ignorance - thus they are pulling limb of your etiquette and what is normal and kind and standard of being friendly and beat you up with it.
They are not toxic and predatory without having poison and camouflage to keep their evil agenda ongoing.
We simply have to uncover their lies and talk about it, educate ourselves and others about it.
---
"Brain telling you story"
I see it more like manipulation - where we are hypnotized through Skinner box conditioning into learned helplesness.
It is like virus being incorporated in our daily narrative - where virus is creating disorder and pain and suffering.
We need to extract this Druj - falsehood out. Detect it, be aware of it in the first place that it exists.
It is similar to the process how immunity system recognize virus. If it is unable to recognize it - we get sick.
Brain is not guilty for this process. Brain is like a machine - and virus is malicious parasitical trojan portion of software program that runs in it.
Bias and logical fallacies exists because we live in society that puts pressure that everything must be quick. The speed to make something will create oversimplifications and illusions, bias and logical fallacies, prejudices and wrong definitions.
Getting new experiences will not change the virus inside neither toxic ambient will become healthy if we start new habit.
What we need is to learn about toxic ambient - and learn how to avoid it or tolerate it without becoming infected with its viruses.
It seems to me that just as CBT, you are ignoring the influence of toxic people on our health and harmony, our balance.
Narcissistic abuse can cause brain injury - google it.
And no, you cannot simply run away from toxic people and isolate - toxic people will simply appear in new pair of trousers somewhere else.
---
I see social anxiety as part of Darwin evolution:
ability to detect predators, hidden manipulators due to complex trauma and bully events that created social anxiety.
So anxiety is no longer something to reject, replace or detest - it is evolutionary part that make us evolve and it is about rejecting narcissism, narcissistic abuse, stop supporting parasites, emotional vampires that we would otherwise be blind to and never detected them. Social anxiety allow us to detect freeloaders and stop giving them support to evolve. Since they are unable to prosper on their own - since they are egocentric and parasitical, their way of survival is to hide and chip off energy from the host.
---
"Do you think suffering gives people meaning?"
Yes, like social anxiety.
It is ability to detect predators and hidden manipulators.
Anxiety is about accepting anxiety as inner GPS, ability to detect fake people. Instead of CBT approach to destroy anxiety and self pathologize our symptoms of fear.
Then we can use our anxiety as guide what people are fake and thus we avoid them or minimize contact - we simply listen to our inner feelings and emotions and do accordingly. Then bad experience becomes endless stream of valuable data for the future - what to avoid and learn how to retort to abuse in proper, functional, healthy way - other than fight response, being Karen, wasting energy on Karpman Drama Triangle, without avoiding that is without withdrawal from whole society, without hiding resentment and letting resentment eat us alive from inside out.
---
"to live is to suffer, to survive is to find meaning in that suffering"
This is where it gets complex.
There are toxic people - who use Glasser negative traits of communication such as nagging and complaining and criticizing - and they make your suffering unrelated to their criticism even more difficult - to the point it poisons your thinking and stamina.
So toxic people and their toxic messages are like viruses that infect you with falsehood -
where suffering is then artificial and it is not part of something meaningful - its purpose is simply to make you immobile, scared and avoidant from setting goals in life.
So I would go deeper with suffering and go into microscopic details - that there is actually toxic pathology in some people - that is not related to meaning - and it is our job to detect it and remove it - retort to it, minimize contact and avoid it where possible.
There is different kind of suffering if you perform physical tiring act - and when you are in toxic ambient that is toxically ashaming you when you are doing something difficult. Toxic shame here is virus - something we need to become aware of.
Similar to Zoroastrianism and Druj - being able to detect falsehood, fake people, false words, covert narcissists, Machiavellians who pretend to be help while they have hidden agenda of exploitation and destruction.
So if we are not aware of virus, suffering will be turned into death and destruction.
We got to become aware that getting outside of box, getting out of our comfort zone will not be beneficial if it is suicide mission, or self sabotage - masked as falsehood of meaning.
We are talking here about deception - and being able to detect it. Remove hypnosis and false messages, manipulation and exploitation.
If we are not aware of it, we might label leeches and parasites as "cleaners" and something that is "good" for us - while it slowly killing us in reality.
---
"What is wrong with CBT?"
CBT is based on self pathologizing and blaming you for the symptoms of panic. It ignores the trauma and CBT states that there are no toxic people - instead CBT claims that you are hallucinating abuse and you are simply over-sensitive - and CBT explains that you can change other people and abuse with your thinking - they use ABC model - that you change the way how you interpret and explain when someone is abusing you - that you tell yourself that they are wounded and you must have empathy for psychopaths and exploiters. You end up being people pleaser and pushover - and basically CBT is re-traumatizing the survivors of abuse - CBT is focused on invalidation and interpreting anxiety as monster that you invented - practically that you are the one to blame for the abuse.
CBT is based on nazi psychology - it is government tool to lobotomize criminally insane - and anxious people and traumatized survivors are collateral damage in this process of silent lobotomy of very small percentage of population, such as serial killers.
Check out A Clockwork Orange - film and book. There is fictious Ludovico method/technique - that is basically CBT.
CBT ought to be banned.
---
CBT ought to be banned.
CBT is based on self pathologizing and blaming you for the symptoms of panic. It ignores the trauma and CBT states that there are no toxic people - instead CBT claims that you are hallucinating abuse and you are simply over-sensitive - and CBT explains that you can change other people and abuse with your thinking - they use ABC model - that you change the way how you interpret and explain when someone is abusing you - that you tell yourself that they are wounded and you must have empathy for psychopaths and exploiters. You end up being people pleaser and pushover - and basically CBT is re-traumatizing the survivors of abuse - CBT is focused on invalidation and interpreting anxiety as monster that you invented - practically that you are the one to blame for the abuse.
CBT is based on nazi psychology - it is government tool to lobotomize criminally insane - and anxious people and traumatized survivors are collateral damage in this process of silent lobotomy of very small percentage of population, such as serial killers.
Check out A Clockwork Orange - film and book. There is fictious Ludovico method/technique - that is basically CBT.
CBT is teaching survivors of abuse and trauma to self-pathologize their panic symptoms.
CBT is like broken disco ball in dark room - it shines a bit of light in part of dark room that is shattered itself with voids inside it. So it is misleading. We need LED light in that dark room.
ABC method invented in CBT makes survivor of abuse believe that the abuse was hallucination and that you can control abuser with your own thoughts - you simply imagine that abuser is wounded and we must have empathy towards someone who is criminally insane.
CBT is band aid therapy - that is suppose to calm down hysterical paranoid person - it does not work for longer usage.
CBT is form of lobotomy - and it is secret government tool to control criminally insane - while anxious and trauma survivors are collateral damage.
3:37 "Social anxiety- a completely irrational cognitive behavioural response"
That is what I am talking about - CBT is pathologizing social anxiety.
Social anxiety itself is muddled and unclear by the very medical community that is suppose to bring light and clarity.
There is shyness - when you have social fears but they soon wear off quickly.
Social anxiety - it is by-product of complex trauma and being exposed to relentless criticism while growing up when persona was forming, and it does not wear off with exposure
Social anxiety disorder - it is part of paranoid delusional disorder and only 1% of population has it - it is when you feel afraid even in safe ambient with safe people.
Narcissistic disorder - it is when you abuse others and then feel anxiety in social anxiety, but due to egocentrism you do not understand that people treat you like trash because you abuse them. With narcissism, you rationalize your abuse as being macho and strong and that people respect you and love you for being forceful jerk.
Autistic disorder - when you feel social fears but because you are closed in your own world you do not realize that people are angry at you because you do not say Hi back to them or follow unwritten social etiquette.
Now all these groups will seek information about social fears and Google and CBT will misdiagnose them all with social anxiety disorder and treat anxiety as hallucination.
CBT method of listing your fears does not make fears smaller - it magnifies them and anxious person is now acutely aware of many new fears.
Journaling your symptoms does not make symptoms small - instead toxic shame already present inside due to trauma and being exposed to adult hysteria while growing up - will only make you believe you are inept, different and inferior to others who are not showing signs of social anxiety.
Self talk do not work due to confirmation bias.
Exposure does not help - since it does not solve abuse and CPTSD, dysregulation, triggers nor flashbacks. You end up with people pleasing and being pushover.
There is even the third wave of CBT called DBT that is focused on acceptance and validation - it is not focused on the panic symptoms.
Better therapy are Humanistic therapies.
Improving our relationships is improving our mental health.
William Glasser
Interpersonal strife with those close to us leads to rifts and resentments that produce symptoms of mental illness; these problems are, in fact, the logical consequence of troubled relationships.
Glasser emphasizes that lasting psychological problems are usually caused by problems in our personal relationships (rather than signifying a biochemical abnormality in the brain), and distress can be remedied through repairing these relationships without recourse to psych drugs.
WILLIAM GLASSER
DK THE PSYCHOLOGY BOOK
We are, by nature, social beings. When our close interpersonal relationships are troubled we become unhappy. We can treat psychological problems by repairing interpersonal relationships; drugs are unnecessary.
WILLIAM GLASSER
DK THE PSYCHOLOGY BOOK
Connecting Habits:
Listening
Supporting
Encouraging
Negotiating
Respecting
Accepting
Trusting
William Glasser
Controlling Habits:
Blaming
Criticizing
Complaining
Nagging
Rewarding To Control
Threatening
Punishing
William Glasser
Mental illness was a "myth", a diagnosis primarily imposed upon individuals whom society considered eccentric or unmanageable.
Anti-psychiatry
David Cooper, 1967
1001 IDEAS, Robert Arp
In 1973, David Rosenhan carried out a field study that explored the validity of psychiatric diagnosis and resulted in the dramatic conclusion that we cannot distinguish the sane from the insane in psychiatric hospitals.
Approach: Anti-psychiatry
DAVID ROSENHAN
DK THE PSYCH. BOOK
“To be normal is the ideal aim for the unsuccessful.”
What you resist, persist.
JUNG
Brain just picks up what's dangerous and what's safe. And when you're traumatized, that part of brain which is usually very quiet, continues to just send messages. "I'm in danger, not safe"
YT What is trauma? Bessel van der Kolk | Big Think
Since most non-HSPs do not seem to enjoy thinking about solutions, they assume we must be unhappy doing all that pondering.
Preferring toughness, the culture sees our trait as something difficult to live with, something to be cured.
The Highly Sensitive Person,
Elaine N. Aron
They see us as timid, shy, weak, or unsociable. Fearing these labels, we try to be like others. But that leads to our becoming overaroused and distressed. Then that gets us labeled neurotic or crazy, first by others then by ourselves.
The Highly Sensitive Person, Elaine N. Aron
Learning to see our trait as a neutral thing-useful in some situations, not in others-but our culture definitely does not see it, or any trait, as neutral.
Be careful about accepting labels for yourself such as "inhibited", "introverted", "shy"
The Highly Sensitive Person,E. Aron
---
(15.7.2022)
You miss crucial concepts in psychology that schools and media do not teach us -
First is egocentrism - that we have to know and be aware that our own conclusions might not be full and absolute truth.
Second, that there is toxic shame.
If you claim to a person who is codependent that they are guilty for being codependent, you are putting toxic shame on already present toxic shame.
You are fighting fire with fire.
It is Karpman Drama Triangle - where the addict is abuser, helper or victim is codependent, and you are the saviour that knows how to solve a problem: by blaming the victim.
You are simply part of triad in Karpman Drama Triangle.
Instead of blaming anyone, try love, acceptance and being vulnerable yourself - without pointing fingers and blaming as a way to go through life.
Jordan Peterson and his monster toxic masculinity approach does not work in real life - it is mask of grandeur, as he is narcissist himself, and thus he us instructing young men to become weak Karen types, being hysterical full of blame and shame, seeing negative and problems in others while holding narcissistic mask of superiority over others.
---
If we see social anxiety as being part of Complex trauma, then it all starts to make sense.
" Speak bold and confident. "
Yeah - see what happens when you do that.
There will always be some critic, or ignorance or mocking. That are toxic people out there, I call it external factor.
These people are in fact wounded, they are probably narcissistic, if not sociopaths, there is some mental illness there.
However with social anxiety - or better term CPTSD, we do not perceive these people who are mocking and forcing their opinion as absolute truth as sick - because trauma made us conditioned, programmed, hypnotized into subservience, inferiority complex and external reference locus of control - trauma bonding and codependency - where we try to fix other people's anger and discomfort.
Social anxiety at its core is someone screaming and yelling, throwing temper tantrum at us.
It is not about being bold and confident -
this bold and confident is message that society throws at us and program us to believe that we must be party animal and that all people must like us, and that we must be the soul of the party. That is message from sick society that puts conformism and groupthink, herd mentality above individuality. Most people are sheep. Most people are prone to Confirmation bias -
and social anxiety is being aware that life is not chirpy and that there are predatory types of personalities out there.
What happens is the clash of two belief systems - our own which endured pain and trauma in social situations, and beliefs of most of people who have lower IQ and who have not experienced trauma - but they will.
We can see many stars and super rich people and successful people, people with loving marriages - they experience trauma later in life - and they broke down. Until they break down, they spread the virus of toxic positivity - where they are totally unaware of other people's pain and they minimize and rationalize other people's trauma as insignificant.
That happens due to egocentrism, they do not do this blame and ignorance because they are evil - they are simply clutzes - until something horrible happens to them, and it will.
Then they are aware that life is not so easy and life is not about going to parties and having fun all the time.
So they have no idea how to cope with life - until something traumatic happened to them - then they break down.
We can see this with Covid when most of population could not handle isolation and withdrawal that is normal thing for avoidants and socially anxious.
I would not pathologize social anxiety.
Self pathologizing does not help.
I would embrace social anxiety - it is a message from within that we accept our own perks, quirks, particularities - and be ourselves as we are.
IF we do not like to go to parties and mingle and make small talk - there are other options available.
First I would handle Complex Trauma and learn about it,
I would learn about narcissistic abuse and how to handle difficult people - since social anxiety by definition is inability to handle criticism and negative evaluation. So due to relentless criticism and being exposed to adult hysteria while growing up we never learned how to retort or develop intrinsic locus of control. Instead we learned how to be too nice and codependent and trauma bond with other people, with external reference locus of control.
I see self validation and self acceptance as the key to handle anxiety -and when we build up self worth - we can go to parties and be party animals if we want to. Forcing ourselves to be chirpy and go talking with people will not work. We know that there are narcissists and aggressive borderliners out there - we do not have to be friends with everybody. IT is impossible to please all people.
Humanistic therapies are focused on our ability to go after our dreams.
The chances are that with social anxiety our dreams/preferences/goals are different than our toxic ambient expectations - and most probably majority of people around us will not like it.
I see social anxiety being connected to conformism and group think and herd mentality - where we are afraid to be who we are and we try to integrate in toxic environment, instead of seeking other people.
---
" My problem is with having natural conversations with people and developing friendships. "
That is not social anxiety.
That is more like shyness problem you describing here. You are afraid of being yourself and you try to mimic and integrate in environment where you are probably the most intelligent there - so you feel like you do not fit in, since the topic you would talk about do not interest people who are obsessed over genitalia, what they ate or what they feces look like during the day as the top 3 topic of their conversation.
Social anxiety is being afraid of being screamed at, being yelled at, being abused and ashamed for your mistakes, flaws and ignorance - being in job type of situation where you cannot leave - and instead you must endure someone temper tantrum's hysterical aggression and witness this Karen type of behaviour. It is situation where you seek help or some resource, and the person on the other side - who is the only one who can help you - does not help you and instead they are yelling and screaming at you, blaming you for something you did that is totally natural, some mistake that is over and done. That is social anxiety - being abused by someone and you are not being able to retort, move away or do anything to stop the abuse.
---
"at i think it’s gonna be full of people that i don’t like / that make me uncomfortable."
That is social anxiety.
The crucial part are other people. I call it external factor.
I think that with social anxiety we have easy and automatic ability to detect fake, mentally ill people, dangerous types such as Amber that abused Johnny Depp and almost ruined his career and life.
This ability to detect narcissists stem from Complex trauma - where social anxiety is part of trauma.
Social anxiety is not problem - other people are.
Darwin evolution tells us that as species we develop ability to detect predators.
Now social anxiety is simply the message from evolution to compel us to learn how to deal, manage and retort predators in proper, functional manner - without explosions, without drama, without withdrawal and isolation from general society.
Since social anxiety is being connected with complex trauma -it means that we were raised in toxic environment and we were programmed with a lot of bad instructions how to handle toxic people - we basically learned to serve toxic people and fix them, that it is our responsibility to be their saviours - and that's how we become codependent - which is simply another term of social anxiety. We developed addiction to other people - that we must save and help other people - this happens due to abuse, growing up in highly dysfunctional environment, full of relentless criticism of our mistakes - which make us now perfectionist and being exposed to adult hysteria - which compel us now to have rumination and thinking how can we avoid someone's anger and how can we soothe other people from not experiencing anger. That is called trauma bonding and external reference locus of control.
Deep inside we feel toxic shame which is internalized - it is deep core belief we are unable to manage and handle life, and that we are inept - while in the same time all other people are gods, they are superior to us, and we must listen and obey whatever other people command without ever doubting them or god forbid verbally voice out the elephant in the room. So we self-censor ourselves and shut up and if someone is hysterical we automatically feel their mental disbalance as our own fault and our own responsibility to fix them.
That is all trauma.
It is trauma being stuck inside our body - that is social anxiety.
We need to heal that trauma - social anxiety is not the problem. Social anxiety is voice from inside - that tell us that due to abuse we have ability to detect abusers - which is great tool thanks to Darwin evolution.
However the other side of sword is programming and Skinner box - being conditioned like circus animal into trauma bonding and subservience - that part we need to heal.
As soon as we understand that we can have self worth inside us instead of toxic shame - we will believe ourselves and we will stick by ourselves - and naturally we will make positive changes in social life too - mostly we will allow ourselves to avoid and cut contact with toxic people who are now influencing our mood, thoughts and decisions in negative way.
---
"I value their opinion of me"
That is called external reference locus of control.
Also that is codependency - where we try to fix other people's negative emotions and feelings and beliefs, we think it is our responsibility to fix them. Which is trauma bonding or Stockholm Syndrome.
Problem is that is it okay to be diplomatic and have empathy - problem is that there are toxic people who parasite over this totally normal, open, human and friendly urge to help other people. They exploit it.
So basic problem are other people - people who are toxic: narcissists, parasites, emotional vampires, Machiavellians, aggressive borderliners, sociopaths, psychopaths, bullies.
Due to complex trauma, we see them as superior and strong, since they appear with grand superiority mask - and in childhood we were hypnotized to believe that they are better than us since they have ability to be cruel without showing sign of care - we were programmed to believe that this is normal and we have to be subservient to such people.
We need to de-conditioned ourselves out of inferiority complex and opt out off Karpman Drama Triangle.
---
" I often cannot express myself and my thoughts towards new people (and oftentimes people that I know very well, too) because I am not relaxed - I am scared"
That is amygdala hijacking.
IT is also dysregulation, emotional dysregulation.
The change comes quickly and we are not aware of it : our cortex part of brain goes offline and our primitive part of brain is active - it is similar to Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde transformation.
This process will happen when we are triggered - or when there are flashbacks - flash bulb images - something or someone that resembles the original trauma that causes us to avoid people and be afraid of people, in the first place.
Once you understand how Complex trauma (CPTSD) works, you will stop being so cruel to yourself and demand relaxation. You cannot be relaxes if there is hijacking - it is normal to feel tense and scared and do not know how to act and what to do. This is normal reaction to abnormal people, abnormal events and abnormal situations.
Then you can focus on other people - who triggered you - what types of situations make you lose your mind and become non-relaxed as you perceive this process of dysregulation.
You will discover that toxic people - which I call external factor- play the crucial role in your not-being-able-to-be relaxed state.
Then you can learn about what is "normal" behaviour versus toxic behaviour,
You might learn that you might be toxic yourself - due to programming in childhood - where we were being programmed to be perfectionist and to solve and fix other people emotions in order to avoid being punished and invalidated.
You might learn that you expect too much from other people and put too much pressure on them to be chirpy and happy - while due to their own trauma or low IQ capacity - they cannot change.
You might learn how to handle such situations with difficult people - in proper, functional and healthy way - and when you know how to retort to toxic people - see how your level of social anxiety will become within functional parameters.
Social anxiety is not bad - it is signal, smoke alarm detector that there is something wrong with other person, that is why I call it External factor. CBT is wrong therapy for social anxiety, and CBT (which most self help books are based on) is telling us that we are the only problem, that we must fix ourselves in order to crap fit to toxic people and abuse.
I say no, we have to accept ourselves as we are. Without self worth inside us, we won't be able to handle difficult and mysterious situations in life. We need to have intrinsic locus of control - it is basis for social life, that we accept ourselves fully and self validate ourselves - which is anti-dote both to toxic shame and trauma that are true problem behind the curtain of social anxiety.
---
"Work on building a peaceful life and block her out of it completely, and never take the bait."
All true,
however
"and never take the bait."
That is the problem. Narcs upgrade themselves like a virus. They study our weaknesses and then attack.
They nitpick our mistakes, flaws and ignorance - whereas our desire not to make mistake, our natural desire not to hurt someone is used against us, our limb of empathy is torn from ourselves and we are beaten up with our desire to be good and nice and to do the correct thing in life.
That is why narcissism is so devastating.
Long term exposure to narcissistic abuse causes brain injury - google it.
They probably done us damage beyond repair - no matter how much you try to cut contact. These evil souls or better term ghosts, will simply appear in different pair of trousers - as Oprah would say.
Instead of running away - even though that is normal and always open solution - I would invest time in learning how to retort in functional, proper and healthy manner. Not to fix or change narcissist, but to create defense - so that they do not instill toxic shame inside us.
I see that information how to retort in functional way to difficult people is extremely hard to find.
The assertiveness marketing is just marketing - it does not work in real life - since we will become toxic ourselves if we constantly pinpoint what we dislike, when we are over opiniated.
Correct retort to sick people is the key.
---
"so I just try integrating myself in that sort of environment. It never really seems to work out though, because I end up getting extremely bored with the conversation and lose focus. "
Yeah, you are describing what most people think is social anxiety - this is because social anxiety is muddled topic on purpose.
The pharma mafia are making big bucks on people's fears and anxieties and they are literally making healthy people sick.
Social anxiety is tremendous fear of abuse from other person.
If you have issues what to talk about with superficial people - that is totally normal.
There is no pathology there - nothing to fix.
The superficial and deceitful society will try to to make yourself crap fit to low standards that most sheep , or better term, crabs in the bucket enjoy being in- And if you try to get out of bucket, they pull you under.
It is complex thing-
in the same time you and I , and all of us suffering from social anxiety and shyness and social discomfort -
we need to make two impossible tasks:
1) one task is to have strong self worth, to accept ourselves in full, with our caprice, perks, quirks, particularities - and not change anything about it. As much as we would not control and change other people, as narcissists are trying to modulate through abuse.
and second task is dichotomy to this:
2) second task is to integrate in society - since we are unable to learn about other people, make friends or have sex or have any meaningful relationship with others if we are closed in our own word.
Think of it like Third rock from the Sun - where main characters are aliens and they try to integrate into society. They keep their quirks and learn how to function in society.
Think of it as indigo children - where your soul comes from very different and very far away place - and you need to make contact with inhabitants on Earth -
in such way that you are both give and take reciprocally.
If we have urge to cover and hide our true Self - we can solve this problem with Jung's mask.
We simply put on a mask.
Check out video about this complex concept in my videos - there is video easy explanation of Jung's mask - as comedy sketch with Carol Burnett and Alan Alda.
And this fusion of our own world with outer reality - is basically solution to social anxiety and any mental problem.
IT is kind of mathematical equation where you have x+y=z
x is your values
y is outer world
and z is fusion of your own values with outer world in functional manner.
So there is no equation is y is not available, if other people are invalidating you, if they mock you for being yourself, if they demand you to change, if they control you (red flag for narcissist) - in that case there is no solution and you move on, you avoid such people.
CBT as main default therapy for social anxiety is misleading us and CBT is wrong therapy for social anxiety and shyness and any other anxious disorder.
CBT tell us that we must expose at any price to any abusive situation - which will only make us mentally ill.
CBT tell us that abuse is hallucination of ours and that we can explain our abuse situation as our own fault - and that abuser is actually not dangerous, they are simply wounded and we must fix them and their emotions - which ends up with codependency Karpman Drama Triangle.
So-
try to give and take, be yourself and try to be sympathetic to society and people around you. Perhaps you can meet on the half way. If the other people are not willing to communicate in decent and proper manner - we ought not force it. We can allow ourselves to avoid difficult and stubborn and vulgar people.
That is message that CBT will never allow us to do - CBT is wrongly explaining that avoidance is sickness.
It is not - sometimes, in certain cases, avoidance is the best solution to social problems.
---
"You must learn to work with all these horrible people"
That is the problem - difficult people do not want to work out. That makes them horrible.
Long term exposure to narcissistic abuse causes brain injury. Google it. Toxic people create auto-immune diseases and cancer in other people - they create mental illness in other people. That is what makes them toxic,
You cannot gain immunity to radioactivity by staying in Chernobyl - you die instead due to exposure to toxic radiation.
We are not saviours, we are not gods and we are not nannies to difficult people.
If we stay stuck with difficult people - we enable their abuse to continue.
Trump and Putin are tyrants because people in charge enabled them when the person in charge could discipline them, instead they enabled them to become monsters.
If we have ability to detect Druj, falsehood - why shut up about it? Why self-censor?
--
this is important for healthy balances mind and interaction with people.
I learned that when dealing with trauma and anxiety it really comes down to what I call "retort" however as I see, in English language it is called "boundaries".
I dislike term boundary because it represents in my head as wall that makes me autistic and closed in my own world.
I like more term retort - since it signifies interaction with my environment, where the person on the other side might appear toxic - but they are not toxic really. And that is where retort is action where I probe the situation and people and interact with ambient to check, test and see, observe like scientist what is really going on, is it really catastrophe as it seems to me.
---
It seems like venting only to people for whom boundaries is a foreign and mysterious term.
For example,
I learned only a couple of months ago that I can actually say back to people "I disagree with you" and leave it at that,
beforehand I was programmed to believe that I have only two options:
1) to engage in explosions, drama and wars
or
2) to be passive, to fawn, shut up and self censor and be immobile.
As if there is no alternative. There is.
Many people grown up in abusive environment never learned how to speak truth and be honest - instead that was punished and labeled as difficult behavour, as venting.
So I am not a bit surprised that there are people there who see talking about retort and self-advocacy as "You keep venting instead of giving actual advice."
There is no advice.
There is no ultimate words that you can use in real, daily life- since people and events are erratic, problems are always changing and they are never the same. We receive general direction, general advice and then we modulate and form our own response based on general advice.
When we have grown up with criticism and adult hysteria - we were programmed to be perfectionist, we were expected to know all and everything and to know all and to fix other people. That is why the message is hardly getting through -
it is literal black transparent veil over our face, a filter that is preventing us from realizing the true reality - and we have no idea that there is distortion and that we are short sighted.
---
Social anxiety is the most muddled condition - due to pharma mafia who is making huge bucks by creating confusion on purpose.
Also, CBT which is main default therapy for social anxiety is government tool to lobotomize masses and it is intended for criminally insane with anti-social tendencies which partly overlap with social anxiety. So socially anxious people are collateral damage for pharma mafia and government, narcissistic control.
The truth is there is clear distinction;
1) Shyness - it is feeling social threat feelings at some social event, but social fear wear off quickly and shy person is not bothered by it again
2) Social anxiety - it is feeling of social threat before the event, during event and after event. Fears do not wear off and you keep ruminating about it. This is due to trauma, condition called CPTSD and it is not hallucination neither delusion nor illusion.
3) Social anxiety disorder - it is feeling of social threat at safe events, when you know that person around you will not harm you. For example in safe, empty room, and you are with Oprah or Mandela or Mother Theresa or Gandhi - the safest person you can ever imagine - but you still feel threat that they might harm you. This condition is part of Paranoid Delusional Disorder, and only 1% of population has it.
4) Narcissistic disorder - it is feeling of social threat triggered when someone warns and alarms you for being intrusive. Due to confirmation bias you are not realizing that you are rude and arrogant and intrusive - so you conclude that you feel social anxiety due to unknown reason from random people.
5) Autistic disorder - you live in your world and you are not aware that you appear threatening to people, for example you do not say Hi to them or smile back to them. So you feel social anxiety because you feel tense and awkward in social situations and you have no idea why.
Now people will google their social fear symptoms and Google will misdiagnose them all and direct them to Social anxiety disorder.
Also, CBT (as main default social anxiety therapy) will do the same - it lumps all different conditions into one - hallucinations. CBT means self help books and online resources such as this video.
If we ever pay attention to the small print - we will see that the therapist is the one who can diagnose us with social anxiety, when all other comorbidities are excluded
Social anxiety is basically you being in job type of situation where you cannot leave and you are being verbally abused, screamed and yelled at, toxically ashamed for your mistakes, flaws and ignorance - and you cannot do anything due to fear of being homeless and without income. That is social anxiety.
Not knowing how to talk with people, being afraid what you wear - that is more shyness area. That is not social anxiety per se.
Pharma corporations purposely muddle this information because it makes much more money making people mentally ill and making people believe that they have social anxiety - while in reality they feel totally normal shy feelings which are not pathological at all.
Desensitizing is the same as lobotomy. Check out A Clockwork orange (1971) where fictious Ludovico technique is used to desensitize hooligans to violence - they become puppets, lobotomized version of themselves, without caprice, perks, quirks and authenticity. We need to have dislikes and fears in order to detect red flags who is abuser and toxic around us - and thus avoid such person.
Also social challenges such as using up random people in the street is narcissistic - it is like you wipe off your dirty hands on strangers and move on, as if people can be used for your pleasure and then dumped and move on when you feel satisfied. Totally narcissistic approach.
Façade - that is Jung's Persona. Everyone has it, it is not sign of psychopaths. Think of Mask as Star Trek technology universal translator - which allows you to talk and communicate with different species and aliens out there. So you pretend to be interested - as a sign of respect to the other person. If you are aloof and autistic and closed - because that seems to you as true Self - in reality you will never meet new friends or find sexual partner - you need to connect with different people - and this means learning their language, their behaviour and adjust to it - which may be totally different to your culture and confirmation bias. Check out in my videos Easy explanation of Jung's Persona, it is comedy sketch with Carol Burnett and Alan Alda.
That Jung persona and self are crucial concepts that we need to learn if we have social anxiety issues - and CBT does not teach us of some basic stuff we need to learn if we have social fears: Complex trauma, external reference locus of control, trauma bonding, self love, codependency, self worth, Polyvagal theory, amygdala hijacking, Piaget developmental stages.
---
"forget the negative stuff that you seem to be focusing on."
You are lumping focus with being aware.
Also you are dismissing yin and yang balance.
You reject "negative" and you try to have positive all the time. That is not realistic and it leads to mental illness.
What will happen when bad things happen in your positive and chirpy life?
Due to toxic shame, you lump your emotions with your character.
That is serious transgression, it is called emotional fusion - and you will end up with depression and more negative - by trying to remove the negative.
Jung said: what you resist, persist.
If you resist negative, you will be thrown negative - that is life, universe law.
Instead -
try to see negative as invaluable endless stream of valuable data that is teaching you what to avoid and how to adjust your life to it in proper and functional manner.
Then you can say that everything in the universe is working for you, instead of living in hypervigilance and rumination loop, often stuck with negative and toxic people and habits as by product of such egocentric mentality of hating anything that you do not understand.
---
That is why I love Ross.
He is like Lisa Romano and anyone working on trauma - Peter Levine, Gabor Mate, we have great mentors on you tube such as Anne Runkle, Surviving narcissism, Dr Ramani - they are all like lighthouse in dark waters - warning us where is danger and where to go.
Ross' realization that codependency is not condition and that in fact there is lack of self love is pioneer work that is removing black transparent veil over our eyes that is distorting our reality, filter that keeps us short sighted and inside confirmation bias.
In narcissistic society we are being self-pathologized and we are literally being taught to self blame and self hate - such as CBT is teaching us. CBT tries to remove mechanically narcissism by removing self love - and in the process it creates more of narcissism.
So concept of self love is revolutionary act.
"Trauma does not reside in the external event but in our becoming stuck in our primitive responses to painful events.
Trauma is not what happens to us, but what we hold inside. The salvation, then, is to be found in the body."
"In an Unspoken Voice", Peter Levine
---
(16.7.2022)
"the how to is a can of worms at tines, clear n simple at other times. If only we all thought n acted this way."
I see the only problem here is Druj, or as Zoroastrians call it Falsehood, delusion.
I believe we have a transparent black veil over our face - and it does not allow us to see reality clearly. It is filter, confirmation bias, availability heuristic that all people have.
With trauma and toxic environment, with external factor - this veil, filter, gauze over our eyes is even thicker -
and we notice the pain and hurt of this inability to see reality clearly at much higher intensity and pain - but in the same time we are not aware that this filter is the problem.
CBT will falsely mislead us astray - CBT will lead us to the road of self blame and self pathology, and this attempt to nitpick ourselves will lead to more anxiety and panic, it is toxic shame and abuse all over again, invalidation of our persona and our feelings and emotions as invalid, something to reject and detest. CBT does this due to pharma mafia - corrupt corporations making money out of our panics and anxieties and neurosis.
As Plato said there is ideal world - that we ought to strive to, and wise men will teach us about this ideal forms of life - and it is our goal in life - to create and mimic the ideal.
Our anxiety and panic is alarm and message from our subconsciousness that we have detected the Druj, falsehood.
That something is wrong - and we need to figure it out what is wrong. Then our job is to become Sherlock Holmes and scientist, to seek clues seek evidence and evaluate data in a lab ambient - instead of floating in the ambiguity and void.
That is what Sarte talked about finding the meaning in life:
"Sartre believe that human existence is the result of chance or accident. There is no meaning or purpose of his life other than what his freedom creates , therefore, he must rely on his own resources. In the Philosophy of Sartre, there is an accord between the feeling of anxiety and freedom."
Søren Kierkegaard also tells the same thing:
"In 1844, Soren Kierkegaard [1] wrote of anxiety as being the 'dizziness of freedom', the dizzying effect of looking into the boundlessness of one's own possibilities. Without anxiety there would be no possibility and therefore no capacity to grow and develop as a human being."
Deceptive society and Machiavellians will predate and parasite over anyone's needs - and our anxiety and panic are their resources to suck energy from us.
So society will explain our anxiety and panic as something as dangerous, that we must spend a lot of money and time and focus on their tricks and methods that are useless and unnecessary expensive plastic surgeries (just read Jordan Peterson and his useless advice to become monster etc).
I see panic and anxiety as Darwinism, it is evolution - abuse and negative experience does not break us at all - it may seem like it, but all that negative is - is a signpost what to avoid and learn how to deal and manage it in functional and proper manner - other than general avoidance of society and isolation. Instead we avoid toxic people or learn how to retort them without explosions or fawning, in case we cannot cut contact with them.
I see behind each panic and anxiety - there is external factor hidden, there is some parasite and deceit - we simply need to pull the curtain and see who is behind it.
The deceit can also be internal - toxic shame inside us that creates Jung's False Self.
With true Self inside, with intrinsic locus of control - we can actually say who cares about anything that bother us and truly shift focus and not ruminate about it.
With toxic shame inside us, we cannot shake it off, we stay stuck in dysregulation cycle, Polyvagal theory of hypervigilance or hypo-vigilance state.
"Improving our relationships is improving our mental health."
William Glasser
"Interpersonal strife with those close to us leads to rifts and resentments that produce symptoms of mental illness; these problems are, in fact, the logical consequence of troubled relationships."
WILLIAM GLASSER
DK THE PSYCHOLOGY BOOK
---
"Whatever someone’s reaction to me is, that’s what I am"
Yep!
It is like our mistake are fused together with our character, our own being.
That is definition of toxic shame.
Now hormones and chemicals released as years went on Skinner's box operand conditioning - only cement this irrational internalized guilt and shame and it cannot be shaken off with logic. That is brainwashing.
Also what is connected with this phenomena is Mere Exposure Effect - where other people's reaction to us - is how they perceive us from their distorted lens. They also have transparent black veil over their face and thus they cannot see reality clearly. They think they do. They have, as all of us, filter, gauze over their eyes, it is confirmation bias - Availability heuristic, mental shortcut that distorts our reality since we want quick resolutions to mysterious and unknown and painful events, situations and people. Life, hysteria and perfectionism, someone's untreated mental illness presses us to make quick distorted decisions without objective evaluation what is going on.
Mere exposure effect is how they perceive us, it is not how we truly are - and they are not aware of having distorted image, and we are not aware that they are having filter - our toxic shame takes their delusion as true reality. Then we end up with panic and anxiety and fears, over-reacting, triggers and flashbacks from trauma do not help here at all.
I see solution in Descartes ability to doubt everything and everyone, even our thoughts, to allow doubt. And to become Sherlock Holmes, to become scientist and seek clues and seek reality, clarifications, objectivity and facts.
Fake people, parasites and Machiavellians hate the truth and seeking of truth - they become very panicked and angry if we probe what is really happening -
and we are not aware that their anger is fear of their hidden agenda being revealed - we think it is proof that we are inept, unworthy and incapable of being human being - that we must shut up and self-censor ourselves and not rock the boat.
I say, rock the boat.
----
(18.7.2022)
"Approximately one in four people in the US has an anxiety disorder"
The more accurate statement would be that all four people out of four has an anxiety disorder -
3 of 4 simply learned how to cope with it during childhood in functional manner - and they have no idea that they learned it, and that their lifestyle, choices and decisions are derivate from anxiety - and that in the future when they experience stress, loss or shock - the cracks on their belief/defense system against anxiety will fall apart at its weakest places.
---
Pharma mafia likes to muddle social anxiety and lump very different issues into hallucination. This is to make money, not as a way to help people in need (definition of Machiavellianism).
"It is not world against ourselves"
There are abusive and predatory personalities out there.
With social anxiety, due to Complex trauma we now have ability to detect parasites and toxic people much more easier than "common" folks".
This is not disorder, this is Darwin evolution to detect predators.
CBT likes to lump social fears into one giant hallucination. This is the reason why CBT ought to be banned - it blames survivors of abuse for being abused - for example, "It is all in your head" CBT crap.
---
"Fear of being judged negatively"
What happens when you are indeed judged negatively?
Why CBT does not explain how to retort and defend yourself?
Why CBT neglects influence of Complex trauma?
Why CBT neglects toxic shame as the motor that keeps disorder up and running?
😕
To make money from pharma mafia?
CBT lumps many different social fears into one giant hallucination factor,
while in reality there are different social fears, not related to each other, with more known factor behind it:
1) Shyness - it is feeling social threat feelings at some social event, but social fear wear off quickly and shy person is not bothered by it again
2) Social anxiety - it is feeling of social threat before the event, during event and after event. Fears do not wear off and you keep ruminating about it. This is due to trauma, condition called CPTSD and it is not hallucination neither delusion nor illusion.
3) Social anxiety disorder - it is feeling of social threat at safe events, when you know that person around you will not harm you. For example in safe, empty room, and you are with Oprah or Mandela or Mother Theresa or Gandhi - the safest person you can ever imagine - but you still feel threat that they might harm you. This condition is part of Paranoid Delusional Disorder, and only 1% of population has it.
4) Narcissistic disorder - it is feeling of social threat triggered when someone warns and alarms you for being intrusive. Due to confirmation bias you are not realizing that you are rude and arrogant and intrusive - so you conclude that you feel social anxiety due to unknown reason from random people.
5) Autistic disorder - you live in your world and you are not aware that you appear threatening to people, for example you do not say Hi to them or smile back to them. So you feel social anxiety because you feel tense and awkward in social situations and you have no idea why.
6) Performance anxiety - when you feel social fears when performing in public
"It is unclear what causes social anxiety disorder"
Yet social anxiety - which is totally different from social anxiety disorder - is caused by complex trauma.
There are triggers and flashbacks, dysregulation, amygdala hijacking, external reference locus of control and inability to know how to act in proper manner when judged negatively and criticized.
If CBT cannot know the distinction between social anxiety disorder and social anxiety - of course it cannot help - but to be in the role of drug pusher and someone who keeps disorder alive.
If you are at job where there is not threat, there is psychological security - and you still feel social fears - that is disorder.
However if you are at job where there is bullying, mobbing, backstabbing, hysteria, Karens, drama over nothing - that is social anxiety and it is totally normal reaction to abnormal situation, abnormal people and abnormal events.
"DSM-5"
The DSM is thought to make more damage than good.
DSM states: " the judgment of being out of proportion is made by the clinician"
From 2002;
The Trauma Model: A Solution to the Problem of Comorbidity in Psychiatry
In this book,Ross challenges those working in mental health—clinicians, researchers, students, instructors, and the committees that revise the DSM—to consider a new paradigm
however pharma mafia likes to keep confusion ongoing and make money out of people in need and their neurosis.
CBT mis-labels their "treatment" as "medication".
---
"Can you save from social anxiety"
Accept it.
It is message from part of ourselves that is unconsciousness, Jung and Freud talked about it.
Think of it as Darwin evolution - you were abused in the past by people - and now you have heightened perception to detect fake and dangerous people.
So - the task is to allow yourself feelings to feel - and then become scientist - seek who is dangerous there?
What can you do about it?
Can you retort?
What would your natural reaction be to someone who is intrusive?
Is it best to cut contact with person who makes you anxious?
If you are in job situation where you cannot walk or run away - can you learn how to retort and communicate with difficult people - and perceive their anger as not being directed at your persona?
I see social anxiety as part of Complex trauma.
It is reaction which is totally normal and natural - it is normal reaction to abnormal people, abnormal situations and abnormal events.
There are a lot of manipulative and deceptive and predatory types of people out there.
Our social anxiety is development of red flags - where we can detect them even at the initial stage - we pick up clues and we zoom onto other people now - due to reaction to abuse and criticism we had when we were growin up.
CBT is part of pharma mafia and they keep confusion ongoing, while in reality there are clear distinction between various social fears
---
1:23 "Find out why you are anxious"
Yep! That is the key.
Become scientist, Sherlock Holmes and seek clues, and evidence, like in a laboratory.
Problem is Confirmation bias which keeps us trapped in available heuristic (tunnel vision, egocentrism) so we are not aware of External factor (untreated mentally ill people around us) - emotions are contagious.
Then the natural question is - how we retort to difficult, unfair, judgmental, toxic people in proper, functional manner, without drama and without explosions and without isolation from society?
2:24 "What would make perfect situation without anxiety"
Socially anxious are traumatized - there is fear of being yelled and screamed at, fear of other people temper tantrums - it is not what they think of you, it is their aggression, hysteria and violence - and it is related in situations where you cannot simply walk or run away, and even moreso, you need some resource from such unreasonable Karen types. So you fawn and people please abusers, end up in Karpman Drama Triangle - where you are victim, and there is abuser there and there is society as saviour who cannot see abuser - but they only see the victim in this triangle.
4:58 "If it is outside world, learn it to let it go"
That is the problem - you can.t
You need to have job - you cannot be homeless. This means, you need to endure bullying and mobbing and backstabbing.
The question is am I willing to find another job for less money - am I accumulating money to impress other people because I want to be liked and validated based on material I show off to others?
There are situations where you need some resource, help - but the other person is the only one who can give you this - and this person is narcissist and you have to endure narcissistic abuse along the way.
The long term exposure to narcissistic abuse causes brain injury - google it.
So no, you cannot just let it go.
There are third parties - kids, finances, shelter - where you cannot let it go because of the third party.
That is life - sometimes you do not have choice to let it go.
That is the problem with social anxiety -
when you cannot let it go and in the same time you suffer from abuse, neglect, invalidation and unfair, disrespected treatment.
5:37 "Observe your thoughts"
Socially anxious people already do that - that is why there is pureOCD, rumination. Analysis leads to paralysis.
6:18 "You are in control of anxiety"
When you try to control your anxiety - you will end up with OCD. Any ritual to anxiety leads more to anxiety. Check out Mark Freeman videos from 2014 and 2015 about anxiety and OCD.
7:11 "give a speech, practice over and over, put yourself in uncomfortable situations"
If you are in toxic ambient, this will end up with you being people pleaser and pushover.
There are predatory and toxic personalities out there.
There is external factor - social anxiety is social because there is social factor inside it.
It is not autistic disorder. Other people play crucial role in it.
---
Shyness and social anxiety are not the same.
If you make yourself believe you are socially anxious and follow advice meant for social anxiety, you will end up with wrong advice, you might end up similar to Hollywood celebrities with plastic surgeries, trying to correct something in yourself that is totally normal and that does not require fixing at all.
So I would make distinction between social anxiety and shyness.
Shyness wear off as soon as you expose yourself to social event.
On the other hand, think of social anxiety as being in job type of situation where you are not allowed to leave - yet in the same time the other people are screaming and yelling at you, cursing you, blaming you for things which are none of your responsibility - and even if it was your responsibility you do not deserve such cruel and aggressive and hysterical and violent treatment from others. So you try to people please them and fawn to their request, you shut up and self censor yourself and keep in drama - because you have no choice but to be abused by anyone who feels it is ok to abuse others. That is social anxiety - constant abuse that stems from untreated mentally ill people around you - and you are being told that you are the problem, that your thinking is the problem for experiencing the abuse.
---
Exposure to toxic and to unhealthy ambient will not help. This is important information to note.
In abusive and corrupt environment, you end up with people pleasing issues, fawning and drowning in negativity. Imagine being in bad part of town full of junkies - if you expose to drug addicts, you will become like them.
It is uncomfortable - but being in uncomfortable surrounded by addicts - but you do not become non addict.
So exposure does not help if you are surrounded by untreated mentally ill people around you.
Also, exposure does not help if you have toxic shame inside you,
and if there is operand conditioning, Skinner's box from the past - where you were abused, neglected and invalidated so you learned to hate and blame yourself by default.
This means you cannot develop anything even in healthy ambient. Since toxic shame is like parasite, virus in your program, software that is generating false and wrong decisions. I would focus on toxic shame and Complex trauma here.
It is like - if you broke your leg - you cannot heal it by going dancing the very next day. You need to rest first.
And if the damage is deep - it might be permanent.
Long term exposure to narcissistic abuse causes brain injury - google it.
Also, emotional contagion is real thing. There is External factor - cruel, manipulative, parasitical Machiavellians are out there - see that people who went through trauma and abuse - will have superpower to detect such fake people much easily.
So social anxiety is smoke detector, it is neutral - it is not something to ignore or discard. IT is valuable.
I see that we live in sick, deceptive society where social anxiety is muddled.
There is purposely confusion - in order for pharma mafia to make money out of people in need.
There are clear distinction between social fears and CBT (default main therapy for social anxiety) lumps it all together and treat is all as hallucination that can be "cured" only by throwing a lot of money on drugs and therapy "education"
---
I would accept social anxiety and social fears. They are valuable ESP information that comes from unknown parts of our body and soul, and in the same time, anxiety is a smoke detector to detect fake people, danger and predators.
The goal is that we learn how to live with mechanism inside us that allow us to detect intrusive people.
This means -
instead of panic - I see panic as dysregulation, due to complex trauma. It is natural effect of Skinner's box, being in operand conditioning of invalidation and criticism when our persona was developing - therefore it is normal reaction to abnormal past events.
Now in adulthood - I have ability to detect distortion - someone who is hysterical very easily.
The trick is that I do not self-pathologize myself. The problem is not me.
Problem is the other person.
And then - the next step is actually solution to avoidance pattern:
That I become scientist, Sherlock Holmes - I put people in laboratory setting and seek clues - am I over-reacting, if not -
how I know that other person is dangerous.
Then - natural step is - how can I retort to difficult and criticizing and negative people in functional and proper manner.
There are ways to retort without drama, explosion or general avoidance and isolation from society.
So - social anxiety is part of complex trauma - that is where toxic shame and panic stems from - it is not something that is hallucination or something to feel shame and guilt about - it is mind mechanism how the brain reacts to toxic environment.
Also -
social anxiety is part of Darwin evolution - it is related to learning and educating myself how to deal with society in proper, functional manner.
That is Humanistic therapies, humanistic psychology approach - which I see works for anxiety situations.
The goal is that I accept and validate myself - which is anti-dote to trauma and toxic shame.
Another goal is that I focus on my dreams and action and exposure - but exposure is directed in direction which are in accordance to my values and my desires and what I define as good.
It is not frantic exposure - to toxic environment.
So I put myself in charge - I see this as best approach to dealing with anxiety.
Without anxiety I would never learn concepts such as egocentrism, external reference locus of control, and Darwin would look to me like strange and mysterious process that is only related to ancient biology past, bacteria and animals.
"Improving our relationships is improving our mental health."
William Glasser
They see us as timid, shy, weak, or unsociable. Fearing these labels, we try to be like others. But that leads to our becoming overaroused and distressed. Then that gets us labeled neurotic or crazy, first by others then by ourselves.
The Highly Sensitive Person, Elaine N. Aron
may be a mistake maker,
but I'm also a mistake breaker.
Maxwell Maltz
Control is a dangerous thing. And errors, errors are what is the real expression of the individual. Because if Picasso puts an eye where it shouldn't be, one sees it more clearly that if placed where it should be.
Jean Cocteau
---
Yeah, social anxiety is like being trapped in cave, similar to Tham Luang cave rescue from Thailand.
And Plato said that all people are in cave - and shadows in the wall appear as reality to us.
The way out of the cave requires us to first become aware that we are in cave - and that we start to doubt -
to allow ourselves to doubt both our own thoughts and conclusions - but also to allow ourselves to doubt other people - especially CBT which is main and default therapy for social anxiety (automatically found in any self help or official online resource).
I see social anxiety makes us trapped in egocentrism - and we need to incorporate Descartes invention of doubting - his famous quote tell us that
when we start to doubt, we will start to think.
I do not see the ultimate goal for social anxiety to be socially confident.
This is because:
Confidence is paradox.
If you try to be confident - you will never become confident. Instead you will overcompensate.
On the other hand - if you accept you are not confident - paradoxically you will become confident.
When we see this Chinese finger trap mechanism -
the natural clue will appear:
External factor.
Other people do influence our mind, decisions and our thinking. It is called Emotional contagion.
If we are in toxic environment, we will feel toxicity and it will influence our mind.
Now CBT will instruct us to expose - but perhaps in some cases it is better to avoid and minimize contact - with abusive and hysterical people.
So the next step is natural one - what we do when we cannot escape toxic people -
I see the solution in learning how to deal with toxic people in proper, functional manner - without drama, without explosions, without general isolation from the world.
I see that this retort information is hard to extract from the available resources.
Assertiveness training as suggested by CBT to polish our communication skills is flawed -
since it ignores toxic people factor and toxic shame.
Assertiveness instruct us to be opiniated and to highlight what we like or dislike - which makes us boring, annoying and difficult to be around with, since assertiveness will look like constantly nagging and complaining to others.
Instead I see solution in being ourselves - being natural -
and that is where the problem lies.
Toxic shame is internalized inside - Skinner's box operand programming while we were growing up, being exposed to relentless criticism - now it is virus program hypnosis inside us - it springs up as self blame and self-pathologizing.
The anti-dote to toxic shame (which I see as the perpetuum motor for anxiety issues along with toxic people) -
is that we learn how to evolve - it is Darwin evolution -
where we adapt to toxic environment in such way that we are able to be around and that other predators do not hurt us in the same time.
Roses developed thorns in process of evolution.
In the same time - I see our ability to remove toxic shame by self-validation and self acceptance.
Since we have social anxiety - the only natural way is to accept it.
We validate our introversion and shyness and do not pathologize it.
If we hate our job - and if we have option to quit it - quit it.
If we want to impress others - stop impressing others. We do not need to show material possessions to others to be validated - we can validate ourselves instead - which is called intrinsic locus of control.
I see it in mathematical equation
x + y = z
Where x is us, our demands, our fears, our panic, our wishes, our illusions, our reality, everything we want
y is outer factor - other people, their demands, their aggression, their inability to communicate
and z is desired outcome.
Z is crucial factor - how to equate two different elements x and y?
I need answer:
What I want from life?
What is that I want from other people?
Is it realistic that people like me and smile to me all the time?
Is is realistic that I shut up and self censor myself when they are rude?
What can I do to make other person trust me?
And how can I adjust myself to other people and events and society - that I do not let go off my own persona and values and what I consider correct and valuable?
The obvious answer is that if y is not available to change and adapt to me - I go away.
With social anxiety we do not go away in times when people and ambient are not healthy.
We stay. That is pathology.
We think pathology is our fear and that we heal by exposure -
but not all the time.
In certain situations - when I did all my best to adapt to unadaptable - it is best to cut contact and move away or minimize contact -
or the most obvious solution - that I become hysterical and violent and aggressive - if necessary, if the other person is violent.
There is great plaque in America - if you encounter wild cat, the plaque says to hikers: become as loud as you can and make yourself as big as you can.
That is bully-deflect advice that we never received when we were growing up.
And we ended up with trauma and people pleasing and being unable to deal erratic social situations - where we feel we have no confidence.
With social anxiety I do not allow myself to be natural. I try to crap fit to others. As we learned this during complex trauma.
I see that our ability to be natural, to be like ourselves and to allow ourselves to have balance between our logic and illogic - is the road to "social confidence".
I do not see it as social confidence - I define it as being me, being natural me. Authentic, honest,
and kind and loving. With trauma we were being taught that we cannot be demanding and angry and to express disagreement - we were programmed to believe that this is evil.
I see this toxic shaming programming as pain and hurt that we label as "social anxiety", while social anxiety is actually neutral, smoke alarm detector. With abuse and bully - we simply have upgraded this machine detector and now it is very sophisticated - we can detect fake people and abuse even at its infancy stage. I would see social anxiety as very valuable direction and GPS from inside - where I need to pay attention -
and learn how to deal and manage difficult and manipulative people in proper and functional manner.
"You can care about other people without caring what they think.
How they see you, perceive, view you - it's got nothing to do with you, it's none of your business. We walk around with filter. None of us see reality - we just see what we want to see"
DAN LOK
---
yeah
because he lumps social anxiety in one big giant hallucination, as CBT instructed him.
Whenever there is some distortion - the first symptoms will be social anxiety.
Social anxiety overlaps with almost all anxiety disorders and many other disorders and in many cases it is not disorder at all.
Yet CBT will make confusion and lump it all as hallucination.
That do this because of pharma mafia - they literally are making money out people in need, neurosis - instead of helping them.
Performance anxiety is natural -
if you do not have social anxiety, performance anxiety will wear off as the shyness with the exposure, it goes away as soon as you start talking.
However if there is internalized toxic shame - then this is clue that we have been hypnotized into Skinner's box operand conditioning - and problem is much more sinister.
It is clue that we were exposed to untreated mentally ill person when we were growing up.
It is also clue that probably we choose toxic people now as adults because we were programmed to self hate and codependency, to Karpman Drama Triangle situations - it is hypnosis, conditioning.
So we need to de-condition ourselves to deal with this crap fit trials.
Our performance anxiety mixed with toxic shame tries us to crap fit to be perfect,
to be accepted, to be loved by others - and it is closely resembling to narcissistic disorder where there is desire to be admired by others - that is emotional contagion we were infected when we were in close vicinity to untreated mentally ill person when we were growing up - someone critical all the time, being exposed to adult hysteria when child brain was unable to process it in any other way than developing toxic shame as safety mechanism.
Narcissistic person or people tried to make us into narcissistic abuser -
since the most quickest solution to social anxiety is to abuse other people - to be bully, to be critical to them, to nag and complain all the time, to become toxic.
We knew even as kid that that is evil and that being toxic is not who we are -
and we ended up with anxieties as natural mechanism to deal with evil people.
So solution to performance anxiety
is to realize ourselves - in relation to other people -
that their opinion is not fused with our mistakes. That our mistakes are not fused with our character.
Then you will allow yourself to make mistakes - and performance anxiety will lessen.
---
I am making retort list.
Education how to handle critical and difficult parasites, manipulators and any predators is crucial for social anxiety, since CBT (main therapy for social anxiety and avoidance) gives us wrong information, CBT tells us that we must expose to abuse, and that abuse is our own fault - that we create abuse by our thinking and through ABC model we can change abuse to be something else (?!).
CBT does not teach us to retort neither to deal with difficult people nor it recognize toxic people to exist as phenomena at all.
I added 4 your tips on my list that CBT does not teach us how to handle social anxiety!
---
"You ain't broken, you ain't damage. Everybody has social anxiety"
I literally posted this (Everybody has social anxiety) on main reddit forum for social anxiety and post got deleted because of too many negative comments and moderators who rejected this information (without reading it).
2:55 "unfamiliar talking to new people"
That is shyness.
What happens when you have negative experience with people screaming and yelling at you, being hysterical and nitpicking your mistakes and flaws and ignorance?
Social anxiety is not fearing talking to people. That is shyness.
Social anxiety is being in job situation where you cannot leave and other person - customer, boss, coworkers are screaming and yelling at you for something you done or even not done, done wrong or they are convinced you've done wrong, so they nitpick and being hysterical, throwing temper tantrums at you. It is being exposed to gaslighting and manipulation and you cannot leave or run away - because you need job, income, safety, shelter - that is social anxiety - being stuck in abuse with untreated mentally ill person such as aggressive borderline. They throw and sprinkle honeymoon phase here and there - so that you stay stuck inside Karpman Drama Triangle.
6:49 "you haven't talked to enough people"
Google:
Shame culture countries map. What if people in general are spreading toxic shame - being in toxic country? What then?
Google:
long term exposure to narcissistic abuse causes brain damage.
People can cause mental illness, mental instability in others.
There is emotional contagion.
8:40 "People who hate you no matter what you do. We do not spend time with those people."
CBT instructs socially anxious to expose to such people in order to gain immunity. CBT is main therapy for social anxiety found in all self help books and online resources from official medical resources. That is one problem.
Another problem is - that you cannot cut contact always.
You cannot run away from toxic people in certain situations - due to job, third party, resources, finances, shelter, help - and what then?
That is problem
what then? What if you are stuck with people who hate you and abuse you?
When you can't cut them out? And they keep abusing you?
What then?
That is what socially anxious people seek solution for.
Saying - just cut contact does not work .
Think it like this:
what if you are super intelligent - than all people will appear super toxic to you, since you will be totally aware of butterfly effect and you will see crap developing in real time before it accumulates into visible problem. What then?
What if you are super sensitive - than all people will appear super toxic to you, since you will be totally aware of domino effect and you will see crap developing in real time before it becomes visible to anyone. What then?
What if you have supernatural abilities, if you are indigo child, if you went through complex trauma, if you were in Skinner's box operational conditioning and programming - so you have toxic shame inside you for being who you are being punished for being yourself. Then all people will appear as toxic - what then?
What if you are stuck with person who is constantly complaining and nagging all the time - and you are not even aware that this is eroding your mental health at all? It would help if you note it - so that people become aware of influence of criticism on mental health- but you chose to ignore the external factor and you resolve it by simply walking away from it. Well Oprah said - if you run away from problem, it will simply walk right back in your life in a different pair of trousers.
So I would offer advice to people who cannot leave toxic people.
We need to adapt and adjust to predators.
For example - first step is to start documenting the abuse - so that you can make it clear. That helped Johnny Depp in his case, without documentation he would lose the court and he would be broke now.
The next is to learn how to retort to toxic people in healthy and functional manner. You do not talk at all about self-advocacy - while it is the biggest thing that socially anxious people seek advice how. How to retort to toxic difficult people?
14:10 "I can say the dumbest thing and they will like me anyway"
What if this advice does not work?
16:20 "You started talking to people and what happened? You meet lot of new friends. You went to places"
Nope,
I was taken advantage, extorted money, I was mocked for being sissy and weak, I was made to be ashamed, I was blamed that I do something to them.
When we are kind, nice and open - we will attract toxic people.
17:38 "We have those mechanisms to protect us. Now they don't serve purpose as much, we have technology, most people go along. Mechanism is not bad. You are taking it personally".
Think about it more deeply.
It is Darwin evolution, rightly. But complex trauma experience which is the cause of social anxiety - is ability to detect toxic people, manipulators and parasites, aggressive borderliners. It is smoke alarm detector.
I would accept it and modulate my behaviour in accordance to this litmus test.
This means, I do not have nothing to cure -
I can become Sherlock Holmes and scientist - seek clues and seek objective truth. I evaluate the evidence like in a laboratory and see if I am really in danger and what level of danger there is - and what can I do to protect myself. I adjust to toxic people to recognize them, cut contact if possible - and learn how to keep distance if I cannot cut contact immediately.
20:30 "talk to girl" "talk to new person"
Social anxiety is not about sex and mating.
Social anxiety is not about talking.
These are all shyness issues.
21:30 "Spotlight effect"
There are other effects as well.
21:50 "Thinking everybody is looking at you - You are narcissist"
Nope.
Narcissists are abusers. They seek admiration from others and they see other people as objects.
People with social anxiety do not seek admiration and they have empathy so they do not see other people as trash.
Narcissists use abuse and they are cruel to others, as aggressive borderliners are.
You are correct that social anxiety as form of self hate is on the same spectrum as narcissism - since there is self hate in both - however narcissists deal with their social anxiety by attacking others. Socially anxious people are afraid of others and they do not attack others, they attack themselves.
21:55 "Nobody is looking at you, they are focused on themselves"
Narcissists, manipulators are looking at you. They seek mistakes and mock others so that bullying makes them superior - and validated by others.
They will notice.
Toxic people notice your mistakes - this gives them as addiction to feeling high and good about themselves.
Toxic people notice your flaws (even external). And ignorance for the same reason.
23:00 "take to girl, talk in grocery story, make friends"
That is not social anxiety. That is shyness.
24:40 "Your focus in on yourself"
It is not. Focus is on other people. it is being zoomed onto other people, microscopically.
IT is looking how other person responds, their tone of voice, what words they use, their manner and how they act. Due to abuse in the past - you now look at the source of danger. That is social anxiety.
It is the same as to say to addict to stop being addict,
or to depressive person to smile and be positive.
The question about universe you talk at the end of video -
imagine if Nikola Tesla had internet back in 1899 - which basically owe it to him that we have wireless and AC/DC now - is the same as to say to Nikola Tesla that he must stop be so obsessed with pigeons, that he must talk to girls more and stop being closed in his world.
If Nikola Tesla cured his social anxiety - we would be stuck in 18th century now.
Why is it in extroverts that all people must be fascists and appear the same as groupthink and group herd mentality and conformism?
Why is it to make other people diagnose dangerous to nitpick someone who is different and try to "heal" and "cure" something that appears strange and difficult to us - simply because of our own egocentrism and our experience that we labelled as social anxiety - being lonely and shy?
This video is for shyness. IT does not work for social anxiety.
The irony is that shy people due to confirmation bias and confirmation bias and egocentrism and availability heuristic - will never ever be aware that they have problem and they will never spend the time of day to read, listen about it.
Instead victims of narcissistic abuse stuck in anxiety will seek videos - and they will end up listening to 30 minutes of some magical cure for "social anxiety" that is not social anxiety at all and this "cure" does not work at all -
just stop and be logical -
if anyone was in toxic relationship - everyone would end it long time ago.
The problem is why people stay in toxic relationships -
it is economy reason -
and another thing that is totally moronic -
is that you blame socially anxious people for being narcissistic
but in the same time you totally miss the information how to retort to narcissistic abuse.
Why?
Why is it so hard to talk about narcissistic abuse - which is crucial element of developing social anxiety due to bullying.
Why?
Why we ignore Trumps and manipulators and Putins. We put off the hook the psychopaths - we do not talk about their influence -
and instead we place all the blame and focus on survivors of psyhopaths.
That is Karpman Drama Triangle.
Where abusers are ignored - the first element of triangle. Survivors are blamed for the abuse - second element of triangle. And saviour is trying to help the survivor - third element inside the drama triangle.
And you as saviour is not even aware that you are part of drama and creating drama.
“Before you diagnose yourself with depression or low self-esteem, first make sure you are not, in fact, just surrounded by a$$holes.”
---
(19.7.2022)
"All I see is a competition, there is no place for the weak is this world"
Perhaps that is your meaning - to spread the message that competition is wrong?
And perhaps you can seek & find what is better option, what is correct, from the ethical and moral point of view?
I personally do not see competition.
I see it like evil and good, I see it more like from Zoroastrianism.
That there is Druj, falsehood - and we could be the ones who will be aware of it, discover it and voice out the elephant in the room - instead of shutting up, instead of self-censorship or being passive and living in fear & isolation.
Instead of competition I see it more like this:
There are people who are narcissistic, they are children trapped inside grown man's body so they try to satisfy their needs as spoiled children - by greed and backstabbing and through abuse.
These Machiavellians have a complex web of deceit -
which is very interesting when you start to study this Dark psychology - as if you are in a lab, or scientist. It is fascinating how corrupt human mind can get - and
then natural next step is how to counter it, how to retort to this external factor -
that causes butterfly effect of chaos and disorder in the long term - such as climate change.
For example, by studying social anxiety I found out that CBT is product of such deceit - and I find it fascinating how people can be easily hypnotized into believing anything that authority says.
So I learned about Descartes invention - to start doubting anything and everyone - even your own opinions. He called this Evil Demon Hypothesis.
The act of doubt frees your mind - since you are in the same time open for all possibilities of explanations and definitions and in the same time you doubt it to be part of some deceit scheme.
With such thinking, you are much more free to see reality more clearly and you come up with new solutions and ideas -
instead of being stuck in self pity, self blame or self hatred.
Then suddenly you might see "competition" as Darwin evolution - that predators are trying to survive -
and perhaps there is a better way to survive than competition -
as Darwin discovered it is about invention and adaptability.
---
(20.7.2022)
This topic is valuable for anyone suffering from social anxiety and avoidance, where other people's criticism and negative evaluation is activating threat.
It tackles the question how to retort and deal with difficult situations and stubborn people.
Since Social anxiety and avoidance is part of Complex Trauma, this information here is also valuable for anyone with CPTSD - someone who was exposed to long term narcissistic abuse (constant and relentless criticism and invalidation).
The effect on brain - I would label it as it is: Amygdala Hijacking, and once I learned this concept a year ago, it helped me to understand Emotional dysregulation much better than CBT's description that panic symptoms are hallucination.
From my own experience, conflict is almost always connected to narcissistic and toxic, egocentric people. Most of them will not listen to us - they will rather turn their back and walk away - so CBT's advice to solve communication skills with assertiveness does not help. Advice said here - that we focus on dissipating adrenaline is spot on! That is information that everyone is looking for, but most advice out there is in the wrong path, wrong direction without tackling amygdala hijacking issue - where our cortex brain is turned off.
If we are in interaction with someone normal and healthy - other person will care.
And a lot of socially anxious people, people who are afraid of conflict and have issues with confrontation stay in toxic relationship. CBT tells them to stay in abusive relationships and if abuse occurs that it is your fault for abuse happening. So again this is spot on:
46:58 "What future you imagine about in which you are not being cared about that you hope for and expect."
This means that if someone is constantly non caring - we have to plan to cut contact and leave, relocate - when we have finances and logistics ready to leave toxic people.
Because from my experience, toxic people are not necessarily overtly aggressive and narcissistic,
they are more hidden and really covert - and they sprinkle it with honeymoon phase. So - it is good to know how to dissipate adrenaline when these people trigger us -
such covert types usually demand something that we cannot do, since they have no empathy to see that we lack certain tools to be "perfect" for their grandiose expectations how we ought to perform or be.
---
Cognitive distortions are actually safety mechanisms - and they are survival mechanism originating in childhood when we were exposed to untreated mentally ill ambient around us - constant criticism 24/7 and being exposed to adult hysteria.
All people are prone to mental shortcuts, logical fallacies, oversimplifications, biases, bigotry - this is not endemic to anyone who is aware of own cognitive distortions.
If we decide that we have cognitive distortions, our toxic shame will explain that we are freaks and in the same time that all people around us are super normal and without any thinking errors.
Just because you are aware of cognitive distortions - they will not vanish on its own.
Cognitive distortions are like wounds. If you decide to blame yourself for the bleeding and label it as dangerous for bleeding - you are ignoring the search - what cut us in the first place?
5:17 coping statements do not work because of external factor.
External factor is dark psychology, abuse, manipulation and gaslighting that stems from people around us.
IF we have cognitive distortions - these distortions are proof that there is some toxic person or people around us who are untreated mentally ill: narcissist, psychopath, sociopath, parasite, emotional vampire, aggressive borderline, bully, etc.
If we decide to self pathologize and self blame - we will self abuse ourselves.
From my own experience CBT leads to being pushover and being people pleaser - since I would end up blaming myself for experiencing abuse and bullying - that somehow I do not have perfect and strong brain to withstand mentally ill people around me who feel pleasure from making drama and hurting other people, nitpicking and criticizing others.
I doubt that healthy mind is reduced to making Excel table of thoughts- analysis leads to paralysis.
I see more holistic solution - in realizing who is around us - and what we have inside us.
I see internalized toxic shame as culprit and motor that keeps cognitive distortions and inner critic ongoing. Instead of weeding out cognitive distortions I see that as signal that :
We need to pay attention to people around us and start to recognize who is covertly abusive to us - so we can retort, minimize or cut contact completely.
---
(22.7.2022)
Yep.
I see it as resentment, grudge, rancour. It lodges inside our body and it causes all kinds of illness, it rots inside, like Kafka's apple in our backs (Metamorphosis).
"In Metamorphosis, when the main character Gregor Samsa is hit by an apple, thrown by his father Mr. Samsa, the collision brings forth this sudden realization within Gregor and his family, as told in the Bible, 'by the apple "Your eyes shall be opened"'4: their eyes are opened."
"Being resentful, other people can open you up and drive you crazy, drive you in conflict. If you could drop that resentment, you can walk out of free man."
Roy Masters, 2010
"Resentment is hypnotic emotions. If I want to hypnotize you, all I have to do is frustrate you and upset you. To criticize you and degrade you, and pretty soon you are thinking backwards. You try to please me. You do whatever I want for peace – (but) there is no peace"
ROY MASTERS
I learned that resentment is tricky emotion, as Roy Masters said.
If you pretend it is not there - it will rot, it will still be there. So ignoring is not healthy - even though we are being told by society to suppress it - by media and CBT.
I learned that we need to acknowledge resentment in the first place, as you said in the video...
and then find way how to do it in healthy and functional, proper manner. I call this process as retort. Instead of shutting up or self-censorship, as being told by CBT to deal with anxiety that accompanies resentment.
Because there is always some toxic person or toxic ambient on the other side that is causing this resentment.
I learned with Complex trauma we never learned how to make shield, wall, a boundary - so we never learned how to retort.
We learned to ignore and to be nice and good and never make someone angry, and then to fix someone's anger as if it is our responsibility, which is definition of codependency.
---
"Stop Absorbing Other People’s Emotions"
I agree, this is important skill to develop-
However - as anything in life - there are complex, double-binding issues associated with any concept:
1)
if we decide to cut ourselves off from others - we will develop schizophrenia. We will become mentally ill. And physical law tells us that isolated objects become distorted. Without ability to have empathy, we become psychopaths. We need other people to form friendships, to get to our needs met and to have sex. Life is meant to be interdependent, not narcissistic. Narcissism is mental illness.
and
2)
there are manipulators out there, psychopaths, sociopaths, bullies and narcissist who are skilled at abusing Dark psychology to manipulate others.
Machiavellians use it daily. If we are seeing the world from our egocentric view - that all people are honest and without hidden agenda, as we are - we will be ignorant of true reality. Manipulation is their (toxic people's) only way to get resources from others, toxic people are literally like parasites or viruses in the nature - toxic people have no ability for interdependence, since they are mentally ill. These types of people will use gaslighting, for example like Trump who is manipulating and thus abusing voters with low IQ into submission and violence. When we are not aware that there are toxic people out there ,parasites like Trump, we will succumb to please them - since they use hidden techniques of hypnosis and manipulation of easy targets: people who are healthy, open and friendly, normal.
---
I learned that we have issues with dealing with angry people due to Complex trauma: being exposed to adult hysteria and criticism while our Persona was trying to develop.
So basically it comes down to the fact that we do not allow ourselves to be angry when something is wrong or unfair. We were conditioned to be people pleaser and to stifle down the resentment - which leads to plethora of mental and physical illness in long term. Inability to express anger in healthy and functional way - inability to construct anger in proper manner is central issue here.
If we suppress it, we will have issue with angry people -
and this means other people will manipulate and control us very easily. They simply throw temper tantrum and our panic symptoms will spring up, hormones keep us cemented into fawn and freeze response to threat, as being conditioned in Skinner box operational conditioning in young age when we were suppose to learn how to process anger in healthy manner: without general isolation, avoidance, neither drama nor explosions.
I would therefore go in direction to release our own anger -
and then we will understand when someone is angry - we will have actual empathy ability to understand angry people- where due to trauma we do not have this ability - instead we get afraid and react to someone's anger with panic, as we were being conditioned to respond automatically.
---
I see this as very complex issue.
Yes, anger can be used as control- And yes, anger is bad - however if we pathologize anger - we will not allow it ourselves.
Anger is beneficial in certain situations. Anger is sign what we dislike. Anger is sign where are our boundaries.
If we do not allow anger in ourselves or other people - in the process, we will become people pleasers and pushovers and angry people will manipulate us easily - we will start avoiding people and develop social anxiety issues and start avoidance of all people.
I see solution as Michelle is speaking - that we process and modulate anger in appropriate, functional, healthy manner. I call this process as retort or self-advocacy.
Without anger it is like giving up the court - and anyone can make accusations against us as they please.
Some toxic people make accusations because they are manipulative and with hidden agenda - and yeah these types are best to avoid, as Bible says.
However, most people are schlemiels , they are not evil. They are simply dumb with low IQ and appear dangerous.. but they only need the right data and information. IF we decide to cut people off - we will deny these people from the correct information that would help them straighten their falsehood, egocentrism.
---
I love that you tube is starting to realize that there are healthy alternatives to narcissistic and toxic Jordan Peterson.
Robert Greene is amazing, watch his tweets.
There are also Adam Grant, Jon Sutton, Steve Stewart-Williams, Dan Ariely, all great and healthy alternatives to ever so popular Jordan Peterson.
We need wise and normal and healthy role models like Robert Greene to help us make sense of life and reality that is often confusing and difficult.
I call it the nudge in the right direction.
---
From my experience CBT is wrong therapy. CBT left me with people pleasing issues and being pushover, I would self-censor myself and shut up whenever someone was behaving abusive - I would label anxiety that I feel as hallucination, as CBT instructs us.
Humanistic therapies are better and they actually work, since they acknowledge the subconsciousness factor.
What I learned from my own experience is that intrusive thoughts are actually part of Complex Trauma (CPTSD) where it is called triggers and flashbacks.
I learned that these spring up as flash bulb images, and are related to original trauma that resembles in the present - people and events, memories triggered by something.
Once we know these are triggers, we can learn about emotional dysregulation and Polyvagal Theory.
Worst case scenario might also be a work of highly intelligent brain - trying to figure out better solutions that offered in society and world prone to bad solutions and lower IQ herd mentality. I would stay off from self pathologizing that is at the heath and core of CBT.
Accepting anxiety does not mean ignoring it.
If we ignore resentment - it will fester inside, highly unhealthy habit - ends up with plethora of physical and mental illness.
I see accepting anxiety process more from Jung and Freud perspective -
similar to the sci fi plot of movie called Arrival from 2016:
"Louise Banks, a linguistics expert, along with her team, must interpret the language of aliens who have come to Earth in a mysterious spaceship."
Anxiety is message from deep within, autonomous part of ourselves that lead us in life and tries to tell us important message.
Often enough since it springs up from shadow and unconsciousness, our logic tries to explain it - and often it gets the message wrong.
I would try to see anxiety as interpreting dreams. You do not take dreams at face value - even when they are scary and disgusting - you try to understand what is meaning behind it.
That is, from my perspective, much more healthier and saner way to deal with anxiety, without causing additional neurosis, as CBT often cause in people who are seeking genuine help.
---
(24.7.2022)
"assume me for being rude like they get annoy,"
That is social anxiety alright.
I learned crucial concepts connected to this issue which CBT does not teach us at all (this means all self help books do not mention it) :
First is External reference locus of control. It means that we tend to trauma bond with other people due to internalized toxic shame.
Second is Codependency. This means we will try to scan for discomfort in other people and then try to fix it, as if it is our responsibility to make other people feel good.
Third is External factor. This means that there are narcissists (covert and overt ones), aggressive borderliners, parasites, emotional vampires, sociopaths, psychopaths out there - and most of them stay hidden behind the mask of someone you can trust and open up to, with whom you can talk frankly - only to find yourself trapped in two phases with their actions: value and devalue. They use honeymoon periods to keep victims stuck in their web of deceit. And CBT tell us detrimentally to be open to everyone, to trust everyone and to expose ourselves to everyone, that we do not avoid anyone. So basically we distrust our own instinct that someone is mentally ill and we force ourselves to be in contact with toxic people.
"mad at me for talking"
Yeah, they are mad.
Fourth concept is Egocentrism. Most people are stuck only at one angle from which they view their reality. That is egocentrism by definition. It is not being selfish per se, it is being stubborn and stuck at their viewpoint as the only possible explanation for anything in life. Similar to Christian belief in Dark Ages that Earth is the center of Universe. This is very dangerous mindset, and healthy children learn how to overcome egocentrism by the age of 12. Obviously - out social anxiety - which is caused by our empathy: natural ability to see world from multiple points of views, other people's shoes - this is making egocentric people mad. They cannot withstand cognitive dissonance, they cannot tolerate being wrong - like children with temper tantrums, they cannot understand why someone must not be punished when they do something that is not aligned with their point of view. This is very dangerous mindset, since it is found in serial killers, Crusades, Putin, Trump, North Korea - practically any tyrannical ambient.
These people will fail Milgram Experiment and they are prone to herd mentality, groupthink and conformism.
With social anxiety we have extraordinary ability to detect such toxic people.
Overthinking, labelled as illness by CBT - is actually sign we are clever and we use our brain to seek and search multiple point of views, something that people with lower IQ are unable to perceive.
Check out Lineland, A Romance of Many Dimensions is a satirical novella by the English schoolmaster Edwin Abbott Abbott, first published in 1884 - often used as parabola and allegory in science documentaries to understand how to overcome egocentrism of being stuck in our own dimension.
Our social anxiety is not illness as CBT instructs us to believe. The only "sickness" is external injury caused by untreated mentally ill people - Complex trauma - which cause us to be immobile and passive, to shut up and self-censor ourselves.
We need to overcome effects of trauma: external reference locus of control, toxic shame, dysregulation, self blame, self hate, self invalidation, codependency or lack of self love - that is only "illness" there is - it is wound that was inflicted by toxic people.
---
I used "most people are schlemiels" that is quote by Maslow, I gather. Or Zimbardo?
He wanted to say that most people are not satanistic evil like Charles Manson, even though they appear very toxic to us..
They scream, yell and are very rude and vulgar, impatient and aggressive.
In most cases common people simply do not know better choices or they are too lazy to overthink and spend time pondering, that is frustrating to them.
Literally that was the comment of one person over twitter when I explained the concept by Socrates that I can state "I know nothing" in order to gain knowledge. The comment was that this was too hard for them :D
To admit that they do not know anything and to learn about anything - it was too hard and complex for them.
So,
When we lean on oversimplifications - we will not see reality as it is, we will be stuck in Confirmation bias, bigotry, wrong conclusions and wrong definitions.
Piaget said that the final stage of growing up is overcoming Egocentrism.
Most people do not overcome it, they truly believe that they are the center of universe - and this causes a lot of unnecessary and easily avoidable problems if they only realized their Egocentrism.
The problem is that when we allow ourselves to ponder and doubt - we put ourselves in a position to be weak.
And that is the problem with narcissistic society - which does not allow anything that is perceived as "weak" to exist.
---
(25.7.2022)
"start seeing social anxiety as challenge that life is giving you and working on this challenge there are rewards on the other side"
Yep!
You got it!
Personally I believe that social anxiety stems from trauma, it is part of Complex Trauma, and the more we heal the trauma, more we will feel better in social situations.
I would go along with Humanistic therapies and see anxiety as challenges to overcome, rather than CBT approach as a label to curse us into hopelessness and passivity - and waiting for others to take initiate. Personally, from my 20 years of experience I see CBT (default main therapy for social anxiety) as extremely debilitating and misleading therapy that leads to people pleasing and passivity.
Jung and Freud told us to see anxiety as message from the unconsciousness, our Shadow, repressed parts - it has important message for us if we listen and understand it. And then act instead of reacting.
I am working on famous painters videos and today I stumbled on Giotto. He made a painting called Stigmatization of St. Francis (c. 1297). I checked the definition of stigma - it is feeling the wounds of Christ.
Well, who knows, it made me think that social anxiety might be even a supernatural - it is from Christian perspective receiving the psychological wound of Christ - the social anxiety that he felt during crucifixion. "44 In the same way the rebels who were crucified with him also heaped insults on him."
If I am religious, I would start seeing social anxiety from this perspective. It is not cross to bear, it is having private. intimate bond with our maker.
So instead of seeing social anxiety as illness, I would seek ways to see it as evolution, it is motor to keep us motivated to adapt and seek solutions and keep our head up.
---
I like this quote:
"Low self-esteem is like driving through life with your hand brake on.” -- Maxwell Maltz
Without accepting social anxiety as form of challenge, and without exposing the root of social anxiety: we will throttle during exposure. Exposure might even turn nasty and bring more of anxiety.
From my own experience,
exposure did not help with social anxiety, well - it removed panic symptoms a bit, however panic thoughts stayed. In 2015 I learned that these are called Intrusive thoughts or PureOCD.
Once I discovered Complex trauma 6 years later, I learned these rumination thoughts are due to triggers, flashbacks and emotional dysregulation.
I also realized that there are a lot of concepts that I missed to learn - which helped me a lot to make sense of social life.
The main concept is:
- External reference locus of control : due to toxic shame my self worth is centered at other people and their opinions.
- Dysregulation: it happens whenever situation, event or people resembling the original trauma appear. Which means I cannot do anything about it, the more I try to get rid of it, it gets tighter - even relaxation techniques - it has Chinese finger trap effect.
- Trauma bonding: due to exposure to relentless criticism 24/7 and being exposed to adult hysteria - which built up toxic shame, I tend to see other people as gods and I see myself as inferior. This means that exposure to social anxiety without being aware of external referencing and dysregulation will leave me with trauma bonding with other people. Usually this means I will shut up and self censor myself, and toxic people will sniff this out and take advantage of my passivity. This adds up totally new layers of social anxiety : Karpman Drama Triangle and codependency.
- Toxic shame is motor that inhibits us to be authentic and to take leadership. It is false Self that appears as our true Self and we follow it, even though it stems from trauma and it is hallucination.
The point is that social anxiety, as part of toxic shame running on auto-pilot, will direct us to stay stuck with toxic people - while the best strategy might actually be to avoid and stay away from certain types of predators. Our keen ability to detect and avoid predators is actually social anxiety itself. If we extract and remove toxic shame from our decision making, I would see social anxiety as direction where to go, while we force ourselves to expose: to act and to follow our dreams and intuition and our goals.
With trauma bonding as guidance we will expose to society with the cost of conformism and group-think, herd mentality. We will not allow ourselves to be authentic, different, innovative - due to fears of criticism and negative evaluation.
---
Social anxiety is also being focused on other people- it is being zoomed into other people and carefully watching their tone of voice, what they do, how they act. This is due to trauma - we were traumatized and now we expect danger from other people.
Complex PTSD.
Also, I would say that there are predators out there and they are very keen to watch and observe other people in order to criticize them and belittle them and make them feel inferior. Narcissists do notice and care about flaws and mistakes of others because it makes them feel good inside when they bully others.
Social anxiety is feeling and noticing bullies.
We need to change our perception about social anxiety.
IF we label it as something stupid, something to reject and that we are to blame - this is form of invalidation. It is repetition of original trauma that gets repeated.
Exposure will not help with toxic shame internalized inside us.
Toxic shame will twist our thoughts into the direction of External reference locus of control- This means that we see other people as gods, we honor and believe whatever they say - while in the same time we reject our own beliefs and conclusions - it is inferiority complex. So exposure with toxic shame will bring on more anxiety, and people pleasing issues and being pushover: we will stumble on toxic people, they will criticize and have negative evaluations about us - and we will trauma bond with them - we will see them as boss, superior, gods, and we will shut up and self censor ourselves.
Exposure will work when we work on intrinsic locus of control and when we heal the trauma by anti-dote of toxic shame: self validation, self acceptance and self love. Which means - if we have social anxiety, it means to accept social anxiety.
Social anxiety is fear of criticism and negative evaluation from others - this is official definition by medical resources.
This means we are perfectionists, we are afraid of making mistakes, flaws and not knowing something.
This is due to trauma, being brought up in toxic ambient of relentless criticism 24/7 and being exposed to adult hysteria.
Also,
from Christian perspective -
what is social anxiety is stigmatization - we feel the psychological wounds of Christ while he was crucified?
I would not reject and demonize social anxiety, that is form of self-pathologizing.
---
Social anxiety is based on toxic shame. Toxic shame is problem, not social anxiety.
IT is like Chinese finger trap.
The more you wiggle it, the tighter it gets.
Accept it as part of our persona. Grow with it. And outgrow it with time. Everyone makes mistakes and have flaws. Everyone has caprices, perks, quirks, perks - they just learned how to act and hide it well so it seems like they are perfect.
“We're all pretty bizarre. Some of us are just better at hiding it, that's all.” ― John Hughes, The Breakfast Club
---
There is also Fawn, it is part of 4F response (Fight Flight Freeze Fawn) - which leads to people pleasing, being pushover, being codependent (trying to fix other people's negative feelings) and taken advantage of.
1:23 "The reality is that many people experience these emotions, either from time to time or regular basis"
This is interesting to mention, I was banned from the main Social anxiety forum on reddit for opening subject about this.
There was a lot of negative evaluation and criticism that this is not true at all.
2:22 "Public speech"
That is not social anxiety. It is performance anxiety.
Social anxiety is being stuck in job type of situation where you are being yelled and screamed at and you cannot do anything about it, you cannot run away - or face being homeless for not paying your bills. That is social anxiety: being exposed to toxic people with temper tantrums.
Socially anxious people seek information how to retort and how to deal with difficult people in proper and functional manner - while CBT unfortunately does not offer any concrete information about it. Instead CBT is focused on making abuse is some kind of hallucination.
I see that CBT lumps social fears into hallucination. That is why I think CBT is bad therapy and it ought to be banned.
in reality there are different social fears, not related to each other, with more known factor behind it:
1) Shyness - it is feeling social threat feelings at some social event, but social fear wear off quickly and shy person is not bothered by it again
2) Social anxiety - it is feeling of social threat before the event, during event and after event. Fears do not wear off and you keep ruminating about it. This is due to trauma, condition called CPTSD and it is not hallucination neither delusion nor illusion.
3) Social anxiety disorder - it is feeling of social threat at safe events, when you know that person around you will not harm you. For example in safe, empty room, and you are with Oprah or Mandela or Mother Theresa or Gandhi - the safest person you can ever imagine - but you still feel threat that they might harm you. This condition is part of Paranoid Delusional Disorder, and only 1% of population has it.
4) Narcissistic disorder - it is feeling of social threat triggered when someone warns and alarms you for being intrusive. Due to confirmation bias you are not realizing that you are rude and arrogant and intrusive - so you conclude that you feel social anxiety due to unknown reason from random people.
5) Autistic disorder - you live in your world and you are not aware that you appear threatening to people, for example you do not say Hi to them or smile back to them. So you feel social anxiety because you feel tense and awkward in social situations and you have no idea why.
6) Performance anxiety - when you feel social fears when performing in public
CBT lumps all these as hallucination in order to make it easier. However oversimplifications leads to distortions.
So CBT is using cognitive distortion - over-generalization paradoxically to explain social anxiety as cognitive distortion.
There is Jane Elliott's Blue Eyes, Brown Eyes experiment, exercise - that showed that social settings can influence the targets.
There is Narcissistic abuse: Long-Term Narcissistic Abuse Can Cause Brain Damage.
There is Stanford prison experiment where it is shown that targets of abuse in toxic ambient where they cannot escape from will develop extreme social anxiety.
There is Skinner's box and Little Albert experiment which shows that people can be conditioned and initiated into social anxiety.
CBT ignores External factor: abusive people and toxic shame (product of being exposed to toxic people) - and that is why Humanistic therapies are more appropriate and more effective to social anxiety than CBT.
CBT is like Ludovico Technique from A Clockwork Orange (1971) - it is government tool intended for criminally insane, a form of lobotomy - while truly socially anxious individuals are collateral damage in this form of social control through psychiatry.
12:40 "What kind of thoughts you have"
Looking social anxiety from the prism of Complex Trauma, we can learn that cognitive distortions are normal reaction to abnormal situation, abnormal people and abnormal events.
CBT highlights cognitive distortions as if they are endemic to social anxiety - while in reality all people have Confirmation bias, Availability heuristic is not endemic to social anxiety.
"The availability heuristic, also known as availability bias, is a mental shortcut that relies on immediate examples that come to a given person's mind when evaluating a specific topic, concept, method or decision." Wikipedia
I would see toxic people as important and crucial factor in social anxiety.
We need to learn how to deal with difficult people - and our social anxiety will diminish - since we will adapt to how to deal and avoid predators. It is part of Darwin evolution.
---
This is called External referencing locus of control - where we seek approval and validation from others.
It stems from toxic shame internalized inside us.
Toxic shame stems from Complex Trauma - being exposed to relentless criticism 24/7 and adult hysteria in times when child brain psyche was developing and it could not handle the abuse - it is similar to shaking fragile baby's bones - it is not solid yet - it is abuse.
However our twisted, low IQ Trump society is narcissistic and thus values abuse as form of strength and competency.
There are toxic people out there that care a lot about our mistakes, flaws and ignorance and they exploit it against ourselves - through toxic shame and abuse. With complex trauma we are prone to trauma bonding and we do not cut toxic relationships with people.
Social anxiety is being stuck in job type of situation where you are being yelled and screamed at and you cannot do anything about it, you cannot run away - or face being homeless for not paying your bills. That is social anxiety: being exposed to toxic people with temper tantrums.
Socially anxious people seek information how to retort and how to deal with difficult people in proper and functional manner.
---
CBT is Ludovico technique from A Clockwork Orange (1971) - it is government tool to lobotomize criminally insane, while truly socially anxious individuals are collateral damage in this government attempt to control society.
Instead of CBT there are Humanistic therapies that recognize that each person is different and precious and has value.
CBT ignores authenticity and tries to adjust fascism into psyche. CBT uses Aristotelian approach and ignores Fuzzy logic that governs our dualistic world.
CBT totally ignores abuse and effects of abuse on our mind.
CBT will falsely claim that there are no toxic people and that other people cannot influence us.
I see social anxiety as part of Darwin evolution - where we have ability to detect abuse and predators easily.
And our task as Darwin teaches us - is to find solutions and to adapt to predatory ambient where we can be authentic, active and thrive.
Roses invented thorns.
---
Check out Flatland: A Romance of Many Dimensions. Edwin A. Abbott.
It is often used in documentaries about science to grasp thought that there are multiple dimensions.
I see that you struggle with good and evil hehe
Many philosophers got stuck with that dilemma.
If we see Darwin evolution, and Yin Yang - it makes sense.
The bad in this world must exist. Without it, we would not have contrast. There would only be good.
We would not appreciate good and we would not be able to detect good.
So enter multiple dimensions.
IF we get born from heaven into Earth - we will be inside dualistic environment, where our inability to detect what is wrong - might lead us to become Hitler, Putin or Trump - since we will rationalize our actions as good. From our availability heuristic, we are good, and we Crusade for good in a world where there is contrast. Our low IQ might prevent us from observing that there is duality and double binding -
and we will start to label bad as something to be destroyed in order to attain the good. We mess up Yin Yang -
in order to have balance, there has to be black and white.
There has to be our ability to detect duality.
That is why evil exists.
It is there is make us aware of dualism and contrast - that otherwise our egocentrism would not allow us to perceive.
IT is a sign post where not to go and it is valuable data stream how to retort, defend against in proper and functional manner against it.
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(27.7.2022)
We are not Gods, we do not set up the rules. We cannot control other people.
And we cannot defend ourselves when we are defenseless.
Stockdale paradox tell us that we will survive when we embrace horrible facts and reality as it is, while in the same time when we keep hope as guiding light.
Like it or not, on this planet, we are mere travelers here, tourists, explorers - perhaps by our own intention & choice, as Plotinus, ancient wise Greek said 2000 years ago.
Check out Kurt Vonnegut Jr. and his novel and 1972's movie "Slaughterhouse-Five", he survived Dresden bombing in WW2, and he is seeking the meaning of abuse and unfair situations in his life he had to endure. He came to conclusion that in order to have a pleasant experience in our mind, we need to focus on the good and forget about the bad.
Our life - good and bad will become one timeline in our memory - so it is up to us where we will place our intention to look.
A Clockwork Orange (book and movie) was written by author whose wife was brutally raped - he tried to understand why evil and violence happens. And he came to shocking conclusion that without evil, there would be no freedom of choice. No freedom of choice means being a slave, being controlled, being zombie, having lobotomy, being people pleaser and being pushover - where anyone who is slightly sociopathic would abuse you for eternity.
Who says that even though we do not set up the rules, we cannot set up our own rules?
We can actually have immense love towards our abusers and still cut contact with them and pretend they never existed. Society is deceptive oftentimes, and we restrict ourselves to conformist rules that do not belong to us and groupthink rules that we can actually modulate and control.
---
First be scientist - is there a real danger, true danger behind someone's request?
Perhaps there is - I would say I would not give that information.
Maybe you could ask for web page and see how it looks like that imaginary tree. Who puts personal information like that online?
If you said no, you would shake afterwards - you would self blame yourself for not being sociable and warm and friendly.
I would focus here on your label "self betrayal"
This is self pathologizing and it is part of Complex Trauma.
We have self blame - since we grew up with that as being normal and rational decision.
People pleasing is result of complex trauma, it is programming, hypnosis.
Hypnosis means we see only one way reality - in this example - that we reveal information to intrusive people. We got programmed to do that. There is mechanisms inside our body - hormones being released , chemicals running lose that make us be subservient and feel guilty is we deny someone's unreasonable request.
I would ease up on self pathologizing.
---
I learned about Fawning last year (thanks to Marshall's videos Happiness after codependency).
There were hundreds of books I read about social anxiety in past 20 years - absolutely no word about fawning at all. Or trauma.
This seems to me like telltale red flag that we live in sick, narcissistic, deceptive society that does not offer us all information that would benefit us. Without correct information we are much more easily controlled by sociopaths that operate safely from managerial seats.
My fawning was shutting up and self-censorship, self blame, self hate and self invalidation - toxic shame - seeing myself as incompetent and inferior. It is extremely degrading and it leads to moral injury.
"I tried to open them up to thinking brain"
Yeah, that is codependency- when we try to fix other people's negative emotions, when we feel responsible to calm other people down. Author of Human Magnet Ross Rosenberg says that Codependency is false label, that actual concept is lack of Self love. He says that in stable, normal and healthy relationships - it is normal to have diplomatic skills and to negotiate with others - this is not pathology itself. In toxic relationships our diplomatic skills turn into people pleasing and being pushover - not because we are "sick" - but because the other person is untreated mentally ill. Normal people do not abuse others, they do not beat the dead horse or gaslight them.
External reference locus of control and trauma bonding are another two concepts that we cannot find in self help books about anxiety. Without information that toxic shame shifts our self worth into other people - we are not aware of hypnosis.
---
I see people pleasing as litmus test for detecting untreated mentally ill people, toxic people around us.
I would stay off from self-pathologizing ourselves. People pleasing stems from trauma, CPTSD, being exposed to relentless criticism 24/7 and adult hysteria that child brain was unable to process other than surviving mechanism in form of introjection that is part of fawning.
Normal, healthy people do not abuse other people, even when they make mistake or are flawed.
I would place emphasis on the external factor - toxic people around us.
Being friendly, having diplomatic skills and helping others is not pathology. Fawning starts to be problem when we are in some kind of contact with toxic people - where toxic people are pathology here, not us.
So, this means when we decide to set boundaries - in reality this means being stuck inside Karpman Drama Triangle where you are constantly reacting to toxic person intrusive behaviour. What resists, persists.
Toxic people use Dark psychology - and they know very well how to break boundaries - they use our mistakes, flaws, ignorance, our desire against ourselves - our desire not to hurt someone is used against ourselves. Toxic people know how to do this, since the only source of validation is making other people feel small and toxically ashaming others.
Expressing our opinions - is ok, self expression is anti-dote to trauma, however, when we start to be over-opiniated we become difficult and toxic ourselves. Who would want to listen to someone's likes and dislikes, nagging and complaining all the time?
I see mental freedom by learning about Social stigma.
There are interesting concepts to learn about filter that all people have, confirmation bias and availability heuristic, double binding - where we jump to conclusions to solve issues - while in reality any action can be labelled as evil and wrong. So with toxic people - it is easy to toxically ashame their unsuspecting target: they simply wait for someone's mistake and then they shame them. Once we understand dualistic world and double binding - we can retort to narcissistic abuse with more confidence.
There is also issue about society - it is not bounded to friendships. In toxic countries, without job options, people can be stuck in toxic jobs with perfectionist boss that exploit their targets - which means - in order not to be people pleaser - you actually must have money - in order not to become homeless when you retort to mentally ill supervisors/managers at job.
So people pleasing is much larger social issue related to social justice, and survival rather than mere teen friendships issues.
---
"Sacrifice time,
feel responsible for other people feel
Forgive too easily
people please when suppose to be upset
Comfort them when they hurt you"
That's all true, however it does not help in real life, unfortunately.
In fact, it has the opposite effect.
Stop victim blaming.
You are convinced that social stigma, shaming and self pathologizing people pleasers will lead to concept that is called Pygmalion effect:
The Pygmalion effect, or Rosenthal effect, is a psychological phenomenon in which high expectations lead to improved performance in a given area. The effect is named for the Greek myth of Pygmalion, the sculptor who fell so much in love with the perfectly beautiful statue he created that the statue came to life. Wikipedia
However this does not happen - because people pleasing is not choice. People pleasing is hypnosis. Programming, that stems from complex trauma - being exposed to untreated mentally ill people, toxic ambient of child being exposed to adult hysteria 24/7.
Hypnosis is state of mind where all logic that is healthy turns out as self blame - since you do not offer counter reality, counter steps how to behave and act in the presence of predators, toxic people, narcissists, bullies.
What you described here:
"Sacrifice time,
feel responsible for other people feel
Forgive too easily
people please when suppose to be upset
Comfort them when they hurt you"
These are all survival mechanisms. For survivors of abuse - there were no other options available.
Victims of abuse were thrown out of car when they stopped sacrifice their time, when they stop codependency patterns of trying to fix other people's temper tantrums, when they stopped rationalizing their abuse, and acknowledge being upset for being abused.
We can look at statistics of femicide and see what happens when women stop people pleasing their mentally ill captivators.
Real problem are untreated mentally ill people that narcissistic society supports and value - since toxic, deceptive society sees aggression as valuable trait.
So when you nitpick, criticize and label someone as people pleaser - this only turns worse due to:
Nominative determinism is the hypothesis that people tend to gravitate towards areas of work that fit their names.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nominative_determinism
Nominative determinism
In social theory, framing is a schema of interpretation, a collection of anecdotes and stereotypes, that individuals rely on to understand and respond to events.[2] In other words, people build a series of mental "filters" through biological and cultural influences. They then use these filters to make sense of the world. The choices they then make are influenced by their creation of a frame.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Framing_(social_sciences)
Framing (social sciences)
Labeling theory posits that self-identity and the behavior of individuals may be determined or influenced by the terms used to describe or classify them. It is associated with the concepts of self-fulfilling prophecy and stereotyping. Labeling theory holds that deviance is not inherent in an act, but instead focuses on the tendency of majorities to negatively label minorities or those seen as deviant from standard cultural norms.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Labeling_theory
Labeling theory
Abuse is NOT caused by bad relationship dynamics. You can't manage your partner's abusiveness by changing your behaviour. But he wants you to think you can.
Lundy Bancroft
Any attempt to dictate what thoughts, feelings, and sensations are proper or improper creates a breeding ground for guilt and shame.
Peter A. Levine
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(28.7.2022)
" Let go of presumption something bad will happen. "
Ok,
however what to do when something bad actually does happen?
🤔
You speak out your true honest conviction & opinion and you get fired in response - and now you are homeless without ability to pay bills - what now..?
You get job where other people are screaming and yelling at you, and you do not know when the next temper tantrum will explode - what then? Scream back? Get fired for doing so? What then? 🤔
Also,
If I am assertive all the time, I will become extremely toxic myself: I will nag & complain other people about my likes and dislikes, that is weary to listen to all the time.
---
Assertiveness does not work with toxic people.
They do not listen to your opinion, they simply turn their back and walk away. They backstab you for you being honest. They can turn to be violent.
If we are in position where we must say No - it means that someone on the other side is intentionally exploiting us. The very urge and need to say No is indication that there is toxic, aggressive and untreated mentally ill person on the other side.
If we decide to keep communication with such abuser, it will turn into Karpman Drama Triangle. Where I would be a victim, that person would be abuser and people with advice like you will be Rescuer.
That is classical Karpman Drama Triangle.
With assertiveness we are putting focus as if it is my responsibility to change and control someone who is lazy and non-cooperative and who has egocentric mindset.
Assertiveness is marketing ploy - it is a way to spend money on fitness couch that does not work in real life. If we are in healthy ambient, there will be no exploitation and taking advantage of someone who is willing to work.
In real life - when we face someone who is abusive and exploitative - it will end up with us getting fired.
So, if I choose to be assertive and say no and frankly speak my opinion - I have to change my habits, collect and save money beforehand - since this is also question of survival. It means I will have to look for another job, again and again.
The system is corrupt, we live in deceptive and narcissistic society.
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(29.7.2022)
Yep!
CBT is focused on socially anxious symptoms and totally ignores trauma model as the cause, thus keeping anxious individuals stuck in anxiety, people pleasing and more of codependency aka lack of self love or self validation.
I would add to the relationship pyramid also perfectionism, it is connected more to job type of situation where mistakes, flawed and ignorance of important data are deeply ashamed by toxic people - which is perceived as extremely painful and unbearable to endure.
Yeah, the cure is also enigma - I think it is due to Ship of Theseus paradox or Sorites paradox - at what point the whole entity is considered whole, if we take away parts of it and even replace them with the new ones?
The sorites paradox is a paradox that results from vague predicates. A typical formulation involves a heap of sand, from which grains are removed individually. Wikipedia
The Ship of Theseus is a thought experiment about whether an object that has had all of its original components replaced remains the same object. Wikipedia
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"Angry person refusing to change their behaviour – God does not expect us to be emotional punching bag on recurring basis. You can still love person, forgive person and want best for them without being in close relationship with them."
Love it! Thank you!
All true,
however I would also add phenomena that I call "External Factor",
I am talking about extreme anger - where it is pathological - and it even can be covert, it does0t have to entail temper tantrum, it can go undetected for years, thinking we are the problem due to gaslighting. Narcissistic, psychopaths, people who do not have empathy at all- they have no cell in their body that perceives other people around them.
Most of us cannot comprehend this sociopathy exists since we have natural feelings of shame and guilt.
We see it in the news, we read about it in newspapers, novels, see it in the movies, crime pages, but it is all distant and fictious to most of us.. so
Without grasping that there are people who absolutely do not care about you, we tend to rationalize their abuse and tend to trauma bond with them in order to "heal" them which leads to codependency issues. We forgive them too easily, since we have no clue that there are people like that in our midst.
They absolutely do not care that they cause deliberate mental injury to other people.
I struggled with this concept, since it is connected to my social anxiety - and I learned that I lack defense mechanism. I call this as "Retort". It is different than "Assertiveness" - since assertiveness is marketing ploy and it does not work in real life, when we experience mobbing or criminal activity such as Machiavellian abuse (hidden exploitation based on deliberate theft).
So I even made a list of retort words, that surprisingly never came up to my mind, since I would never treat like that to other people - so I lacked defense mechanisms - since we all mirror our inner world outside.
Sometimes we cannot cut contact with such people, and we are forced to be in pool with sharks. Then we need to learn how to retort to their aggression.
They will target our natural mistakes, flaws that are even external to us, they target our lack of knowledge and habitually they equate our mistake with our character which is definition of toxic shaming.
Toxic shame if prolonged can lead to mental illness in the receiver of abuse. So this is serious matter that demands ourselves to evolve defense mechanism, like roses developed the thorns with evolution.
No one teaches us how to do this retort to untreated mentally ill people in proper, healthy, functional manner without drama, explosions, or general agoraphobia avoidance and isolation from all people.
---
"If it is not praising them, it is criticism to them."
Missing puzzle revealed. That attack when I warned and alerted them was mystery to me. I always ended up being bad for feeling bad when they are the ones being belittling me.
---
"This took years for me to comprehend"
Yep
because it is extremely complex - with our own feelings of hurt.
When you have social anxiety and/or codependency issues (lack of self love) you tend to over react to criticism a lot. And of course, you are aware that this over reaction is over reaction so you stifle it down - and then we end up receiving abuse.
Social anxiety, codependency are on the same spectrum as narcissism - narcissism is on the other side of extreme but same spectrum. Self blame, self depreciation, self hate is the mirror image of narcissism. Problem is that we want peace at any cost - which means staying in good relationship, without drama, without wars, without explosions. And then this desire to keep peace makes us attract narcissist who gladly criticize us, making us feel inferior and incompetent. And paradox is when you try to rebel against it, alarm and alert them to stop - we get gaslighted that we are the problem - and we believe them. They describe our mistakes, flaws and ignorance and we take it as proof of our incompetence and inability to manage our own life - and we get hooked on them - believing they are competent and strong and better than us.
While in reality they are clueless as anyone else. They just pull mask, pull a show, make act to appear competent, better and superior to us and everyone else. They keep the show ongoing by constant and relentless criticism of our minute mistake, flaws and ignorance and they do it 24/7 so we end up rationalizing constant criticism of us as person as normal ambient to live in.
Problem is that exposure to this constant belittling can have devastating effect to our brain and mental health. Exposure to this in childhood creates Complex PTSD - as if we were in a war ambient as kids, during the age when our psyche, persona was suppose to develop.
It is the same as shaking a fragile child with weak and undeveloped bones - something will crack, exposure to relentless criticism will make long lasting detrimental result on our mind.
---
In real life I discovered that it is hard to establish boundaries in toxic ambient.
Narcissists are skillful in criticism, they nitpick our mistakes, flaws, lack of knowledge - they basically pull our natural need and urge not to hurt someone and they beat it up over our heads with it.
When you try to reason with them - they simply walk away, turn their back and walk away - so they basically do not listen to your side of story at all.
And many times we cannot cut contact - since we need some resource from these people - it can be job situation, we need some kind of paper, object from them that they are the only one who provide it, it can be related to third party (having kids with them), it can be inability to move due to low finances so you depend on shelter on them -
which is all connected to social and economic issues.
In toxic ambient, toxic people are very skillful in toxic shaming. Toxic shame is where we are being guilt tripped, brainwashed, gaslighted due to our mistake and our mistake is being connected with our character, to our persona, as we are deep inside: they present it as if we are faulty, inept - which can be devastating to our self esteem, Self, mental health, mental balance.
You end up not being able to blame yourself - since they present our natural mistakes, flaws and ignorance as something that make us toxic and abusive to them and others.
So our need to be good and nice is being used against us through hypnosis - and we are not being aware that we are being manipulated.
Marketing and crooked politicians are doing this Machiavellian tactics all the time.
For example
if you say I have to think about it - they make it into hysteria, they curse, yell and pull temper tantrum, and they make you responsible for panic and someone's health and well being - where your decision to take time is made into abuse of innocent people who suffer because you decide to take time out. The sense of urgency - when we are exposed to this abuse - ends up as OCD in our mind.
As I said - we get stuck in this - either because we are not aware at all what is happening or we are forced to stay stuck in such gaslighting ambient due to finances - facing being homeless if we refute to their requests.
I learned discover that we cannot say no to someone - we have people pleasers and pushover issues due to Complex Trauma - where we grew up in toxic ambient of constant and relentless criticism 24/7.
This means, our cortex part of brain gets offline whenever we get triggered to the same abuse we experienced as children, when our brain was suppose to develop and grow. Similar to shaking baby when baby's bones are fragile - shaking can break them easily. Constant criticism in young age is the same as violent physical abuse of baby - same effect in the mind of survivor of abuse.
Asking our heart what is right in that case will not help much, due to Confirmation bias and Availability heuristics - which means you are not aware that you are in the water if you are fish. You simply do not know how to handle abusive, intrusive people - if you are being molded by them almost all your life. They pull Skinner box on our brain - they make Little Albert Experiment on us - we get learned helplessness and conditional operant, similar to Pavlovian dogs or circus animals - where even when we do say No - we will in turn feel extreme shame, extreme guilt and extreme discomfort.
I am talking here about hypnosis and being initiated to be subservient to people.
Logic will not help therefore.
The problem is ingrained in our subconsciousness. And abuse and trauma made it gravel and ingrained in our brain -
google: Long term exposure to narcissistic abuse causes brain injury.
I learned to deal with toxic shame - which is virus inside implanted by untreated mentally ill people is total self acceptance, self validation, self love.
When we do it, it will have dramatic effect on our life - not only on our ability to say no.
We will most likely change job and cut contact with many toxic parasites that got attached to our friendly, kind and warm nature.
---
1.8.2022
" Gradually your social neural networks will desensitize and the vibe you give off will be more relaxed"
This is shyness. You never had social anxiety at all.
Social anxiety is being in a situation like job type - where people yell and scream at you, and you cannot defend yourself and in the same time you cannot leave so you must take in their abuse, and thus you experience moral injury - witnessing abuse, criminal behaviour and you cannot do anything about it.
Going to parties is not social anxiety.
"That's how I got less introverted in any case"
Being introverted is not sickness.
That is not mental illness. Introversion is not pathology.
---
What happens when it is not safe during the exposure - and in the same time you cannot leave - for example at job type of situation where someone is rude - but that rudeness is accepted by society as normal level of rudeness?
What then?
AT what point rudeness becomes mobbing?
And how to deal with moral injury in such situations - where we cannot leave.
I would move into direction of retort and knowing how to respond in difficult situations.
For example, I only learned few months ago that I can say "I disagree with you". Due to Complex Trauma which is behind social anxiety, I learned that I can respond only with two answers:
1) throw explosions and be macho and throw Karen type drama
or
2) be silent, self-censor myself and shut up-
as if there is no alternative.
Socially anxious people were abused - and we do not know how to deal with verbal abuse -
mere exposure will not help with dangerous situations.
I use Johnny Depp example -
where he was exposed to Amber's abuse - and exposure did not help him.
If he stayed with her, he would be broke now and labelled as criminal by whole world and his movie career would be over.
If he ran away - the same thing. Exposure does not help if we do not know how to act in difficult situations.
That is the point of psychology - to give us data and information - that we will use later on when we are faced with difficulties.
For Johnny Depp - he documented the abuse and used in the court - he done the correct thing how to deal with social anxiety.
---
You probably never had social anxiety at all.
This is shyness, very similar condition that mimics social anxiety.
Social anxiety is good thing - it mobilize us. It is related to 4F stress response to predators.
It is survival mechanism. When people get abused in childhood and later on, this response misfires and becomes detrimental - due to Complex Trauma. That is social anxiety.
When we find the toxic shame behind social anxiety that was instilled through Skinner's box, we can accept social anxiety as hypnosis, programming by untreated mentally ill people in toxic ambient around us - it is not something to label as ugly wart and hope it will fall off by our magical thinking.
Think of social anxiety like being in job type of situation where you are being yelled and screamed at, and you cannot leave. You face someone's temper tantrums and you cannot do anything about it, only take in the abuse and suffer mental anguish, moral injury for witnessing criminal behaviour (abuse). You can quit your job - and then be homeless and be abused in the streets - where you cannot run away. Again, the same thing. That is social anxiety.
Being able to modulate and fix what your availability heuristic labels as social anxiety is mere shyness.
Problem is that people with true social anxiety read comments like yours and then they feel sick permanently since they are not able to magically remove their true anxiety as you report it, and you label them as lazy for not being able to remove what you label as "social anxiety".
In this way you are unintentionally doing serious damage to people who were abused by declaring your "magical" cure for anxiety that was not anxiety at all.
---
"Is it okay to say no to social gatherings if you think you still can't handle it?"
Become scientist, Sherlock Holmes.
Social anxiety is part of Complex Trauma - it means it is mechanism that protects us against predators similar to the bullying and abuse that we endured during growing up when social anxiety sprinkled up and molded us into anxious neurotics.
So - you need to find and seek clues and evaluate like in a laboratory - are you in physical danger at particular situation - and face errors and possible bad judgement as ok, since perfectionism is also instilled inside us along with toxic shame in toxic ambient.
This means...
"My close friends invited me for a coffee chat yesterday but I refused because there were so many new people I haven't met (mutual friends)"
Unless those close friends are serial killers, you ought to accept his invitation and check and see what would happen.
You can always excuse yourself and leave if they mock and attack you - which they probably would not do - if they are friends to your friend. If your friend attracts toxic people, he probably would not be your friend anyway?
---
I see toxic shame as being motor inside social anxiety. And toxic shame is internalized hallucination: deep core belief that we are inept and incompetent: that part is not real.
Toxic shaming is real. Abuse is real.
So - the true problem is outside of us, it is what I call External factor: narcissistic, abusers, psychopaths, sociopaths, Machiavellians, parasites, bullies, aggressive borderliners, Karens, drama queens. There are evil people out there that abuse others - and cause toxic shame inside other people, like spreading virus.
Emotions are contagious.
Yeah, self love, self acceptance, self validation is anti-dote to toxic shame, external factor, abuse and Complex trauma - which social anxiety is part of.
Labels can do more damage than good.
Labels help us light the dark room, however - since we are not living in perfect world (ideal form by Plato) the light will probably carry virus of Druj (falsehood) and thus even light can do damage - which labelling is doing.
It helps to find label to social discomfort fears - but due to double binding - in the same time - labelling gives social stigma and thus causes additional mental damage and stigma gives birth to new anxieties and neurosis that were not present before labeling.
---
"all Anxiety emanates from the the desire to escape the present moment"
Escape is only 1 response.
There is 4F:
Fawn
Fight
Freeze
Flight
Fawn - people pleasing, being pushover, being codependent, self censor, shut up, moral injury
Fight - become narcissist, aggressive borderliner, throw drama, criticize and abuse others
Freeze - being immobile, not moving, procrastinating, not taking chances nor decisions
Flight - run away, far away, only to finding drama in another pair of trousers
---
"Maybe read some DSM V/American psychiatric association research, because the way you say it may hurt some."
DSM is hurting people by labeling and social stigma.
DSM is form of thought control, it is government tool to lobotomize criminally insane, while anxious individuals are collateral damage in the process. If we end up seeking help, we will get pills intended for nuts and be treated as nuts.
This shows that we live in Trump, deceptive, narcissistic society ran by corrupt corporation and Bush family filled with Nixon corrupt mentality to exploit masses and poison the planet for their wealth and benefit.
👇
"What is the major problem with DSM?
1. It Lacks Scientific Basis. Of the 297 mental disorders listed in the DSM-5, almost all of them lack any scientific basis to begin with. The DSM-5 promotes the idea that for most psychological disorders, there is a genetic component, yet there is no known gene variant for about 97% of diagnoses."
👇
"There are two main interrelated criticisms of DSM-5: an unhealthy influence of the pharmaceutical industry on the revision process. an increasing tendency to “medicalise” patterns of behaviour and mood that are not considered to be particularly extreme.Aug 24, 2013"
👇
"Why is DSM criticized?
The critique of the DSM-5 has focused on deficits in its utility, reliability, and validity. In addition, often it sets a bar too low, and exposes both vulnerable people and normal ones to the risks of overdiagnosis and of pathologizing normal conditions.May 18, 2016"
👇
"What are some disadvantages of DSM?
Possible risks include misdiagnosis or even over-diagnosis, in which vast groups of people are labeled as having a disorder simply because their behavior does not always line up with the current ideal. 7 Childhood attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) is a common example.Jun 19, 2020"
👇
"Does the DSM-5 explain causes?
That is, the DSM is a medical-model manual that is nonetheless atheoretical about the causes of the mental disorders it catalogs. This may be confusing but important to keep in mind. Trying to be atheoretical about causes makes defining mental disorders difficult.May 11, 2012"
👇
How Using the Dsm Causes Damage: A Client’s Report
October 2001Journal of Humanistic Psychology
This case study illustrates the potential for the application of Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM) diagnoses to exacerbate clients’ symptoms and inhibit the healing process in psychotherapy. Passages are excerpted from therapy sessions to demonstrate that the multiple diagnoses imposed on “Steve” coalesced into his core construct of himself as “crazy.” When his diagnoses became internalized as a construct, his world became viewed through a lens that believed itself to be defective. The use of diagnoses may also have negative consequences for the process of psychotherapy. Alternatives to traditional DSM diagnoses are reviewed. It is proposed that diagnoses should be tentative and rejected if they reify negative self-concepts and do not promote change in clients.
---
"I firmly believe that you can create your own mental state through hard work and gradual changes towards a set goal. "
Problem is phenomena called Availability Heuristic.
IT means that if you were abused, if you were or currently still are inside toxic ambient, you will be molded and programmed, as if under hypnosis to evil and mentally ill thinking process - which is called Operational conditioning, or Skinner's box.
Crooked politicians and marketing are exploiting this Dark psychology to their advantage.
Our only tool is to become aware of Pavlovian dogs trick being pulled on us, being trained like circus animals to play like groupthink and herd mentality demands.
I see solution in intrinsic locus of control - instead of mass external reference locus of control.
---
"Yep all that doesn't define who you are, you do"
Yes and no.
If you are not aware of abuse and trauma and toxic ambient, you will be ran on auto pilot, which is toxic shame, Skinner's box, being hypnotized into slavery and obedience, pushover and being people pleaser.
Trauma, toxic ambient, programming, Skinner's box are situations like:
There is Jane Elliott's Blue Eyes, Brown Eyes experiment, exercise - that showed that social settings can influence the targets. Abused kids in experiment failed their previously passed tests due to programmed stigma.
There is Narcissistic abuse: Long-Term Narcissistic Abuse Can Cause Brain Damage.
There is Stanford prison experiment where it is shown that targets of abuse in toxic ambient where they cannot escape from will develop extreme social anxiety.
There is Skinner's box and Little Albert experiment which shows that people can be conditioned and initiated into social anxiety.
---
You never had social anxiety at all.
Social anxiety cannot be "cured" by removing "my" from vocabulary. I see your inability in not handling cognitive dissonance as social anxiety though.
You simply used Fight response as many borderliners do
you deal with social anxiety by becoming Karen, stuck in egocentric thinking mode and you handle criticism as personal attack, as you do right now.
You simply morphed your social anxiety into modulated Fight response.
The neurosis is still inside you.
If you did not have social anxiety you would not interpret criticism as personal attack.
You would not label me or give me advice - since I never asked you for any.
You see me as threat - because of my comment -
and that is social anxiety - it is still inside you, you simply pulled mental alchemy and transformed as resentment.
Which is connected to person's soul.
Narcissists, abusers, serial killers - they all have social anxiety - but they handle it by removing "my" from their sentences and they make themselves believe they are gods that are able to handle anxiety and human condition by becoming super human - and still be hurt by what they perceive as criticism.
If you are really good person inside, you would not see other people as threat.
If you have evil niche inside you, you will see threat everywhere, even at innocuous comment that is here to help you.
---
I see accepting social anxiety -
where we are then forced to wiggle our way through life. When we accept anxiety as part of life, instead of fawning, self censorship - we will introduce new strategies, allowing ourselves to zoom out and see big picture when we are zoomed in, we'll try out Viking scream and strategies that we usually label as evil and wrong, sick or not allowed in toxic situations.
Yeah, I see being afraid of being "weak" as toxic shame - it is motor inside that keeps social anxiety ongoing. Then trying not to show being vulnerable - which does not work in real life.
And external factor - where abusers hypnotize us into subservience and being shy and closed.
If we accept social anxiety we will allow ourselves to try out new strategies and that will make difference when we handle difficult people and difficult situations.
---
Socially anxious people already look at other people.
This happens due to being afraid of predators - due to previous abusive experiences.
That is normal reaction to abnormal situations outside of our control. it is reaction to abnormal people that toxic shame presumes it is our responsibility.
It is reaction to abnormal events that abuse made us believe we are able to magically change outside world.
Socially anxious people thus already think about other people. It is being zoomed onto other people. Like with microscope - you end up scanning them in detail.
So Jordan Peterson advice is detrimental.
It is more helpful to zoom out
which means being ok with making mistakes, making stupid comment, being silent, being ok with it, being ok with being labelled as weird stupid or whatever they label. Being ok with it.
---
I would accept it.
I would try out changing the ambient, environment and people - who are probably all toxic.
We are social creatures, we react to our ambient.
If we live in toxic, critical, conservative, mentally ill ambient - it will reflect on our mind, too.
It is availability heuristic - we notice only what we are feeding our mind with - and if we are not totally living in delusion - toxicity we feel is mostly stemming from toxic intake of data that is around us.
I realized in my case, that if I never ever had social anxiety- I would still avoid toxic people that trigger me into social anxiety panic at this moment, too. In fact, I would avoid and isolate even more.
We can check this toxic ambient my googling images for "Shame culture countries".
Emotions are like virus, they spread like contagious disease.
I would stay off from self-pathologizing and labeling and social stigma - it makes things worse.
If I am isolated and disconnected - it has to do with people around us.
If we live in toxic shame culture ambient - we will soak up nagging and complaining from sick society.
Criticizing, as William Glasser discovered, is form of control. It leads to mental illness in people who witness controlling behaviour from others, others being intrusive.
I would claim that if we feel isolated, and lonely - it is because we were or still are - exposed to other people's intrusive and controlling behaviour.
And it helps to learn about intrinsic locus of control - since control will form toxic shame inside us that prevents us from developing our true Self and intrinsic, inner focus in life - where I do not seek approval and validation from other external resources.
Improving our relationships is improving our mental health.
William Glasser
Interpersonal strife with those close to us leads to rifts and resentments that produce symptoms of mental illness; these problems are, in fact, the logical consequence of troubled relationships.
Glasser emphasizes that lasting psychological problems are usually caused by problems in our personal relationships (rather than signifying a biochemical abnormality in the brain), and distress can be remedied through repairing these relationships without recourse to psych drugs.
WILLIAM GLASSER
Controlling Habits:
Blaming
Criticizing
Complaining
Nagging
Rewarding To Control
Threatening
Punishing
William Glasser
William Glasser "What's my Choice" Connecting Habits:
Listening
Supporting
Encouraging
Negotiating
Respecting
Accepting
Trusting
---
"Ive realised everything is a pattern, it seems like even professionals dont get this. You learned to act this way which means you can learn to act differently."
Skinner's box.
Crooked politicians and marketing are abusing/using this phenomena of hypnosis and Dark psychology daily.
I believe with social anxiety we have ability to detect this manipulation and that our brain decides to protect us against it through isolation since it has not data of description to name it what is happening. On unconscious level our brain knows something is wrong, but it does not what it is.
Similar like virus attacking the body. Body will react by over-reaction, however unless it has this virus on the list, it will not know how to discover it nor destroy it other than fever.
That is why I believe that socially anxious people will benefit from learning about narcissistic abuse and learning how to handle it in proper manner - other than isolation or drama.
---
Fears related to speaking in public is not social anxiety.
That is called Performance anxiety, totally different condition.
Social anxiety is being trapped in job type of situation where you are yelled and screamed at, being violently attacked - with temper tantrums - and you cannot defend yourself, you must intake someone's anger, abuse and relentless aggressive attack leading to Moral injury - witnessing criminal behaviour such as abuse and doing nothing about it.
Yeah, you can quit your job - and end up homeless- being attacked on streets by hooligans, thus ending up in the same situation as on job. That is social anxiety. Being abused by sick, mentally ill people such as Trump or Putin or other narcissist accepted by narcissistic society as norm.
Using hypervigilance? Fighting negativity with negativity does not work.
You cannot become immune to Chernobyl toxic radiation by sniffing the toxic air.
You cannot become strong by being exposed to someone's abuse. Femicide statistics show us that.
I guess what you are talking about it Darwinism instead.
IT is the same process of roses developing thorns to deflect predators.
IT is not about being strong or more intelligent even - it is about adapting to toxic surroundings -
which may entail cutting contact, relocating or learning how to retort to abusive difficult people in proper, functional manner - without explosions, drama, isolation or general avoidance against society in general.
---
I would focus on us being Sherlock Holmes and scientist - that we evaluate our fears and anxiety like in a laboratory - to evaluate and take in data and clues, what exactly is the problem.
I see problem in what I call External Factor:
narcissists, abusers, aggressive borderliners, psychopaths, sociopaths, emotional vampires, parasites, bullies.
They gaslight their victims and make victims appear crazy and own doing, blaming the target for the abuse itself.
I see us being aware of narcissistic abuse, facts how to handle and retort to difficult people as the only weapon we need to learn, how to deal with difficult people without explosions, without drama, in proper manner that is healthy and functional, without resorting to general avoidance from the total society.
The point is that we accept and validate ourselves and our feelings and convictions of threat - and re-evaluate it in safe environment, question it and see what is true cause of anxiety - it is always sick untreated mentally ill people around us.
---
(3.8.2022)
I learned inferiority complex, as Adler said - is normal human condition. IT is totally normal to be vulnerable and to show vulnerabilities.
Problem is when it is connected to toxic shame - internalized deep core belief of inadequacy. Then - the true problem is toxic shame, not inferiority complex as it is for itself, per se.
Toxic shame is pathology. And toxic shame comes with abuse and toxic people - the cause is external, even though it feels internal.
So if we choose to pick and modulate, and focus on symptoms - we will cause even more additional toxic shame, it is process called self-pathologizing. This is what CBT is teaching us - to self blame in order to heal self blame - it does not work in real life. It adds up to new neurosis.
We are dealing here with hypnosis, conditioning.
This means, logic will not work. The same as hypnotized person cannot stop behaving as chicken when hypnotized orders him to play chicken on stage. It is hypnosis. It is unconsciousness - it is automatic behaviour - there is no awareness.
With toxic shame, inferiority complex is performed without our awareness, it runs deep. And if we choose to start upgrade, help, heal or do anything about it - it will do more damage, since these logical trials will be interpreted by the brain as toxic shame - deep core belief that we are different, worse, unaccepted in relation to others. The brain will compare - like it or not.
The cause of toxic shame is in external: toxic people around us.
The more we are able to detect, remove minimize contact with parasites, emotional vampires, narcissists, aggressive borderliners - the more we will have success in overcoming toxic shame and thus consequently, inferiority complex.
In normal, healthy, friendly, sane relationships we will not be exploited nor taken advantage of.
---
We can't think rationally due to amygdala hijacking. That is totally normal reaction to abnormal people. IT is not our fault, neither it is something that is pathology, or to remove. If we pathologize this panic reaction (as CBT is falsely telling us), we will create even more neurosis. If I say my brain to relax, brain will interpret as danger - and bring even more panic. It is weird, but that is how our brain is working. There is actually totally balance in this mechanisms, but it is counter intuitive to human beings brought up in narcissistic society and deception based on Machiavellianism and fascism masked as false Self.
There are people who will not like us - it is ok.
However it is no ok when we have certain need - and we depend on people who do not like us.
There are situations when you depend on their help, resources, direction, service - and whatever you do will not help - and being pushover and being people pleaser will at least deflect them from total screaming and violence.
If you cannot understand this - check up Femicide statistics to understand what I am talking about.
It seems to me that you do not understand fear of confrontation.
It is not about overthinking at all.
Imagine being at job type of situation where customers, manager, and colleagues scream and yell at you all the time, they throw their temper tantrums on you - and you cannot defend yourself. Whereas you even can defend - but it does not help. You can quit that job and end up homeless - and then being attacked on the streets by hooligans - practically the same situation as on that job.
That is the problem.
Imagine this absolute horror situation and then think about fear of confrontation.
That is what people with fear of confrontation are dealing with.
We are talking here about the abuse, and abusive people on the other side - and you being in situation where you cannot move - without being homeless and without shelter in the process.
In my own example - I practiced to show up in conflict and my experience is:
I was shoved out of car by driver's instructor.
I was slapped and physically attacked by simple smiling.
I was yelled at and screamed at over simple mistakes - over and over again.
I was criticized for minor mistakes.
That is what people who have issues with confrontation are dealing with.
They respond with calm and integrity but at the end of day you are people pleaser and pushover and you have no other choice. You have self control and awareness - but you are still being stuck in abusive and toxic ambient.
"Value yourself, take time"
You are being abused by toxic people, and you are not allowed to take time. You get screamed at in return.
People who have issues with confrontation take time, don't apologize, collect their thoughts - they are wise and calm with their words, they do not say something that they don't mean, they are not discouraged and know it will get better.
Nope - these tips will not help, unfortunately.
See, these are springs of fear of confrontation:
There is Jane Elliott's Blue Eyes, Brown Eyes experiment, exercise - that showed that social settings can influence the targets. Abused kids in experiment failed their previously passed tests due to programmed stigma.
There is Narcissistic abuse: Long-Term Narcissistic Abuse Can Cause Brain Damage.
There is Stanford prison experiment where it is shown that targets of abuse in toxic ambient where they cannot escape from will develop extreme social anxiety.
There is Skinner's box and Little Albert experiment which shows that people can be conditioned and initiated into social anxiety.
We are talking here about evil and toxic people and abuse.
And no, you cannot do anything about yourself to change the abuse - that is magical thinking and it is highly unproductive.
You cannot claim in once sentence to love yourself and to validate yourself and then claim that by magical positive thinking, we are will be able to change abuse and toxic situations.
When we are talking about fear of confrontation,
True and only problem are narcissists and narcissistic abuse.
As Lundy Bancroft said:
"Abuse is NOT caused by bad relationship dynamics. You can't manage your partner's abusiveness by changing your behaviour. But he wants you to think you can."
I would be seeking information about fear of confrontation for 20+ years and I would constantly stumble on information similar to your video, where somehow our emotions are problem always,
and there was absolutely never ever any single information how to retort to toxic people and how to deal and handle toxic people in functional, proper, manner and there was never ever any single information that if there is fear of confrontation that there is absolutely nothing wrong with me - but there is untreated mentally ill person on the other side.
Hopefully this paradigm of CBT that we self blame and self pathologize ourselves and that we might change outside toxic ambient by our wishful thinking will finally change.
---
"Engineering Negative Feedback Control and Enhancing it through Consciousness" will end up with hypervigilance (PureOCD rumination and panic attacks) or hypovigilance (freezing) and amygdala hijacking will be triggered all the time, being in state of anxiety and neurosis 24/7.
The brain is actually automatically already doing this in natural response to abusive people and toxic ambient.
Toxic ambient influences reaction and brings springs up as pathology and illness. Problem is toxic ambient (person that is untreated mentally ill such as narcissists or aggressive borderliners) - not our reactions, choices nor decisions as a way to control it.
Anyways, even fault CBT is teaching us:
"Control fallacies are precisely that – fallacious beliefs about our control (or lack thereof) over a situation."
"The Fallacy of Control is where you assume an inaccurate amount of control in a situation or in life. You either believe you can control everything or believe you can control nothing. When you believe you control everything, you are assuming responsibility for both the pain and happiness of everyone around you."
I learned it if there is "control" - it is done through focused and correct education and finding out the problem, collecting correct and relevant data related to toxic people and issues to be resolved.
Many information out there is wrong, as CBT is best example of false and wrong data related to anxiety issues.
Our brain will jump to oversimplificatons, quick conclusions which create biases, logical fallacies, filter, veil over our eyes that distorts reality.
I see quick shortcut in being kind and cutting contact with toxic people - where our ability to detect toxic people is crucial - since evil people are pretty clever in camouflage, as all parasites are.
I see only problem here is External factor: toxic people.
Without them, we would be allowed to make mistakes without drama. We would not feel shame when being flawed. And there would be not violence or temper tantrums if we would not know something. There would be flow, natural with mistakes, flaws and ignorance included. No toxic shame, worry or feeling of constant threat.
If we are reasonably intelligent, our brain will work in the background on its own, sending intuition and gut feelings, images and voices what to do next -
I do not see that our mere logic is able to run along with the brain and follow the quantum computing inside, it is not necessary.
As I said, the only problem would and will be related to evil people - who appear in sheep's clothing with honeymoon phases so they appear friendly to us - and we invite such incubus inside our private, holy, sacred space. That is the only problem when we start to be aware we have problem with control.
We need to live in mindful harmony with our feelings, not attempt to control them.
Les Greenberg
Knowledge is supposed to lead to greater human freedom, like democracy and liberty. But Foucault argues that Knowledge can be dangerous, as it generates new forms of power and greater self-control.
Knowledge can limit our liberty.
Introducing Sociology, John Nagle
Control is a dangerous thing. And errors, errors are what is the real expression of the individual. Because if Picasso puts an eye where it shouldn't be, one sees it more clearly that if placed where it should be.
Jean Cocteau
It's all just the same thing, over and over. We can't help ourselves. And you and I can't control it or stop it or even slow it. Or ever so slightly alter it. We just react.
film Margin Call (2011)
Wu Wei is letting things take their natural course with minimal intervention. It does not mean total inaction; rather it is a way of maximizing efficiency by minimizing interference. To harmonize actions with the workings of the natural world.
c. 550 BCE
Laozi
1001 IDEAS, R. Arp
If there is an overabundance of yin or yang, the Dao (natural world) has a tendency to balance itself by reverting to the opposite extreme. Daoists therefore practice wu wei, or "non-interference": rather than acting against, person should follow the natural flow.
Daoism
R. Arp
Person should follow the natural flow of events and turn them to their own advantage (like surfer moving in harmony with a wave). Politically, a good ruler should educate the people so that harsh laws are unnecessary.
Daoism
Laozi
c. 550 BCE
32:24 "Feeling scared and doing it anyway"
This common, logical fallacy general solution to fear will not work in Skinner Box situations:
There is Jane Elliott's Blue Eyes, Brown Eyes experiment, exercise - that showed that social settings can influence the targets. Abused kids in experiment failed their previously passed tests due to programmed stigma.
There is Narcissistic abuse: Long-Term Narcissistic Abuse Can Cause Brain Damage.
There is Stanford prison experiment where it is shown that targets of abuse in toxic ambient where they cannot escape from will develop extreme social anxiety.
There is Skinner's box and Little Albert experiment which shows that people can be conditioned and initiated into social anxiety.
---
Unfortunately CBT does not explain fawn response - so I was never being able to identify my codependency behaviour from medical lens - the only explanation was codependency - which is not quite accurate since it does not explain lack of self love, as Ross Rosenberg (author of Human Magnet syndrome) speak about in great detail.
Thus CBT mislead me to people pleasing - I would expose to life and end up being pushover - without noticing that it is problem. This made me stuck in very painful situations where I would be faced with abusive people and my only reaction would be shut up and self censor - since CBT instructed me to normalize and justify the abuse and toxic people as my over-imagination and hallucination, something that is not important to look at and that I must expose to my fears at any price.
Fears did not go away and I was mocked, hurt, abused and taken advantage of by toxic people - without me reacting in defense whatsoever, as CBT instructed me.
In normal, healthy, sane relationships fawning would not be noticed - it would be a part of interdependence and regular communication. IT starts to be problem when there is narcissist on the other side, someone sadistic and untreated mentally ill, criminally insane.
---
"Do things that make you proud who you are."
Problem is when we have external reference locus of control - and our definition of proud is related to other people, not our own internal values.
Problem is when we have internalized toxic shame - which distorts our internal values - rendering them useless. Toxic shame is deep seated core belief that we are inept. This is hypnosis, it is programming resulted from Complex Trauma.
So this trauma makes things muddled up.
You cannot start doing "right" things if you are not aware that there is Complex Trauma (CPTSD - which is not PTSD) inside you in the first place.
Toxic shame creates False Self - and this means there is no True Self inside -
imagine it like Vichy government in WW2 France - imposters running the country, running external nazi laws in foreign country. That is False Self - when we have toxic shame inside us.
I would go with healing the trauma as the first step.
The first step in avoiding a trap is knowing of its existence.
Dune (1984)
---
(4.8.2022)
This is interesting from social anxiety perspective, where I see social anxiety is part of Complex trauma: being exposed to narcissistic abuse early on. And for many years I did not know about CPTSD at all - the only resource for social anxiety tips was CBT, the main therapy for social anxiety. And CBT instructs us to expose ourselves, to blame ourselves for the abuse in ABC method - where I can modulate my thinking by changing the way how I see abuse, that I see it as my over-reaction.
Needless to say, after following CBT I ended up being pushover, people pleaser and fawning to anyone.
Only after learning about CPTSD I realized that it was toxic shame and codependency that are behind the trauma and social anxiety, trauma bonding. And I got to the same conclusions as you are talking here -
that I do not need other people -
that first I have intrinsic locus of control and then built relationships, not the other way around as CBT instructs us.
And social anxiety is attempt of brain as reaction to narcissistic abuse - it is attempt to not needing people - where I am suppose to rely on myself first.
Problem is in toxic ambient I was told that I was weird for isolating myself - that I was too sensitive, that I am suppose to be tough and CBT was not helping at all (CBT can be found in virtually any self help book about social anxiety since it is main therapy for social anxiety and avoidance). So I listened to CBT and my toxic ambient - and I ended up being taken advantage of. No one explained me that narcissistic people will be attracted to people who are programmed to need other people. No one told me that narcissists are having false mask of superiority where they criticize nag and complain in order to ashame others, so that they themselves feel superior. I would buy into their complaints and constant and relentless criticism and take the blame without confrontation. I would literally be accused of things I did not do and I would shut up and self censor myself - all because CBT instructed me to expose to society at any cost. I would end up being afraid of saying no or speaking the truth and being authentic.
This came to such lengths that until a year ago I would never employ ignore or mute or report option on Twitter. I would be afraid that if I do not hang around people that something bad would happen if I am left alone, even online.
It is astonishing that I never came to the place where I would see that weeding out toxic people and toxic ambient (that I learned is called trauma bonding) works wonders. I do not need to take the abuse as a badge of some unknown honor, as I was explained by toxic people. There is no honor, there is no acceptance and validation from toxic people. There will never be.
---
(5.8.2022)
You got something there.
This school - bully pattern is repeating in life:
Criminally insane & narcissists will never seek psychological help - even though they are mentally ill. And society in general will explain someone rude as competent and strong and no one will have courage or energy or bother to pinpoint at the disorder.
Instead what happens is their targets of abuse will seek CBT help to deal with abuse that is explained as self blame - and CBT will join in the band wagon and label their anxiety as mental disorder, hallucination and personal character deficiency - and thus enforcing toxic shame and self blame and self hate.
I only realized that there is abuse and issue with external source - narcissist after I learned about Complex Trauma. Until then, all self help books pinpoint at our social anxiety as something to destroy and to be ashamed of, something to hide, which is personal fault.
---
As you said, there is trauma behind it. We were programmed and conditioned to be subservient, to shut up, to be codependent - because in times when we were growing up, we were bullied and exposed to relentless criticism 24/7 - which made us hypnotized not to express ourselves.
So yeah, I would build up our retort strategies, this is lesson we missed while growing up - and this deficiency is playing huge role in negative and painful side of social anxiety.
I see social anxiety as multi-fold entity - which means it prolongs itself in many aspects.
I do not see social anxiety any more as the scapegoat and something to destroy.
It is trauma and toxic shame that are prime motors of pain and fear.
It is not only in situation of being bullied - it is in our general inability to have intrinsic locus of control and due to trauma programming we expect approval and validation from other people in any situation. That makes us great targets for bullies - since we desire someone acknowledgment and acceptance due to trauma and criticism while growing up.
I believe due to trauma and negative experiences, we are constantly adding up to the list of potential threats. It is totally normal thing to do, it is like Darwin evolution, learning the tricks of predators.
However what we are at disadvantage from other people is trauma and toxic shame - which prevents us from learning how to retort in functional and proper and healthy manner - without explosions, without drama, without general isolation and avoidance of all people.
So without becoming abusers ourselves and without living in self hate self blame mentality - we are left with learning how to get attuned to love based emotions - something we never learned due to trauma and being stuck in toxic ambient.
---
"Men and women will walk over you"
I would add that mentally ill people walk over other people. That is important piece of information that goes along with criminally insane behaviour.
Normal, healthy, balanced people do not parasite over other people. Only super weak people with mask of superiority do this.
"Addressing issue as soon as possible"
I learned that this will make me over-opiniated. I will become negative and difficult and toxic and annoying basically. This happens - because what is an issue?
If I have high IQ - everything will be issue - and I will go mad if I start to react to anything that moves wrong way. We live in imperfect world - and demanding perfectionism leads to mental imbalance.
If I am highly emotional and sensitive - everything will rub me the wrong way. If I decide to react to anything I will develop allergy reaction - I will react all the time, 24/7.
So the important part of information is that I have to know what is important to me and to know ahead what is going over-board. What I define as issue.
"Figuring out your boundaries"
That it is, what is issue.
I see it more as being honest and authentic and transparent. Toxic people hate it since they thrive with secrets and shame and hiding.
"Ending friendship"
There are unfortunately situations such as job - where you cannot end it unless facing being homeless and then being abused by hooligans at the streets as result of ending our job.
And there is saying that if you run away from problem - that same problem will appear in another pair of trousers.
This topic is very complex, and it is related to mental imbalances, and our own goals and what we want to do in life in general, which way to go - and many times we deprive ourselves due to fear of confrontation,
so it is great that you speak about it!
---
We can say that negative experience is behind toxic behaviour.
People experience abuse and unfair situations and aggressive and violent people - and there is trauma.
And "normal" and healthy people will try not to hurt other people by talking about trauma -
whereas toxic people do not care for other people's feelings - they only see their own satisfaction, where nagging and complaining about trauma feels good to them.
Traumatized, social anxious folks will shut up, they won't bug or put pressure on other people in order not to make others feel bad.
That is the problem actually. When we do not talk about our dislikes, we stifle it down and this can turn into illness. Without expressing our dislikes, we do not express ourselves - and that is part of trauma: not being able to express ourselves.
So it is double binding situation:
if we do not talk about our problems - we stifle them down, we repel other people because we appear secretive and boring.
Yet if we do talk about our problems - we are annoying, bothersome, we may attract toxic people and gossip and nag about topic scapegoats and we stay stuck in toxic negativity.
Both approaches lead to illness.
I would see solution in finding the third way.
Where we do express our trauma, what bugs us - yet without becoming monsters in the process.
This is not easy - since there are not much role models how to do this.
Your channel is great example of third, healthy way.
It is about taking care of ourselves yet talking about troubles and problems - without accusations, without aggression, without self hate self blame.
It is about being aware of problems but in the same time not allowing problems to stop us from creating and nurturing and having discipline and hygiene.
I think in deceptive narcissistic society we are being taught to deal with issues in two ways that we can choose only:
1) through drama, explosions, toxic masculinity, criticizing, nagging, complaining, aggression
or
2) being silent, self-censoring, shutting up, ignoring and stifling down, being passive.
"You can hear 100 great things about you, we focus on what 1 that sucks."
I believe this is due to Darwin evolution.
We are programmed to evolve and to seek solutions to issues.
This is result of us being born here - our genetics are left to be focused on the negative-
if we weren't we would die out due to predators.
As you said it is survival mechanism.
Problem is therapies such as CBT that label this natural mechanism as distortion and illness - and this unfair biased labeling creates new neurosis, depression and more anxiety.
I see overcoming negativity bias as being innovative and coming up with new ideas and trying out new things - since Darwin said - it is not the most smart or strong that survive - it is the most innovative adaptable ones that survive.
If we focus on negativity without doing anything about it - we won't survive, we will suffer and slowly die.
---
"emotions you have to express them anyway "
IT is complex.
If you express your emotions - you may become over-opiniated, you become burden to your surroundings since you nag and complain all the time. You become toxic. Imagine if someone has high IQ - such person will see everything wrong - and can nag and complain all the time about anything - such person will go mad and he will create madness and negative atmosphere in other people around him.
If someone is highly sensitive - everything will be cause to speak and nag and complain about, expressing emotions about it. This cloud of complaining is weary and difficult to listen, it is toxic and creates negative toxic ambient to be around.
Also, on flip side,
if you do not express your emotions - you stifle them down and this creates illness. Mental and physical.
So it is double binding - whatever we do - is wrong.
Also, to make it more complex,
if we express emotions in reaction to other people - this means other people can control us and manipulate us easily.
Narcissistic abusive people are doing this - they nitpick and criticize others' mistakes, flaws and ignorance - all the time - and if you react to it, you play by their rules. They take away your psychological security and you become angry just because someone is mentally ill and feels good when attacking others. So in this situation - expressing your emotions as response to this abuse - leads to being stuck in abuse, Karpman Drama Triangle.
---
(8.8.2022)
Social anxiety is not feeling awkward at parties. That is form of shyness.
Think of social anxiety of being stuck at job situation where you are not allowed to leave, yet all customers, colleagues and supervisors nitpick your mistakes, flaws, then scream at you and yell at you for 10 hours every day, throwing temper tantrums.
Social anxiety is not lack of social skills. In fact, most socially anxious individuals have empathy and have ability to put themselves in other people's shoes (no egocentrism) and these two abilities are superior social skills which most people have issues to understand at all.
Check it out - most confident party animals have no social skills at all. They are rude, they gossip, they are obnoxious, loud and annoying - yet people accept them due to herd mentality, conformism and groupthink since most people are cowards and sheep with low IQ and seek external validation.
Regarding, testosterone - it has nothing to do with social confidence.
"Higher testosterone was not related to more dominance. Dominant behaviour really depends on the level of stress."
"We found that when cortisol levels were low, testosterone was related to more dominance. When cortisol levels were high, the effect wasn't there."
""To date, no study has linked testosterone to masculine characteristics""
documentary: Testosterone: What Men Are Made Of
Trauma is stuck inside the body. You cannot "come to terms with that". Trauma is stuck inside the body, there is brain injury:
"Long-Term Narcissistic Abuse Can Cause Brain Damage"
Dismissing effects of trauma is invalidation and part of self hate/self blame and self pathology, and this approach adds up to already present trauma and toxic shame.
Calming down does not work because any reaction to anxiety adds up to anxiety.
If this was magical cure for anxiety - nobody would have anxiety any more - everyone would meditate.
"Must do every day" -leads to PureOCD rituals. You will end up with hypervigilance after unresolved unprocessed emotions bundle up inside like accumulated lake water. Totally wrong approach,
just think about it logically:
what happens when you cannot relax - you will get panicked even more.
"You can tell yourself I am not anxious"
Social anxiety is part of Complex Trauma. You are constantly blame anxiety as the target is the cause of it. This is gaslighting and narcissist blame the victim for the abuse.
Lundy Bancroft said:
"Abuse is NOT caused by bad relationship dynamics. You can't manage your partner's abusiveness by changing your behaviour. But he wants you to think you can."
I've seen your previous social anxiety videos,
it seems to me like you are trying to feel better and superior by patronizing others, this gives you feeling of narcissistic strength, where people who still feel anxiety are lazy ones that simply did not try enough of your wonderful advice. You do it for admiration and praise, as any narcissist do - not because you genuinely want to help people.
You have all qualities and traits of covert narcissist and create Karpman Drama Triangle
where you are saviour, where you give your precious advice in form of borderline focused capitalized empathy that does not work in real life and keep victims in constant victim mentality since your advice is not working in real life situations, it works only in your narcissistic mind where you are superior Jesus figure.
Anxiety is not wart that you must get rid of. IT is brain mechanism, it is normal reaction to abnormal people, abnormal events and abnormal situations.
---
Social phobia is archaic term for social anxiety. It was changed in 1994 DSM issue.
DSM is subject for itself, since no one knows that mental illness is by definition.
Social phobia was changed into social anxiety - since exposure does not help. Phobia can be cured with exposure to feared object - where social anxiety does not wear off with exposure.
This is because Social anxiety is part of Complex Trauma.
Pharma mafia is muddling this terms deliberately to make money on neurosis and to control general public.
Think about situations where you are in a room with serial killer. If you went through hypnotherapy to remove your fears - you would literally make friends with serial killer, you would ignore red flags - can you see how much dangerous it is to remove fears?
Emotions are here for a reason, we cannot lobotomize parts of ourselves just because we dislike it.
If Johnny Depp lobotomized his social anxiety fears with Amber - he would be broke now, without money, without movie career, he would be labelled as abuser for life and he would be abused by her.
Instead - he listened to his natural instincts, seek help, he documented the abuse and he proven his innocence in the court. IF he ignored his fears and anxiety - he would be basket case now.
That is what CBT is - it is form of lobotomy. CBT leads to people pleasing, fawning and ignoring the abuse.
Narcissistic people in managerial seats, politicians and marketing would love all people to be obedient sheep without dislikes and without protest.
In 2002 there was proposed Trauma model - google it - which said that any mental issue is caused by trauma - however pharma mafia rejected this model - since there is no profit in healthy people who get correct help and correct information.
---
That is social anxiety. This happens due to Complex Trauma.
While growing up, without realizing it, we were in toxic ambient, full of criticism and bullying, where we were constantly being nitpicked for our honest and normal mistakes, for our flaws and ignorance, which is totally normal for children, when you do things for the first time in your life.
Now we are programmed, like in Skinner's box - to expect judgement from people. IT is form of hypnosis - and we are not aware that we were being conditioned into social anxiety, like circus animals or Pavlovian dogs.
And if we seek information about social anxiety - we get wrong information - CBT is based on self pathologizing and exposure to abusive people - then we end up with more anxiety and people pleasing issues and fawning -
since CBT does not explain that the cause of social anxiety is external: narcissist, abusers, bullies, sociopaths, psychopaths, parasites, emotional vampires, sick criminally insane people in position of power such as Trumps, Bush family or Putins.
The more we will learn about narcissistic abuse and how to retort and hold self advocacy - the more our social anxiety will be subdued,
Social anxiety is not problem - toxic people are the only problem.
Social anxiety is normal reaction to abnormal people, abnormal situations and abnormal events. It is red flag that there is something wrong. It is safety mechanism to keep us safe from criminally insane people in our midsts.
When we are open, friendly, kind, nice - we will attract toxic people like moth to a flame.
What we do not understand, due to programming in toxic ambient in times when our persona and psyche was developing - was that there are toxic people out there that do not care at all about others. They are psychopaths and they learned to play pretend to be friendly and nice. And we buy into their lies - and invite them in our live due to our programming: trauma bonding and external reference locus of control.
Toxic people hold our attention with criticism and gaslighting - this is what you experience as rumination about who said what and how someone reacted - we cannot shake this worry off - because we were programmed and hypnotized to be codependent: to fix other people's emotions so that they do not punish us.
Social anxiety is sign we were brainwashed into social fears.
---
" we begin to form a clearer picture, making it easier to recognise the thoughts that trigger anxiety off "
What happens when we get clear picture that there are abusive and narcissistic people around us who gaslight us?
How we fight that?
By toxic positivity? By self blame? Self pathologizing?
Social anxiety is part of Complex Trauma, it is not hallucination.
The more we know how to deal narcissistic abuse, the more social confidence we will have.
If we decide to self blame and reject our instincts, we will create toxic shame - where we will distrust our own ability to make conclusions and decisions - and instead we will form external reference locus of control with fawning and people pleasing - since we will see other people as superior - since they appear without fears and anxiety to us.
Rejecting our fears as hallucination is the recipe for inferiority complex.
This repeats the trauma that caused social anxiety in the first place: total invalidation, total rejection of oneself, ignoring our own needs and self pathologizing our natural reaction as abnormal - making ourselves crazy in order to make other people's abuse rationalized and normalized.
---
1) you got to evaluate your social anxiety.
Are these people Amber? Are they serial killers? Are they abusive? Are they intrusive? Do they mock you? Are they obnoxious and annoying? Are they violent? How they hurt you.
2) after evaluation - self advocacy:
tell what is wrong. Document the abuse.
If there is no abuse - accept them. They are psychologically safe, there is no threat.
Social anxiety stems from abuse experience, when we were abused by toxic, untreated mentally ill people.
Our tools to handle trauma is evaluation and self advocacy (self expression).
It is connected to cutting contact - because most of the time people have their own interest and likes that conflict with our own - this means we need to have our own space - fit to our needs and values and beliefs.
We got to be aware of narcissism - that we do not become abusive ourselves and expect other people to fawn to our selfish wishes.
This is why evaluation is important part - are we abused by other people who appear scary to us?
Social anxiety - once seen through the prism of complex trauma - becomes tool to handle and manage - it is our brain ally to keep us safe from harm and abusive people.
There are people out there who are not abusive and who will not harm us , and with whom we can feel safe.
See, what would happen if your home burns down?
Where would you go?
If you have no money - and no relatives - is is friendships that form safety net or at least some kind of safety net - to not spend that particular night in the cold.
People are social creatures, we form bonds with others for protection, love and sex.
Interdependence is form of natural and healthy life.
This means we have to be on par with other people.
IF you allow your fears and trauma to control your life, other people will control you.
Your needs and wants and preferences have value and are worthy, as much as other persons.
If you hide and run away from people - you create imbalance.
We need other people who respect us and who will treat us with respect.
So evaluate those friends - how they treat your mother and yourself. Are they kind or dangerous as your instinct tells you?
If they are violent and abusive - it is clear sign this is toxic ambient, and it is our duty to leave toxic ambient, when we are ready.
IF it is safe - it is our duty to be humble and friendly to others. If we are not humble, we will become aggressive borderliner and live in drama all our lives.
Narcissism is sickness. Social anxiety is not.
---
"I feel like I have both sometimes."
This is what pharma mafia and medical personnel prey on.
People who are not sure what they feel. They make themselves authority to describe for you what you feel - and this is how psychiatry can be used as tool to hypnotize neurotics into sickness.
They simply make you believe their narrative, and you have no choice to nod and follow their magical cure for anxiety: tons of drugs and special techniques to pay. Then, when it does not work - they simply label you as lazy and it is your fault for not feeling any better -
while in reality they have no cure, they have no idea what you are feeling at all, they simply make money out of people in need.
We are talking here about abuse and criminal act. This is crime.
How can CBT know what you are feeling? How can they know your history? Your ambient?
Copy-pasting someone's generic experience is ludicrous. We all have specific little details that make us different from other people. CBT is lobotomizing us into self-pathologizing ourselves - so that we lose our natural instinct and natural reaction to abuse.
---
Yeah, I have been suffering from social anxiety since 1989. I have been following social anxiety advice since internet access in 1998, I've been following blindly CBT since 1998 until 2020 - when I discovered Complex trauma.
We are basically being given wrong information,
totally deceptive, detrimental half information - and I think this is for a reason, this is not coincidence.
Pharma mafia are making money out of people who feel and fear fears. Since most of us do not know what we are dealing with, and we have no time to study psychology - we let our minds and decision into strangers to explain us - while they are manipulating our reality and decisions.
CBT never talked about fawning.
In official resources we can only hear about Fight-flight-freeze response. No fawning at all.
So I ended up with shutting up, people pleasing issues, being pushover - since CBT explained to me that I must expose myself to any situations - which is totally wrong and detrimental advice.
We need to avoid toxic people and toxic ambient - that is self care and part of healing.
Staying in bad relationships, toxic jobs and being silent to abusers - will not make us less socially scared as CBT tries to make us believe.
Check out my blog, I also created Reddit forum for social anxiety.
We live in deceptive, manipulative Machiavellian world. there are predators out there, covert narcissist in managerial seats, they play pretend to be help -
they make things worse.
Social anxiety is perfect storm - since it disable us to react to abuse due to trauma and fears, while in the same time, people and community that is suppose to help us with our trauma and fears - blame ourselves for the abuse and leads us into self-pathologizing. That is what narcissists do. This is definition of narcissistic abuse: gaslighting, wrong and detrimental information, self blame, self pathologizing, self hate, perfectionism, fear of making mistakes.
---
"There’s normal social anxiety and there’s mental illness social anxiety. Very different."
1) Who labels something as "normal" and "illness"
This is where it gets fuzzy. How can we make distinction between normal and crazy without knowing that crazy people like Putin or psychopath Trump is not behind the definition to follow?
2) Jung:
“To be normal is the ideal aim for the unsuccessful.”
---
Paradox is that socially confident people have no communication skills at all.
They are loud, they are aggressive, violent, intrusive, they gossip, they fart, burp in public, nobody is bothered by them. Check out video from The School of Life: "How to be Warm".
Just imagine if you come to social setting with predesigned instruction how to talk - you will appear fake and as robot. Other people will sniff it out and reject you as creep.
Also, if you come to social setting with predesigned instructions how you must appear: this is social anxiety itself: need and urge to people please others to appear superior and to be accepted from others. Overcompensation is common method to overcome inferiority complex but it leads to more fears and anxiety in real life.
Statement that socially anxious people have no social skills is myths.
Social anxious individuals have empathy and ability to see multiple angles and dimensions - which is finalized last Piaget developmental stage called ego.centrism - where most people lack empathy and have egocentrism- so most people lack social skills and socially anxious people can actually teach them.
Using people to talk is narcissistic tool - where we are suppose to use up and take advantage of other people as rag. We use them and throw them away when we are finished. God awful advice, insensitive and mentally ill, psychopathic.
---
"Social Anxiety is a serious medical condition. If it is not addressed soon, you may end up isolated."
If you label something as "serious", you will hypnotize the target and make something much more neurotic, it is called self prophecy.
This way you can control someone, especially if you are narcissist, mentally ill. This is a way to easily control individuals who need help. You simply label them as serious and offer your services as ultimate healing. This way you are play pretending to be saviour - which is endless source of narcissistic supply, where you are admired and sought to approve when someone is not sick any more. In reality you are the sick one, just like Trump. You simply project your own mental illness into others.
---
Check out video channel from "TheraminTrees" - there is video about double binding.
He talks when he was doing workshop therapy with other councilors that instructor told them to keep patients sick.
This is their source of income, they profit from other people's neurosis.
We live in deceptive, narcissistic world full of scammers, liars, thieves, mafia that appear as friends to us, as help - but they exploit and take advantage of our cry for help.
In "TheraminTrees" video about double bind he talks that any , virtually any action can be labelled as sick and illness and wrong.
That is how crooked people exploit us - narcissistic abuse by definition is gaslighting.
With social anxiety - we were being programmed to fawn as automatic response to any problem in life.
We were exposed to relentless criticism 24/7 and adult hysteria . and as result we have now toxic shame.
Toxic shame makes us believe we are unworthy and wrong by default, to the core.
CBT does not talk about this.
CBT instead adds up to toxic shame - by pathologizing our panic symptoms as something dangerous and horrible, something to get rid of.
Anxiety is perfectly normal reaction to abnormal people, abnormal events and abnormal situations.
---
Accepting social anxiety is the way to go.
Accepting is not ignoring.
When we realize that social anxiety is part of Complex Trauma - then we no longer try to control the anxiety.
When we try to control anxiety - we will develop neurosis and PureOCD issues, root of OCD is trying to control anxiety.
When we identify that behind anxiety are toxic people and trauma - we can take steps to heal those areas.
We can cut contact with toxic people whom we have no connections - immediately.
We can plan to leave toxic job instead of rationalizing it by large sums of money that we would spend on impressing people who do not care about us anyways.
When we realize that social anxiety stand for effect of being exposed to long term narcissistic abuse,
We can learn how to handle manage narcissistic abuse. We can learn how to recognize red flags and listen to our social anxiety as form of red flag, Darwin evolution mechanism that allow us to detect fake and dangerous people.
I see social anxiety as ability to sniff out dangerous people.
What we need to learn is to evaluate the danger- similar to Covid levels of danger.
We simply need to learn how to deal with danger without drama, avoidance, in proper and healthy and functional manner.
Carl Rogers said: “The curious paradox is that when I accept myself, just as I am, then I can change.”
---
Due to egocentrism it never occurred to you that simply because you work yourself up to believe into something - that same process does not work for others.
DSM is criticized, and we need to talk about that too - since censorship, secrets and half information lead to anxiety and imbalance.
"There are two main interrelated criticisms of DSM-5: an unhealthy influence of the pharmaceutical industry on the revision process. an increasing tendency to “medicalise” patterns of behaviour and mood that are not considered to be particularly extreme." (nurisingtimes)
My own approach to anxiety is to accept it.
There is external factor behind anxiety: untreated mentally ill person, aggressive manipulative abuser(s), bully, narcissist - and as soon as we discover this virus we can learn how to destroy it and create immunity to narcissistic abuse.
Self pathologizing, self invalidation, self blame, self hatred is part of abuse.
"It’s not normal to have anxiety affect your life on a regular daily basis"
It is not anxiety.
IT is toxic people around us, untreated mentally ill abusers, bullies and narcissist, psychopaths, sociopaths, aggressive borderliners, parasites - they are causing the anxiety.
It is called social anxiety for a reason. Anxiety is social. It stems from social, the name itself gives a clue. It is social anxiety, toxic society is causing social anxiety.
IT is not our thoughts, we are not ill, we are not sick.
IF we are kind, nice, if we are friendly, if we have no ill wish toward others, if we have no hiddel agenda against other people- there is nothing sick inside us. Stop self pathlogizing!
Stop victim blaming.
----
I dunno.
What if you are in room with serial killer - and you went through brainwashing - so you do not feel anxiety.
You would form connection with dangerous person.
What if you cannot recognize red flags anymore - when anxiety rises up when someone is rude, aggressive and intrusive - and we thus ignore it - we will end up being pushover, people pleasers and fawn to others who are aggressive, mentally ill people like Trump or Putin.
I would not reject anxiety as something to lobotomize and self pathologize,
without it we would enable abusers to abuse.
We would shut up to mass murderers like Bush or Reagan.
We would be cowards, silent obedient sheep who take orders from narcissistic sick people.
---
Social anxiety is part of Complex trauma.
It is reaction to hidden, untreated mentally ill toxic narcissistic people around us.
Coping mechanisms for social anxiety must include recognizing narcissistic abuse and how to self-advocate.
WE must not allow untreated mentally ill people in position of medical community to label different people as sick.
---
This is shyness - this is not social anxiety at all.
Shyness and social anxiety appear similar, but there is difference.
Social anxiety is not fear of public, walking or talking.
It is being in job type of situation where you are not allowed to run away and you are being abused, yelled and screamed at for no reason.
You never showed to us what happens when someone is rude?
How you defend yourself?
By talking to strangers in the street?
What and how to react when someone is constantly criticizing you and nitpicking you and then sprinkle with honeymoon phases?
What you do when someone is nitpicking you just because they are bored?
What you do when you cannot leave such people and you need them due to any reason - job, service, help, finances etc- What then? You talk with them?
What happens when they do not listen to you? When they yell at you?
You heal that by talking to strangers in the street?
Also, people are not our disposable item - something you use up, take advantage and throw off when you are finished. That is mental illness, narcissism, total lack of empathy - it is psychopathy.
What would happen if Johnny Depp explored Amber and stepped his comfort zone and stayed with Amber's abuse? He would be broke now, his movie career would be over and everybody would label him as abuser.
What if you are in room with serial killer? You would ignore your fears because you label them as "sissy"? And then what - you would form bond and allow serial killer to seduce you?
Anxiety is not sickness. Anxiety is not sign of weakness.
Social anxiety is not mindset. Just think about it logically - if it is mindset , don't you think that social anxiety would be gone by now?
---
Social anxiety is the sign we were abused, it is part of Complex trauma.
Social confidence or lack of is not pathology, it is after effect of being exposed to untreated mentally ill person(s).
The more we work on the root of social anxiety: narcissistic abuse - we will get more confident - not because of desire to be confident, but because we will become more natural and authentic, we will express ourselves - without need or urge to be socially confident. Confidence is paradox - if we desire to be confident, we will never become confident. If we accept we are not confident - we will become confident.
The same paradox works for happiness.
Paradox is also that what we want the most - is something that we will never achieve - and ultimate paradox is that - we actually do not need it at all.
If we were totally socially confident - we would not feel fear - and then we would invite toxic people like Amber into our intimate space - and in the end we would be labeled as abuser, we would lose our movie career and fame - all because we lacked appropriate panic emotions which would propel us to react to abuse in functional manner - by documenting the abuse. If Johnny Depp ran away from Amber without documenting the abuse - he would lose the court and he would be broke now.
So,
If we label our social anxiety as danger, annoyance and something to get rid of - our brain will not join in our attempt to be anxiety free- instead it will create more anxiety. This is how brain works - it is built to protect us, not to make us party animals, that is not primary brain function.
We need social anxiety to keep us safe in society. It is mechanism to keep our eyes open to predators and manipulators, sick people out there who appear as friends and help but they are really psychopaths.
IF we label social anxiety as something to get rid of - we will create hypervigilance, and we will allow our fears to control us. We will adapt our lives in accordance to our trials of our fears - we will put our fears in our focus.
---
It is trauma, Complex trauma.
It is not own fault,
It is not self pathologizing. it is not self blame, it is not self hate.
IF you label social anxiety as own insecurity - that is act of invalidation, self pathologizing, self blame. That is abuse by definition - to blame yourself from something that is not your own doing, fault.
Toxic shame prevents self acceptance.
To get better - is part of social anxiety, trauma and toxic shame - it is attempt to be better at anything, perfectionism. It is result of being exposed to narcissistic abuse: criticism, nagging, complaining about mistakes, flaws and ignorance.
Social anxiety is related to social - to other people, to toxic people.
Therefore, problem is in social. That is why it is called social anxiety.
It is not called Self anxiety.
Society is problem, narcissistic abuse.
---
Self worth is the first step.
The next natural step is forming bonds with other people, that we grow out of egocentrism and help others, share and build friendships. In psychology, this is called interdependence.
The point of self validation is to heal trauma and to build inner world where we do not depend on other people's approval - critical skill for life. It is anti-dote to conformism and group think and herd mentality, or Milgram Experiment.
If we stay stuck in self awareness, something bad will happen:
"The self-absorption paradox describes the contradictory association whereby higher levels of self-awareness are simultaneously associated with higher levels of psychological distress and with psychological well-being."
Similar to the movie First wives club (1996) where one of the husbands was always self obsessed how he feel and thus never form true attachment/relationship with his wife.
---
(9.8.2022)
"I am faking. I didnt know I was faking, I was self-concious in a way to come across in a seductive way"
This what you described is totally normal behaviour, everybody does it as certain extent.
It is called Jung's Persona. IT is social mask that we wear when we are communicating with other people. Think about it as Star Trek technology universal translator. You simply use resources to create connection with other people by giving signals that you were taught in your life in your circumstances, in your ambient.
Check out my video "Easy explanation of Jung's persona" - it is comedy sketch with Alan Alda and Carol Burnett where Alan Alda plays a guy who is using the movie lines to talk to his date.
Wearing a mask is not fake - it is explained in the video that it helps to have conversation with other person.
Of course, we can modulate and fix and play with that mask - we can change what we do not like about it - but our Self inside is untouched.
We are not taught about this, so many of us equate our mistakes with our character - then toxic shame is born. Where we hate our self, we think it is fake, we are convinced that we are unworthy and inept for life... No one explained us that we have separate Self and separate Mask and even Shadow - parts of ourselves that we ignored and stifled down.
All this is very much connected with avoidance issues and social anxiety - but official CBT does not explain this at all - since it is easier to push drug program for pharma mafia... than to heal trauma and bully events that programmed us to equate our Mask with our Self. Then we end up scared of people.
---
"open and friendly in reasonable situations"
That is called psychological security.
When we have trauma experience, certain people, certain behaviour, events, situations and even smells can trigger us into amygdala hijacking and emotional dysregulation. Then we feel drama and blame and shame and threat, we cannot relax.
This happens because we have unresolved, unprocessed trauma stuck inside our body.
We do not know how to deal with people and events that scare us. Nobody taught us what is functional way to handle mysterious and difficult situations - we picked up by our toxic ambient. So instead of Emotional regulation and Coherence, we use safety mechanisms that we learned to survive in childhood.
With triggers and flashbacks we detect toxic people easily.
Now the problem is - that we do not know how to process this information, what we do with the threat in correct, functional, healthy and proper manner.
For example, we might be traumatized by screaming and yelling, however it would be unreasonable of us to walk in the streets and public transport and yell at people to stop yelling and be loud.
IT is obvious that we have to balance our own standards with the society.
I think with social anxiety and avoidance - we are out of balance here.
Our reactions are valid, however CBT taught us that we are bad persons for feeling panic when most of people do not feel panic.
That we are too sensitive, while most people do not over-react. This judgement of our fear emotions does not help us to get rid of if - instead it adds up to trauma and panic.
Nobody taught us that it is up to us to realize that when we feel dysregulation that this happens due to unprocessed trauma stuck inside our body - and that we do not need to add up to drama, we need to wait to pass, similar to the weather freak storms. We can't walk outside and yell at the strong wind to calm down, this is beyond our control. Yet, CBT instructs us to self blame ourselves for feeling panic and fears and that we must undertake serious of routines to calm down and that we must blame our thoughts for feeling fears (ABC method).
In reality what we need is trauma management. We can become like scientist or Sherlock Holmes and investigate what is happening, what is triggering us, and what is definition of reasonable and safety - and the most importantly - what can we do to get rid of toxic habits and toxic people that stuck on us and we rationalize it as "exposure", as instructed to do with CBT.
The more we learn about trauma and narcissistic abuse, we can learn better how to handle social fears and avoidance.
---
"Have to point out that a majority of the "facts" you pointed out are theories. While highly researched we cannot definitively conclude that they are correct, might be worthwhile to read up why they are limited as theories (particularly the social theory as you explained it slightly wrong, whether intentionally or not). -A psychology major "
Majority of psychology are theories.
The point is not having a medal or prize - it is about practical pragmatical result - does it work?
Does it help?
What your psychology major does not mention, whether intentionally or not, is Münchhausen trilemma.
If you have bunch of regulations and rules what is normal, you will create fascism and North Korea ambient, where all you need is a psychopath such as Kim or Putin or Reagan that leads to Milgram Experiment.
You get bunch of groupthink herd mentality of conformism that follows one accepted truth,
but there is no truth.
Unless unkind or violent - anything goes.
And that is something that pharma mafia that finances most of corrupt, crooked majors, do not mention at all.
---
I dunno.
I was trying to disarm my inner critic since 1998, nothing helps.
I learned along the decades that inner critics is actually amalgamation of different elements coming into union of inner criticism. There is toxic shame (stemming from trauma and being exposed to relentless criticism while growing up in Piaget developmental stage period), there is also Nous- Plato's ideal world - where we have hope and idea how something in life ought to be in order to dig ourselves out of crap. There is also something I call External factor: negative, toxic people who appear as friends and help but actually are covert narcissist and aggressive borderliners who use focused empathy to criticize their target in order for themselves to feel superior, complaining is narcissistic supply to them.
I also noticed if I do anything about anxiety - which is byproduct of criticism - it makes anxiety worse. Mark Freeman video about intrusive thoughts - I stole it and put it on my channel is talking about that phenomena. You try not to think about pink elephant (similar to pattern interruption process band around wrist that you explain in the video at: 4:57 ), the brain will think about it since it is on its blocked list - so it must check reality that pink elephant is not present - making forbidden thought even more present. That is how worry and OCD works - we try to be safe - but in the process create more dangers out of nothing. Recipe for social anxiety and avoidance.
What I learned is that trauma plays huge role in negative emotions.
Inner critic is actually trigger and flashback, but it appears as inner critic, it is actually hook that hooks us to think about it more by trying not to think about it.
I also learned that this is actually Darwin evolution in the process. By being aware of danger, it is predator seeking action, it is part of evolution it is in our genes to seek what might be dangerous and how to become perfect at anything in order to avoid getting hurt.
What we can do about it is to become scientist and Sherlock Holmes and to be objective and seek proofs of danger. Perhaps it is not bad to put aside small amount of time and think about what is actually bugging us.
Subconsciousness is not direct - it will use imagery and flashbacks to tell us story or alarm us. Think about is as movie Arrival from 2016:
"Louise Banks, a linguistics expert, along with her team, must interpret the language of aliens who have come to Earth in a mysterious spaceship."
Where our worries, rumination, flashbacks, inner criticism might actually be autonomous part of our brain that is trying to convey us important message-
We all have sixth sense and intuition inside us, however narcissistic society muddled and forbid us to be attune to our shamanic, ancient, spiritual side - since it is much easier that we are sheep - it is much easier to control masses by wrong information that does not allow us to be different and unique.
I would try to see inner critic as a message that needs decryption. Instead of trying to fix it, see what is behind it - does it repeat , is there a pattern.
usually with narcissistic abuse when growin up we are set up to be perfectionist and that we equate our mistakes with our character - which leads to toxic shame.
Instead of meddling or ignoring or stifling down inner critic, I would in this case focus my attention on toxic shame and learn more about CPTSD and emotional dysregulation - which is spring for inner critic.
When I learn about emotional dysregulation - I know now that I cannot control amygdala hijacking since trauma is stuck inside our body - and any control will lead to additional neurosis and mental imbalance.
I can test emotional regulation by seeing what happens when I do nothing at all, like waiting for a storm to pass.
I noticed that even though panic and fears and anxiety are uncomfortable - that in reality they are part of life and human psyche. Even if we have magical power to lobotomize ourselves into serenity - without shadow parts of our psyhe we would become NPC Wojak: philosophical zombie without our own dislikes, likes, preferences, quirks, perks, uniqueness, individuality - instead we would become a sheep, clone, someone's robot to do task for them - and we would not feel any resistance to protest about unfair treatment.
We would become people pleaser and pushovers and we would fail Milgram Experiment - we would literally be responsible when psychopaths build gulags or concentration camps and send people there to die.
Inner critics deserves our understanding, empathy, self validation and self acceptance - the more we accept ourselves, the more we will have patience for things that bother us in external world - and we will have natural reaction to us, instead of drama, destruction, fear and extermination of anything that we do not understand.
----
Amazing explanation.
I see it as yin - yang. Both need to exist.
Universe is dualistic.
Without dark we would not notice the contrast what is light - good.
However this is hard for humans on this planet Earth in this plane of existence - how can we be dualistic - when we are forced to make decisions in life - fast and always.
You solved this problem by great explanation:
we need god- authority-parent figure above it that leads us - it is inner GPS.
Sartre said that there is no meaning in life - we need to create our god/meaning.
"Sartre believe that human existence is the result of chance or accident. There is no meaning or purpose of his life other than what his freedom creates , therefore, he must rely on his own resources. In the Philosophy of Sartre, there is an accord between the feeling of anxiety and freedom."
Now in real life - there will always be internal and external critic. We will feel external critic as internal one - one that cannot be shaken away or ignored when external critic is connected to our job, finances, security, help, service that we need - then we will depend on what critic is saying and we will try to correct ourselves.
Problem starts when the critic is tyrannical and when it demands impossible, unreasonable things from us, when it is equating our mistakes with our character which leads to toxic shame.
I see again solution in your explanation - that we rely on our inner GPS - which will tell us how to cut contact with external critic in safe, functional, proper manner without drama, explosions or general avoidance of all people. We simply cut out the virus ones out of our lives.
---
— 'Strong minds discuss ideas, average minds discuss events, weak minds discuss people.'
This is you only a tube comments section.
This is not science project.
This is not medical research laboratory.
This is not dissertation neither law. We are talking here about ideas and guidance and new information new data.
Without being aware that there are other solutions and other ideas - we will get stuck with wrong advice - and bias.
I am not here to change anyone's mind, my comments are not here to prove someone being wrong - as your narcissistic mind is operating - to seek attention and admiration.
You are proving my anti-psychiatry "theories" - people like you will with people - you will label their diseases and hardships - yet you lack basic communication skills, you lack empathy, you lack emotional IQ and you have sadistic itch to toxically ashame someone who is more brighter and more intelligent than what your parents payed your pricey school for.
Instead of helping people, you will use anxious people to keep them into crap so that they can pay your credits and loans. Like most of corrupt medical personnel.
That is the reason why CBT ignores trauma and focused on self blame and self pathologizing of people who suffer from social anxiety and avoidance.
--
You are equating "soft" with being considerate of other people's feelings.
I like this quote from the movie L'arcano incantatore (1996)
"Weakness is fundamental in enabling the min not to oppose the signals from 'outside'."
If we decide to label parts of ourselves either as weak or strong - we are judging and labeling ourselves.
This leads to toxic shaming and narcissism, without us being aware of it.
In reality - our true Self is "normal" and "good" and "virtuous" and "best" and "strong" and whatever good human quality there is.
If you decide that certain behaviour is "soft", for example being quiet - you are actually using up someone external's judgement what is "quiet". Without noticing you are using someone else's opinion and you even allow them to control you - and you have no idea that you are doing it.
This phenomena is called:
Nominative determinism
Framing (social sciences)
Labeling theory
Why you would not be unique and be soft and shy? Why you would not be without opinion sometimes?
What is wrong with that? If we label parts of our persona and our reaction as sissy and dangerous and disgusting - we will destroy parts of ourselves that we need in certain situations.
For example - without diplomatic skills we will never have peace. Without listening to others we will never be able to form true friendship attachment with others.
Instead of self blaming and self ashaming - why not try self accepting and self validation?
Who says that you cannot add up instead of stifling down parts of your actions and beliefs?
And why would you be monster and have capacity to eat other people?
That is problem with over-compensation and labeling soft as "disgusting" - in the process we become narcissistic. This is how serial killers, abusers, psychopaths became lunatic - they labeled parts of their psyche as sissy and weak, and then they tried to claim their superiority by destroying anything that they label as abnormal or that triggers them into rage or discomfort. This thinking pattern leads to criminal activity. You might become president of Russia for example, and you label Ukraine as soft - and you will decide to eat it because in your mind it appears as nazi. Since you destroyed "soft" parts of yourself - now you have no inner capability to stop yourself neither you have any inner resources to stop and think am I mad.
I would lay off from self-pathologizing. In this narcissistic deceptive world we are given wrong direction and narcissistic explanations, that are skewed, distorted and biased and due to Butterfly effect our beliefs create violence and pain along the way.
---
I wish someone told me these terms 20 years ago when I started to explore social fears, phobias, neurosis, inhibitions.
Back then all self help books were based on CBT: self blame and gaslighting yourself that we can change other people by our own thoughts (thinking happy thoughts).
No one spoke about trauma, trauma bonding, fawning, codependence, emotional dysregulation, amygdala hijacking, Münchhausen trilemma, cognitive fallacies, paradoxes, dualism/double binding, coherence nor narcissistic abuse. Without these concepts we are left in the dark and bump onto objects in the dark and get hurt. Over and over again.
---
(10.8.2022)
Unfortunately faith and determination does not help.
This is due to toxic shame internalized and hypnosis, programming (being exposed to relentless criticism when our persona was forming and suppose to grow into healthy psyche) - our whole body now gets conditioned through Skinner Box - so our chemicals, hormones will be released when we do stand up for ourselves. Due to operand conditioning our body is literally making us addict to be subservient, people pleaser and fawning to others.
We are talking here about trauma being stuck inside our body, forming our inner critic and perfectionism and external reference locus of control - which keeps us trapped inside inferiority complex.
Mere good wishes and chirpy attitude will not solve this issue.
---
Unfortunately chirpy positive mindset approach does not work in real life.
This is due to phenomena which I call "External factor".
There are toxic people out there which employ Dark psychology and manipulation and gaslighting - so we will feel fear because of external influence. Fear is in such situations externally implanted.
What happens if you ignore such fear - if you make yourself believe that fear is hallucination - you will actually create huge damage to yourself - because you will drop boundaries and defense system, which is something that fears puts up and build naturally.
If we follow CBT advice and remove anxiety and any uncomfortable emotions, only to be chirpy and happy all the time - we will lobotomize ourselves. We will self pathologize our emotions and we will stifle down our emotions. This is highly unhealthy - it leads to both psychological and physical illness.
Emotions are contagious, like it or not - they spread like virus.
Instead of destroying anything painful and mysterious - I would rather gather all data - from all sides and see what is happening in reality. We become Sherlock Holmes and scientist in a laboratory - we seek clues and use logic, use objective reality, facts and transparency what is going on, what is really happening and what happened.
In most cases all psychological issues such as fear stem from external factor.
There is untreated mentally ill person in close contact with us, there are narcissists, toxic people, Machiavellians, parasites, emotional vampires - behind all our fears.
If Johnny Depp ignored his fears, he would stay with Amber - he would be broke now, he would lose all his money, his movie career would be over and he would be labelled as abuser by the whole world. Instead he dealt with his fears and documented the abuse - he actively done something about his fears, instead of ignoring them or dismissing them or rejecting it.
I would go in the direction of acceptance instead of self-pathologizing our emotions.
If we feel fear - it is most probably that we are in contact with someone toxic, and it is most probably that during growing up instead of being in healthy ambient of self acceptance, we were in toxic ambient of self invalidation, relentless criticism 24/7 and being exposed to adult hysteria which created safety mechanisms such as OCD anxiety loops. Where defense mechanism is not problem. The real problem are bullies, mobbing, abusers, narcissists - which most probably are hidden, covert and appear as help to us, so we tend to self-blame ourselves and we try to fix ourselves for problems that are implanted from the external.
---
"You really need to have a plan for what happens if people reject you. You have to understand if you hold boundary, tell the truth, stand up for yourself – people will reject you. Not everybody but it will happen. People attached on walking over you."
Excellent tips.
In reality, a lot of people suffering from social anxiety will seek help - and the available help is in form of CBT - where they are told to expose and to work on mindset - which is totally wrong advice and leads into wrong direction since CBT ignores trauma and toxic people.
Mobbing, bullying is really serious issue, it cannot be solved by CBTs ABC Model (where person is instructed to get accustomed to toxic people via modulating own thoughts about abuse, for example to see abuse as learning experience and thus stick with psychopaths and people please them and fawn to them to keep peace at any price) - and survivors of abuse and bullying will suffer from social anxiety. That needs to be said.
Instead of default CBT, this video is good guidance and awareness what to do. Good job!
---
Each experience is different and it cannot be rationalized through general order nor command.
I learned that cognitive distortions are actually safety mechanisms - it is our reactions to trauma and unfair treatment. This means they cannot be removed by Stop or chirpy attitude, unfortunately, it does not work that way. Brain is built to keep us survive - in any way possible, including the ways that keep us miserable. This is normal default way of brain, it works and it is part of Darwin evolution - it keeps us survive predators.
I learned that any cognitive distortion is triggered and built by toxic ambient, toxic people.
If we suffer from any distortion, it is a sign that we were exposed to abuse during growing up (CPTSD) and we are currently attracting toxic people - since we were programmed to be subservient, without boundaries and to be codependent - to fix other people's discomfort.
If we nitpick and try to fix cognitive distortions will not help, instead paradoxically it will increase distortions, fears, anxiety and hypervigilance - we will, or to be more exact - our brain will find another distortions to keep us safe.
Bullying, mobbing is real issue and - it is behind and cognitive distortion.
Instead of self pathologizing, self blaming and working on our mindset as CBT and Joran Peterson and other narcissist instruct us - we need to fix toxic habit, toxic people and toxic ambient - mostly by cutting contact with toxic people or at least minimize contact with them.
It boils down to:
If we are kind, if we are nice, if we have no ill will, if we have empathy, if we have no evil agenda to hurt others, if we are hard working and we hold to ethics - there is nothing wrong with us, we are not sick and we are not problem.
Once we get rid of toxic elements - external factors - our mind will get clear automatically. We do not need to nitpick and muddle and operate on our brain -
look at it logically: how other people think. The reason they do not have cognitive distortions is because they grew up in functional, normal healthy ambient and they take care of themselves.
With abuse and Complex Trauma, we were hypnotized to self invalidate ourselves and heal abuse and bullying by our thoughts - which created cognitive distortions.
Cognitive distortions are stemming from trauma.
---
I see toxic shame as deep belief I am wrong by default. That I am inept, that I am not capable - even though I am seeing results that I am intelligent and hard working - I still feel invalid deep inside, that for having social anxiety fears and phobias that I am not on the same level as other people. That I am not deserving, that I am not allowed to speak or be because I have fears.
That is toxic shame.
It stems from Complex trauma and being exposed to constant relentless criticism 24/7, being exposed to untreated mentally ill person.
Toxic shame is hallucination - it is hypnosis that appears real and it cannot be shaken off, it is stuck like a leech - cannot be shaken off. It is now a habit - it is Skinner's box operand conditioning, auto -pilot: self censorship and shutting up and not asking for needs or warning when someone crosses decent rules, boundaries what is normal.
---
I personally have a lot of faith and determination - amazingly enough that was never issue for me.
What I am talking here is Fantasy Freedom.
It is simply not realistic that we make ourselves believe that we will never encounter negative experiences, that we will never encounter mysterious events that we do not understand, and that we will never encounter difficult people and situations.
IT will happen.
I think you are talking about Stockdale Paradox but you cannot describe it in full.
And Stockdale paradox tells that if we have only blind faith - we will unfortunately feel much more stress than being objective about unfortunate events and still keep hope.
"What is a Stockdale Paradox?
You must never confuse faith that you will prevail in the end—which you can never afford to lose—with the discipline to confront the most brutal facts of your current reality, whatever they might be." This formulation became known as the Stockdale Paradox."
(hbswk)
---
(11.8.2022)
"being direct, clear, fair, considering competing interest, engage equitable"
These all will be used against us in toxic ambient with untreated mentally ill person on the other side, including the criminally insane.
Then our attempt to be clear will be met with our mistakes to ashame us. Since the other person will try to be clear about our own blunders to shut us up.
Needless to say that this leads to endless and pointless Ad Hominem arguments.
Being direct is also going to be used against us, since the abuser will be direct, too with abuse and gaslighting.
Being fair will be used against us since the abuser will not be fair and will not play by the unwritten laws of conduct.
Being considering to be on par will be used against us - since the abuser feels superior.
And as Karpman Drama Triangle states - any interaction with abuser inside the drama, will create more drama - since the mentally ill person does not want resolution, does not want clarification, does not want progress - they only want chaos, drama and sadism.
That is bullying and mobbing by definition.
Then being assertive (aka talking and being honest) - simply does not work at all.
---
All three would not work if there is toxic person on the other side.
The only difference is perhaps the third example might feel good about herself - perhaps, for a while.
Currently in Croatia we have great example of this waiting for a doctor issue.
Croatia is heavily corrupted country - so one independent journalist died because doctors - including hospital personnel and 112 medial urgency doctors, were too busy and brushed him off - they literally told him to urinate in pot.
In toxic ambient - if you do not comply to toxic rules: being corrupt, have political party connections, bribe and call someone in charge - you can be assertive as much as you want, nothing will make you priority.
---
This will work in healthy ambient,,
In toxic ambient it does not work.
In toxic place, communicating assertiveness will get you fired or backstabbed, isolated.
We all express what we need - this is not some mysterious event that is hard to describe.
The only problem when it is not working - it is because of External factor - toxic people on the other side.
Then speaking assertively will not help. They will become rude and aggressive.
Then you are inside Karpman Drama Triangle - where you are victim with victim mentality - where you are suppose to explain calmly all the time the incoming accusations.
If Johnny Depp stayed assertive with mentally ill person that is aggressive borderline such as Amber, he would be broke now, without movie career, he would be labelled as abuser - and everyone would blame him for staying in relationship with someone who is supposedly aggressive -
so assertiveness is nothing new. We all learned how to speak.
If we decide that we must fix ourselves, instead of recognizing toxic people around us, as the true and only problem, this is part of gaslighting and self abuse.
---
If there is problem with being assertive - it is not because of inability to speak or deny requests.
The only true and sole problem is the toxic person on the other side, someone untreated mentally ill who due to psychopathy have no empathy and understanding that there are unwritten social rules between people.
In reality when we stop saying yes to toxic person - we will get fired, backstabbed or isolated.
In reality when we say no - we need to be prepared for the consequences: that we must have money to support ourselves without job. If we think that we must nitpick and fix our mindset - nothing will change, this does not work in real life.
---
This is The Epiphany.
This is very much advice I was looking for - for a very long time.
Since there are a lot of confusing messages out there.
From someone suffering from social anxiety and avoidance, the common message we will receive is (self help, online, therapy) is to expose and to somehow get tough by being out there.
Where, being in toxic relationships and toxic ambient - exposure makes it worse.
None of socially anxious advice does not cover what happens when other people are liars and cheaters. The only advice is to expose. This advice made me into pushover and people pleaser - since I did not know how to handle aggression and I did not know the term "covert" narcissist. I only knew that narcissists are open bullies who curse a lot - and if they show sympathy - it was somehow my fault for being too sensitive for not being able to process their manipulation and put downs.
I would feel social anxiety - which I labeled as such because no one explains covert narcissism and after effects it has when someone is exposed to psychopaths - and as I said the help to deal and handle these social fears would be to expose - to fight, to be assertive.
A lot of advice for social anxiety is instruction to be assertive- and we can see on you tube - I look at assertive videos - they all never ever mention covert narcissist. All advice for assertiveness is directed to expose and to talk and try to reason with people - as if all people are mentally sane.
And this advice for assertiveness, of course, did not help, there would still be whirlpool of anxiety and confusion and self blame and self hate - without knowing what is happening. I would receive "advice" to be toxic myself - it didn't help. I would receive advice to stop being so "sensitive" - it did not help - since the abuse is external, I was not inventing it with my thoughts.
You nailed it, you described it to the point!
Thank you!
Love it:
"Would you fight professional boxer because he took your money, you would get your butt kicked. Fighting itself will destroy you. You have to come to terms with – you cannot beat them. Just run, get over what you lost, stolen, start life over again."
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(12.8.2022)
To anyone suffering from social anxiety, I guess the major part of our social anxiety is the product of our attempt where we are more less unconsciously unmasking toxic people with our natural feelings, natural empathic observations and HSP reactions - and then we feel social anxiety when these masked narcissists flip off and get mad - when we have no idea why.
And we are explained that we are too sensitive, too wrong, too damaged, they project their inadequacies onto us. Then we end up with toxic shame and believe we are inept, that we lack social skills and that we lack in general of everything.
The problem is that our reaction are natural - and we have no idea what is going on, we have trust in all people so we cannot separate covert (hidden, unrecognized) narcissist as overt narcissist - someone who is openly aggressive and outright bully. We cannot uncover that difficult people are abnormal. Instead we take on self blame and label ourselves as abnormal and try to fix our own thoughts and behaviour and mindset, with toxic positivity.
Then we end up depressed and more scared, and we seek help for social anxiety - and the first response in therapy and online resources and self help resources is CBT which muddles social anxiety with social anxiety disorder - and give us totally wrong direction and totally wrong explanation: how to heal social anxiety. We get wrong explanation that we must be assertive with covert narcissists and that we are the problem, not the person who is manipulative, cheating and liar. CBT forces us to be exposed to abuse in order to gain toxic masculinity strength - which never happens in real life, instead we end up with neurosis, trauma and more fears.
So Ross' concept Don't Unmask Covert Narcissist - is missing puzzle that we missed.
With social anxiety we do not know how to handle difficult people. With narcissistic society we learned that Shutting up and self censorship is alternative to being assertive. Both methods are hurting us in the end - and both methods are used against ourselves.
Leaving things without seeking resolution - is great tip.
Ross explained it amazingly - covert narcissists are psychopaths. It is not our job to handle mentally ill people; we are not institution, we are not police, we are not doctors. We have no resources to fix them, to change them, to make them better, to heal them, it is not our job - neither to get into conflict with them, neither to fawn to them. And it is not our job to seek resolution even though is feels inside - since we are empaths and we naturally seek understanding and harmony and balance, health. This natural urge to seek balance is used against us when we are in the presence of manipulative toxic person who is appearing friendly and we think they are our ally - and they are not.
We learned easily that we avoid open bullies and someone who is openly aggressive. That part is not problem.
Real problem are covert narcissists who appear as friend and help to us - while in reality they are not at all. Without knowing that covert narcissist exist, we try to seek resolution - and then blame ourselves and develop social anxiety when we fail in reaching agreement and harmony - we end up with balance at our own expense - self blame, self hate, toxic shame, internalized belief that we are wrong and inept while we let covert narcissist to be superior, gods and authority with their command as the law we need to obey. We end up in Karpman Drama Triangle.
Without knowing the concept that Covert Narcissist exist - we take the blame and seek relationship with them, and we think we are dealing with someone who is wounded and harmed, and we must protect them and heal them and be around them - which is impossible since they do not seek friendship at all.
Narcissists seek control and tyranny and they do anything to win unnecessary and vain battles.
---
Also, we need to become aware that some people are mentally ill - and that argument and conversation will not bare fruit at all - and since there are psychopaths out there - we are not police, we are not institution, we are not medical personnel - we cannot heal them, we cannot fix them, we cannot change them.
If possible - cut contact would be the best solution.
Trying to please them, trying to make us to like us, trying to gain their trust and understanding - will never happen and we will appear weak and needy.
---
I dunno.
I just watched Ross Rosenberg video about Don't unmask covert narcissist.
He said that any argument and conflict and talking with people who are unreasonable will harm us. There are psychopaths out there - and they are mentally ill, while we are not police, we are not medical personnel, we are not their nanny, we are not here to fix them.
From our empath stance we seek balance and harmony and healthy - while being in contact with someone who appears friendly but difficult - will only lead us to waste our resources and end up gaslighted and wounded and traumatized in the process.
I would highlight the concept that we are honest, authentic and bold always.
However if there is someone who is obviously always seeking wars and explosions and drama just for the sake of hurting and causing pain - I guess the best solution is to cut contact and run away, without seeking solution and without resolution that we naturally seek. Our sense to be fair and to resolve chaos is used against ourselves with mentally ill people out there such as narcissists.
---
We are not police. We are not medical personnel. We are not professional fighters. We are not someone's nanny. We are not magical figure that can control and change people.
IF someone is aggressively mentally ill - perhaps the best solution is to cut contact.
If someone is whipping the whip on the street - this is criminal act, there is police that handles this situations (unless at corrupt East Europe countries such as Serbia where violent act is seen as toxic masculinity and something that is normal).
---
I dunno.
If you need to make fun of people to make your statement, that does not seem like communication skill at all.
Seems to me more like narcissistic issue where you are horrible afraid of what other people will think about you, and you perceive narcissistic wound in any perceived criticism.
How about radical idea of simply being authentic, honest, objective and spontaneous without any desire to hurt someone in the process by being vulnerable and admitting own fragile soul?
---
Yeah,
and what happens next is the most of the time - there is untreated mentally ill person such as narcissist on the other side. And mostly there are covert narcissists - that appear as help to us and we keep them in our lives in order to have "friends" and not to be lonely.
Soon enough, this grows into trauma bonding where we second guess ourselves due to their gaslighting.
I would go in direction of cutting contact when we realize that we must always stand up with someone, when this turns into a pattern.
With normal, healthy, kind people there would be no need to stand up for anything - we would simply communicate with them, without harm or causing pain to each other.
---
This idea of speaking up for myself caused me unnecessary pain, confusion and anxiety.
I watched Ross Rosenberg video "Don't unmask covert narcissist" and he says that getting into argument with untreated mentally ill people - we get kicked. These mentally ill people are good at conflict and hysteria and drama - that we have no chance. It is the same as we get into fight with professional fighter.
He says - that we run away and cut contact with them.
In narcissistic deceptive society we get wrong message. We are being told that to deal with bully we have only two options:
1) to get even, to be monster, explosions, drama, screaming, yelling, conflict and wars
or
2) shut up, self censor, be silent and never speak up.
Well,
there is alternative.
We can actually speak the truth without being a pattern of repeating ourselves.
If we are with someone like your uncle - to speak harsh - it is not healthy. You simply end up with short fuse and narcissistic disorder where you treat people like trash.
If someone punch you in the face, you can easily trip and fall and can kill you. Physical violence is criminal act - it is noted in police records, since if someone is capable to cause harm to another person - is potential serial killer. IT is abnormal.
We can speak our mind without drama and explosions.
We can formulate our words without Ad Hominem so other person will not have cause to punch us.
We can see if someone is difficult as pattern - that this is toxic person - and there is no reason to stay in toxic any kind of relationship with such mentally ill person.
Think about it -
Why would you go into argument with mentally ill person at all?
I think this piece of information and data you miss. You think that if someone is difficult - that this person is normal and healthy and worthy of your time and energy. They are not. They are abnormal, they have abnormal brain, they have serious mental damage inside their brain if they are toxic all the time.
You arguing with them will not magically heal them. We are not police, we are not medical personnel, we are not institution, we are not professional fighter, we are not their nanny, we are not magical figure that have magical powers to change other people.
Our need and urge to fix something that is permanently broken - will not make us feel better, it leads to neurosis. Then we get into trauma bonding and we are glued to toxic people.
This is how Stockholm Syndrome occurs - we start to believe that we have magical power to fix and control other people and that it is our duty to fix other people. We will end up hurt and in pain.
Mentally ill people are capable of committing horrible backstabbing that we healthy normal people cannot even come up with in our wildest imagination. I would not play with the Devil and hope I would not end up like Faust.
We can speak up - being honest, being authentic, speaking truth, being objective.
However we can also cut contact and avoid someone who is clearly mentally ill and aggressive.
You don't get angry at the storm - you avoid it.
---
"Anger is healthy common emotion"
This is true, however CBT and medical personnel due to egocentrism does not explain this phenomena in full.
Most people do not recognize emotions. Most people mislabel emotions - and what happens is that most people misdiagnose their anger as fear. So most people end up with resentment stuck inside without knowing that this emotions is really anger.
Unfortunately in todays psychiatry this miscommunication in emotions is not clarified because pharma mafia is making huge money from general lack of knowledge about psychology. Then we end up with bad mental health while corporations and untreated mentally ill people with low IQ and psychopath tendencies such as Republicans and Trump get money in the process from exploiting emotions such as anger for their criminal acts. For example, corrupt politicians process resentment as fear of migrants - to get votes based on paranoia explained as protection from unknown fears.
Psychology needs to enter grammar school.
--
I would note that if someone is angry all the time, as pattern - we are not magical figure that can heal them.
Empaths will tend that we are - and we end up with trauma bonding and forming toxic bonds with untreated mentally ill people.
We are not police, we are not medical personnel, we are not institution, we are not Jesus, we are not capable to fix, change nor control people - and no one can change them if they are not willing to change their bad habits themselves.
The best solution is to cut contact wherever possible or at least to minimize contact without feeling guilty about it, and without forming any kind of relationship with such people.
---
If someone is angry - without reason, at someone who is peaceful, there is a high chance they are mentally ill. Any conflict with such person is not reasonable and waste of time and resources. There is nothing to prove of gain by being monster to them.
Staying in contact with such person is trauma bonding, Stockholm Syndrome, codependency and we actually believe that they are normal and that we have magical ability to control and fix and change them somehow, and we believe that it is our duty to fix their anger.
---
I would start with important fact that CBT obfuscates deliberately: that is that most people do not recognize emotions at all. In fact, most people label their emotions with wrong definitions.
For example, instead of anger, there is resentment.
Without correct diagnosis and explanation, we end up confused and try to fix something that is not broken at all. We end up stuck with wrong advice, stuck in labyrinth.
Second mistake with CBT is pathologizing trauma reactions. CBT tries to heal any problem with change of mindset. In the process CBT is doing terrible damage to the psyche.
So CBT will explain that feeling and doing is the same. CBT does not explain that self worth might be tainted with toxic shame. So instead of accepting and focusing on our goals and self worth, CBT instruct us to focus on our panic symptoms and emotions and make drama out of nothing as if we are crazy for having emotions. We end up with neurosis and hypervigilance - since we are basically being told by CBT that having emotions is mental illness.
And CBT does not recognize their detrimental affects on people at all, as any covert narcissist.
CBT will focus on anger as if its is noble act, using racial issues in USA for example. This is gaslighting since trauma and abuse is not mentioned at all - and instead we are being told that any negative emotion is always noble and good, we simply need to be open minded since one small example of good anger is put on pedestal as default phenomena.
CBT will explain amygdala hijacking through fight flight freeze - without mentioning 4th response called fawning at all. This is done deliberately. So CBT will end up instructing people to be people pleaser and to be pushover, always. IT is highly detrimental and highly ineffective therapy. CBT is form of lobotomy - where normal human emotions are labelled as illness, while external factor: narcists and narcissistic abuse is not mentioned at all. This is because CBT is therapy based on narcissism for narcissists, it is nazi therapy with roots in nazi Germany, came to USA along with NASA scientists from nazi Germany. CBT is form of gaslighting and mass control where corporations are guiding people to obey corrupt authority and criminals. Think of criminally insane person such as Trump having enough IQ to get medical diploma and get into managerial seat of forming DSM, that is CBT.
CBT will explain that anger is our own - always. CBT will not explain what to do with toxic people outside - who are always angry. There is no mention of narcissism and narcissistic abuse - instead CBT instruct us that anger is good always and that we must tolerate abuse and serial killers and corporations and criminals. That we are abnormal if we see criminals and abusers as problem.
CBT will explain that anger is inside us - as if there are not abusive toxic people outside of us. CBT will instruct us to feel self blame and shame and guilt for having any reaction to angry person. CBT does not explain that person who is angry all the time, that such person is manipulative and using gaslighting and temper tantrums to control other people. CBT does not explain what to do in such situations - instead CBT instruct us to think that our attempt in interpreting event is the only problem. This is actually narcissistic abuse 1-on-1. CBT is form of covert narcissistic abuse.
CBT will use meaningless examples of anger such as someone being rude in the store - which is healed very quickly with Mel Robbins advice to enter anything in life by determining in advance how we are going to feel. CBT will not explain real life examples such as working in corrupt corporations - mobbing and abuse and bullying - because CBT is coming from evil corrupt corporations. CBT tries to lobotomize masses of people so that they endure abuse at work and they serve and obey mentally ill narcissists at work.
CBT will instruct us that we must monitor our emotions and reactions. Again, horrible and highly detrimental advice, as CBT is. In real life this approach that we are highly aware of our emotions - while we are abused by someone mentally ill that is causing fears and anger in the first place - causes more anxiety and hypervigilance. This is called self absorption paradox:
"What is the self reflection paradox?
The self-absorption paradox describes the contradictory association whereby higher levels of self-awareness are simultaneously associated with higher levels of psychological distress and with psychological well-being."
CBT likes to mention cognitive distortions in order to explain thinking errors. CBT does not mention that immature ego defense mechanisms are part of Complex trauma and being exposed to narcissistic abuse - and CBT will not mention that biases and availability heuristics (which are by default cognitive distortions) are part of everyone's mind. All people have thinking errors. This is not our fault. This is not endemic to us. CBT will explain that it is. CBT explains that all people are normal while we are abnormal, guilty and wrong for having cognitive distortions. By doing this, CBT supplies endless money influx for pharma mafia - for healing something that is totally normal part of human mind.
Thinking through cognitive distortions will not get rid of them, it only leads to anxiety and mental illness.
CBT is making things worse and CBT ought to be banned.
CBT idea of breathing - is reaction to anxiety. Any ritual to anxiety leads to OCD. So once again, CBT leads to mental imbalance and mental instability. CBT idea of interrupting anything leads to OCD.
Breathing and assessing situation will not help when someone is angry all the time as pattern. That is abuse.
CBT another horrible idea is assertiveness - they call it boundaries.
Once again - this leads to abuse. IF you are in contact with untreated mentally ill person - having boundaries will get us into serious danger. Mentally ill people who are aggressive will do anything to destroy us. Look at femicide statistics.
CBT will say that we must think things through and that we are the ones who are screaming at people.
CBT does not mention that there is nothing to think through about someone being sick and abusive.
CBT never tells what to do about people who are never ever screaming at people, but are screamed at.
CBT will always form and focus anger onto individual and convince anxious person seeking help that they are somehow guilty for experiencing abuse.
---
This is complex.
It we engage in conflict - we will become narcissist and toxic - because we are unable to handle criticism.
If we are in healthy normal ambient - we would not feel wrong.
I would cut contact and minimize contact.
Looking back, it was never problem with me - it was always covert narcissist on the other side. And me trying to work things out, find resolution, find balance and harmony - as any normal and healthy person wants - and this urge to be human and normal is used against us. We are made abnormal for feeling cheated and unfair mistreatment from someone who is seeking drama, selfish agenda and outright abuse since they are sadistic and mentally ill.
---
I've started to see this as huge obstacle - many people have no idea about basic concepts in psychology; 1) egocentrism and 2) external reference locus of control.
Without this basic knowledge many people cannot understand that there is Jung true Self and False Self inside us.
Without this understanding many people insist that we must be perfect, that we must achieve perfection and that we can build up mindset - without understanding that if we were traumatized - that now we have simulation, a hologram of Self inside us. There is no foothold to grow anything.
Without this understanding we are in loop of trying to build up our life, yet we spin in endless loops and we depend on other people to achieve satisfaction when other people approve our thoughts, decisions.
---
I watched Ross Rosenberg (author of Human Magnet Syndrome) yesterday and he talked in his video "Don't Unmask Covert Narcissists" how it is futile to retort and engage in any confrontation with covert narcissist(s). They are excellent at aggressive put downs and general aggression - and he says these people are mentally ill, they are criminally insane and they will do anything to destroy the critic or someone who exposes them as dangerous. It is like picking a fight with professional boxer - we will only get beaten.
I agree with him.
I ran into video from "Personal Development School" and she says the same thing, she said:
"general rule if someone disrespect your boundaries speak up pretty much 100% of time. Special exception would be narcissistic person, take gray rock approach, or stranger that might be dangerous."
I agree with them both.
On twitter I ran into this quote that sums up:
"If we're always looking for respect, it may be because we're disrespecting ourselves by not validating our feelings or self, or are critical of ourselves. "
We can leave things unsaid, unfinished and unresolves. We are not god, we are not hospital, we are not police, nor judge. It is not our business to set people straight, nor to fix them , neither to control them.
We can speak our part, never shut up - but if there is covert narcissist - any further argument with such individuals will never lead to any resolution.
---
(13.8.2022)
I trust that we came to Earth from some unknown place, unknown dimension, we are not here by error.
Also, we are like characters in 3rd Rock from the Sun - aliens that are trying to integrate in society. There is puzzle in each one of us - and it is our task to meet other people at the middle path, in the middle.
This means it is our task to be kind and nice to other people, however it also means to be kind and nice to ourselves, too.
Practically it is our duty and task to love ourselves - anything else will lead to evil and sickness, both physical and mental illness.
Social anxiety is form of self hate, deep belief that we are losers and with no value.
This is what we are talking about here, what to do about it.
When we do not know what is happening, we are like Sandra Bullock in Gravity (2013) - spinning in space, without foothold - and we depend on other people to tell us who we are, and we mostly feel small and without value and we need to parasite on other people to survive. All this is totally normal process.
People in healthy, normal families outgrew this process.
With abuse, some of us became abusers and narcissists - while the rest of us are stuck with social anxiety and low value and self hate, self blame. And we have no guidance what to do next and how to change and where to go in life.
And if we seek help - CBT as first medical response to social anxiety will direct us even at more wrong direction: to more self hate and self blame, explaining us that our feelings and convictions are abnormal.
I would seek Humanistic psychology as our guide.
It is based on the total acceptance: accepting ourselves as we are.
" Humanistic therapies"
"This group of therapies encourages an individual to resolve their problems and issues and achieve greater fulfillment by recognizing, understanding, and using their own capacity to develop.
Humanists believe that not only is a person capable of making changes and achieving personal growth but it is their responsibility to do so. This idea places the individual fully in control of their choices and goals."
(14.8.2022)
"Anything is bad when you over-rely on it."
I disagree with you.
You are saying as if there is some "normal" standard given by some unknown entity, and we have to follow this perfectionism standard out of your own imagination.
In fact, that is at the root of social anxiety.
We do not allow ourselves to be imperfect,
we do not allow ourselves to break norms,
we do not allow ourselves to step outside of some imaginary line
and we make ourselves into NPC Wojak, philosophical zombie, without any distinct features, without our caprices, without our perks, without our own mistakes -
instead we put incredible unrealistic pressure of some unknown, cloud9 idea of perfectionism that no one - even robot or machine - cannot possibly achieve.
We have this idea that we are bad and that other people are bad if they break this imaginary perfectionistic rules that we set up in our heads due to trauma and exposure to criticism while growing up.
Just stop and think about it for a minute.
Who is giving you instruction what is bad?
What entity is telling you that something is bad?
Who has authority to tell you and order you to describe some human activity such as talking as bad?
Who is this person?
Is it a person at all or is it voices in your head?
Inner critic? Imaginary audience in your head?
Who is giving you command to compare with something that is normal with something that you decide is bad?
Where is that normal ideal? Can you pinpoint it?
Is there some magical book of what is Normal and Abnormal that we do not know of?
If so, why you have access to this magical book of instructions , while all others are in the dark?
Why the whole world is not operating on such magical instruction that you have somehow ability to tap into, of what is normal and truth about anything in life?
Could it be that your ideal is simply a fiction?
A shadow on the wall? And you project your own abnormalities into other people by toxically ashaming them when they cross this imaginary line in your head about what is bad and what is good?
A lot of questions to ask and to seek answers,
but humans are shortcut making machine.
We are prone to judge and mock others, seek mistakes in others, while in the same time we see none in ourselves.
Urge to control other people is narcissism , it is part of fascism and it is mental illness.
This way abusers are abusing socially anxious people, giving them some rules about what is bad and what is good.
Social anxiety is complex issue.
It is not solved by mere positive thinking
or mere instructions what is bad.
---
" Not speaking up in meetings, during salary negotiations, or when being repeatedly interrupted "
IF we are unable to do this, due to someone on the other side who are blocking us through shame or abuse - it is a sign of mentally ill person on the other side.
This is something unfortunately that most people do not understand at all.
" in the framework of engaging with rational people"
Or in another word, psychological safety ambient.
People who have issues with assertiveness - who are actually watching videos like yours - are in situation where there are no rational people on the other side - so it is not due to individuals own faults. It is always blame in untreated mentally ill person on the other side.
Self pathologizing will lead only to more already present toxic shame, invalidation due to trauma and anxiety.
If we are in psychological safety, we would speak up normally without fears, there would be no blockages, we would not fear meetings, or eventual salary negotiations.
"being repeatedly interrupted"
Is sign of abuse, mobbing and there is nothing in the world that the target is guilty for. We cannot change someone's mental illness by changing our own behaviour.
This is hamster wheel of people pleasing and fawning and being stuck in Karpman Drama Triangle.
Please re-visit your theory from different angles, multiple dimensions, and perhaps you'll discover why CBT mindset does not work in real life situations - since it is only hidden agenda of money laundering program to suck people dry who are surrounded by toxic people, without you pinpointing and blaming the mobbing as the true cause of all problems that appear to us as "assertiveness" issue.
---
(15.8.2022)
"Gaming is Giving You Social Anxiety"
Seems like logical fallacy statement.
It is the same as to say or claim that our heart beat is happening in the same time as social anxiety, so we must stop heart from beating??! Or social anxiety happens when we drink water, so we must stop drinking water.
Any addiction follows any anxiety. The problem are toxic people and narcissistic abuse behind that anxiety - not our safety mechanisms. If we remove one addiction, the brain will simply invent another addiction. Usually, people who are not addicted to drugs or games or any visible addiction lean onto worrying and rumination, leading to PureOCD.
I would leave anxiety in the hands of health care professionals or at least to well known psychiatrists and psychologists, rather than quick you tube video that can make more damage than good.
---
Social anxiety is a broad topic, it is good to make clear definition what is social anxiety.
Clarity is health. If we do not make the topic clear - we can go astray very easily and get trapped in a labyrinth.
Social anxiety is not about introversion at all. It is not fear of appearing stupid. I agree that labelling is not doing service to any mental issue if it is used as a tool to ashame the target or force into change. Social anxiety is someone bullying you to be stupid. It is not about general rejection. In fact, socially anxious people would love that all people reject them so that they do not have to deal with anyone. Social anxiety is about dehumanization of the target.
Think of social anxiety as being in a job type of situation where you are not allowed to quit or run away yet you are attacked on that job post violently and verbally by others - colleagues, boss and customers all the time. We are talking about mobbing here. Imagine mobbing and the effect on the target of abuse. That is social anxiety. There is narcissistic abuse as crucial component -
it is not imaginary fantasy as CBT is telling us. We can use logic: social anxiety is called social anxiety, there is social. It is not Self-anxiety. IT is not Rejection-anxiety. It is anxiety that stems from society, social component.
Then think what would help such person who is not in psychological safety ambient?
IF you tell such person in such situation that they are imagining their threat - you are taking a side with abusers and psychopaths and sadists. This makes things only worse.
If you explain to get uncomfortable - that is the same as to say a person to develop defense against toxic radiation by living in Chernobyl.
Think about it logically - if someone lives in slum - would it really help to socialize with drug pushers, criminals and street gangs?
It would help to explain how to deal with mobbing. It would help to explain to avoid covert narcissists and plan exit strategy. It would help to recognize and how to recognize red flags of narcissistic abuse and how to handle difficult people in functional, proper and healthy manner. It would help to explain by product of any abuse: toxic shame.
The confusion arises because mental health industry is making pharma money on human neurosis and selling drugs to people in need, and corrupt medical managers purposely are obfuscating the definition of social anxiety.
We can see it in the DSM description change every year, like Windows OS it is upgraded and it even changed name from social phobia into social anxiety making even more unnecessary confusion.
To claim that social anxiety is social anxiety disorder (paranoid imaginary threat) is invalidation and repeating the trauma that socially anxious went through. I would advise to stop this form of Milgram Experiment - since it is causing additional pain and harm to already wounded socially anxious people on the verge of suicidal idealization.
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"what If they start avoiding me then?"
Then it means they are mentally ill and sick and toxic - and it's best to mute and ignore them and to avoid them.
They are someone that is waste of time, energy and money to spend anything with and socialize.
Think of it as a test - if someone is so weak, superficial and full of bitterness that they are so immature not to separate human condition from real life threats such as covert narcissists - these people are not grown up and are extremely childish and even dangerous - since they are not thinking as grown up person.
With social anxiety we have toxic shame inside us, due to CPTSD which is mothership of social anxiety hovering above it hidden above - which means that toxic shame exports our True Self away from us - and we develop False Self - which means we depend on other people to define our life for us. We develop codependency issues and we depend on other people to approve and validate us - then we end up with severe fear of criticism and someone's opinion. We feel good then they are nice to us, we feel bad when they are neutral or negative to us - this is called External reference locus of control - google it. Or Trauma bonding. Or Stockholm Syndrome.
We need to develop True Self inside us - that we do not depend on someone's good comment and good criticism - we can form friendships of course, but we do not depend on their say, order nor command how we suppose to talk, be, make decision or do anything in life about.
---
You are keep pathologizing social anxiety as a problem.
The true and only problem are toxic people.
Think of social anxiety as being in job type situation where the boss, colleagues and customers are yelling and screaming at you, behave violently to you all the time. That is social anxiety. Mobbing.
Social anxiety is reflection and reaction to such abuse.
The reaction is not problem itself. If we decide to self pathologize our abuse - we will develop even more trauma, more anxiety and more mental illness.
I would go into direction of accepting social anxiety - which surprisingly even CBT (totally wrong therapy for social anxiety) is supporting through DBT, third wave of CBT.
I would go into direction of Humanistic psychology which states that we accept ourselves in full - and then build up on ourselves, with mistakes included. Not through self-pathology approach.
Going to parties and being super confident is social construct, supported by USA media marketing and Hollywood. In real life - the only healthy thing is to be authentic.
For example painter Dali was not afraid that he perceives sexual act differently than most of the people. Herd mentality, groupthink and conformism is not healthy, it leads to Milgram Experiment and fascism.
Examples that you mention in the video:
Being preoccupied with confidence, general situations, borderline hysteria, going to parties, being worried what to yack about in small talk, negative fantasies - that is all shyness group. It is not social anxiety at all.
Medical community does not make things easier since they obfuscate social fears purposely - in order to sell drugs, self help books, endless therapies and couching that does not work at all.
We can see this is true since DSM is keep changing the definition of social anxiety and it even changes its name from social phobia to social anxiety, making more unnecessary confusion - since trauma is behind it. IT is easier to muddle the matter and make money from keeping it unclear.
1) Shyness - it is feeling social threat feelings at some social event, but social fear wear off quickly and shy person is not bothered by it again
2) Social anxiety - it is feeling of social threat before the event, during event and after event. Fears do not wear off and you keep ruminating about it. This is due to trauma, condition called CPTSD and it is not hallucination neither delusion nor illusion.
3) Social anxiety disorder - it is feeling of social threat at safe events, when you know that person around you will not harm you. For example in safe, empty room, and you are with Oprah or Mandela or Mother Theresa or Gandhi - the safest person you can ever imagine - but you still feel threat that they might harm you. This condition is part of Paranoid Delusional Disorder, and only 1% of population has it.
4) Narcissistic disorder - it is feeling of social threat triggered when someone warns and alarms you for being intrusive. Due to confirmation bias you are not realizing that you are rude and arrogant and intrusive - so you conclude that you feel social anxiety due to unknown reason from random people.
5) Autistic disorder - you live in your world and you are not aware that you appear threatening to people, for example you do not say Hi to them or smile back to them. So you feel social anxiety because you feel tense and awkward in social situations and you have no idea why.
6) Performance anxiety - when you feel social fears when performing in public
CBT lumps all these as hallucination in order to make it easier. However oversimplifications leads to distortions.
So CBT is using cognitive distortion - over-generalization paradoxically to explain social anxiety as cognitive distortion.
There is Jane Elliott's Blue Eyes, Brown Eyes experiment, exercise - that showed that social settings can influence the targets.
There is Narcissistic abuse: Long-Term Narcissistic Abuse Can Cause Brain Damage.
There is Stanford prison experiment where it is shown that targets of abuse in toxic ambient where they cannot escape from will develop extreme social anxiety.
There is Skinner's box and Little Albert experiment which shows that people can be conditioned and initiated into social anxiety.
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There are predators out there, narcissists and psychopaths that are not only judging you - but purposely attack you and cause damage.
Social anxiety is being in mobbing type of situation.
Claiming that social anxiety is to overcome or that social anxiety is dangerous - it is going in the direction of not confronting the real problem: toxic people. Deciding that we are the problem if we have social anxiety is going in the direction of:
The ostrich effect is the tendency to avoid dangerous or negative information by simply closing oneself off from this information.
Narcissistic society will teach us that we are the problem for feeling uncomfortable when someone is behaving like criminal and abusive - since this is the best way to control the masses.
You simply shut up, label yourself as snowflake - and criminals and abusers and psychopaths are doing whatever they want.
---
"Jesus never had social anxiety"
The Bible says the otherwise:
""44 In the same way the rebels who were crucified with him also heaped insults on him.""
Social anxiety is not shyness issues.
Social anxiety is being in toxic ambient with mobbing and narcissistic abuse-
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I dunno.
Why would I let go of social anxiety?
It is the same as to say that I let go of crying or feeling fear?
What would happen if something sad happens - would it be normal to laugh?
What would happen if I live with psychopath such as Amber - and normalize her abuse since I have no fear?
Social anxiety is not problem at all.
True and only problem are toxic people. Mobbing. That is social anxiety - being in toxic ambient with toxic people.
If we decide to get rid of our emotions - we will become like NPC Philosophical zombie, without my true authentic caprices, perks and quirks. I will become faceless person in the crowd. IT is the same as if having lobotomy - so that I do not make other people uncomfortable if I show and express my fears.
IT is normal to feel fears around strangers. Without natural fear we would people please everyone - since we would not feel that something is wrong with others when they abuse and take advantage of us - and psychopaths would be drawn to us like moth to a flame.
---
If we self pathologize ourselves, we will develop mental illness.
If we stifle down our emotions, including the scary ones, we will suppress our Jung shadow - and we will become neurotic - we will not be able to handle nor to understand difficult people - and we will end up super-sensitive when someone is scary: which means more social anxiety and fears. IT is like living in sanitized environment - so your body starts to develop allergy and attack pollen as virus - and we end up with virus symptoms - allergy can even kill person (bee sting or food allergy).
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I dunno.
Would it be clever to be attractive to person such as Amber?
Would it be healthy to lobotomize and self pathologize my feelings and smother my ability in detection of toxic people in exchange for normalizing aggressive borderliner mentally ill narcissists just to appear super confident in someone else's eyes, someone who will forget that I exist 5 seconds later?
Opposite to popular opinion, toxic people are not over - most of them are covert , they have super camouflage and bad things do happen out there if we have no ability to detect someone who is criminally insane but appears as sex idol, overly eager friend or sudden help.
I am not sure that idea of impressing other people is healthy. If I crave external approval and actually depend on other people's good opinions about me - this leads to mental illness, really.
If I have normal level of being "normal" and if I am authentic - I would not go overboard and develop addiction in form of craving other people's praise and narcissism, bad idea - really.
elbowcoughyougotthis
Confidence cannot be developed - this leads to overcompensation, and I end up desperate, pathetic, creepy and needy in after-effect of trying to appear super confident. Confidence is knowing I am secure being myself, as I am, with mistakes, warts and all - and deciding to improve when I want - not when someone's approval depend on it.
---
If anyone with reading any general book about psychology understands that abuse is creating social anxiety, I have no idea why it is so hard to tell socially anxious people how to handle abuse, trauma, difficult situations, how to recognize toxic people, how to retort, how to deal and manage covert narcissists, how to handle and manage narcissistic abuse in proper and functional and healthy manner.
Instead, CBT is explaining that natural feelings of fear are hallucination and something to cure.
Anyone with minimum knowledge of psychology knows that hiding, suppressing and stifling our emotions is unhealthy and leads to neurosis and mental illness.
Avoiding scary emotions and invalidating them is actually:
"The ostrich effect is the tendency to avoid dangerous or negative information by simply closing oneself off from this information."
In sick, narcissistic, deceptive, herm mentality, conformist world - we will be explained that our reaction to fascism and corruption is problem, not criminally insane psychopaths such as Trump or corrupt marketing managers in heath industry such as CBT.
Instead of self pathologizing CBT, I would go into direction of Humanistic psychology and accepting ourselves as we are, with all mistakes and warts and all - and building up on that, instead of nurturing toxic shame as CBT instructs us.
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That hunch is probably correct.
We live in sick, deceptive, narcissistic society with mask on, play pretending something they are not, not because they have good will behind it at all.
We need to stop self pathologizing as that same sick society is explaining us social anxiety to us, in order to lobotomize us and make us dog food for narcissists.
With social anxiety (which stems from Complex Trauma) we have ability to detect fake people with evil agenda behind their "niceness" and "friendliness". This is thanks to Darwin evolution - what did not break us (bullying incidents) made us stronger - by adapting to abuse. We now have super power ability to sniff out bullies even when they hide behind carefully planned psychopath mask.
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Number 6 -
crap fit.
Believing that default social constructs are normal and we are abnormal & guilty for being abused by that same default social constructs (such as slapping a child, mobbing and criminal activity).
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Social anxiety is result of abuse, mobbing and bullying.
It absolutely have no connection with small yack issues. That is shyness.
Unfortunately medical industry is ran by psychopaths such as Trump and they make money on neurosis by selling drugs to anxious people.
This way they have endless narcissistic supply and influx by self-pathologizing targets of abuse - by obfuscating social anxiety without clear definition and distinctions about social fears.
Corrupt narcissists like Trump and medical industry like CBT wants us to normalize abuse and to crap fit into their abuse and mobbing as something rational and normal.
---
If I am highly aware of my limiting beliefs - unfortunately this logical step cannot trick our brain into state of not feeling anxiety. Instead this happens:
The self-absorption paradox describes the contradictory association whereby higher levels of self-awareness are simultaneously associated with higher levels of psychological distress and with psychological well-being. Wikipedia
If we decide that there is something wrong with us, we will develop toxic shame.
Brain is not built to give us pleasure. Brain will do anything to protect us instead.
If we went through abuse - we will be wired and programmed to serve and to be subservient to other people, fawning and self blaming ourselves. That we must crap fit into other people and social constructs and that we must force ourselves to go to parties - even when we don't like parties.
If I place other people opinion, their validation as primary focus - this is called External reference locus of control - and this is trauma bonding, Stockholm Syndrome.
No, exposure with trauma installed inside us will not make us heal - instead we will become NPC philosophical zombie - without our own character, caprices, without our perks nor quirks - we will become faceless, boring neutral face without preferences of our own - only the ones that are approved by external, someone's criticism and approval.
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Coming here from absolutely psychological aspect of social anxiety, your insight is very rich and
informative. Thank you for sharing!
This is actually not new thing to me, I already found 2 accounts with similar business and they also shared their social anxiety insight - very helpful tips they had, I added them to my Twitter list, I even created Entrepreneurship list just because of them. I added your TW account there, hehe!
Because -
Where is the best to learn about social anxiety than from people who are in close connection with people!
First, you said that practically all people have social anxiety- When I made topic about this in the main reddit social anxiety forum - my post got deleted and I was banned later on - since a lot of commentators spoke that I offended them with this claim (?!) and that it is not true.
Second, you are speaking about bonding and socializing as enjoyable experience -
we are talking here about ambient with psychological security.
Third, you said very important detail here, crucial for understanding social anxiety: "there is no outcome attached to it."
With social anxiety and situations where socially anxious people are in - there is attachment and this is creating huge waves of panic, anxiety. Psychologically speaking this is called trauma bonding, Stockholm Syndrome and External reference locus of control. However you go further - you are putting this attachment in job type of situation - where the point you are making:
in order to handle level of social anxiety - that we need to find job that is not toxic.
Social anxiety is product of abuse, mobbing and bullying.
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"But even though that might me a very very small percentage of people: most people are not toxic and don’t care"
Hehe, that is matter of perspective, really.
If we were abused in the past - we will have hard time to build connections. IF we decide that we are weird abnormal and that there is something fundamentally wrong with us - this will not make us confident at all - it will add up to anxiety and toxic shame.
If we decide to see our social fears as ability to detect fake people - Darin evolution to detect and to adapt to predators - then we will have confidence in ourselves and our feelings and our abilities and we can build up on that - instead of self pathology approach that does not work (CBT).
We will no longer interpret our panic symptoms as illness or something to kill, instead we will even enjoy it and be thankful for knowing that we detect some level of toxicity in other people.
Like Geiger measure of radiation.
Which leads to my final thought:
Ship of Theseus or Sorites paradox - that is closely connected to social anxiety.
There is a question at what level something becomes dangerous and toxic.
And who is the person who normalizes and gives definition about what is normal?
Surprisingly enough - in social situations - there is no such person, law - it depends on us.
If there is a person or some entity that gives interpretation and definition about what is normal (and we are not talking here about extremes such as being unkind or violent) - then we are talking about control and manipulation.
The problem is Jung Mask.
Most people wear mask in social situations. This is totally normal - check our my video Easy explanation of Jung Mask - it is comedy sketch with Carol Burnett and Alan Alda.
I believe with social anxiety we have ability to see through this mask -
and our only task is to be aware that we become scientist or Sherlock Holmes and look for clues - how much is there toxicity, in what form and why I feel social fears.
The feelings we feel are stemming from someone or something. Human emotions are contagious - google it.
So we can seek and understand both our fear feelings and better understand people around us - so that we are not trapped into building any kind of connection with aggressive borderline people like Johnny Depp's Amber.
If we decide to self blame ourselves and think that feeling social fears is illness - we will end up being passive zombies with debilitating fears - since we will not know what we like or dislike - instead we will depend on other people to explain us what to feel. Blaming social anxiety leads to More social anxiety.
Jung said:
What you resist, persist.
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My experience with CBT which spans for 20 years is that I was left with people pleasing, severe fawning as default reaction - since I would feel fear when in presence of mobbing and criminal activity at work - and I would label fears and uncomfortable feelings as my hallucination - as CBT instructs us. I would self blame myself for making fears up and convince myself that I must be calm all the time, not to rock the boat and be chirpy happy and silent - never show or express dissatisfaction, fear or anxiety when in the presence of bullies, sociopaths and criminally insane people.
CBT ought to be banned - it self pathologize victims of abuse.
Instead of CBT there are Humanistic therapies, humanistic psychology - which stems from 1920s, so it is not exactly experimental psychology. It is older than CBT.
Humanistic psychology is centered and focused on acceptance of situation but through the eyes of person who is scared -
it enforces validation and self acceptance which is anti-dote to both abuse and toxic shame (which CBT does not mention at all).
Also, Humanistic psychology is focused on goals, dreams and action - becoming captain of your own ship and developing inner GPS, using tools that we use from medical resources and use them in daily activities and when making plans.
CBT on the other hand is focused on panic symptoms and inventing fears.
---
Perhaps.
But, that is proof that Humanistic psychology works. As oppose to CBT.
I am allowed to make mistakes.
Everyone is.
Everyone is allowed to react when there is information that is not full.
We cannot know all. We are human beings. We make quick judgements - this is not pathology. It is human condition.
Also, I am not attacking you personally.
Every Monday I check all you tube videos about social anxiety for the past week - and then I write my own experiences in the hope of broadening information about social anxiety - not to attack you personally.
If I have experience with social anxiety, it would not be fair to keep silent and not help other people out there by keeping silent.
With CBT I would be focused on panic symptoms and thus I would shut up. I would see wrong information out there - and I would shut up. I would not check with the author and express my opinion. I would keep silent instead. That is social anxiety.
---
(16.8.2022)
This is Humanistic psychology approach and it works.
Accepting and self validation is anti-dote to trauma and toxic shame - the core open wound of any psychological disorder.
Carl Rogers put it “The curious paradox is that when I accept myself, just as I am, then I can change.”
In real life - CBT is example of self pathologizing. CBT in social anxiety will explain social anxiety as dangerous condition, and that we must focus on panic symptoms and remove them. Jung said - What you resist, persist. CBT does not delve into trauma which is the cause of Social anxiety, instead it instructs people to go into Crusade wars and Civil war with oneself.
This in invalidation and invalidation is at the heart of any trauma.
Not accepting can be seen in most you tube videos for topics such as people pleasing, pushover, standing up for yourself, confidence, self esteem - there would be message to reject negative emotions which creates toxic shame and trauma, more anxiety and more problems and mental instability.
----
(17-8-2022)
" its competence that makes you capable of communicating"
This is simply not true.
We all seen it - the most popular people at parties or any social gathering are people who have absolutely no capacities to communicate:
they are loud, obnoxious, they mock others, gossip, break any communication norms, they spit, fart, tease, burp.
On the other hand - people who are well behaved, who watch their behaviour and tone and actually have etiquette which you label as "communication ability" - are the most boring people to hang around and everyone avoids them since they appear fake, artificial and cunning, manipulative, not real.
---
I've noticed fear as problem since 1997. I tried self help books, therapy, positive thinking etc in order to resolve it.
All these - and I am talking from my experience of 25 years - unfortunately does not help at all. In fact, all techniques to remove fear paradoxically add up to more fears, panic, agoraphobia, social anxiety, mutism, hypervigilance and PureOCD issues.
There is Mark Freeman channel about anxiety, I even stole his video and put it in my own - he says that doing anything about anxiety makes anxiety worse. This statement is true.
We are not built to meddle up with our subconsciousness. Our logic cannot build or fix the part of chunk of ice that is beneath the surface. If we do anything - it is the same as having unnecessary plastic surgeries, where we are convinced that we are ugly so we must fix parts of ourselves that we believe are ugly - in the end we end up looking like monster.
We have autonomous system inside us, our inner GPS that is not built for us to control - it is alarm and guidance system.
If we decide to make fuss about our fears, it would be the same as if we decide to destroy our navigation system in the boat if it shows unfavorable path ahead - as a way to solve blockages that appear as indicated.
System is there to guide us, where we adapt and learn in accordance to what alarm system is telling us. Lobotomizing parts of our mind is terrible and detrimental idea that belongs in the Dark Ages.
What I learned that actually help is Humanistic psychology, humanistic therapies.
IT goes more in direction of acceptance and then building up based on validation. I believe fears we have are parts of trauma.
Once the trauma is inside us, it is trapped inside our body. This means there is External element that is causing the trauma: toxic people, it could be simple as being with someone who is criticizing us all the time, nagging and complaining - that we end up feeling scared about anything in life as the result and blaming ourselves in the same time. Next what happens is birth of toxic shame - which will be worse if we start to label our fear as something that is dangerous and something to get rid of.
This happens because of comparing - our brain will compare other people - who appear chirpy, happy and better - while we will label any fear that we feel as sickness, proof that we are inept and that there is something horribly wrong with us by default.
Instead of picking on our fears - which are totally natural if we were abused - I would seek information about narcissistic abuse, seeking information how to recognize toxic people and how to handle difficult people in proper, functional and healthy manner with a lot of self-validation and self acceptance - which by default means accepting our fears as normal part of life, not something that is illness.
Even common sense tell us that we must not deny our emotions and feelings, and if we suppress them - we will create imbalance and neurosis. It is not realistic to expect life without fears.
If Johnny Depp suppressed his fears while living with Amber, he would never leave her.
And his fears were correct and valid - Amber tried to slander him and destroy him.
So it is always toxic people with fear - it is not hallucination. Toxic ambient and toxic people are creating fears that we feel as our fault and something to blame ourselves and something to remove.
---
"I'm trying to improve"
If you believe, make yourself believe that you are problem, that something is wrong with you, that you must improve in order to gain approval and recognition from others - you are actually digging the hole to get out of the hole. IT will make you only trapped in the hole.
The first step is to accept yourself as you are, with warts and all, with all things you or someone else label as disgusting, sick or unnaceptable.
If you are kind person that suffers from social anxiety, if you watch out how you come across, having empathy without evil agenda to harm and exploit other people: there is absolutely nothing wrong with you, and there is nothin to "improve" at all.
---
(18.8.2022)
"you're worried about is coming off ad too artificial "
Nope.
I see social anxiety as trauma response.
It has nothing to do with chat, parties, wearing a special suit, or small talk or anything related to shyness.
Social anxiety is being victim of mobbing, bullying - nothing more, nothing less.
IT is being trapped in situation where someone around you - boss, colleague and customer is yelling and screaming at you for your natural mistakes, demanding perfection that is not realistic - and you cannot run away. You simply must endure the abuse and then feel intense shame, guilt and probably suicidal idealization to escape it, since the only alternative is to be homeless and be abused by hooligans in the streets, peeing on you and beating you up just for existing.
That is social anxiety.
Not teen fear of some superficial contact with someone who will forget you existed 5 seconds after they leave.
---
(19.8.2022)
"Contain potential explosions that doesn't exist."
Then aggressive borderliner steps in.
All these trauma responses described here - I did not know what it was 22 years ago. I labelled it as social anxiety - since it was the only closest trait and characteristics available at the time. Then I ended up with CBT - which explains that feeling emotions is sick and that somehow magically we can change our thoughts when abused and bullies - and magically there would not be abuse anymore. Needless to say - I was left with people pleasing and fawning with such guidance from CBT.
--
There is humungous difference.
Narcissist will accuse others to be snowflake.
When someone tell you or someone else that you are snowflake because of your opinion - know that this person is highly vulnerable narcissist:
HSP will never ever blame others, HSP always blame themselves first for whatever the subject of irritation is.
---
The key word is blame, nagging and complaing.
HSP will never gossip, talk garbage about others. There will never be aggression. Instead there will be self-aggression, self blame and self hatred.
NPD always react through explosions, rage and violence to anything that irritates them. NPD will always equate someone's mistakes, flaws and ignorance with their worth which is by definition Toxic shaming.
---
" Being open to others emotions essentially cancels out any diagnosis of narcississtic anything."
Not necessarily.
You are bringing up extremely important information here that is often overlooked by mentors and targets of abuse:
Narcissist and aggressive borderliners indeed use empathy - however they use it as a tool to exploit their target of abuse. This empathy is localized and focused, it is narrowed down to hurt and cause pain to someone. Usually in a way of honeymoon period, charming period of seduction and simply being irrational to confuse and gaslight the target.
We are dealing here with psychopaths. They do not follow any rules. They only want to cause pain at any cost, including wearing mask of being help, friend. The covert ones are extremely dangerous ones. There is also altruistic narcissist - like character of Nurse Ratched from One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest (1975).
---
"There is a huge difference between empaths and narcissists."
Unfortunately no.
Empathy is not good clue. Narcissist will use empathy as tool to attract HSP and good people into their lives.
Like that giant smelly flash eating plant that attracts insects to devour them.
This is the reason why HSP end up in toxic relationships easily and why we are keep on attracted to toxic people: we are convinced that empathy is excluded from NPD and that we are safe when someone is kind, nice, silent, talkative, open, helpful, servile and patient. All these can be mimicked and acted on - and the sooner we become aware of this, the more healthier lives we will have once we start to discover hidden toxic people around us.
With our wrong belief that empathy is not possible in NPD we are literally allowing virus in our body without immunity system to fight it.
---
Ross Rosenberg (author of Human magnet syndrome) says that CoDependency does not exist - instead it is lack of self love.
He says that behaviour or care, fawning, empathizing that follow codependency trait - is not pathology at all. That all these behaviours actually work in healthy relationship - whereas if we attract toxic people - these urges become pathology.
Our need to explain that is part of abuse, where we are conditioned to be perfect and that we must always have solution in order not to cause pain or temper tantrum in other people. That it is somehow our responsibility how other people feel.
In healthy relationship other people would not exploit us or our learned behaviour. They would not parasite over our need to work anything up and solve things beyond our control. If we had self love, self acceptance, all these unhealthy learned behaviour would vanish off. Trauma prevents us from self love and self validation.
I would focus on self acceptance rather than picking up on our traits that appear to be codependent. These are safety mechanisms. If we are able to love ourselves, we will reject toxic people and toxic habits - and safety mechanisms will fall off naturally - since there will be no triggers, no danger, no flashbacks and picking up on trauma wound.
If we decide to go into civil war with our bad habits - we will develop toxic shame, already present inside us due to abuse and toxic people whom we attracted in our lives until now.
As long as we have toxic shame, and as long as we have no self love inside us - nothing will work to heal bad habits and without self love we will never be able to learn healthy defense strategies.
Great masters in trauma work such as Peter Levine and Gabor Mate are keep talking that addictions we have - such as codependent behaviour - will not be able to heal if we choose to hate parts of ourselves. IF we do not understand that we are not bad, evil people - we will not be able to understand that there is nothing to fix inside us. If we believe that we must comply to some standards of superiority, being without mistakes - this will make us believe that we are wrong by default. This message that we are not bad person is very hard to understand for targets of trauma, mobbing, bullying and abuse - since the abuse itself is successful attack on our core, self worth. This way, meddling with our mistakes only add up to toxic shame.
When we develop self acceptance - we will be able to "fix" anything that is wrong with us - like inability to say No.
We will be able to leave things unresolves - without need to fix someone's comment and allegations.
This ability to leave things unresolved is huge recovery tip.
With instruction (very often present in CBT, self help books and mentors) we believe that we must solve and resolve life - and this belief that we must improve keeps us hooked in codependency and self hate.
With abuse we try to fix others and external events and situations - we were conditioned to perform magical acts and to be superhuman in order to be validated, not ignored and accepted.
I would focus on our ability to leave things unresolved and see if it helps in calming anxiety and hypervigilance issues. What will happen - toxic people around us will go beserk when we leave arguments, situations, events, things unresolved - and this will be litmus test how to detect covert narcissists in our lives.
With self hate we try to get closure - since we have self hate inside, we do not have self worth from which we would otherwise draw light, love, confidence and happiness. Instead, the abuse and toxic shame is driving us to seek approval from others to feel nice, kind, happy and accepted from external resources.
---
I would like to challenge this CBT belief. Safety mechanisms are result of trauma. They are not our choice - they are literally our brain's decision to keep us safe from untreated mentally ill people - they are reaction to psychopaths in our lives.
If we remove our safety mechanisms - we will either develop new safety mechanisms OR we will end up with people pleasing, fawning, huge anxiety and fear from confrontation and conflict - and self hate, self blame and possibly suicidal idealizations.
I would not meddle with our safety mechanisms at all. It is great to learn about them and to be aware of definitions what these are - however if we decide to pick, meddle and fix these - we will declare civil war with our own body and soul, we will end up with neurosis, toxic shame and more anxiety.
The one and only problem are toxic people. Not us.
The one and only problem is mobbing, abuse and bullying. Not us.
If we are kind, nice, if we have empathy, if we have no evil agenda against other people, if we have no satisfaction in causing harm to others, if we have no fight response in abusing and attacking other people - even through humor (sarcasm) - there is absolutely nothing to fix inside us.
All people have safety mechanisms - these are called bias, prejudiced, bigotry, mental shortcuts, availability heuristics.
If we follow CBT, CBT will explain to us that we are bad people for having safety mechanisms. As if other people are superior, healthy and better than us - for apparently not having OCD or they show no sign of visible social inhibitions - in fact they appear to us confident, loud, bold - which in fact is only a mask that they use to cover their own issues. All people have issues and problems that we do not see. If we decide to be bad person for having fears - we will develop neurosis and mental imbalance.
The bottom line is - if we have safety mechanisms - instead of nitpicking and analyzing them to death - I would rather focus on our surroundings and see the external factor. There is someone near us that is criticizing, nagging, complaining, someone who is abusive and treats us like rubbish covered and sprinkled with honeymoon periods or altruism - so this is their cloak, invisible cloak that covers up their untreated paranoia and psychopathy. The chances are that there is aggressive toxic person in our vicinity - who is triggering us into safety mechanisms. As soon as we cut contact with such person, our safety mechanisms will fall off on its own, without any radical operations or lobotomy or self pathologizing.
---
"when you are facing your fears and dropping your safety behaviors"
Contrary to popular belief, safety mechanisms are here to face fears and they are sign of courage.
Safety mechanisms are brain's solution to handle abuse on one side and our needs on other side.
The one and only problem are toxic people in our vicinity that are creating blockages, problems out of nothing, gaslighting and confusion to keep us trapped in trying to fix ourselves so that we accommodate psychopaths.
It takes tremendous courage to be in contact with aggressive criminally insane toxic people - and we do it via safety mechanisms.
"Normal" and healthy people would cut contact with toxic people.
Unfortunately due to trauma and abuse we are conditioned to rationalize toxic people and their criminal behaviour as something normal and we choose to stay in abusive Karpman Drama Triangle, we rationalize it as something that is normal and standard.
Trauma and toxic shame keeps us trapped in toxic relationships - and safety mechanisms are only ways to survive criminal and abusive toxic ambient. Toxic people are the one and only problem here, not us, neither our safety mechanisms that we learned in childhood when surrounded with invalidation and relentless criticism 24/7 and exposure to adult hysteria when our child brain was developing and trying to built up persona.
---
Trauma gets stuck in our body.
If we decide to self pathologize our emotions and response to trauma, we will never heal it, nor release it.
We are talking here about Complex Trauma - which official medical resources are keeping hidden - since they cannot make money if we resolve our anxiety issues with correct information and helpful guidance.
Instead pharma mafia will keep us trapped in self pathology, self blame and self hatred (believing that we are bad people for having safety mechanisms).
---
This is actually very good topic that is not addressed at all.
I am talking about stigma and labels.
Labels do such tremendous damage that is hidden and covert.
Our quick decisions, our quick definitions, availability heuristics - we keep ourselves stuck in wrong explanations without being aware of it.
I made without about it, "Social stigma".
I would be careful with throwing labels at people.
Instead, I would - if possible - talk about general ideas and general groups, rather than going to blame and Crusades against someone who is displaying behaviour that appears toxic to us. We can always choose to express our views and beliefs without Ad Hominem arguments.
Narcissists are not able to do this actually.
HSP can do this very easily -
hope this information help.
---
Instead of self pathology (declaring parts of us as intrusive) - I would focus on the fact that if we feel anxiety - that is sign that we are in contact with someone toxic.
There is criminally insane person in our vicinity that is causing these fears and PureOCD thoughts of worry and rumination.
I would focus on discovering toxic people / person that is detrimental to our mental health. It is like discovering virus - instead of letting it to infect our body and then blaming & declaring symptoms of virus reaction as evil.
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(20.8.2022)
Melody is amazing , too.
Human condition is not a box. We cannot put a label on something intangible.
What works for some people will never work for another.
What one experience is totally different from other people -
this is why it is important to see all information, not only one.
That is why it is important to talk about it freely, without censorship.
This is crucial, since wrong information - even when it is given with good intentions - can make us stay stuck in labyrinth forever.
Ross is great expert in codependency issues, I would encourage you to listen to his videos. He does not deny codependency per se - in fact he wants us to take different angle.
If we label ourselves as codependent, we will start to believe that caring for other people is sick, illness. In the process of labelling we might do additional more damage than good.
Caring for someone's emotional state is sign of empathy and love - it works in healthy, normal relationship - where there is normal and sane person on the other side.
It turns into pathology when the other person is toxic, selfish, without empathy and full of evil.
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(22.8.2022)
Social anxiety is part of Complex Trauma.
Being on stage naked is not social anxiety, that is Performance anxiety, totally different condition of anxiety.
Avoidance is safety mechanism. When removed - we become pushover and people pleaser to survive, fawning.
Social anxiety is being bullied, it is being in mobbing situation: where you cannot leave and you are yelled at, you are pushed, someone is abusing you, verbally and violent towards you. Social anxiety is normal reaction to abnormal people, abnormal situations and abnormal events.
IF we decide to self pathologize our safety mechanisms (avoidance) we will develop toxic shame and additional neurosis already present inside due to abuse.
Problem is not avoidance. Problem are toxic people. IF we decide to self blame and self hate ourselves and decide that there is something broken inside us (alarm system malfunctioning) - we will develop more anxiety. Our brain is developed to be alarm system. For some people this alarm is very sensitive - either due to HSP or abuse. Alarm is not problem at all. Problem are and always been: toxic people. If we decide to believe that we are deficient, that we must practice, that we must stop this or that - we will develop more anxiety. Our brain will develop new ways to protect itself.
Instead of self pathologizing approach of blaming ourselves for abuse and trauma, and ignoring our fears as insignificant and something to remove and reject: we are repeating the trauma. This process of negating our feelings is called invalidation. Invalidation creates trauma and fears and anxiety.
The point is that in life we have self worth: that we have plans for our life, that we do not depend on other people's approval and validation and that we trust ourselves. So if we decide that we have faulty alarm and that we must face some unknown fears and to engage in social contact with everyone - we will end up with toxic and abusive people. This means more anxiety, more neurosis, more fears.
Instead of negating social avoidance - I would approve it and remove even more toxic people out. If we have fears, due to trauma and abuse - we will attract abusive people, they are attracted to fearful people like moth to a flame. So advice to talk to all people and engage in all contact with everyone will only break our boundaries and we will become pushover and people pleaser - since we will negate our instinct that some people are abusive and dangerous and that we can block and mute them out.
Worry is sign that we are intelligent. I would not self pathologize this incredible ability that animals do not have. We will stop to worry naturally once we remove toxic people out of our life. With abuse we develop codependency and external referencing locus of control and we believe other people are competent because they apparently are not afraid nor they talk about social fears. In reality, they are either dumb or they are liars. All people have certain levels of social anxiety - it is only that with IQ we can detect it, or certain bullies and manipulators abuse fears and ashaming as a way to control others.
---
Anyone suffering from social anxiety - any information about bullying, mobbing will help. How to deal with mobbing will help a lot. Any information how to recognize toxic people : narcissists, manipulators will help a lot. Any break of contact with toxic people will help a lot.
If we take action, exposure therapy, put ourselves in social situation: if we are in toxic ambient we will make it worse. We will develop pushover symptoms, people pleasing, fawning as a way to survive. With trauma we develop codependency, lack of self love, and we believe that we are inferior and inept - while other people appear gods and superior. So with this mindset in exposure we will stifle our needs and we will serve other people. We will become their door mat. Demons will not be expelled. We cannot make something positive by adding more negativity to already present negativity.
Our brain is build to keep us safe. Brain will worry and think and replay the past. This is part of Darwin evolution. It is not something to pathologize, remove or lobotomize: this is totally natural and helpful process. If we understand how it works: we will cut contact with toxic people and toxic habits - which is the purpose of worry. To reach psychological safety.
Once we understand that trauma is stuck inside our body and we will experience triggers and flashbacks when something similar to trauma happens - we will no longer worry about it. With trauma information we do not fight it, we know that we need to sit it through: feelings of dread, inner critic, panic symptoms, rage and helplessness. This is dysregulation - it happens because trauma is stuck inside our body. This is not our fault. And all we need is information about trauma - how it works and what to do when we are triggered and to know what triggers are - how this trauma mechanism works. Without this information we will self blame, self hate and criticize ourselves - since this is trauma itself: being exposed to relentless criticism 24/7 when our psyche was forming and modeling and growing. Instead oef love, we experienced shock and trauma. Similar to someone who violently shakes baby - baby has no solid bones, shaking will hurt the baby. In the same way, growing up in narcissistic abuse caused us brain injury:
There is Jane Elliott's Blue Eyes, Brown Eyes experiment, exercise - that showed that social settings can influence the targets.
There is Narcissistic abuse: Long-Term Narcissistic Abuse Can Cause Brain Damage.
There is Stanford prison experiment where it is shown that targets of abuse in toxic ambient where they cannot escape from will develop extreme social anxiety.
There is Skinner's box and Little Albert experiment which shows that people can be conditioned and initiated into social anxiety.
When we have trauma, we do not know basic emotions. We think we know and then we label certain emotions in wrong way. With trauma we do not know what is anger. We know it through Hollywood movies and books and chat with other people. We go around with mislabeled emotions inside us. Also we receive a lot of wrong information how to deal with those mislabeled emotions. This creates totally new neurosis and anxiety on top of the present one.
Whenever we are triggered we will feel anger - but in our mind it will appear as panic symptoms and we will try to stifle it down. Aggressive borderliners engage in fight response and they destroy relationships with decision to become narcissist and abuser.
Socializing will work once we heal the trauma and once we removed toxic people - then socializing will work. The important concept is psychological security.
Social anxiety is being trapped in mobbing situation, with people screaming at you and you cannot run away (because you'd lose your income and become homeless where hooligans would pee on you and fight you in the streets). That is social anxiety.
Social anxiety is not shyness. Social anxiety is not worrying what we will wear. It is result of bullying and mobbing, where external factor is the cause of abuse. This is why it is called social anxiety. IT is not called self anxiety. It is social anxiety: anxiety from difficult and dangerous people where there is no social, psychological security.
With social anxiety we have issues with attachment and making contact - not because we are inept, stupid or inferior - it is due to abuse. The one and only problem are untreated mentally ill, aggressive people, narcissists, criminally insane. We must stop self pathologizing ourselves, stop fixing ourselves, stop distrusting ourselves - and instead trust our trauma feelings as legitimate reaction to sick toxic people that hurt us.
---
These are all normal reaction to abnormal people, abnormal situations and abnormal events.
If we decide to self-pathologize our trauma, we will create additional neurosis, fears, anxiety and more trauma.
Instead of rejecting our safety mechanisms, I would accept them as brain's way to keep us safe. Be thankful for it.
What stress is created is not from our safety mechanisms but from toxic people and bullying and mobbing.
Problem are psychopaths, not our neurosis and reactions to difficult people and criminally insane around us.
Instead of CBT approach of self pathology, I would go into direction of Humanistic psychology.
Accept ourselves as we are and build up on that. If I am focused on what is wrong with me, my brain will invent more anxiety and hypervigilance - to avoid it. Paradoxically I will end up with more safety mechanisms since I made myself believe that I am weird and inept while other people appear to me without fears and doubts.
---
I tried this listing of fears in 1997. I ended up with more social anxiety since now I was acutely aware of fears that I did not know before.
Even moreso, the worst fears that I listed - I could not face them at the time due to lack of resources. So these fears festered and boiled into plague. I become aware that there are situations and people that are scary to me and I could not physically tried it out nor face it. I ended up with panic attacks - since I was thinking about fears that I cannot face.
This awareness of fears seem logical to overcome, but in reality it creates more fears, this paradox is called:
"The self-absorption paradox describes the contradictory association whereby higher levels of self-awareness are simultaneously associated with higher levels of psychological distress and with psychological well-being."
I wish I knew in 1997 what I know now:
social anxiety is trauma. there is nothing wrong with us. There is nothing wrong with our brain. Our brain is work fantastically, it works how it ought to work: to keep us safe from danger.
Social anxiety is part of trauma. Social anxiety is being exposed to relentless criticism while growing up 24/7 and being conditioned to social anxiety as in Skinner's box.
Therefore social anxiety help and relief is information about mobbing and abuse and bullying. Information how to deal with difficult and narcissistic, aggressive borderline abusive people. How to recognize them. How to retort and how to recognize covert narcissists. All this information will instantly help to anyone with social anxiety. Cutting contact with toxic people will help a lot. With trauma we rationalize their abuse as normal and we are addicted to toxic people since we believe we are inept - due to programming and conditioning. Learning about complex trauma will help to anyone with social anxiety.
Self pathologizing will not help at all. Invalidation is part of trauma anyway.
---
Instead of CBT there is Humanistic psychology that actually works.
Humanistic therapies understand that most people mislabel their emotions and feelings and they give wrong impression about what is true problem. So - the only person that can help is the individual suffering from social anxiety. It is like being trapped in cave on foreign planet - away from us, where we cannot know circumstances and we can only communicate with such person via radio - via talking and information and education. The steps to take out of cave is only to educate such person how to dig way out of cave.
CBT is focusing on panic symptoms - and this way CBT is creating serious psychological damage:
"The self-absorption paradox describes the contradictory association whereby higher levels of self-awareness are simultaneously associated with higher levels of psychological distress and with psychological well-being."
CBT is repetition of trauma: CBT is approach of invalidation, gaslighting and scapegoating.
CBT invalidates someone's emotions as they are mere hallucination.
CBT gaslight someone's fears as own fault, this process is called self-pathologizing.
CBT is scapegoating normal thinking errors such as cognitive distortions as terrorist inside our head that we must hunt down and burn on stake. In reality all people have cognitive distortions - all people have bias, logical fallacies, over simplifications, prejudices, quick conclusions, confirmation bias, availability heuristics. Some people either have low IQ so they do not are not aware of it - or they are predators and manipulate others by blaming their cognitive distortions as toxic shame, equating mistakes as personal flaw.
CBT is form of brainwashing, lobotomy, created by narcissists in medical industry that serves pharma mafia.
CBT is infamous government tool to control the criminally insane: Ludovico method from Clockwork Orange, where socially anxious neurotics are mere collateral damage in Trump world full of deceit and money laundering.
---
Social anxiety is not shyness. It is not avoiding conversations.
Social anxiety is Complex trauma: being exposed to abuse, bullying and mobbing.
So putting yourself in social situations will only end up with fawning, being pushover and people pleasing - since trauma is stuck inside the body. When trauma is stuck in the body, it is activated with any situation, ambient and talk similar to the original trauma: abuse, mobbing and bullying.
Being exposed to relentless criticism 24/7 is abuse. When this abuse happens during growing up, it effects our psyche that is in the process of development. Arrested development occurs.
Invalidating emotions is abuse. This means if we decide to label our reactions as catastrophe and when we compare with other people - this will invalidate our reactions that are legitimate to toxic people.
There are toxic people out there. there are predators who manipulate and control others.
Putting yourself in toxic ambient will not help. It is same logic as deciding to live in Chernobyl with the hope that exposure to toxic radiation will make us strong. IT will kill us instead.
If we live in slum, making friends with drug pushers, abusers and criminals will not help at all.
Cutting contact with toxic people will help a lot.
With trauma inside us we will tend to rationalize abuse and toxic people as they are normal and good.
Problem is toxic people - not us.
Doing stupid things in public is narcissistic approach. Other people are not here to serve us. Other people are not our washcloth that we wipe our dirty hands onto and move one.
Narcissism is sickness. I would not encourage anyone to develop narcissism: carrying what other people think and thus trying to controlling other people. Narcissism is mental illness and it creates mental imbalance in its victims.
Social anxiety is reaction to abuse and toxic people - it is not something to get rid off.
IT is same logic as if thinking that blood is bad when you cut yourself on knife. Problem is why you cut yourself in the first place. Did someone cut you. Are you not caring about safety. That is problem. Not the blood that comes after cutting.
---
Why not pinpointing the true, only and real problem: toxic people.
Mobbing and bullying and abuse - that is the only problem.
Social anxiety is reaction to such abuse. Social anxiety is not problem at all. Problem is inability to know how to deal with toxic people - narcissists, manipulators, bullies, Machiavellians, covert narcissists, aggressive borderliners, emotional vampires, abusers, criminally insane, predators. If we decide to self pathologize ourselves - we will solve nothing. External factor is still out there. If we have no idea that problem are toxic people - it is like developing auto immune sickness where we believe we are problem and then attack ourselves.
--
I like this!
This is Humanistic psychology and it works better than CBT.
The idea is to accept feelings - instead of whirl of self blame and self hate and civil war crusade.
Before the event to think about deciding to regulate - works.
That is correct way to handle fears.
I would also note that social anxiety is result of mobbing, bullying and abuse - so crucial part is healing abuse and learning how to protect ourselves when in toxic ambient with toxic people around us in healthy and proper, functional manner.
---
I would not go this way. If I decide that I am wrong and inept and that I must correct my thinking - even with errors - I will develop toxic shame, anxiety, hypervigilance and self pathology.
Social anxiety is result of mobbing, abuse, bullying - it is normal reaction to abnormal people, abnormal situations, abnormal events.
If I decide that I must monitor my thoughts and correct them - I will end up with neurosis, I will not be authentic. And what is worse - if I am in ambient with someone who is criminally insane - I will label my fears as sickness and something to stifle down, I will end up with toxic person controlling me - since I will rationalize my fears as sickness and something to modulate.
If I am not bad person, if I have no ill will, if I have no evil agenda - there is nothing wrong with me. My caprices are my own. This is me being individual, being me. My perks, quirks, perks are my own - I would not pathologize them in order to crap fit into abusive toxic ambient that desires conformism, herd mentality and groupthink.
If I enter the store and feel panic symptoms and worry about embarrassing myself - this happens due to trauma stuck inside my body. This is totally normal reaction - it is called triggers, flashbacks and emotional dysregulation, amygdala hijacking. I am programmed to feel fears and worry about others and resolve other emotions so that they are not angry - this is hypnosis.
It is futile to nitpick and worry and try to fix this mechanism that was programming, being exposed to relentless criticism while growing up 24/7. With trauma information - I go with Humanistic psychology and allow and accept my fears as normal reaction to someone who was abused.
---
Think about it from more than one angle.
What would happen if Johnny Depp decided to rationalize his fears when in presence with Amber - he would be broke now, without movie career and labelled as abuser by the whole world.
If we were abused, feeling social anxiety is normal reaction to abnormal people, abnormal situations and abnormal events.
If I decide to label my social anxiety as sickness, wart, something to reject and destroy, I will actually become people pleaser, pushover and fawn to mentally ill people predators out there who are manipulating others through guilt, shame.
----
There are predators out there, bullies and mobbing.
Why is this information hidden by CBT?
Why we are not allowed to recognize that we were abused and traumatized?
Why this wrong CBT approach of self pathology and self blame and self hate?
Social anxiety is partly being aware of other people - however social anxiety at its core is being stuck in job type situation where you cannot run away and in the same time you are being yelled and screamed at, violently attacked. So what would happen in such situation? We need answers how to handle this situation -
forcing myself to believe that I am hallucinating mobbing and abuse is insanity. It is repetition of trauma: invalidation, gaslighting and scapegoating my reactions to abuse as problem,
True and only problem with social anxiety are difficult and toxic people.
this is why social anxiety is called social. it is not self- anxiety. it is social anxiety. Society is problem: predators, manipulators, Machiavellians, abusers, bullies, narcissists, aggressive borderliners, emotional vampires.
We need information how to handle external factor in healthy proper functional manner.
Idea of Self pathologizing is wrong approach and leads to more anxiety and more neurosis.
---
Thinking errors are normal. All people have them. It is bias, prejudice, confirmation bias, availability heuristics, jumping to quick conclusions, logical fallacies. Thinking errors are not endemic to social anxiety.
If we decide to self blame and self hate ourselves due to these common and normal errors - we will not delete them, they will not vanish and deciding to nitpick them - we will end up with hypervigilance, anxiety and neurosis.
We can look at it logically - what about socially confident people who do not (or they think so) experiencing social anxiety:
they are not preoccupied with their thinking. Yet they do jump to conclusions, make quick oversimplifications, go with mistake that seems rational and logical at that quick moment. Therefore, thinking errors are not connected to social anxiety as element that is causing social anxiety neither the disappearance of them cause us not to have social anxiety.
Social anxiety is trauma - it means toxic people are triggering us into fears. Not our thoughts, errors or anything of our own.
The source of social anxiety is abuse and toxic shame - internalized judgement from mentally ill people around us.
If we decide to monitor our thoughts in order to discover and make drama about our thinking errors - we will end up with this:
"The self-absorption paradox describes the contradictory association whereby higher levels of self-awareness are simultaneously associated with higher levels of psychological distress and with psychological well-being."
The only thing that can help social anxiety is psychological security in social settings. This means cutting off toxic people and education how to recognize red flags of mentally ill aggressive predators out there, education how to handle covert narcissists who appear as friend to us but attack us whenever they feel like it.
If we have high IQ, and high empathy, we will naturally think about thinking errors: what worst will happen - this is due to intelligence, not because of some unknown mysterious sickness inside us that we must detect and remove-
the only virus inside us are installed programmed hypnosis of abuse: learned helplessness from being stuck with untreated mentally ill people such as aggressive borderliners and narcissists.
---
Think about this logically.
If we are in a room with serial killer and we instinctually feel social anxiety from such criminally insane person - if we decide to label our emotions as danger, sickness and something that prevents us from socializing - we will make contact with mentally ill person that wants to kill us.
Social fears exist for a reason - they tell us that we went through trauma and now we have ability to detect fake people much easier than people who will feel trauma later in their lives - many felt social anxiety due to coronavirus for example.
If we decide to self blame and self hate our natural thoughts and label this as something weird, stupid, inept, dangerous - something that other people do not have - comparing with others we will end up with hypervigilance, anxiety and panic and neurosis. If I decide that my thinking is sickness, I will end up with toxic shame.
This is repetition of trauma: invalidating myself for the sake of making other people feel nice and comfortable, not bothering them when they cross the line of normal behaviour.
If we decide that we cannot trust our own thinking, we will depend on other people to explain us how we suppose to feel and we will depend on other people to tell us how to do things in life. In short, we will make ourselves basket case that is incapable of trusting oneself, with mistakes included.
Behind the urge to be perfect is mental illness that stems from abuse of mentally ill person near us that abused us into perfectionism.
Human beings are not perfect, we are not computers, we are not machines. Our caprices, perks, quirks compose the unique character that we are.
IF we decide to be like everyone else - without emotions, without fears - we will become NPC Philosophical zombie, faceless people pleaser and pushover that is incapable of making my own decisions. Instead I will rely on on conformism, groupthink and herd mentality to be accepted by others. This leads to Milgram experiment and it is very dangerous - as we seen in communism over and over again where mentally ill person becomes spokesman of what is normal and accepted in society.
---
Think about it logically.
Is it normal not to feel fear?
What happens if we are in room with serial killer. Without our natural anxiety, we would make contact with such mentally ill person and we would end up dead.
The basic psychology tells us that all emotions are normal. If we decide to stifle our feelings we will create serious psychological damage.
Being anti-social is not social anxiety. Social anxiety is complex trauma - it is being abused in the past and now trauma of abuse is stuck inside our body. What we feel as panic and discomfort is trauma stuck inside - it is not that social anxiety is limb that can be cut off and uncomfortableness will vanish.
Think about Johnny Depp - if he destroyed his ability to feel social anxiety - he would stay with Amber. He would be broke now, without movie career and whole world would label him as abuser.
What the hell is
"Super social state"?
This is Hollywood fantasy that does not exist in real world. Anyone who appears strong, charisma, without anxiety - is manipulator. That person is predator and mentally ill. It is abnormal not to have empathy and not showing vulnerabilities and not reacting to problems.
Everyone will have social momentum if they are not abused, if there are no bullies and if there is no mobbing. It is easy as that.
Social anxiety is not problem. The only problem are toxic people: narcissists, predators, manipulators, wearing mask of super social state that is unnatural, emotional vampires, aggressive borderliners.
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" this channel is for solving issues. Social Anxiety is a issue, why would you want to live a life like that? I don't want people to stay in the dark, "
Who is saying that I am not solving issues?
IF you give wrong advice and wrong information, even unintentionally, you are keeping people in the dark, stuck in labyrinth.
There is no solution for social anxiety.
Problem are toxic people.
We are talking here about solution for handling toxic people, toxic shame.
How to recognize toxic people.
How to handle bullying,
how to handle mobbing. Who to deal with covert narcissist. How to recognize narcissistic abuse and narcissists.
All these will ease up social anxiety.
Social anxiety is anxiety from society.
It is not self-anxiety. Problem is social. Problem are toxic and difficult and abusive people who are attacking other people.
So solving social anxiety is not self pathology, self hate, self blame.
Instead it is about learning pathology in other people, how to handle hate and how to process blame in proper, functional, healthy manner, without drama, without explosions, without general avoidance.
We live in sick, deceptive world and this inability to see what is social anxiety is not your fault. The society is built wrong way.
Profit, deceit and lies from society is creating social anxiety.
Steer off from self-pathology and direct your issues and solving problems through identifying abuse and how to manage it.
---
So... the only problem is our natural reaction - and not Trump-like Putin leaders, ie aggressive mentally ill people in marketing, corporations, politics?
Why it is hard to recognize that instead of our natural reaction to abnormal people, abnormal events, abnormal situations is not sickness at all? And that the only sickness is narcissism and the fact there is no mechanism to prevent aggressive mentally ill criminally insane people from entering politics and running corporations that pollute our planet for personal profit?
Yacking about our natural reaction to criminally insane people leads to:
"The self-absorption paradox describes the contradictory association whereby higher levels of self-awareness are simultaneously associated with higher levels of psychological distress and with psychological well-being."
If we decide to self pathologize our natural emotions and try to fix something that is totally normal it will lead to neurosis, anxiety, hypervigilance and mental illness. Pharma mafia will gladly join in hysteria and sell drugs to heal something that is actually caused by mentally ill: narcissistic individuals in corporations, politics and marketing, media.
---
I dislike this analyzing and self pathologizing our natural reactions and thoughts as dangerous, something that is sick and something that must be cured.
If we have a lot of unopened e-mails - it might be sign that we have job that is toxic. Perhaps we want this job in order to conform and to impress people who do not care about us at all.
This video is example of self pathology and self-invalidation. it is traumatizing ourselves with the hope that if I make myself believe that I am crazy, that somehow magically I will start to think "normally".
As oppose to self pathologizing that pharma mafia promotes in order to sell drugs, I would go in the direction of Humanistic psychology.
This means that I accept my fears and build up on that.
With education I will learn that my worries are internalized criticism from complex trauma, being exposed to adult hysteria wen child brain was unable to process it as coming from mentally ill person. it is being exposed to criticism 24/7 when our brain was developing - so it is not stuck in programmed self blame, self hate and self pathology as a way to impress and soothe abusers and potential temper tantrum of mentally ill people around us.
Social anxiety is trauma being stuck inside our body. It is installed programmed abuse from mentally ill people around us: narcissist, their criticism and nagging and complaining. Trained like circus animal to worry and have ongoing inner critic. If we see our fears and rumination as installed trauma, we can stop with self blame, self hate and toxic shame belief that we are weird, different, stupid, inept and non acceptable by others as normal and standard.
When we worry about opinion of others this is called external reference locus of control- This happens due to internalized toxic shame from abuse. All these concepts are not mentioned in the video - instead it is presented as if our worry is criminally insane shame that we are invalid and sick. External reference locus of control is Stockholm Syndrome or trauma bonding.
When we accept ourselves as we are - we will break trauma bonding.
If we go along with message in the video that we are inept, stupid for worrying, unacceptable for having trauma - we will develop toxic shame and along with toxic shame comes external referencing and trauma bonding. This means: More anxiety, more hypervigilance, more fears.
There is intrinsic locus of control- where we do not depend on other people to define what is normal or abnormal for us.
---
I would go in the direction of Humanistic psychology, humanistic therapies.
It is invented well before CBT - which tell us that CBT is made for profit, not for health. Primary focus in CBT is corporation, money and narcissism - not the mental health, balance nor harmony.
Social anxiety is anxiety stemming from society. IT is social. It is not called Self-anxiety. Therefore I would focus on sick, deceptive, toxic and abusive people - not our natural reaction to abuse and trauma from aggressive mentally ill people who cause trauma in their targets.
---
I'm not sure if we compare work in 19th century - in mines, dirty industry without filters, with severe pollution, without break, without vitamins, without worker's rights - that somehow online work is so dangerous and extreme and dramatic.
We need to work. We need to do any task - private or professional - if we have screen to make it easier and quicker, I am not sure that this is pathology and something to make unnecessary drama and hysteria about?
Paradox is that this very message about dangers of staring at screen is - online.
If we make a goal to make conversation - we will make contact with so many toxic people out there. No filter at all.
Toxic people are predators, they simply await desperate individuals in search of any kind of contact.
Imagine if Johnny Depp decided to label his social anxiety as drama, hysteria, sickness and something to hide and destroy - he would end up stuck with Amber. He would rationalize his natural fears from being in presence of aggressive borderliner as social anxiety and he would stay with her. Now he would be broke, without movie career and he would be labelled as abuser by the whole world.
I am not sure that exploiting other people is healthy. In fact that is narcissism - that we use up other people, wipe our dirty hands on them and move on without making true authentic contact. Totally abnormal and psychopathic approach. People are not object to use up and throw off when we are done with it.
---
There are a lot of toxic people out there that pretend to be victims in order to gain attention, sympathy and money.
I was slapped in kindergarten by caretaker, we were forced to eat our puke and get beaten up for peeing or pooping ourselves.
Yet - that did not caused me social anxiety at all. It did made me to develop empathy and diplomatic skills at very young age and to care for other people - for not getting it from authority.
What caused my social anxiety - is bullying and mobbing. That is second part that is fake about your story.
Social anxiety is social anxiety, it is social.
It is not self- anxiety.
It is not -other person anxiety.
It is group of people harming you and attacking you - that is social anxiety.
Perhaps you need more education about your fears. Not because you are wrong, but to get the facts straight and to get proper help.
---
But why?
Think about it logically-
if you are in a room with serial killer: without anxiety you would bond with such person, you would ignore red flags and you would end up dead.
If Johnny Depp decided to destroy his anxiety, he would be stuck with Amber, he would never leave her. Now he would be broke, his movie career would be over and he would be labelled as abuser by the whole world!
What if you are attacked in street? You would ignore all signs and red flags and intuition that something is wrong, you would ignore alerts and alarms about dangerous areas - you would end up beaten up, dead, without limb or parts of your body.
Anxiety is natural feeling.
Even with basic level of psychology, anyone who has access to TV or any kind of media - knows that stifling down our emotions is abnormal and leads to mental illness.
"The ostrich effect is a cognitive bias that causes people to avoid information that they perceive as potentially unpleasant. For example, the ostrich effect can cause someone to avoid looking at their bills, because they're worried about seeing how far behind they are on their payments."
Also,
what if we have high IQ - we would naturally feel anxiety - since we have information and we connect the dots and see the danger more clearly than most of dumb people around. Would it be wise to be stupid and to ignore red flags just because anxiety feels uncomfortable? I don't think so.
What if we have high emotional IQ, if we are empaths - we will feel anxiety all the time. Is it solution to become narcissist, psychopath without emotions? Just because we are cowards that cannot handle uncomfortable emotions?
I would take this subject from more than one angle. It is not wise nor healthy to be egocentric and to go along with first information data that comes up to our mind as the ultimate truth.
---
When we try to be "super confident" we will appear overcompensating.
This happens because confidence is paradox.
If you try to be confident - you won't be.
If you don't try to be confident - you will be confident.
Urge to crap fit into toxic ambient, urge to be "normal" is limiting and restricting and we end up with subordinate thinking, inferiority complex - because we now have toxic shame inside - a belief that we are inept and not capable to manage life and deal with anything in approved "proper" manner.
But who is setting up the scale of what is "normal"?
Usually it is manipulator, controller, narcissist and mentally ill person behind it that throws toxic shame and unrealistic standards. This way it is easy to control other people: you make them believe that they must comply to imaginary fantasy standards.
Super confidence does not exist. This is Hollywood invention, marketing ploy, scheme to make money from human neurosis and desire to fit in, to belong.
---
Seems to me like you are confabulating anxiety with other conditions, explanations and emotions.
You have no idea what emotions you have - you simply label anything unpleasant as anxiety and hope for the best, hoping that there are no serial killers around you. Logical fallacy that misfortune happens to other people, not us.
You mix up perfectionism with anxiety.
You think making mistakes, falling and not succeeding is wrong and negative. That is neurosis, not anxiety.
"I haven't found that I find myself naturally bonding with serial killers or otherwise being in danger."
This means you are not aware of parasites at all. That is the most dangerous state - being in toxic ambient without having alarm system to warn you about it.
When you end up in a grave situation, you will nag and complain that is someone else's fault. Your life, your choice.
" If anything, I am more logical and can consider my options in truly dangerous situations more coolly and rationally,"
Sure, in your head.
Meanwhile, in real life,
you can make all the logical and perfect and cool rational decision - and still fail.
"while people around me is falling into overgeneralizations, black and white thinking, and catastrophizing."
All people have bias, logical fallacies, filter, prejudices, quick oversimplifications, quick explanations - this is human condition. Cognitive distortions are not endemic to anxiety.
"you are free to have as much anxiety and stress as you'd like in your life! No one can stop you."
Anxiety is natural part of life.
It is sign and alarm that there is external element of toxicity around us.
If we decide that lobotomy is best way to handle problems in life, we will simply become machine without perks, quirks, particularities and individuality, soul that makes us who we are as person.
The only problem are toxic people and toxic ambient and toxic habits. Problem is external.
Self pathology and lobotomy is not correct way to handle life.
"Wholeness is not achieved by cutting off a portion of one's being, but by integration of the contraries."
Carl Jung
"Knowing your own darkness is the best method for dealing with the darkness of other people."
CARL JUNG
"Everyone carries a shadow, and the less it is embodied in the individual's conscious life, the blacker and denser it is."
Carl Jung
“To be normal is the ideal aim for the unsuccessful.”
JUNG
'What you resist, persist' - JUNG
“Until you make the unconscious conscious, it will direct your life and you will call it fate.” -C.G. Jung
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"he means in public situations where you are with strangers"
Think about it logically.
If you are scared of strangers - this is due to past trauma, bullying and mobbing experience. Invalidation of trauma is repetition of abuse. Can you imagine what kind of abuse there had to be that any similar situation to the past abuse is now a trigger and flashback. So let it go will not work in this setting.
Also - there are people who are indeed paranoid and suffer from prosecution complex - this is not social anxiety, this is disorder that borders with schizophrenia and very small percentage of people suffer from it. And once again - advice to these people to stop it will not work.
I would stay off from invalidation in general.
Self pathologizing approach is also a wrong way.
Many people have good intentions in offering unsolicited and unexperienced and unconfirmed advice - but as saying goes nice and good intentions are pavement to hell. It makes more damage than good.
---
(23.8.2022)
Every time I leave comment about social anxiety I am imagining myself 10 or 20 or even 30 years ago - and I imagine what I was suppose to hear to guide me into the right direction.
All advice available about social anxiety is incomplete - since it is based on mindset.
Problem is trauma, not mindset.
Triggers, flashbacks cannot be healed by positive thinking, body posture or imaginary cure - otherwise everybody would be healed already up until now.
I am researching social anxiety since it was called social phobia, since the end of 1990s - and mindset approach does not work.
I learned about Complex trauma only past year and that was real mindset change - since I was directed into main strategies to deal with fears:
1) cutting toxic people out
2) detecting toxic people who appear as friendly and help
3) accepting fears and panic as storm caused by stored trauma inside the body, outside of my control
----
From my experience - and I have been having panic symptoms issues since early 1990s -
I tried CBT advice (The first line of available help when someone is seeking help for panic attack is unfortunately CBT). IT does not work. It makes things worse. This is because CBT is focused on panic symptoms - and Jung said what you resist, persist.
What I discovered in the span of 29 years is that panic attack is sign of repressed trauma inside our body.
This is called Complex Trauma - and panic symptoms are actually called Emotional dysregulation (google these concepts) and amygdala hijacking. If we know that we are having trauma - then we learn that triggers and flashbacks start panic attacks.
In this way the focus is away from self hate, self blame and toxic shame that CBT is inadvertently producing.
Once I learn that panic attack is trauma stuck inside my body, I let it be - like storm - you watch it, you hide it, you wait to pass.
And it will pass.
If I decide to follow CBT advice - I will believe that I am inept and wrong by default for feeling panic attacks - since I will believe that I am weird and unacceptable and abnormal since nobody else is apparently not feeling or showing panic attacks.
With trauma information I learn that toxic people are true cause of trauma and panic. Narcissist, manipulators, emotional vampires, bullies, mobbing, Machiavellians, criminally insane, aggressive borderliners - they are all causing panic in their targets and program their victims to be hypnotized and initiated into panic - this is the best way to control their targets.
CBT joins into hysteria of self blame and control because CBT is therapy made by narcissist and pharma mafia, making huge money profit from neurosis and traumatized individuals.
Any reaction to anxiety will create more anxiety. Any reaction to anxiety is road to PureOCD issues - hypervigilance.
Our brain is made to keep us safe, not happy. If we signal our brain that there is some danger and that we must relax as reaction to this danger - the brain will not relax. The brain will invent more things to be scared and more things to relax about. It is hamster wheel and loop of worry. CBT is instructing anxious and panicked people to worry - since then they will proclaim that drugs are the only way to heal this worry cycles and that you are too lazy to become "normal". Making money on people's misery in clever hypnotic way to smarten people who are struggling with panic issues. When people are scared they cannot think straight and it is easier to control them and steal money from them.
The true help instead of CBT is Humanistic psychology, humanistic therapies, that corporations and corrupt, Trump-like evil people in medical industry are trying to keep as secret:
Carl Rogers put it “The curious paradox is that when I accept myself, just as I am, then I can change.”
We live in deceptive, cruel, evil world ran by untreated mentally ill people sitting in managerial seats of marketing, politics and medical professions creating illness in kind, nice and good people and then blaming them for reacting to their abuse.
---
I do not understand why you beat around the bush?
The cause of panic, anxiety, trauma, stress are toxic people.
Abusers, Trump-like evil, manipulators, narcissists, aggressive borderliners, emotional vampires, bullies, mobbing, criminally insane, criminals - they are the only cause.
Self blame, self hate, changing our behaviour to crap fit into toxic ambient is not good idea.
These panic attacks are Darwin evolution- part of our natural ability to detect predators and find ways how to protect against them and adapt to toxic ambient by cutting toxic people away, by recognizing toxic people, minimizing contact with toxic people, mute & block option.
I do not understand why all the secrecy?
As if it is sin to talk about toxic people.
---
(24.8.2022)
"You are afraid what you will feel, how, or what will people talk"
There is also third reason: punishment from toxic person: Yelling, screaming, their attack, refusal of giving information, service, job.
Their nitpicking, nagging, complaining, pinpointing our natural and normal mistakes as catastrophe and shameful act that we must be guilty about, our flaws and lack of knowledge to be ashamed and made to be drama about.
There is also 4F response, fight and flight are only 2 responses.
Ok, so what happens when we do lose our fear of confrontation and remove any fear of conflicts?
This happens:
1) we will lose jobs.
So we need to be wealthy to engage in conflict. This crucial information is always obfuscated by mentors. We need to have money. if we don't - we need to shut up and take up the abuse. What then? How we solve the abuse when conflict, reaction and boundaries leads to being homeless - and then hooligans attacking you on the street, after exposure to cold, hunger.
2) We will be attacked.
I was thrown out of car (by driving instructor for telling him I cannot drive if he is screaming all the time and being hysterical). I was beaten up on the street simply for smiling. I was mobbed and abused at job when I expressed dislike for being mocked. I was relocated and eventually dumped from job when I stand up to workplace bullying.
What then?
Do Femicide statistics have chance to conflict without getting killed?
Conflict is there because there is untreated mentally ill person on the other side.
If we decide that we must change our behaviour to appease or to be assertive and to show off what we need - we will stay stuck in Karpman Drama Triangle. We will not change anything. We cannot control other people. We cannot change other people.
Toxic people do not collaborate - they want it their ways.
When there is normal person in normal healthy environment - collaboration comes naturally.
People who seek answers about fears of conflict are in situations with mentally ill people out there, toxic people, narcissistic abuse.
And you do not offer any information about toxic people - you come with premise that there are normal situations out there and that we are able to collaborate.
We already all do that.
As I said - problem are aggressive people out there who wants their ways only - since they are psychopaths.
We are talking here about people who are dangerous and sick - people who are watching videos about fear of conflict seek information how to deal with mentally ill sick aggressive people who refuse to collaborate and who are extremely dangerous, criminally insane, egocentric, narcissistic without interdependence ideas.
---
Let's talk about additional issues connected with trauma from the angle when one seeks help from medical industry.
If you grew up in 1990s - there was not talk about trauma. You would seek your anxiety symptoms - and information available would direct you towards CBT. All help you seek would be lensed through DSM and CBT.
This is huge problem because:
Then CBT would explain that your panic is imaginary hallucination and that toxic people do not exist at all - that you are creating label toxic in your head through your explanations. This is the definition of gaslighting found in narcissistic abuse. This way CBT brainwashed anyone with anxiety and panic triggers and flashbacks into subservience, fawning and self blame, self hate.
This is true for social anxiety - which is nothing else but part of Complex Trauma. Social anxiety is further obfuscated by CBT and DSM since the definition of social anxiety is deliberately mixed up with Paranoid disorder. This is due to Pharma mafia, making huge money on random people with anxiety issues seeking help.
CPTSD was discovered in 1994. PTSD was discovered in 1980. Until 1980 PTSD symptoms were labeled as Shell shock from wars and patients were told to toughen up - do we see the repetition of abuse by mental health authorities, the same one with social anxiety today.
Both DSM and CBT are doing real and serious intentional damage and needs to be either radically changed or banned altogether.
In 2002 there was Trauma model - that explains any psychological issue as product of trauma- however this research was banned due to Pharma mafia - google trauma model 2002.
With CPTSD I learned that there are certain concepts that are not explained by CBT (This includes self help books and online help and therapy).
Polyvagal theory - states that anxiety, panic and uncomfortable symptoms that CBT instructs us to evade, focus and spend a lot of time and money to nitpick - instead of crusades, Polyvagal theory states that we need to wait for storm to pass.
Emotional dysregulation - while CBT instructs us to worry and spend time nitpicking our fears and thus creating more unnecessary drama and hysteria - dysregulation on the other hand explains that when we are triggered and with flashbacks there will be amygdala hijacking, and our brain will go into panic mode. This is not our fault. This is automatic. This is due to conditioning, being in toxic ambient with untreated mentally ill people around us. So - this is trauma stuck inside our body. It is not personal fault, there is no toxic shame that CBT builds up inside us as if we can control these dysregulations. We can't - it is hypnosis and program that is being ran inside us. There are ways to regulate - but it has nothing to do with methods proposed by CBT. CBT advice makes dysregulation worse and thus last longer.
External reference locus of control or Trauma bonding - with toxic shame inside us, our self worth will be relocated in other people and we will see other people as gods. We will believe anything they say and order us. we will thus fawn and shut up and self censor ourselves, start to be addicted to other people and their feelings - and we will try to fix other people , their anger and we will take their criticism as personal - this is trauma bonding or codependency or lack of self love (as explained by Ross Rosenberg, author of Human magnet syndrome). When our relationships are messed up as explained by Glasser - we will develop symptoms that mimic mental illness - and CBT explains and perceives this mimicking of mental illness as real mental illness - and then treats anxiety as hallucinations. This way CBT is performing lobotomy on perfectly normal human beings who are not having any hallucinations at all.
The fears and fawning inside is trauma being stuck inside the body. Trauma is caused by external factor: toxic people and untreated mentally ill people around us, narcissists and aggressive borderliners.
Mobbing, abuse, bullying is always behind and trauma and anxiety and panic and hysteria. There is invalidation from toxic ambient that is causing trauma.
I never heard of ICD at all. I thought that DSM was the only classification out there.
---
What can we do now in adulthood?
Stuck with fawning and emotional dysregulation (triggers, flashbacks) we will tend to develop toxic shame - deep core belief we are abnormal, inept and unable to manage life, difficult situations nor difficult people.
Humanistic psychology, humanistic therapies are best solution - it is focused on our goals, tasks and to live life, that we are captains of our destiny and life and that we make choices and life decisions that profit us for us so that we can bond with others and make connections with others - through interdependence.
To get to the place of trusting people again - and to make attachment with other people that is not trauma bonding -
I learned that we need to start developing awareness that there are toxic people out there. And that we need to take healthy, proper and functional ways how to handle toxic people: block, mute, ignore, minimize contact.
The chances are if we are traumatized - we will attract toxic people like moth to a flame. There is a high chance that we are surrounded by toxic people parasiting on our inability to express dislike and true feelings.
These people need to go.
With trauma we were unprepared to deal with untreated mentally ill people out there - and this means we experienced bullying and mobbing in our life.
So the next step after we cleared as much as possible toxic people out of our lives - is to learn about bullying and mobbing. There are plethora of information that is both encouraging and informative about mobbing and bullying.
Also information about narcissistic abuse, education how to handle narcissist, and especially covert narcissist - people who appear friendly but are aggressive, rude and mean to us in the same time. All that trash needs to be taken out - contact with toxic people must be broken in order to heal.
Abuse will set us up to make wrong self sabotaging decisions in our lives that mess us up and sets us up for failure. In the same time conditioning and programming will explain us that we must be angels and good and that we must have patience and love for abusers - this is called trauma bonding, external reference locus of control and Stockholm Syndrome. It is part of trauma - but it will appear as "voice of reason" in our head. This voice of rationalizations and normalization of sick and criminally insane people around us is part of trauma. This voice needs to go away, too.
We will notice that toxic shame and wrong decisions will lessen as soon as we start to minimize, cut and block toxic people and toxic habits.
We cannot heal in the same environment that made us sick.
---
I am at the stage where I feel I am narrowing down to the wound.
It is about learning about bullying and mobbing - where we can learn about tools and mindset and general information how to handle toxic people. I am amazed at great information available at Twitter about mobbing and bullying.
I believe trauma taught us, conditioned us to feel toxic shame, self hate, self blame - and with CPTSD information we can learn that there is actually way to -un condition ourselves into setting boundaries - but not through unsuccessful methods and self sabotaging tools that trauma taught us to exist as only resource to defend.
It comes down to cutting contact with toxic people and toxic habits. With trauma we have hypnosis to serve and to fawn and to automatically blame ourselves for any problem and mistake. We do not allow ourselves to blame others and to cut contact with them. We rationalize and normalize their temper tantrums, unreasonable requests and boundary crossing.
This rationalization made me believe that I have a quote of people to block or that I have blocked enough people - but in reality I take it all in with guilt feelings if I do not want to engage in any kind of contact with someone. I go now in this direction of allowing myself to appear bad for ignoring and muting obnoxious people.
One serious issue with trauma for me was feeling of being stuck with angry and dangerous people. That I somehow owe them something to serve them. And that I cannot run away, or ignore them. This springs up in situations where I need something and I see annoying and angry people as gods that I must fawn to. Then their criticism is something I cannot shake off, it stucks like a leech onto me, like being poured with glue that I cannot wash off from my body. This stickiness with angry and irrational people cost me to develop fawning as method to handle it. I see now with the help of CPTSD information available that I am allowed to cut contact, that I am allowed to label difficult people as toxic. And I see that this labeling and ignoring toxic people helps a lot to handle this leech stuck feeling that I could not manage before. It was amazing to discover that I tolerated and rationalized many toxic habits and toxic people - and that I actually can minimize and cut contact and that this is normal and healthy thing to do, not weird or sick as I was programmed and conditioned to believe.
Crap fit - that is great definition of this stickiness with toxic people.
As I started to be aware of it, I was shocked that media programs us to crap fit. And that "normal" people tend to promote brainwashing of crap fitting: through group think, herd mentality, conformism.
---
I dislike CBT.
CBT is based only on mindset. CBT ignores toxic people - external factor that is true cause of any disorder.
CBT will instruct us to change our behaviour in order to crap fit into abuse, abnormal ambient and bullying, unreasonable demands of untreated mentally ill person who is aggressive, stubborn and demand their way or highway.
CBT is focused on panic symptoms and uncomfortable feelings - as if our reactions to something abnormal is problem. This is form of lobotomy. I learned that if we distrust our instincts we will crap fit into abuse.
CBT is thus setting us up for toxic shame: deep core belief that we are unable to handle life problems, that I must nitpick my valid and totally human reactions as catastrophe and something to cover up, stifle down and ignore.
If I feel uncomfortable, dysregulated, scared, anxious, panicked - instead of self pathologizing my reactions as CBT instructs us to do - I would go in the direction of discovery - what the hell is happening around me. To become scientist and Sherlock Holmes - look for clues, seek evidence, be transparent, objective and collect all available data. From my experience - it is always toxic person on the other side, hidden as altruistic narcissist, covert narcissist, that appears as help or service but in fact does damage due to their hidden agenda. If there is no toxic person - there is toxic shame, which even though it is internalized - it is external factor, since toxic shame is product of brainwashing, conditioning and gaslighting and invalidation that stems from untreated mentally ill people that inhabit/parasites in our toxic ambient.
With CBT advice to be self focused instead of calming and grounding - I ended up with people pleasing issues, stuck in abuse, bullying and mobbing. It is like ignoring your hand burning and keeping your body getting burnt. We cannot ignore our pain or label our pain as something to ignore, reject as invalid - that is sickness, that is road to illness. Even basic knowledge in psychology tells us not to stifle down negative emotions and hard feelings. IT simply is not healthy to stifle down emotions. It is not healthy to have ostrich effect:
"The ostrich effect is a financial bias that is owes its name to the false belief that ostriches hide their heads in the sand to ignore danger or pretend that it does not exist, as a way of protecting themselves."
CBT instruct us to figure out and control and handle difficult people. That is mission impossible. Narcissists do not want peace, they do not want harmony, they do not want resolution - because they are sick in the head, that makes them sick: desire to create chaos and breed animosity and drama and hysteria. With CBT advice to be assertive with difficult and aggressive untreated mentally ill people - we will get stuck in codependency and Karpman Drama Triangle.
We will not lose our ground if there is some mere unsignificant conflict or difficult problem.
We will lose our ground when toxic person is present who is creating problems and drama and hysteria.
Toxic people must be minimized, cut out of our life - that is the only way. The solution is not as CBT instruct us to change ourselves.
There is nothing to fix if we are in abusive situation - we are not the problem. Feeling out of ground is reaction to being in contact with mentally ill person such as narcissist and aggressive borderliner.
---
All people have cognitive distortions. This is not illness. This is human condition.
It is okay to be aware of it - however to believe that we are sick if we have them will lead to neurosis.
If we decide to change or to go in war with them - it will cause disorder, unnecessary drama, hysteria, anxiety and toxic shame.
Our dislikes are linked to cognitive distortions. Without our dislikes we will become philosophical zombie, NPC Wojak without any character, perk, quirk, perk or individuality. We will be stuck in conformism, group think and herd mentality, which leads to Milgram Experiment - where we will vote for mentally ill people like Trump or Putin because everyone likes them.
Cognitive distortions are bias, prejudices, jumping to quick conclusions, bigotry, confirmation bias and availability heuristics. It is filter that all people have over their eyes. We need to be aware of this - and Descartes taught us in 1536 to get rid of this by doubting. Doubt other people and doubt our thoughts -
he does not say reject other people or reject your thoughts. Simply to doubt everyone and everything and ourselves.
This way we will be open to new ideas and new angles, we will outgrow egocentrism and become more intelligent and less sick.
---
"Narcissists are dangerous, you are right, but the real issue is why how and where we end up in those relationship even when we are adults. "
All psychological issues stem from trauma.
Narcissists, toxic people are found anywhere- I do not think it is reasonable nor healthy to assume that we are somehow creating trauma and that we are producing narcissists with our thoughts.
Trauma nor abuse are not our fault,
it is not something that we caused or that we are to be blamed for someone's deliberate choice to abuse.
I hope you will reconsider your thinking that we are responsible for abuse. This CBT approach will create toxic shame and unnecessary guilt and irrational self blame in people who already went through enough already.
---
(25.8.2022)
"they want attention"
Social anxiety by definition is fear of criticism and negative evaluation from others.
IT is rooted in trauma - mobbing and bullying, and abuse - and CBT obfuscate this information, since CBT is composed of Pharma mafia, abuse and narcissists making profit from human neurosis.
Muddling social anxiety - ends up people self diagnosing themselves with CBT leading them into wrong explanations about what is social anxiety by definition.
IF someone seeks attention - this is narcissism. This is not social anxiety.
---
We need to be careful about people in general.
They provide false information - intentionally or unintentionally - and then we start to distrust ourselves. Which makes social anxiety worse.
If we seek help for social anxiety, CBT (this includes self help and online resources) will make things worse.
Behind social anxiety is trauma experience, exposure to narcissistic abuse - which programs us to fear people. And with this conditioned fear we will enter into toxic relationships - both romantical and career - where we will be abused.
Trauma is healed by expressing our opinion freely and by cutting contact with toxic people, toxic habits and toxic ambient. Consistently.
---
At some level all people have social anxiety.
Social anxiety itself is not bad. It reminds us that we are human beings, vulnerable and have flaws and mistakes.
Without it we would be mentally ill like Trump or Putin - since we would not have natural mechanism to feel shame, blame, guilt.
Problem starts when we are abused by mentally ill people - mobbing, bullying, abuse -
where problem are toxic people- not our natural reaction to criminally insane people.
Problem is toxic shame that we internalize as the product of being in contact with aggressive psychopaths and sociopaths that we depend on due to shelter, finances, support, help or service or third party.
When we speak about negative effects of social anxiety - it is always toxic people and toxic shame: external element.
If we do not make this distinction - we will create mental illness inside us, we will destroy parts of ourselves that are human, vulnerable and needed for any basic contact with other people.
Mentally ill people like Trump or Putin were raised in environment where nobody criticized them for bad behaviour.
If we decide to reject, destroy and stigmatize social anxiety, we will create society of criminally insane narcissists and psychopaths such as Jordan Peterson, Trump, Putin, Bush family or Nixon or Republicans and any kind of conservatives in general. We will end up with toxic and corrupt corporations destroying our planet - since nobody will try to warn about transgressions in order not to hurt their feelings.
We are talking here about balance and love.
If we label social anxiety as illness - we will create chaos and disorder - since any emotion that is reaction to abuse would be labeled as sickness. In the end we will end up with lobotomy, and depending on other people to explain us how we feel and how we must be and define us as person.
CBT is doing this and CBT must be banned.
---
"The not knowing what to say "
Stop self pathology. There is nothing wrong with you.
Social anxiety means we were abused, we were bullied into submission and toxic shame (deep core belief that we are inept, weird and unacceptable).
Once you understand that mobbing is behind social anxiety, that there is trauma - which means being conditioned into doubt what to say - you will realize that you are not the problem at all.
Problem are toxic people.
Problem are their nagging, complaining, their manipulation, mocking and their sick definition about what is allowed to say , when to say and how much to say.
Social anxiety is belief that we must change ourselves in order to crap fit into mentally ill society full of narcissists, conformism and groupthink herd mentality.
Start cutting toxic people out of your life and see if it gets better.
You are not your saying. You are not your mistakes, you are not your flaws.
Toxic shame that toxic people are spreading around is that they equate our mistakes and flaws and lack of knowledge with our basic character, with our self worth - and then we feel like crap. And this is what toxic people want - since this is the only way to control you and keep you silent and away from resources that they can claim for themselves.
If you stay out, if you do not express your opinion, if you do not claim what is yours and your rights - then they can have all. That is what toxic people do.
Stop blaming yourself and stop putting unreasonable expectations on yourself - there is nothing to fix about you. Other people are problem, not you.
---
"symptoms/other characteristics, don't seem to be a match"
Easy explanation:
Social anxiety is when you avoid people due to abuse and trauma, you are afraid of being ridiculed, mocked, attacked and shunned.
Introversion is when you avoid people because you feel good being mostly on your own. There is no panic, hysteria or fear from toxic people.
---
"The most useful tools I’ve used are:
1) Preparation
2) Ask for help.
3. Do things you really enjoy"
Nope - these are all safety mechanisms as reaction to trauma. It is still very much social anxiety.
Preparation - it simply means that you are afraid of making mistakes and so common trauma response is that we prepare ourselves, that we are perfectionist. This leads to hypervigilance, worry, anxiety and more fears from people - since you are not allowing yourself to test and see what happens when you are not prepared and when you do not know and when people are mad at you for being not prepared. This need to prepare and to know all and to be super is hamster wheel that keep us wanting to gain approval from other people in order not to harm us as they did in the past. When we prepare - we are not comfortable at all, there is PureOCD mechanism that keeps demands for preparation more and more, and instead of enjoying life and being spontaneous we spend a large sum of money , time and brain activity in contemplating how to avoid someone's anger, temper tantrum and criticism. This is social anxiety at its core- where we believe we are free, making free choices - but instead we are in the prison without knowing that we are in the prison.
Stop preparing.
IF someone does not like you because yo are not perfect . that person is mentally ill and toxic - and avoid such people.
Ask for help - again, you ask to be prepared, to gain approval, admiration and validation from other people. Ask for help because you need help. not because you want to avoid someone's anger.
Do things you enjoy - when we have toxic shame internalized inside us, we do not have Real Self. Instead there is False Self. This means - we have no idea what we enjoy. We know we enjoy not being screamed at, not being criticized, yelled at, we enjoy not being ashamed - all things that compose complex trauma which is behind social anxiety.
Instead of true self which would tell us what we enjoy we have a simulation of self, hologram of self that is explaining us what we enjoy trough the lens of other people - their approval, their conformism, their groupthink, their herd mentality.
Anti dote to toxic shame and trauma is cutting toxic people out- and learning about narcissistic abuse, how to recognize covert narcissist - aggressive borderliners who appear as friend to us but they attack and exploit us, it is about learning about mobbing and bullying and abuse and how to heal it.
We have nothing to fix nor prepare nor to overcompensate about ourselves.
We are not problem
Abuse and toxic people made us believe that we are the problem and that we must depend on other people , that we must prepare for them so that they can take advantage of us through parasiting our good and kind nature.
Instead of self pathology - cut toxic people and see how it feels when you do not spend your precious time, energy nor money on preparations or seeking approval from toxic people.
----
"The smoke alarm analogy really helped"
Smoke alarm analogy was incomplete.
Smoke alarm is good,,
smoke alarm is not pathology.
IF you remove smoke alarm, it is the same as lobotomy - you cut piece of yourself that is working and that is healthy.
Smoke alarm warns us about predators and toxic people out there. It is not wrong to know when you are being exploited and taken advantage of.
Smoke alarm is Darwin evolution - we learned about it in school our feelings of social anxiety are the very part of Darwinism, this magical and mysterious concept that we learned in the school that we thought is only connected to exotic plants and animals.
When we are bullied, when we experience mobbing and abuse - our smoke alarm will not be broken. Instead, as Darwin evolution - smoke alarm will upgrade itself.
Smoke alarm will start to detect more fake people out there, more psychopaths, more hidden agenda, more mentally ill aggressive people out there-
smoke alarm is litmus test for pathological people who are hidden behind good intentions, friendly attitude, smiles and advice or service that they offer without us asking them in the first place.
With smoke alarm we have ability to detect hidden predators.
Do not self pathologize yourself.
Trust your intuition and your self inside.
Do not listen to people with low IQ and psychopathy to explain you what is normal and accepted. Lean on your common sense instead.
26.8.2022
Becoming bully yourself is not answer. What if he killed that bully? If he likes to cause pain and suffering, he is no different than that bully.
With other circumstances, bully's father may also be psychopath and try to get revenge - as we see with all mass shootings in USA. The system we live is not working because bullying is taboo and bullies grow up to be part of that authority system like Trump or Republicans or corrupt European states or Putin.
If history showed us anything - is that fighting and wars leads to cycle of genocide and bad blood.
We need to clean up grown bullies that are in authority.
---
I would go into the direction of accepting anxiety.
That we do not look, observe, perceive anxiety as enemy - rather that we realize anxiety is alarm system. From my experience, the cause of anxiety are toxic people. Chances are that we rationalize toxic people, toxic ambient, toxic habits and normalize them. Cut them out.
If we resist, anxiety will persist.
If we decide that we are faulty due to anxiety, we will develop toxic shame - deep core belief we are inept, unable to manage life and that we must depend on other people - which means more toxic people around us.
It is normal to feel anxiety if we are in presence of people who are nagging, complaining, gaslighting, blame shifting, inventing problems.
If we decide that we are problem, we will try to fix ourselves - it is like plastic surgery where we try to fix ourselves to look good and fight aging - all natural process and in the reality there is nothing wrong with us - if we are kind, nice, without hidden agenda, without want to hurt or cause pain to others.
Carl Jung | Psychology and Philosophy 🧠, TWITTER:
The foundation of all mental illness is the unwillingness to experience legitimate suffering.
---
I learned that the secret is in cutting toxic people- blocking, muting, ignoring like in social media -we replicate it in real life.
The point is that we allow ourselves to let things unresolved - without trying to fix other people and explain our issues to toxic people who do not care at all. The media and therapy set us up in wrong direction - CBT will explain that social anxiety must be resolved by exposure and being open to all people. In reality this makes us without boundaries and we end up with people pleasing issues.
The bottom line is that if we are forced to set boundaries - this is not our issue at all.
It actually means that there is untreated mentally ill person on the other side, someone toxic is there who is creating chaos, paranoia, hysteria, problems and issues, nagging and complaining just because they are mentally ill, toxic - while we believe they are genuine and true and we end up feeling responsible, guilty and as if we need to fix their anger and problems-
Being codependent, which means fixing other people's temper tantrums in order not to be punished - is trauma, it is hypnosis, it is programming, conditioning that we experienced while growing up with relentless criticism and then repeated pattern of fawning -
which means staying and sticking along with toxic people. We were programmed to believe we are inept and we must listen to other people about anything in life. With long term exposure to Narcissistic abuse we were programmed to make attachment connections and being preoccupied with toxic people: controlling people who nag, complain, criticize, panic and make problems out of everything and presenting it as our fault, responsibility or duty to attend. During growing up nobody explained us that this is mentally ill person, that normal people do not behave like that and it is abnormal.
Cutting contact with toxic people does not mean explosions, drama, fighting, blaming them back, hurting them back - instead it is about realizing that toxic people are mentally ill and we are not institution, we are not doctors, we are not gods and it is not our responsibility to fix nor to control them or solve them- It can stay unresolved. We do not need to spend time, money nor energy in fixing toxic people.
---
I realized my OCD was connected to toxic people, threat and predators. We are learned in our culture to self blame ourselves, in order to curb narcissism and aggression, I understand why the system is set up to self pathologize ourselves and always assume first that we are the problem and that we must fix ourselves.
Well, as it turns up - it is toxic people who are behind OCD issues. First it is trauma, complex trauma (now recognized by ICD-11) which means being raised in narcissistic abuse, constant and relentless criticism 24/7 and adult hysteria which sets us up to be conditioned to worry and try to resolve all issues in world through our thoughts and changing our beahviour, fixing us to crap fit into abuse.
It is Skinner's box conditioning and we are not aware that we are actually trained like circus animals or Pavlovian dogs into panic, fear and anxiety that is behind OCD.
CBT sets information in wrong direction - it explains that worries are hallucination and that we must change our anxious thoughts by blaming ourselves and explaining abuse and toxic people as normal - which is actually the very definition of gaslighting in narcissistic abuse: normalizing abuse as something normal, while we are somehow responsible to fix our thoughts. This CBT approach of self pathology is recipe for OCD.
Once we understand that we live in deceptive, cruel, world full of lies and deceit and Pharma mafia making money on our neurosis and reaction to toxic people in managerial seats of authority - the natural next step is recognizing and cutting toxic people out.
The level of anxiety and obsessions will vanish as soon as we remove toxic people, ignore and mute them just as on social media - and when we stop trying to fix and resolve - leave it all unresolved. We cannot control nor fix other people and it is not healthy to stay in Karpman Drama Triangle. It is far better to be alone than in the presence of toxic people who are causing OCD in their targets.
---
"changing your irrational beliefs and doing exposures"
They are not irrational. Self pathology is creating more OCD anxiety and toxic shame.
Exposure will not work if we are in toxic ambient. Exposure is not easy advice - if you read small print - exposure is done with supervision - in order to explain and recognize toxic people out there who appear as friends, altruistic narcissists and cover narcissists. Imagine living in slum and exposing yourself to drugs, mafia and violence - of course that exposure will not be healthy option there. Well slums may be extreme example, and in real life there are a lot of covert narcissists that we have no ability to recognize nor reject since we are guided by CBT to self pathologize our dislikes and normal reaction to abusive toxic people which CBT explains as "irrational belief".
If we are nice, kind, open, friendly people, without hidden agenda, without any attempt to hurt, cause pain or be violent or unkind to anyone - there are no irrational beliefs, we are not at fault, we are not guilty and we are not monsters.
Anything else is crap fitting into abuse.
---
I would try different strategy.
Whenever we get OCD - which is actually trigger and flashback found in Complex Trauma (now recognized in ICD-11) - this means there are toxic people in our life that we let in.
We do not allow cutting toxic people off.
Instead we were conditioned like circus animals into fixing other people and their invented problems, which attracts toxic people into our lives - and we end up with symptoms of OCD -
while CBT will blame our thoughts as culprit.
Nope. Our brain is working fine - it is reacting to predators and toxic people, covert narcissists out there who appear as friends and help to us, and attacking us with nagging, complaints, criticism since they are mentally ill-
cut toxic people out and see if anxiety will lessen.
WE do not need to resolve them and their problems, it is not our job to fix other people and their invented problems.
---
For anyone having PureOCD related to angry, difficult people, their hysteria & temper tantrums -
I realized it is part of Complex Trauma. It means being raised in toxic ambient of blame and relentless criticism 24/7 while growing up - and we soak up toxic shame belief that we are inept and we must obey other people especially if they yell and scream - and now we are stuck with inability to handle difficult, angry people. Their anger sticks inside our brain as PureOCD rumination - worry, hypervigilance.
This is not our fault. We did not cause their anger - our conditioning in narcissistic abuse caused us to internalize deep core belief that we must fix other people's negative emotions, that is is our responsibility to fix other people.
Solution is to realize we can leave it all unresolved and to cut contact with toxic people.
The advice from CBT (which means self help books, internet stoic gurus, online help) is counter-effective, wrong and detrimental. CBT will explain that our intrusive thoughts are our fault - that we must fight them by meddling with them, like shifting focus and ignoring. This will not work. Our brain is built to protect us. Brain primary function is to keep us safe - not that we are happy. Brain will notice dangerous events, dangerous people and it will cause us to protect against predators. This will create PureOCD thoughts so that we find solution. This part is healthy. This is Darwin evolution which helped roses to develop thorns as reaction to predators.
In the same way - healthy way would be to cut contact with toxic people, relocate, change job, ignore, mute - and most importantly not to engage with toxic people - not accept their invited, not talking to them, not engaging in Karpman Drama Triangle.
Problem starts when we were abused, when we were in contact with untreated mentally ill people around us while growing up who conditioned us to be silent to abuse, to self censor our dislikes since they were not capable to regulate themselves since they are sick in the head and do not seek help - so abuse set us up to turn our natural worry into self blame, self pathology and self abuse.
This is product of abuse, it is not our fault. We were conditioned into serving difficult people, being afraid of them and doing nothing about them. This is hypnosis, Skinner's box operand conditioning, like circus animals or Pavlovian dogs.
I ended up worrying when someone would be angry at me, when they nitpick my mistakes, when they would expect unreasonable perfectionist standards - I would not be able to block their comments from my head and it would come up in my mind in worry cycle loops- This is issue with triggers and flashbacks and this integral part of Complex Trauma or CPTSD.
Again, this is not our fault - and it will cause us to dysregulate. The illness part wants us to become abusers ourselves, so that mental illness prolongs itself onto next generation as it was passed on over and over to new generations.
Because easiest resolution of anxiety is to attack other people, to create problems out of nowhere, to be jerk and to abuse other people. In short, to become narcissist: to complain, nag, criticize, control others, blame and ashame others.
The reason we have PureOCD is because we are good and nice people with high moral code and knowing what is right and what is wrong - and we do not want to hurt other people.
So we are stuck with conditioning to self blame and self pathologize ourselves - and CBT joins into this abuse and hysteria by blaming our "irrational" thoughts as the only problem and that we must expose ourselves to abuse in order to "heal" it. Of course this does not work and CBT practitioners do not expose at all themselves. They only set us up to unhealthy approach because of herd mentality: someone instructed wrong therapy and nobody has courage to speak up and say out loud that CBT is wrong therapy.
I would go into direction of cutting toxic people out. Minimize contact, ignore, mute, unapologetically.
Many covert narcissists appear as friends and we open up to them, only to be assaulted with their intrusiveness, criticism and blame.
Becoming aware of abuse is part of healing - and recognizing red flags how to recognize these hidden types of abusers is part of healing.
With conditioning we will be set up to ignore and normalize abuse, we will be set up to crap fit into abuse and believe that there is no alternative to abuse.
I trust that people who are obsessed with imaginary threats suffer from Paranoid issues - which is very rare, and that narcissists can also hide behind it since it provides them attention - even by faking and mimicking being sick.
Most people will have issues with toxic people and try cutting toxic people out and see if your PureOCD will lessen.
The more we realize we can leave it unresolved - there will be the less of inner critic issues inside us.
The more we realize we are not wrong or sick for being victim of abuse - the less we will try to resolve their abuse.
We can see their abuse as storm to avoid, not as issue that we must fix nor control.
With CBT we will set us up to be exposed to toxic people - which does not work. Just as being exposed to Chernobyl radiation - we cannot become resilient to toxic radiation.
And think about it logically - if exposure to toxicity works, third world countries would be wealthy prosperous countries now. There would be no Femicide statistics. Toxic people are dangerous, they are untreated mentally ill individuals who have goal to destroy other people just for fun.
With CBT approach of ABC model changing our thoughts in order to crap fit into abuse, we end up self pathologizing ourselves.
Toxic people are predators - we will not become stronger if we stay in contact with them and their demands and invented worries and issues. They are abnormal - while we end up in therapy trying to fix ourselves - while truly sick toxic people do not want to heal at all.
Therefore, the point of therapy is to teach us how to handle difficult toxic people - not to nitpick our thoughts and fix ourselves in order to stay with abusive people. It is about learning tools how to handle difficult situations, not to self blame and self attack ourselves for problems within or outside of our control:
---
"How do u know if its ocd or just anxiety with pure o?"
Officially, PureOCD does not exist, it is not recognized by DSM.
This does not mean that PureOCD does not exist.
It does. Intrusive worry, hypervigilance, inner critic- these are all part of Complex Trauma, being exposed to abuse while growing up over long repeated period of time of abuse.
OCD described in video is related to narcissism and self involvement, it is egocentric - where I am the center of universe and other people revolve around me and my needs and my reactions. It is part of paranoia and hallucination - since it does not involve direct contact between the object of awareness - instead the person will imagine issues out of thin air. This is very rare and it is not related to this pureOCD where there is actual threat:
True PureOCD is on the other hand reaction to abuse. PureOCD is worry, rumination - it is trying to resolve in our heads problems - that are always connected to toxic people who are often hidden, covert narcissist. These can come up as altruistic narcissists so they camouflage themselves without us being capable to discover their abuse.
As oppose to egocentric OCD where we the suffering individual is like watching cinema or TV and then imagining the worries -
the actual PureOCD is related to abuse, mobbing and bullying. There is someone predatory who is interacting with us in abnormal way - that is usually normalized and gaslighted as our problem.
With Complex Trauma we were conditioned to self blame, to shut up and self censor our dislikes and anger - and this broke our natural boundaries and let toxic people in. We repeat this pattern of fawning and people pleasing in adulthood that is feeding PureOCD intrusive thoughts: we worry what someone said, their criticism, their comment, it is painful and we cannot shake it off, it is like leech stuck at us and we cannot resolve it. This is different from OCD described in the video where other people are not even aware of us and they do not interact with us at all,
It is crucial to notice this difference -
since CBT lumps these two separate conditions as one and thus created confusion and damage to all parties seeking genuine help about PureOCD issues - and it does so by negating the existence of PureOCD.
Hopefully this explains how you know if it is OCD or just anxiety with PureOCD.
---
" There is no discrimination between the OCD and "Pure O" as the symptoms are the same."
There is crucial information that would help all people suffering from hypervigilance and worries and rumination:
OCD is related to imaginary threat,
while PureOCD is reaction to external factor: toxic people.
This fact is hidden since Pharma Mafia likes to make money by gaslighting victims of abuse, mobbing and bullying into subordination and self pathology: it is endless self renewing source of income of narcissists in medical industry and psychopaths at managerial seats.
---
"I think it's important to remember OCD might seem like toxic people are the cause it's more than likely our belief on other people. I think this is a key distinction. I would also disagree that cognitive and behavioral changes sets people in the wrong direction. I think balance around people who we consider toxic can be important, but it's also important not too avoid completely in most cases as this instills avoidance."
I am talking from my own experience. My comment is not a mere rush of words, it is not a spur of the moment talking.
For 20 years I followed CBT advice blindly: not to avoid and to avoid avoidance and to not label people as toxic and to observe my anxiety as hallucination and imaginary threat.
I ended up with Moral injury, mobbing issues, being bullied at work, I would feel anxiety and injustice but I would remember all CBT advice not to take things personally and to label my dislike and reaction to abuse as hallucination. I ended up with fawning and people pleasing issues, being pushover, without knowing how to handle difficult people and what to do with witnessing criminal behaviour, abuse, threats of violence, mocking, homophobic slurs etc.
MY reaction would be to smile, shutting up and self censorship, as instructed by CBT.
To make it worse, once I started to talk and to express my opinion, which CBT strongly disapproves - I realized that CBT mentors are very much avoidant, they engage in unhealthy conflict and they are anti-social. So they are instructing us to self blame and self hate and self pathology, while in the same time they do not follow their own advice.
In 2002 there was Trauma model discussed - google this concept. IT is suppressed since resolving anxiety and fears is not in the interest of corrupt medical industry, ran by Trump-like psychopaths itself.
Toxic people are the cause of all psychological issues. CBT covers this since Pharma mafia is making money from people being trapped in self blame, gaslighting, blame shifting and toxic shame.
Complex trauma sets us up to feel anxiety and to ruminate, it is operand conditioning that CBT tries to hide.
DSM ignores Complex trauma, however, ICD-11 recognizes it.
This way, CBT is part of narcissistic abuse: invalidation, gaslighting, blame shifting, scapegoating the victims of abuse.
---
(28.8.2022)
"Trauma effects how you store memories"
Gabor Mate said:
“What we call the personality is often a jumble of genuine traits and adopted coping styles that do not reflect our true self at all but the loss of it.”
Trauma effects our personality too, it warps and warts it with coping mechanisms. This is not disorder, this is reaction to trauma. Without it, we would die.
"PTSD"
There is also Complex PTSD.
CPTSD is not recognized by DSM, however it is recognized by ICD-11.
"The ICD-11 diagnosis of CPTSD consists of six symptom clusters: the three PTSD criteria of re-experiencing of the trauma, avoidance of trauma reminders, and heightened sense of threat (hypervigilance, startle response), and three disturbances of self-organisation (DSO) symptoms defined as emotional dysregulation, ..."
"Cognitive distortions"
All people have logical fallacies, jumping to quick conclusions, bias, prejudices, bigotry, availability heuristics, confirmation bias, filter.
This is not endemic to trauma, anxiety nor panic issues. We cannot remove it, this is human condition, we are not gods, we are not super humans, we are vulnerable and wrong - quite often. If we try to overcome it, we will develop perfectionism issues, which is at the heart of OCD and mental illness.
"Breaking out of this pattern"
It is more layering off trauma responses such as fawning and realizing we are not broken, we are not flawed, we are not wrong.
"Reaction out of proportion to the trigger"
Traumatized empaths try not to bother other people. Then reactions becomes people pleasing and fawning - which means being stuck in toxic ambient and shutting up and self-censoring - being taken advantage off due to need to keep reaction out of proportion as suggested by CBT.
In reality, the only problem are toxic people.
IF we do not feel psychological safety - there is something wrong with other people, not us.
If we decide to self pathologize our reactions, we will crap fit into abuse and criminally insane psychopaths.
Anyone who experienced trauma - it is sign such individual was conditioned into subservience, silence and keeping quiet. Problem is operand conditioning and hypnosis and order, command to keep things out of proportion.
Since CBT does not understand this, CBT joins into gaslighting and invalidation and thus contributing to the already present trauma as manipulator, at the side of abuser(s).
"Keeping people out of distance"
If people are toxic, if we are in toxic ambient - it is totally ok to be alone and away from toxic people.
"Grounding exercises"
All techniques that are directed in telling our brain that we are wrong, inept and that we must fix ourselves will breed toxic shame. It will not bring grounding in the end - instead it will result in hypervigilance and perfectionism. This is what abusers are doing to the target: to us become fit into their crap.
In short:
"Any attempt to dictate what thoughts, feelings, and sensations are proper or improper creates a breeding ground for guilt and shame"
Peter Levine
"Feeling powerless - cognitive distortion"
However if we explain our trauma response as distortion, our brain will not become powerful. This information will be interpreted by brain that all people are normal and healthy without any bias, while we are distorted due to abuse - and we must fix ourselves, we must watch out our thoughts. This leads to PureOCD, rumination and toxic shame - deep sense we are inept to handle life. We cannot fight cognitive distortions by new cognitive distortions. Labeling is cognitive distortion itself.
"Exposure and desensitization"
Exposure must be done in observed ambient - this information is written in small letters. Exposure does not mean that we take it on ourselves.
If we live in slum - exposure to drugs and criminals will not make us healthy at all. If we move to Chernobyl, we will not develop anti-radiation powers, we will die instead of cancer due to exposure to deadly radiation. We can see Desensitization is also cognitive distortion by CBT - in movie A Clockwork Orange it is showed that Desensitization leads to depression and lethargy. It is said if Man is unable to choose, he ceases to be a man. This means, if we lobotomize our quirks, perks, caprices just to fit in into groupthink, herd mentality and conformism, to make other people comfortable - world will not become safe nor happy. Instead toxic people who are not willing to seek therapy will run over us - like Trump or Putin or Republicans or conspiracy theorists. They will manipulate and use narcissistic abuse to exert control over everyone. And without our sensitivity to disorder, we won't be able to react to sick people.
Without ability to protest, nothing will change.
Without reaction to hurt, Darwin says we will perish. Our ability to adapt to surroundings is crucial in life - it is part of life. Anything else is death.
"Work on your mindset"
As Levine said, if we decide to follow Jordan Peterson advice to hate ourselves, to blame ourselves and to fix ourselves - we will develop narcissism and mental illness and psychopathy. Schizophrenia is when we are not authentic, but we create different person inside us. That is severe mental illness.
Mindset is our own, we are all different and individual, this makes us special and unique, it is not something to crop, hide or develop toxic shame about. We can improve only when we accept ourselves as we are. If we decide to improve in order to be superior to others, we will develop narcissism, psychopathy. If we decide to fix ourselves in order not to feel uncomfortable feelings - we will fight life itself and basic facts of life: that struggle and problems are part of life. We cannot control other people, we cannot control external events. To believe that we can change and fix problems by changing our mind - leads to severe mental illness and this is the reason why CBT ought to be banned.
Nitpicking our thoughts that are result of living in toxic ambient will only lead to more anxiety and mental issues.
Trauma model was discovered in 2002 - google it, however corrupt medical industry keep this as secret because Pharma mafia is making money on human neurosis, it is number one income for them, constant influx of money, that can be resolved quickly about learning on banned and censored information: Complex PTSD, Polyvagal theory. Emotional dysregulation, Amygdala hijacking, External referencing locus of control, trauma bonding.
CBT follows cognitive distortion logic, logical fallacy - that we can change our mindset by whim. We cannot.
Maslow discovered that we cannot work or modulate nor fix any self esteem issues - if we do not feel basically safe.
Maslow triangle shows that we must first make sure we are safe, feel psychological safety - and then actualization will come as natural process, not something that we can force.
To nitpick our thoughts is the same as plastic surgery. We end up being and looking like monster in our trying to be perfect and accepted and validated by toxic and abusive people who would not care about us at all if we were perfect.
Trauma is sign we were surrounded by toxic people. It was not our fault. We are not wrong. And we have nothing to fix about our core self. Instead we need to skin off onion layer of toxic shame and safety mechanisms and coping mechanisms by cutting contact with toxic people - muting them, ignoring them, minimizing contact with them.
We can divide people in two major groups
1) people who care about others, seek interdependence and Long spoon analogy, empaths, seeking solutions and safety for all
and
2) selfish people who are egocentric, narcissistic, who seek own pleasure and avoidance of pain at any most, overcompensation of toxic shame by creating superhuman mindset to conquer and control other people over.
CBT is narcissistic tool created by narcissists for the narcissists. It is legalized mental illness tool to create more mental illness in society.
At the heart of CBT in invalidation, self hate, self blame, self rejection, toxic shame, perfectionism and general control instead of harmony.
Instead of dysfunctional CBT which creates new Trumps there are Humanistic therapies, Humanistic psychology.
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(29.8.2022)
Social anxiety is part of Complex trauma, it is having experience of being abused, bullied, mobbing attack. Problem are toxic people, not our symptoms that are now stuck inside our body as triggers and flashbacks.
Thinking about Spotlight effect leads to another effect:
"The self-absorption paradox describes the contradictory association whereby higher levels of self-awareness are simultaneously associated with higher levels of psychological distress and with psychological well-being."
"You need to look at other people and shift your focus on them"
Socially anxious people are already focused on other people. They are focused too much already, it is like being zoomed onto other people. It is due to abuse and toxic ambient, where predators and manipulators hurt them in the past, and now they look at other people closely to seek evidence of predator and manipulative, toxic behaviour.
Think about it logically,
social anxiety was discovered in 1990s and CBT is explaining it as mindset issue, that people need to shift focus. It did not help.
But pharma mafia likes to make people believe that there is no trauma, since it is easier to make money on human neurosis and heal toxic environment - since there is no money influx if there is no anxiety.
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Social anxiety is not related to lack of confidence as the core issue. At the core of social anxiety is abuse, mobbing, bullying - it is job type of situation where you cannot leave, you cannot run away and in the same time you are being yelled at, screamed at, attacked violently by others. That is social anxiety: fear of criticism and negative evaluation. That is at the core of social anxiety.
By product of abuse is lack of confidence. This means - confidence and lack of confidence is not the problem here at all. It seems to third party as confidence issue since abused person will appear frightened and inhibited.
To direct person who was abused to ignore abuse, to smile and force toxic positivity is actually part of abuse.
This is invalidation, gaslighting and honeymoon phase period in narcissistic abuse dynamics.
Imagine if Johnny Depp ignored his social anxiety and made small talk with charming narcissists like Amber - and then stayed in small talk with psychopaths - he would be broke now, without movie career and labelled as abuser by the whole world.
There are toxic people out there and they are the only problem here - not abused frightened targets of abuse.
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Social anxiety disorder is not the same as social anxiety.
Check out definitions of social anxiety and social anxiety disorder and there is a difference, that is purposely obfuscated by Pharma mafia - since this is huge influx of money, parasiting over human neurosis.
Even Social anxiety is mixed up with Social phobia while social phobia is only a mere chronological old label of social anxiety.
So when you use social anxiety disorder - people will go read about social anxiety disorder - and they will receive treatment for mild schizophrenia. As if fears are hallucination, perceiving threat socially.
There is also fawn response that you did not mention since CBT obfuscate information, limit correct information and direct it to self blame, self hate and self pathology.
Brain will always perceive a threat: that is how brain is working, this is normal mode for brain. Brain is not made to make us happy - the main goal for brain is to keep us safe and to detect predators and threats. If we self pathologize this, we will become anxious on top of already present anxiety due to abuse, bullying and mobbing.
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"get out of comfort zone" -
yeah, you might think this works. But look at it logically. People in third world countries are way out of comfort zone - by the definition they would be now wealthy, technologically prosperous, with innumerous scientists, sportsmen, adventurers, tycoons etc. Or living at slums, around criminally insane people, prisons would be hotbed of progress by this definition. The key is in healthy environment, not in the risk or something that appears dangerous.
"Who cares who think about you"
Toxic people care a lot. Covert narcissist appear as friend and helpful, with charisma and charm. There are predators who watch very closely and wait our next move. They know ways to manipulate us through criticism and nitpicking our mistakes - which they present as normal, help or friendly. If we ignore the existence of toxic people we will allow abuse to continue.
"Changing negative to positive"
This is also trap that I made, and waster 20 years on this mentality. It does not work in reality. This is due to PureOCD - any reaction to anxiety is anxiety. IT seems like we are resolving and solving fears - but in fact we are creating more of them.
Even with basic psychology - anyone knows that emotions must not be repressed neither stifled. If we suppress emotions that are uncomfortable to us, we will create neurosis. Sometimes we need to feel bad, scared and anxious - these emotions help us to think about issue and respond correctly. IT would be abnormal to smile when someone is ill, it would be criminal to laugh and force toxic positivity when someone is about to make dead wrong move and thus ignore their doomed actions.
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Being obsessed about other people and their admiration is more narcissism than social anxiety.
Social anxiety is being in job type of situation and people yell and scream at you and you cannot leave but you must endure violence, attacks, their obscenity and vulgarity and abuse. The obsession about other people comes to avoid their aggression. The obsession is not based on their lack of love that we believe we are entitled to receive. Social anxiety is basically being victim of abuse, bullying and mobbing. Anything other is narcissistic disorder: desire to be admired by others and then feeling anxiety when there is no narcissistic supply.
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Social anxiety is not issue of confidence as primary concern.
By definition, social anxiety is fear of criticism and negative evaluation.
Social anxiety is part of Complex Trauma. This means trauma is stuck inside the body. It is cause of being in abuse and toxic ambient - as primary problem. It is not own fault. So there is nothing to fix inside as basic human being and value inside.
To nitpick our reaction to abuse is abuse itself, invalidation, gaslighting, self blame, self hate and self pathology. It leads to more anxiety and paranoia and neurosis, it is unhealthy to perform plastic surgery while there is no pathology to cure.
The difference between social anxiety and narcissism is that narcissist are concerned about confidence. Narcissist seek narcissistic supply in others and narcissist will seek admiration from others. When this does not happen, narcissist will feel social anxiety symptoms. Narcissists feel they are entitled to be admired for being special and better than others.
Comfort zone and challenge - this is logical fallacy. Think about it logically. IF stepping outside comfort zone works, then nations of third world countries would be prosperous, wealthy, they would be superior and strong and have solutions and plethora of highly functioning ideas and resolutions to any difficulties in life. They don't have it. The same logic is being in slums, around criminally insane, inside prison. If we believe comfort zone and danger is connected to improvement, prisons would be hotbed for scientists, engineers, philosophers, empaths, leaders and Mother Theresas and Ghandis.
Social anxiety is being victim of abuse, bullying and mobbing, there is toxic ambient and toxic people who are the cause of trauma. This means ignoring trauma leads to more trauma. Invalidation of trauma - by thinking it is confidence issue - is gaslighting and part of abuse.
Shyness and social inhibition is not the same as social anxiety. There is even difference between social anxiety and social anxiety disorder:
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Definition of egocentrism
: the quality or state of being egocentric : excessive interest in oneself and concern for one's own welfare or advantage at the expense of or in disregard of others
From the DK THE PSYCHOLOGY BOOK:
"Watzlawick famously stated he could not think of a single case in which someone changed as a result of a deepening understanding of self.
"The belief that one's own view of reality is the only reality is the most dangerous of all delusions"
Paul Watzlawick
Daniel Dennett — 'There's simply no polite way to tell people they've dedicated their lives to an illusion.'
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"these moment are very normal and everyone experiences them, especially in the early phases of their life and depending on how they live they can continue to occupy your mind to the later stages as well"
Interesting you say this,
because I created topic about this on main reddit social anxiety forum and my post got banned because people there objected that I am lying and this statement is not true at all.
Social anxiety is result of abuse, mobbing and bullying. It is being in job type of situation where other people yell and scream at you and you cannot run away - you stay and endure the abuse, attack and violence. That is social anxiety. It is being abused by toxic people - where toxic people, psychopaths, narcissistic abuse is the problem.
Trying to resolve and blame yourself - explaining that you must mediate is invalidation of such trauma. IT is gaslighting of target of abuse. Problem are toxic people, not our legitime reaction to abuse.
If we decide to self blame, self hate and self pathologize ourselves by thinking we can ignore abuse by mediation - we will add up to self abuse ourselves.
In short:
"Any attempt to dictate what thoughts, feelings, and sensations are proper or improper creates a breeding ground for guilt and shame"
Peter Levine
Public speaking is not social anxiety. This is separate anxiety and it is different from social anxiety even though symptoms may overlap.
IT seems to me that you mix up many social inhibitions and you lump them all together in one social anxiety. This is logical fallacy, oversimplification, availability heuristic and this confirmation bias leads to distortions, not seeking reality clearly. Like this:
"Overvaluing memories of others"
This can be separated in two different group of people.
1) Narcissist - they are concerned about other people but only to gain approval and validation from others, since narcissist seek narcissistic supply in others, that others appreciate them for being superior, it is feeling of entitlement that others must serve, obey and respect them for being better.
2) Socially anxious - they are concerned about other people but only to avoid punishment, violence, hurt and abuse. The only goal is to avoid attack, gaslighting, invalidation.
"People do not care"
Predators do care.
Narcissists care.
They care a lot, they want to humiliate others, this seeking errors in others is the source of their narcissistic supply.
They nitpick small and insignificant things - a lot. That is at the heart of narcissistic abuse.
"Do you think they have time to be awkward with casheer"
Yep.
They are mentally ill. There are truly mentally ill people like narcissists, aggressive borderliners, they mock others to get pleasure and sense of value by demeaning others. Bullies do this. Mobbing is comprised of this. There are sick people out there who are deliberately hurting others just for fun. If you negate this, you are part of abuse, you are adding invalidation and gaslighting ambient by using this effect:
"The ostrich effect is a cognitive bias that causes people to avoid information that they perceive as potentially unpleasant."
"expose, desensitize"
Nope.
Stepping outside comfort zone does not work either.
Think about it logically. If stepping outside comfort zone works then...
People in third world countries are way out of comfort zone - by the definition they would be now wealthy, technologically prosperous, with innumerous scientists, sportsmen, adventurers, tycoons etc. Or living at slums, around criminally insane people, prisons would be hotbed of progress by this definition. The key is in healthy environment, not in the risk or something that appears dangerous.
IF stepping outside comfort zone works, then nations of third world countries would be prosperous, wealthy, they would be superior and strong and have solutions and plethora of highly functioning ideas and resolutions to any difficulties in life. They don't have it. The same logic is being in slums, around criminally insane, inside prison. If we believe comfort zone and danger is connected to improvement, prisons would be hotbed for scientists, engineers, philosophers, empaths, leaders and Mother Theresas and Ghandis.
Check out A Clockwork Orange (1971) desensitization scene, you can find clip from this movie in my Movies videos.
If you are desensitized - you will not become strong. You will not become confident. You will simply become lobotomized.
This means, toxic people will exploit you and take advantage of you, and you will not feel anger, nor any negative emotion - you will allow them to hurt and steal from you. You will become people pleaser, pushover and fawn to toxic people and psychopaths out there.
There is scientific study that showed people without fears get swindled easy - they simply trust anyone and everyone.
For example,
Someone ask you your credit card pin - you feel no anxiety or fear - and you give them your card and pin just because this person may appear in your rationalization as your helpful friend or sex partner.
Trauma is healed by accepting and validation.
Nitpicking our legitimate reaction to abuse is trauma - ignoring and pretending there is no abuse is not healing anything.
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Social anxiety is part of Complex Trauma. It is result of abuse, bullying and mobbing. It is not hallucination. It is trauma stuck inside the body with triggers and flashbacks.
Public speaking is not social anxiety. It has overlap with social anxiety symptoms but it is different cause and it is not related to social anxiety at all.
Social anxiety is being in job type of situation where other people yell and scream at you and you cannot run away. That is social anxiety.
Problem is toxic ambient and toxic people.,
So to say that problem is us, it is road to self hate, self blame and self pathology. Toxic positivity will not solve abuse and trauma. It will make it worse.
Relax tip - this is all road to crap fitting into abuse and toxic ambient.
As Lundy Bancroft said:
"Abuse is NOT caused by bad relationship dynamics. You can't manage your partner's abusiveness by changing your behaviour. But he wants you to think you can."
"Any attempt to dictate what thoughts, feelings, and sensations are proper or improper creates a breeding ground for guilt and shame"
Peter Levine
Socially anxious already have superior communication skills due to empathy and kindness and openness that attracts toxic people in the first place.
Unfortunately medical industry is keeping social anxiety obfuscated since medical industry is being run by Pharma mafia, Trump like narcissists who are making huge money off human neurosis by selling drugs to self blame targets of abuse.
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"situation that trigger your fear"
This will not work if you are dealing with narcissist. They do not seek solution. They seek drama and conflict. You are convinced that this person wants to find solution - and they keep you hooked inside Karpman Drama Triangle where they invent problems and shift goal posts that you never can compete, complete. You become obsessed to please them - and they manipulate you to become pushover. Problem was never about social anxiety. The only and true problem are toxic people, abuse and narcissism.
The more we cut off toxic people, the healthier we will be.
With this attitude of choosing to accept social anxiety as alarm system that reveals and uncover covert narcissists - then "facing and exposing" will actually work.
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"just getting myself out their in the real world has helped tremendously my social anxiety."
This is proof you never had social anxiety at all.
You have narcissistic issues where you seek admiration from other people that you feel entitled to receive for being superior and more special than others.
Covert narcissist present themselves as help and service in order to gain appraisal and seek validation from others and then depend on it.
Social anxiety is product of trauma - it will not wear of by "real world" - instead it will become worse.
Social anxiety is trauma, trauma is healed by cutting toxic people off, especially covert narcissists.
---
Socially anxious people already have confidence and communication skills, it is buried inside like water on Mars.
Unfortunately CBT hides this facts because Pharma mafia is making huge money income by self pathologizing panic symptoms and this making money on human neurosis and victims of bullying and trauma. Hopefully they will be sued eventually and banned.
If we decide to self blame ourselves, self hate ourselves and to make us ourselves to believe we need to chisel our confidence - it will never happen. Thus this self pathology approach is huge money influx for internet gurus and corrupted therapy coaches.
Confidence is paradox. If you want it - you will overcompensate, you will never become truly confident, instead you build narcissistic mask.
Paradox is if we accept ourselves as we are with flaws and errors and not being perfectionist - we will become confident.
Money is great - however without friends, true love and deep connections, money cannot buy mental health. When you die, you will not take your money with you, only your experiences and memories - which will be empty if you are surrounded by fake people who love your money, not you.
Narcissists are preoccupied by money due to seeking higher status and seeking admiration, validation and appraisal from other people - which is called narcissistic supply. So instead of being authentic you become a mask that is producing money and status. In reality - this cannot be done without abuse and traumatizing other people and parasiting over other people.
Narcissists are parasites - they simply parasite over scared people who are afraid to push them back.
Darwin told us that aggressive, the most strongest species do not survive, instead those who are able to adapt will survive in the end.
If you decide that parts of yourself are sick and that you need to fix and modulate yourself - you will not become better nor superior, you will become super anxious instead, with hypervigilance issues and neurosis. This is when narcissists are afraid someone will take off their narcissistic mask. Self pathologizing is repetition of abuse, invalidation is part of toxic shame - deep core belief of being inept, unacceptable and disgusting, as any narcissist has this wound inside.
Narcissists do not understand empathy - so they do not understand that being normal good person means being kind and non violent to others - that is the basic worth. Instead narcissists seek admiration and validation from others through abuse, being unkind and abusive to others - and of course this adds up to toxic shame already internalized inside. Narcissists are not aware of being mentally ill and they will not seek help. Narcissists will be convinced that other people are sick, toxic, stupid, weird or basket case losers.
We can see this in politics with aggressive mentally ill narcissists like Trump and Putin or Jordan Peterson.
Truly socially anxious people are afraid of violent attack and verbal abuse. Being stranger or not.
Narcissist who mimic social anxiety feelings on the other hand are afraid of a mere talking to strangers due to narcissistic need to seek narcissistic supply, validation, approval and admiration from others.
Socially anxiety challenge is proof of narcissism - it is need to exploit other people, to use up other people for personal gain. It is like using up other people for own pleasure, then throwing them off like dirty cloth that we made dirty, we wiped our hands on them and trash them away after we are finished. IF you engage in communication with other people - then stay with them - communication is not using up other people and running away like coward when you are finished with your jollies. Narcissists cannot understand this, since they are mentally ill. Parts of their brain is not working - like any serial killer that cannot comprehend other people around. Instead other people are seen as object.
Trauma is not healed by letting go. The need and urge to address trauma is trauma itself.
There is a narcissistic belief that emotions are like people - object to use up, reject and throw off after we are finished.
Trauma is experience that is unfair but it can help us in future to learn how to detect toxic people. So it is not experience to throw off or block - it is learning experience that we can use to make ourselves feel safe and built normal healthy relationships that are not copy paste experience.
You cannot get out of that. There is no Fantasy solution - this is narcissistic belief.
In reality, bad things will happen. Negative and unknown situations will happen - it is part of life. IT is unrealistic to expect that we will never experience pain or hurt - especially it is not realistic to think that confidence will make us super human.
Urge to become super human is narcissism.
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Without social anxiety - we will not have alarm inside us when we are in the presence of toxic people, manipulators, covert narcissists, Machiavellians, predators, emotional vampires, parasites, bullies, aggressive borderliners. Instead we will normalize their abuse and then self blame ourselves for being crazy for being gaslighted, abused and taken advantage by them.
Anyone with basic knowledge of psychology knows that stifling down emotions is not healthy. In fact, this is very dangerous and it can lead to mental illness.
---
Obvious path to take is recognizing toxic people, learning about narcissistic abuse, recognizing covert narcissists, cutting them out from our lives and then puzzles will fall into place.
Any other approach (nitpicking our reactions as primary concern) is path to narcissism.
Socially anxious people are kind, nice, open, they have no hidden agenda - yet they feel heavy burden of toxic shame, guilt and blame - which is result of toxic people dumping their garbage on targets to keep control.
Anything other than this awareness leads to:
The self-absorption paradox describes the contradictory association whereby higher levels of self-awareness are simultaneously associated with higher levels of psychological distress and with psychological well-being.
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You are mixing up social anxiety and social anxiety disorder.
This is common mistake, because CBT and medical industry is deliberately keeping this issue muddled up - since this provides huge money influx from people who seek genuine help. Pharma mafia is making huge money on keeping neurosis unclear and mixed up.
Social anxiety disorder is based on hallucination that there is threat,
check out DSM:
DSM-5 Diagnostic Criteria with Diagnostic Features:
Marked fear or anxiety about one or more social situations in which the individual is exposed to possible scrutiny by others.
The individual fears that he or she will act in a way or show anxiety symptoms that will be negatively evaluated
The social situations almost always provoke fear or anxiety.
The social situations are avoided
The fear or anxiety is out of proportion to the actual threat posed by the social situation and to the sociocultural context.
The fear, anxiety, or avoidance is persistent, typically lasting for 6 months or more
The fear, anxiety, or avoidance causes clinically significant distress or impairment in social, occupational, or other important areas of functioning.
The fear, anxiety, or avoidance is not attributable to the physiological effects of a substance
The fear, anxiety, or avoidance is not better explained by the symptoms of another mental disorder, such as panic disorder, body dysmorphic disorder, or autism spectrum disorder.
If another medical condition (e.g., Parkinson disease, obesity, disfigurement from burns or injury) is present, the fear, anxiety, or avoidance is clearly unrelated or is excessive
If the fear is restricted to speaking or performing in public it is performance only social anxiety disorder.
Read DSM carefully.
It describes hallucination - that there is no actual abuse, there is no bullying and there is no mobbing and toxic people.
This is Paranoid Delusional disorder described here.
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You are one of the extremely rare social anxiety you tubers who really understand social anxiety. virtualhuggoodvibesthanksdocwashhands
I watched your video last year, you connected trauma with social anxiety - while most you tubers connect confidence issues as social anxiety. As if lack of confidence can be ruined without any reason.
I hope you will delve into realization that narcissistic abuse is motor that is moving social anxiety into panic mode. Especially covert narcissism (people who appear as friends, service or help, aggressive borderliners most common type).
CBT does not work. CBT muddles social anxiety along with social anxiety disorder, what they are doing is criminally insane - they do this deliberately to make money on human neurosis.
I see social anxiety as part of CompleX trauma. True problem are not our panic symptoms nor avoidance. True problem are toxic people and trauma from abuse that is locked and struck and stuck inside our body that gets activated via triggers and flashbacks, which is PTSD at its core. CBT labels these triggers and flashbacks as hallucination and then treat anxiety as hallucination, paranoid delusional disorder which they label as Social anxiety disorder -
and then they mix up social anxiety and social anxiety disorder into one entity.
They lump together real abuse and mobbing/bullying experience along with someone's mild case of schizophrenia.
DSM does not recognize Complex Trauma (CPTSD) since medical community in USA is corrupt, being run by Trump like mafia.
Anxiety is huge money resource for pharma mafia and it is endless source of income.
On the other side - ICD-11 recognizes CPTSD. ICD is created by WHO so there is no corporate influence over it.
Once we understand that social anxiety is trauma -
we can heal trauma, without self blame, without self hate, without toxic shame, without invalidation, without pretending that toxic people do not exist, without pretending that there is magical cure that will solve all problems in life, as CBT promotes to keep people hooked to drugs.
When we accept our panic symptoms which are scary and uncomfortable, ugly and disgusting - instead of self blame and self hate which CBT promotes - we can observe that true cause of these horror emotions are toxic people.
And then - solution is easy: cutting off toxic people. Plan to leave toxic job. Minimizing contact with toxic people. Ignoring , muting them, not engaging any more in Karpman Drama Triangle.
Humanistic psychology explains that we accept ourselves and focus on our goals, dreams - while CBT make us focus on panic symptoms and that we base our life goal in fighting fears. Fears are natural part of life. We cannot stifle fears away. Fears will warn and alert us what is toxic.
Personally I see cutting toxic people as effective tool to heal panic feelings that appear as social anxiety to us.
Before I believed that I have certain number of toxic people that I am allowed to cut.
I believed that I must have certain number of toxic people in order to grow. These are all lies from gaslighting and being in toxic ambient.
Unfortunately, many people will have hard time to understand this social anxiety concept - since it is connected with narcissism and we live in narcissistic society. Society in general is turned toward making profit, impressing other people, having a lot of material things to show off, having huge numbers of followers to feel validated without true connection.
I believe Social anxiety is Rosetta stone to any mental illness. All chaos, wars, disorder, chaos in the world stems from narcissism and when such people find non-effective, non functional ways to deal with feelings that mimic social anxiety: feelings related to feeling friendship, connection, love from others. Narcissist will try to gain warmth of social connection by abuse and grabbing it. It is easier to make people scared and use money to control others, or screaming or yelling to keep people subordinate and stuck in Karpman Drama Triangle. Understanding that toxic people are controlling us and that his control is causing social anxiety is shocking revelation - and CBT blocks this information -
since CBT is narcissistic tool created by narcissists for creating narcissism in the world: self blame, self hate, self pathology, invalidation and making narcissistic mask to exploit others and seek admiration from others.
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(30.8.2022)
If you have confusion and unclarity - write about that.
Think about it as being Sherlock Holmes or scientist in a laboratory - seek for clues, seek what is strange and unknown an what bothers you.
It is not about positive nor negative - it is about making it clear - to see what is going on.
It is like putting LED light in a dark room.
People with social anxiety have a lot of conflicting opinions, rules from external world, tyranny from inner critic. These are all not either positive nor negative - all these are very confusing and double binding messages. It helps to write about that, as if there is a court in your head and you are the judge - that must hear both sides.
Without writing, usually dominant fear is pouring thoughts of only one side - and we rarely are enlightened about unknown and unexplored areas - instead this dominant side explains life from tunnel vision.
This leads to anxiety, depression, panic, worry, confusion, egocentrism.
And yeah, it would help to educate yourself a lot about psychology and philosophy - there will be plenty ideas to write about.
---
I see inner critic as by-product of abuse, bullying and mobbing. I see it as injury, wound that is product of narcissistic abuse, like scar.
This means I accept it as etched grove in the brain, that will default to immobility and general catastrophizing about anything.
Accepting it like this helped me to shift focus easier - since it is true what Jung said : "What you resist, persist".
What I had issue is spirituality - why we were born in world that is obviously created by intelligent design - why abuse exists in such world?
What I realized is that yin yang dualism of the world allows aggressive mentally ill people like Trump to exist. These people will cause inner critic in normal, healthy, open, friendly, moral , ethical, empathic people, they will contagion people who are healthy with trauma.
Basically we learn psychology and use therapy to learn how to handle toxic people who need therapy and psychological supervision and that those people will never admit that they are mentally ill and they will never seek treatment. Purpose of psychology is to learn tools how to handle those toxic people.
Now spirituality comes into picture -
the purpose of evil is that we learn how to avoid it. And as Darwin said - to learn how to adapt to predators in order to survive.
In real life - this means to cut contact with toxic people.
Since we are good, normal, healthy, friendly, empathic, have high moral standards - the very fact that we maintain psychological hygiene - this will mean that we will attract plethora of toxic people.
So any experience with covert narcissist - is adding up to experience and learning how to recognize them, handle, tackle, minimize contact and avoid them. If we don't - the punishment will be inner critic.
Without inner critic - we would stay in the contact with dangerous, evil, toxic people and we would enable them.
They would hurt other people and we would be their flying monkeys.
So if I see inner critic as tool to deflect, cut contact and avoid toxic people - inner critic is something that I can accept, learn from and protect myself from evil people.
We are not aware of, but HSP attracts plethora of evil toxic people - they suck on our juices and we rationalize and normalize their evil behaviour - which is called "toxic altruism" or "toxic positivity" or "toxic empath". Inner critic is only alarm, alert system that we need to start taking care of ourselves by moving away from evil people -
whereas covert evil people, covert narcissist - aggressive borderliners are the worst of them all. They will appear as friend, help, service to us - and we will invite them in - and then they will abuse us and exploit our good nature. These need to go away.
I believe that we can test this immediately - and then see that toxic inner critic will fade and vanish, as soon as we start to take care of ourselves by cutting toxic narcissistic people off from our life, focus and decisions in life.
---
I dunno.
I would go more in direction of Humanistic psychology and Humanistic therapies.
This means accepting myself as I am.
Mindfulness leads to analysis which leads to paralysis. This is known as:
"The self-absorption paradox describes the contradictory association whereby higher levels of self-awareness are simultaneously associated with higher levels of psychological distress and with psychological well-being."
Instead of nitpicking myself - I would rather go with writing. That is best way to analyze without creating hysteria or self pathology ambient.
Let's see it logically: how people with lower IQ get by in life? How narcissist go along in life without feeling moral and ethical issues? How majority of group-think conformist fail Milgram Experiment and do not care that they hurt people in life just because someone in authority explained them it is ok to treat other people like garbage?
Well - all these people do not nitpick themselves. They have short attention span and they chase basic human needs like eating or chasing addictions.
Perhaps we can learn from such people who will never seek therapy even though they need it and even though they create psychological disorder in other people through their Trump like egocentric, totally selfish and violent ways.
This means -
to accept ourselves as we are.
With our perks, quirks, weirdness, particularities, annoyances, irritations, imperfections, being undone.
Because at the bottom line - we are kind, nice, open, friendly, empathic, without hidden evil agenda, we do not contemplate hurting other people, we do not gossip, we really have no reason to feel guilt, shame and blame that we bombard ourselves due to trauma lodged in our brain due to exposure to toxic people who will never ever seek psychological therapy which they desperately need.
I would go in direction of self validation, self acceptance, self love - and then naturally cut toxic people off from our lives -
and see our psychological health naturally rise to functional level. Without us nitpicking it nor making drama about our panic issues.
---
Self esteem and confidence is Hollywood invention. IT does not exist, it is myth.
If we have intelligence, if we are smart, if we have empathy, if we have moral code and ethical conduct - we won't feel good. Neither about life, nor about people - and especially with ourselves.
The course to "fix" confidence and self esteem is actually lobotomy. To become NPC Wojak, philosophical zombie without reaction, without negative emotions.
Even if we are really dumb and utterly stupid and thus we don't care about education - we would know basic psychological fact that stifling down emotions is not healthy at all. It is not healthy to hide, destroy, reject nor ignore our emotions - this idea to remove negative and hurtful emotions will create neurosis and eventually mental illness. We can see this in Jordan Peterson or any abused person who became abuser - like serial killers.
Ability to have brain and higher IQ means that we are able to realize that we are all stuck in Plato's cave.
We believe we are free and that we might be happy - but these are all shadows on the wall projected by movie industry and internet gurus and corrupt medical industry of pharma mafia like CBT which makes endless money influx by being drug pusher to people who seek genuine help for abuse.
Freud discovered that even though having intelligence will cause us pain and inner critic and panic - that there is still silver lining and ability to step out of Plato's cave.
Freud called it SuperEgo.
We have our brain that can help us follow our intuition, accept ourselves as we are with all our mistakes, follow our common sense and ethical and moral code - and try to make world better with tools we have at hand. Then this will make us feel better.
Not artificial tools that CBT promotes in order to sell money promising us fantasy salvation that does not exist in reality.
Quotes:
In most cases the man's life is about equally divided between happiness and unhappiness. When this is not the case the unhappiness predominates—always.
The Mysterious Stranger by Mark Twain
If you tell the truth, you don't have to remember anything.
MARK TWAIN
Sanity and happiness are an impossible combination.
MARK TWAIN, The Mysterious Stranger
No sane man can be happy, for to him life is real and he sees what a fearful thing it is. Only the mad can be happy, and not many of those.
The Mysterious Stranger (1916), Mark Twain
---
I see Humanistic psychology and Humanistic therapies as the only way to help people struggling with any kind of psychological issue.
Forcing them to culprit as CBT instructs will destroy people's ability to be authentic and turn them into philosophical zombie, NPC Wojak without own opinion, forever stuck with toxic shame and feeling of being inept and inferior.
Mindfulness in Humanistic psychology is based on self acceptance and that each person decides the process -
which paradoxically may involve choosing not to be mindful.
The idea is to explore, discover and experiment with what each person stuck in Plato's cave experience and see what helps to them in their own cave which is different from other people and advice for majority may not work for certain individuals at all - in fact it can cause more damage due to specific ambient that they are situated in.
This is why I prefer Humanistic therapies over CBT.
CBT is conformism, group-think and herd mentality, factory mode while we need custom-made suit to deal with trauma which is behind any psychological issue.
---
Humanistic psychology works as oppose narcissistic tool CBT.
I use this Peter Levine quote in my you tube comments a lot to bring awareness about it in social anxiety videos where there is CBT instruction to lump a mere narcissism along with socially anxious traumatized individuals, thus producing more fears-
"Any attempt to dictate what thoughts, feelings, and sensations are proper or improper creates a breeding ground for guilt and shame"
Peter Levine
You can see the genius in Peter Levine.
This guy knows psychology.
First he clearly makes distinction between chronic traumatized fear as oppose to be in situation of abuse, bullying and mobbing.
CBT lumps these fears together and creates confusion and psychological damage with wrong instructions.
Second, he demonstrates Jung repressed Self - which is part of trauma and fears - because when we experience abuse, bullying and mobbing which is behind any trauma and any psychological issue - the first victim is our child self -
and without repressed parts we cannot cope with life. We need to have all our parts active and alive and brought into awareness.
CBT on the other hand works only on building False Self, False Persona and fake mask, or narcissism, narcissistic mask.
----
First make distinction -
what is the main theme of complex fears?
1) if the fear related to you being punished, hurt, attacked by toxic people?
OR
2) is the fear related to you being perceived in wrong way by other people?
The first one is trauma - and it is Complex PTSD. Check out information available for CPTSD.
The second one is narcissism, it is egocentrism and it is sign of mental illness that is more in aspect of mild schizophrenia, Paranoid Delusional disorder where drugs are necessary since the subject will rarely seek help or recognize the sickness on its own.
The first one will self blame, self hate and self pathologize - where the "cure" is to start "blaming" others and cutting contact with toxic people.
The second ones blame others, attack others and are rude to others - where the "cure" is to self blame, self pathologize and self hate virus of trauma inside that is causing the disorder.
CBT lumps these together, does not make any distinction and thus created severe psychological damage to anyone seeking help.
---
"but what do you do when you want to try these things, but feel resentful toward your own "inner child"? Is there a way to repair that connection?"
Discover your repressed self and bring it out in the open.
Usually these are annoyances and irritations that we notice in other people. Nothing scary and nothing damaging - it just annoys us. That is our repressed self.
I learned that my repressed self is character in form of Sandra Bernhard - loud, obnoxious, yet in the same time without violence or narcissism. It is being authentic and honest within reasonable taste.
When we were traumatized as children, we repressed such parts of ourselves which narcissistic ambient labeled as loud, obnoxious, feminine, gay, weak, silly, stupid, unworthy, unacceptable - but in reality it was not nothing pathological nor dangerous.
Seek those parts and bring them out in daily routine.
For socially anxious these are parts that are repressed - which are needed in situations when we are being bullied, mobbed or attacked - without our shadow self, we shut up and self censor ourselves and we keep afraid what will other people think about us if we say something stupid - and this way toxic people take advantage of our immobility and silence. If we had repressed self active and alive - we would embarrass ourselves and speak back to bullies and toxic people, we would cut contact with them.
With repressed mentality we stay inside Karpman Drama Triangle and then we normalize abuse and abusive people as "part of life", something that is ok and needed which is basically Stockholm syndrome or trauma bonding.
CBT instructs fearful individuals to expose and to not avoid toxic people - thus keeping repressed self to be even more repressed. CBT ought to be banned. Humanistic psychology is the only healthy way.
---
(31.8.2022)
"Thinking is unnatural? Idk about that lol thinking is natural. Like if I’m playing FIFA 22 and I pick the same players "
Thinking related to playing video games is not thinking at all.
That is animal, predatory strategy.
Check out movie called The Island of Dr. Moreau (1977) , you can find it in my playlist Movies.
In this scene it is described what happens to human thoughts when it is transferred into animal:
"The way you think is changing.
Words become meaningless. Except for the most elementary command"
Mark Twain discovered that higher awareness, thinking process brings misery and depression. He said in The Mysterious Stranger (1916) , also in my videos:
"“Well, I will tell you, and you must understand if you can. You belong to a singular race. Every man is a suffering-machine and a happiness-machine combined. The two functions work together harmoniously, with a fine and delicate precision, on the give-and-take principle. For every happiness turned out in the one department the other stands ready to modify it with a sorrow or a pain—maybe a dozen. In most cases the man's life is about equally divided between happiness and unhappiness. When this is not the case the unhappiness predominates—always; never the other. Sometimes a man's make and disposition are such that his misery-machine is able to do nearly all the business. Such a man goes through life almost ignorant of what happiness is. Everything he touches, everything he does, brings a misfortune upon him. You have seen such people? To that kind of a person life is not an advantage, is it? It is only a disaster. Sometimes for an hour's happiness a man's machinery makes him pay years of misery."
Today this phenomena is explained as:
"The self-absorption paradox describes the contradictory association whereby higher levels of self-awareness are simultaneously associated with higher levels of psychological distress and with psychological well-being."
Basically this is choice for every human:
1) either be lobotomized NPC Wojak, playing FIFA game and spend life on it and be happy in Plato's prison amusing yourself with shadows in the wall, go along with herd mentality and group-think in order to avoid any responsibility in life by using your brain - along with hope for being lucky non-toxic ambient without narcissists and Machiavellians who will use your limited mindset
or
2) use your brain and be anxious, develop panic, anxiety attacks, unhappiness - yet knowing what deeper meaning of life.
From this perspective, thinking is unnatural to humans: since thinking brings mental issues, mental instability, depression which is price for being aware and independent and basically strong and immune to corruption and manipulation.
If a man is to be liked, he must really be inferior in point of intellect.
- Schopenhauer
Arthur Schopenhauer:
“A high degree of intellect tends to make a man unsocial.”
---
My experience with social anxiety spanning from 1989 until now is that social anxiety is obfuscated by medical industry. It is deliberately muddled, so that people are confused about it.
Mixing social phobia as old chronological label with social anxiety and then mixing social anxiety disorder does not help at all.
Social anxiety by definition is fear of criticism and negative evaluation. That's it. There is this deep fear of criticism.
What medical industry is keeping quiet is that people afraid of criticism can be divided into two groups:
1) socially anxious who are afraid of punishment
2) people who mimic social anxiety and inhibitions are related to perception of other people - via loss of admiration aka narcissistic supply.
Check this out on your clients.
Ask them what are they afraid - at the core.
What their fear is based on.
What is the worst case scenario that is at the bottom of the social anxiety fear?
Is it that they will be hurt by others through aggression OR are they afraid of status.
The latter ones are narcissists and they hide their true distortions behind acting as victim - they provide false narrative and medical industry believe their lies. Narcissists and aggressive bordeliners mimic social anxiety symptoms to gain sympathy and to manipulate others.
Trauma is at the bottom of any psychological disorder - this was discovered in 2002 by proposed Trauma model. however medical industry stifled this information down.
DSM does not recognize Complex Trauma,
while ICD-11 (by WHO) recognize Complex trauma - where social anxiety is described as its symptom:
"Persistent beliefs about oneself as diminished, defeated or worthless, accompanied by deep and pervasive feelings of shame, guilt or failure related to the stressor. For example, the individual may feel guilty about not having escaped from or succumbing to the adverse circumstance, or not having been able to prevent the suffering of others.
Persistent difficulties in sustaining relationships and in feeling close to others. The person may consistently avoid, deride or have little interest in relationships and social engagement more generally. Alternatively, there may be occasional intense relationships, but the person has difficulty sustaining them."
I guess Pharma mafia is making huge money from selling drugs for condition which is explained as hallucination while in reality that can be explained and healed as trauma.
The treatment for these two groups who exhibit social anxiety symptoms are totally different and CBT offers basically lobotomy, self hate and self pathology treatment.
I see that Humanistic psychology will work better for truly socially anxious.
I see that CBT lumps various social inhibitions into issue with hallucination:
1) Shyness - it is feeling social threat feelings at some social event, but social fear wear off quickly and shy person is not bothered by it again
2) Social anxiety - it is feeling of social threat before the event, during event and after event. Fears do not wear off and you keep ruminating about it. This is due to trauma, condition called CPTSD and it is not hallucination neither delusion nor illusion.
3) Social anxiety disorder - it is feeling of social threat at safe events, when you know that person around you will not harm you. For example in safe, empty room, and you are with Oprah or Mandela or Mother Theresa or Gandhi - the safest person you can ever imagine - but you still feel threat that they might harm you. This condition is part of Paranoid Delusional Disorder, and only 1% of population has it.
4) Narcissistic disorder - it is feeling of social threat triggered when someone warns and alarms you for being intrusive. Due to confirmation bias you are not realizing that you are rude and arrogant and intrusive - so you conclude that you feel social anxiety due to unknown reason from random people.
5) Autistic disorder - you live in your world and you are not aware that you appear threatening to people, for example you do not say Hi to them or smile back to them. So you feel social anxiety because you feel tense and awkward in social situations and you have no idea why.
6) Performance anxiety - when you feel social fears when performing in public
CBT lumps all these as hallucination in order to make it easier. However oversimplifications leads to distortions.
So CBT is using cognitive distortion - over-generalization paradoxically to explain social anxiety as cognitive distortion.
There is Jane Elliott's Blue Eyes, Brown Eyes experiment, exercise - that showed that social settings can influence the targets.
There is Narcissistic abuse: Long-Term Narcissistic Abuse Can Cause Brain Damage.
There is Stanford prison experiment where it is shown that targets of abuse in toxic ambient where they cannot escape from will develop extreme social anxiety.
There is Skinner's box and Little Albert experiment which shows that people can be conditioned and initiated into social anxiety.
So for example,
you mentioned "neglect from parents" which is obvious Complex Trauma issue -
the question is how is this problem with social anxiety. What the person is afraid of?
One girl at social anxiety reddit forum told me she was not afraid of criticism at all, neither negative evaluation - instead she was afraid of other people realizing she was fake and abandoning her.
This is typical Borderline issue (fear of abandonment). She was using social anxiety symptoms to mimic social anxiety to gain sympathy from easy targets, empaths - so that they shut up to her when she starts to make demands and display irrational mood swings as learned in trauma. She does not care about other people, she only mimics the empathy in focused way. That is narcissism.
Truly socially anxious people are afraid of other people due to hurt and pain that they may cause to them. So advice intended for borderline - who will be aggressive towards others cannot work for truly socially anxious person who is afraid verbal or physical abuse at all.
Yet CBT lumps these social fears together in one entity: hallucination.
Then truly socially anxious person will develop toxic shame, invalidation, more anxiety, self hatred, self pathology. While borderliner will develop goals to impress other people more - by pretending to be shy.
Both narcissist and socially anxious person will be instructed to expose. Narcissist will ignore own abuse and toxic behaviour as hallucination- they will rationalize their abuse as "being tough" and "having backbone" and "Standing up for oneself" which will fuel mood swings. While truly socially anxious person will develop people pleasing and fawning - since truly socially anxious person will not receive any advice about toxic people - CBT will explain that toxic people do not exist. CBT won't explain how to recognize red flags of narcissist and how to handle mobbing and bullying at all -
CBT will instruct to be assertive - which is the worst possible advice to handle covert narcissists and aggressive borderliners who love endless arguments without reaching solutions-
I would break social anxiety - into 2 groups:
truly socially anxious who are victims of abuse and narcissist who are abusing others - and then work on that.
Anything other than that, CBT approach will not help anyone. As it does not help.
---
"Have you been able to overcome any of this since 1989?"
In late 1990s I started to get therapy and read self help books. At the time I did get job and I was convinced that social anxiety is gone because I was exposing myself everyday. After 20 years I realized that exposure did not help, I simply developed people pleasing and fawning as tools to cope -
and for past 2 years I made introspection.
I realized that social anxiety is part of Complex Trauma.
IT is feeling of being trapped in toxic job with people screaming and yelling at you, and you cannot run away - social anxiety is experiencing mobbing and bullying. It is about being in toxic ambient without ability to escape.
I realized that many people with narcissistic injury are hiding behind social anxiety and they mimic social anxiety - and this is causing a lot of problems to everyone - including therapists since they are unable to differentiate narcissistic injury from trauma injury. I think official CBT was based on faulty research in 1990s which did not include socially anxious - instead test subjects were experiencing shyness (which can be "cured" with exposure) and narcissists (which CBT made to believe that fears and anxiety are hallucinations).
My social anxiety was so severe I would not express my opinion even when someone was accusing me of something I did not do - I would not defend myself. With Complex Trauma information I learned this is called trauma bonding and External reference locus of control and Amygdala hijacking and Emotional dysregulation.
With trauma information and humanistic therapies, I am accepting social anxiety -
I no longer see it as something to overcome neither cure nor reject or to be ashamed about.
Instead I see trauma and after-effect of mobbing and bullying as the only problem that needs healing. With healing trauma, socializing will balance itself out, naturally without my interventions as CBT instructs.
With bullying and mobbing information I realize that I can cut toxic people. With trauma I was afraid to do that - and then I would be stuck with toxic people and this only made social anxiety worse.
I see that Inner Self is the first victim of bullying and mobbing - where narcissist attacks others through toxic shame.
Which means the anti-dote to social anxiety and trauma is self acceptance and self validation.
CBT is doing the opposite - CBT is instructing to reject social anxiety as external element - and this is creating toxic shame, as Peter Levine said:
"Any attempt to dictate what thoughts, feelings, and sensations are proper or improper creates a breeding ground for guilt and shame."
Peter A. Levine
CBT will instruct to do exposure and not to avoid people - where truly socially anxious individuals are set up to be subservient to others, which means exposure is wrong approach.
If I accept social anxiety - then I would go along with instinct - and I believe that trauma did not break us - instead trauma made us aware of predators, our smoke alarm detector is not broken - it is now fine tuned to detect predators and manipulators at very minute level. I would not label this ability as hallucination and I would not reject this. If we reject our mind, we will create Civil war inside our head, that is not healthy. To detect predators is not pathology. Pathology would be if I have hidden agenda to hurt and harm other people. Pathology would be if I am violent and if I use up other people and to morally wrong things. Detecting toxic people is not pathology - and social anxiety is basically that - detection of toxic people.
I see that then our task is to become Sherlock Holms, or scientist and place our findings in laboratory - seek for clues and evaluate the evidence and facts to see what is going on and what level toxicity there is.
Without trust in our instinct, we become passive observers and we rely on other people to explain us reality - which leads to trauma bonding and toxic shame issues.
If I see that I am not evil person - why I would not trust myself and accept myself along with panic and uncomfortable feelings that I feel which CBT labels as hallucination and something to self-pathologize?
I see that CBT approach has issues with Sorites paradox - which means that CBT does not recognize Fuzzy logic. Instead CBT is using cognitive distortion - black and white thinking to explain reality.
So CBT instructs us to see other people as good - and our fears as wrong. In reality there is a degree. There are no absolutes, there is no polarization. Since there is no way to label something as being 100% of its label - the only way we can explain reality is to trust ourselves and our instinct.
If we cannot trust ourselves we will develop toxic shame and trauma bonding with other people - and I believe that CBT is doing this - CBT is creating ambient of conformism and group think where no individuality is allowed, so it is basically fascism.
It is easier to control masses if people are not allowed to express themselves.
And not being able to express oneself is basic definition of both trauma and abuse.
I go with the Wu Wei approach where I accept myself first and then upgrade without inner resistance when I feel ready - for example,
I like Glasser and Aron who said:
"Improving our relationships is improving our mental health."
William Glasser
---
Narcissists make up their fantasy world. They shift goals. They project and gaslight. They use plethora of weapons to obfuscate reality and they create conflict without natural inclination to find solution.
On the other hand, empaths and trauma victims are programmed to find solutions at any cost - and this makes these two polar opposite mindset entities to trauma bond, attract each other like a glue.
The narcissist is mentally ill, they are not aware of being sick and they attack others, they are dangerous.
Empaths and HSPs and trauma victims are the only ones here who can do something about it - not joining into Karpman Drama Triangle, and by cutting toxic people: ignoring, muting, minimizing contact, shut door, blocking is the only way.
Problem is when we are stuck due to any reason with narcissists.
Unless they are physically violent - our weapons to use is: 1) documentation. Tape, make evidence of anything, record. If they kill us or end up in court, at least that there is written evidence how they treated us. Look at Johnny Depp and Amber - without his evidence, he would lose his life now due to his aggressive borderliner.
2) criticize back, criticizing is hitting their narcissistic wound and limiting narcissistic supply - criticism is a form of saying no.
This means to face them with cold facts, objective reality - their wrongdoings being stated out loud and repeated - since they will try to deflect it. Facing them with their crimes. Facing them with what they done wrong. Retort.
Of course, they will have plethora of temper tantrums, violence and aggression and hysteria to defend their narcissistic wound being triggered - and we have to simply repeat what they done wrong. This is why keeping record of evidence is crucial. And no, they will never ever admit that they were wrong. They will never say sorry unless there is some gain for them by doing so.
This is another of their wrongdoing that can be spoken out by us.
In the end, the best and only solution is moving away from such people, permanently.
---
If you need to be assertive, this means there is narcissist on the other side who is pretending to not know what is going on.
Us being assertive means that we will try to find solution with person who is not interested in finding resolutions.
This is definition of Karpman Drama Triangle, trauma bonding - where we seek their approval and validation and where we see ourselves as Crusaders - which means we were hypnotized into Karpman Drama Triangle as Rescuer, Bully or Victim.
The only way is to be honest and authentic always - not only to be stern and assertive at certain moments.
It is about being expressive without self-censorship, yet without need to harm anyone in the process of telling the truth (it is not about shaming someone for mistake and causing them to suffer as punishment for unintentional mistakes of flaws or ignorance).
Person who is making deliberate mistakes and pretend to have ignorance - is manipulation by toxic person. We are being controlled by someone if we choose to stay inside that sick communication.
The only way is to cut contact with toxic people.
Anything else is playing along with manipulation by narcissistic, toxic people into their web of deceit where we are made into avatar to play by their need to make conflict and drama, where they parasite over emotions, since toxic people such as narcissists are sadistic, mentally ill and enjoy in suffering.
---
Great tip!
However I would make Precaution note.
To be assertive with sadistic person in authority means we need to have requirements before:
Money and shelter.
Narcissistic people cannot handle someone who is not afraid of them, someone who is not fawning to them. It will most likely end up with you being transferred or fired -
we need to be aware that we live in cruel, deceptive, Trump-like world where toxic people are in managerial seats. This is why the planet is full of wars and climate destruction - because we are passive and take in their abuse so that we can make money to impress these same mentally ill people.
We can have less money and still enjoy life, without mentally ill people to abuse us.
----
Excellent topic.
Why would you take advice anyway?
IF you need to take someone's advice this means you do not trust yourself to begin with.
You see and seek other people to explain your reality.
This is definition of External referencing locus of control (google it). It is trauma bonding, it is recipe for Codependency. At the heart of codependency is lack of self love - where we do not trust our Self, we do not trust our intuition, where we have toxic shame internalized - and thus we depend on other people to explain us our reality and we feel good when we are validated by them - and we are unsure of our own decisions in life. We feel good only when there is herd mentality, groupthink and conformism.
I would challenge your need to get someone's advice in the first place.
There is a difference between general information, set of tools to use - and decisions you make based on this information and tools.
CBT is based on giving specific instructions and advice. CBT will force socially anxious people to expose and to ignore abuse. In reality this ends up with socially anxious people becoming pushovers and people pleasers stuck in abusive communication and relationships.
On the other hand psychology itself is plethora of information - where we are the ones who decide to use it. This information is not advice, it is fact that can be used accordingly.
Codependent people fuse this concept and cannot differentiate between fact and advice since they do not trust themselves, their gut feeling, and codependents due to trauma were raised in toxic shame - basic belief that they cannot trust themselves and that any mistake is catastrophe and proof of basic fault in character.
Therefore for anyone who is still seeking "advice" I would turn your focus inside, heal toxic shame, experience internal locus of control (google it) - and let go of perfectionism (which is basically mental illness imposed and imprinted onto us by narcissistic toxic sadistic mentally ill abusers).
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Comfort zone is marketing ploy.
If comfort zone concept was real, third world countries would be abundant and wealthy.
The only problem are toxic people, toxic ambient, toxic habits. Get rid of those, and we will flourish.
---
I use this Exercise in my weekly Social anxiety commentary on You tube.
CBT is unwittingly using discrimination against anyone feeling social anxiety and I try to bring awareness that self-absorption approach leads to self-pathology and low self esteem, it adds up to more anxiety on the top of existing one.
The same process in videos about pushovers, people pleasing, self esteem and comfort zone. Usually most you tubers will use toxic shame to make targets feel ashamed for who they are and they ought to change. Unwittingly this approach is creating discrimination and self pathology. The same way as blue eyes kids showed poor results after the abuse and discrimination.
The basic division between psychology of people is narcissism and empathy.
Narcissist feel self entitled and don't care about other people, the only focus is self pleasure and quick gain in anything.
Empaths care about other people and harmony and finding solutions.
When trauma happens, these two groups go into disorder and extremes. What happens is empaths develop people pleasing and victim mentality, learned helplessness - being hypnotized and conditioned into it. While narcissist develop urge to take advantage others and exploit them- both groups after trauma develop codependency, a severe lack of self love -
empaths then display lack of self love by seeking safety and avoiding punishment as primary concern, main goal.
And narcissist display lack of self love by abuse, creating control and sadism and punishing others, gaslighting and living in fantasy world where they depend on admiration from others to survive hidden anguish.
The solution for empaths is to cut contact with toxic people - where CBT instructs socially anxious to expose and to not avoid toxic people - the worst possible advice to abused individuals.
Also, I see toxic shame culture countries (google this on map) are poor countries - for example the Balkans and most Asian and African countries - are full of crime and corruption because society is full of hate and hatred and prejudices and bias - based on hate itself.
I believe that people who experience social anxiety have high moral standards, high ethical principles and as such are primary target for bullying and abuse and mobbing - where they are repeatedly discriminated against and thus subjected to toxic ambient. System where someone is hated because of speaking the truth - leads to toxic ambient and discrimination. It is being judged on how someone's look, what is their color of their skin - instead of physical color - socially anxious people are judged and discriminated against based on their mindset and truth that they speak out. CBT defines social anxiety as hallucination. That socially anxious people are over-reacting and that they are imagining the abuse. In the same time, CBT does not give any advice how to handle abuse, bullying nor mobbing. CBT instructs socially anxious people to be assertive - which is the worst possible advice to people who attract covert narcissists and manipulators -since abusers like endless arguments without solution and without resolving arguments.
CBT ought to be banned.
---
This discrimination repeats itself in all pores of society.
Treat one another kindly. If someone is abusive we have to first analyze irritation and abuse that we perceive.
The chances are that the abuse is imaginary for narcissistic people - who feel entitled - these individuals will feel attacked by anyone and then attack others as pre-emptive strike - thus creating toxic ambient. We see that in politics with Trump.
On the other hand empaths have conditioned self blame and self hate that this attack is turned inwards through toxic shaming - which attracts toxic people such as narcissist who parasite over their inferiority complex.
Problem starts when empaths start to seek help and therapy - and then CBT instructs them that they are imagining threat and they ought to expose to toxic people -
which ends up with empaths being abuses and treated as blue eyes people in Jane's exercise by the whole system - both by therapy who is suppose to help and by toxic people whom empaths attract like moth to a flame.
This is why this Exercise is important to realize that when we judge and have bias - that we do not listen to others.
Abuse, bullying and mobbing are experience of Jane's exercise and primary motor is that truth is being stifled down and minority is not allowed to talk and speak up.
So the message to empaths is - speak up, talk, be honest, state the facts and cut contact with toxic people. Do not yell back at them, arguing will not change them. We cannot control other people - we can only show and demonstrate so that abusers start to be aware that they are abusing and that they are abusers. Since narcissism is mental illness - they are not aware that they are abusive.
Speaking the facts and being objective and cutting contact with toxic people is road to self love and healing.
Narcissists are parasites - they leech of discriminated group. Staying in abusive relationship (job or intimate one) is feeding the parasite. Parasites cannot live on their own, they are parasites, they requite the host to live and to survive. Narcissists live on narcissistic supply. Their narcissistic supply is entitlement and adoration and admiration. Empathy stay stuck in codependency due to conditioned belief of inferiority complex.
This is why Jane Elliott's exercise is eye opener to anyone who is or was abused, traumatized and received unfair treatment -
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" In healing the wound, the inner critic can be transformed into a positive force"
I agree.
Yep, that is what I am talking about too, however
I see it as 6 , you see it as 9,
we are standing on opposite side, seeing the same thing, describing it from our past background, cultural background - but it is the same thing.
I believe if you really delve into PureOCD , deep beneath the chunk of iceberg that is seen on the surface, and see that actually many psychological issues which are caused by society, you would come to see it from my perspective:
There is Jane Elliott's Blue Eyes, Brown Eyes experiment, exercise - that showed that social settings can influence the targets.
There is Narcissistic abuse: Long-Term Narcissistic Abuse Can Cause Brain Damage.
There is Stanford prison experiment where it is shown that targets of abuse in toxic ambient where they cannot escape from will develop extreme social anxiety.
There is Skinner's box and Little Albert experiment which shows that people can be conditioned and initiated into social anxiety.
To see inner critic or any psychological issue as war and Crusade or anything to fight, Jung said what we resist will persist.
If we decide to go into Civil war with our reactions to trauma, programmed and conditioned thoughts, and I am talking from my own experience of 30 years trying to wage war against intrusive thoughts before I know they were called inner critic or PureOCD, is that this action leads to self-pathologizing - brain will flag any military operation as danger -
and this means only more intrusive thoughts, more pureOCD, more hypervigilance, more anxiety, more inner critic, more shoulds, more dysregulation.
---
This fuzzy definition of social anxiety is serious problem with DSM and medical system in America that is designed to make money profit on neurosis (Pharma mafia). Thus, social anxiety is purposely muddled and made unclear by the system that ought to give clarity.
For example,
Historically we can see that name change from social phobia - which many people are convinced is separate disorder from social anxiety.
Unfortunately we live in sick, deceptive society built on racism, discrimination, limited power to certain groups of entitled individuals narcissists like Trump.
Social anxiety overlaps with more than one condition. In fact, any mental imbalance will lead to avoidance, withdrawal and inhibition as the first symptom.
Social anxiety by definition is fear of criticism and negative evaluation.
Social anxiety itself is not sickness - it is part of being human. For example, without social anxiety we would live like ancient Greek philosopher Diogenes who refused to obey social norms. Without social anxiety we would not be considerate to other people.
So, social anxiety feelings come in many flavors, with many different causes and different ways to tackle it.
This is what I mean:
CBT lumps various social inhibitions into issue with hallucination:
1) Shyness - it is feeling social threat feelings at some social event, but social fear wear off quickly and shy person is not bothered by it again
2) Social anxiety - it is feeling of social threat before the event, during event and after event. Fears do not wear off and you keep ruminating about it. This is due to trauma, condition called CPTSD and it is not hallucination neither delusion nor illusion.
3) Social anxiety disorder - it is feeling of social threat at safe events, when you know that person around you will not harm you. For example in safe, empty room, and you are with Oprah or Mandela or Mother Theresa or Gandhi - the safest person you can ever imagine - but you still feel threat that they might harm you. This condition is part of Paranoid Delusional Disorder, and only 1% of population has it.
4) Narcissistic disorder - it is feeling of social threat triggered when someone warns and alarms you for being intrusive. Due to confirmation bias you are not realizing that you are rude and arrogant and intrusive - so you conclude that you feel social anxiety due to unknown reason from random people.
5) Autistic disorder - you live in your world and you are not aware that you appear threatening to people, for example you do not say Hi to them or smile back to them. So you feel social anxiety because you feel tense and awkward in social situations and you have no idea why.
6) Performance anxiety - when you feel social fears when performing in public
CBT lumps all these as hallucination in order to make it easier. However oversimplifications leads to distortions.
So CBT is using cognitive distortion - over-generalization paradoxically to explain social anxiety as cognitive distortion.
There is Jane Elliott's Blue Eyes, Brown Eyes experiment, exercise - that showed that social settings can influence the targets.
There is Narcissistic abuse: Long-Term Narcissistic Abuse Can Cause Brain Damage.
There is Stanford prison experiment where it is shown that targets of abuse in toxic ambient where they cannot escape from will develop extreme social anxiety.
There is Skinner's box and Little Albert experiment which shows that people can be conditioned and initiated into social anxiety.
I have been living with social anxiety since 1989,
all this information is not me pontificating or proving anyone wrong - these are all basic facts about social anxiety that is not available to the public due to corrupt system we live in, which ironically is causing social anxiety itself.
Without clarity - we are like in a dark room, bumping on the objects inside it, we do not know what is inside and we get hurt by walking around it.
The dark room needs LED light, enlightenment, facts and definitions - which current DSM is not providing for social anxiety.
---
Easy tip: start cutting toxic people, toxic habits, toxic ambient. It works wonders.
Narcissists are afraid of this because other targets are their narcissistic supply, they are parasites.
Empaths are industrious, empaths are creators, we are programmed to depend on other people - in reality we can do it all alone, without anyone's help as we were hypnotized to believe.
---
(2.9.2022)
1 - understand toxic people are unique, different, unable to handle tough situations.
Say it like it is - they are narcissist and have narcissistic wound
2 - don't be victim
Femicide statistics says confrontation with covert narcissist is dangerous
3 - surround ys with positive people
What if there are no positive people around
4 - defusing conflict rationally. Listen, suspend judgement, no assumption, understand what they feeling, find common ground.
Toxic people do not seek resolution.
5 - let know what you expect
They do not care. They do not want resolution. They want drama. They do not listen.
6 - handling criticism constructively. set boundaries. Be assertive.
This is recipe for Karpman Drama Triangle, it does not work in real life situations. Cut contact is the only way.
7 - address issue directly. sometimes they are unaware.
What? They know very well, they only act they don't know.
This video is to crap fit into abuse and narcissistic abuse.
---
I learned that culprit behind any anxiety, hypervigilance, intrusive worry - are toxic people, toxic habits, toxic environment - the common denominator are toxic people - narcissists. Someone who is abusive, controlling.
Anything else is crap fitting into abuse or narcissism itself -
if we do not pinpoint problem as manipulator who is using Dark psychology such as gaslighting or projecting, we will feel anxiety without knowing from where it comes. True anxiety for empaths come from danger from toxic people who use control and punishment to abuse their targets.
If we are concerned about entitlement issues (constant complaining about everything) - that is narcissism, belief to be special and unique and other people are here to be subservient to us. Narcissism is covert hidden mental illness and all narcissists are not aware that they are mentally ill - and in fact they blame others.
Paranoid Delusional also can work up anxiety - I would not mix them in here, since mild schizophrenia cannot be healed by video. Problem is mechanical.
"Get a new one" is crappy advice.
People with anxiety issues and abuse - cannot get a new one for whatever reason. Codependency and fawning does not make it easier in this process to get new one.
To get a new one is very patronizing and narcissistic advice, pontificating others gives sense of worth to the Rescuer.
I have no idea why people are so hard to be supportive, validating, why is it do hard to validate other people's pain? That is true mental illness - inability to have empathy which is not focused nor mimicked.
----
I would not go into the direction of self-pathologizing. Unfortunately CBT is promoting self-hate approach due to pharma mafia that makes huge money influx from human neurosis.
We can easily get lost with DSM and focusing on our symptoms - with belief that we are weird, different and that panic or hypervigilance is endemic for anxiety. It is not. If we start to nitpick our detail thoughts, this will lead to:
"The self-absorption paradox describes the contradictory association whereby higher levels of self-awareness are simultaneously associated with higher levels of psychological distress and with psychological well-being."
So it may be good to remind ourselves what is pathology?
In early days of psychiatry it was noted that hysteria was sickness, by Charcot.
"One condition in particular was puzzling doctors. They called it hysteria: violent fits. Charcot begun to use new approach: hypnosis. Charcot found that he could deduce and relieve symptoms of hysteria using hypnosis."
documentary BBC : The Story of Science: Who Are We?
With CBT we tend to make ourselves into freaks, which leads to toxic shame, ingrained deep belief we are unacceptable and inept to handle life since we have feelings and reactions to abuse and toxic people.
CBT is doing this because CBT is based on narcissism and it was created by narcissists - who deflect the blame for abuse onto targets.
Avoidance, social anxiety - it is all Complex Trauma, experience of invalidation and abuse - avoidance is natural by-product of Complex Trauma, which ICD-11 describes:"
If we get focused on our thoughts and handle them as danger, we will create allergy - reaction to nothing dangerous.
We experienced mental illness from mental ill people around us - avoidance is reaction to abnormal situations and abnormal people.
To believe that our thoughts are pathology, we will continue that same abuse and invalidation.
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My comments are always about general idea. It is not instruction neither command. Since you chosen to interpret my comment as direct order to you - it just proves that Complex Trauma is behind avoidance, you project your anger onto me - and thus you make me into enemy. All trauma response.
Your life, your choice.
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(5.9.2022)
Social anxiety is not the same as Social anxiety disorder.
SAD is diagnosed by medical personnel under surveillance and observation - to exclude many overlapping disorders and causes.
When something is wrong with physical or mental health - the first sign is avoidance and isolation.
Pharma mafia and CBT are deliberately obfuscating social anxiety since this is great money influx source: human neurosis.
What CBT does not explain is that people feel social anxiety symptoms - however it is not exclusively social anxiety nor disorder.
All traits described in video are caused and related to trauma and abuse experience, mobbing and bullying. CBT hides this fact since CBT performed faulty experiments and faulty research in 1990s - where they interviewed shy and narcissistic, aggressive borderliners - and came up with wrong definitions and descriptions of social anxiety.
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"So what can I do about it??????
"
Humanistic psychology, humanistic therapies.
CBT is main default therapy for social anxiety and it is based on hallucination - for people who are imagining abuse and attack. CBT muddled social anxiety with social anxiety disorder due to incompetence and money influx from selling drugs.
Humanistic therapies are focused on your well being, self worth, self acceptance - which is anti-dote to toxic shame which is the motor for social anxiety.
CBT is focused on the symptoms of panic, listing your fears which makes you more aware of panic and created more anxiety, CBT explains that we must expose to toxic people - which is the most horrid advice, CBT explains that there are no toxic people out there - which is untrue. CBT is based on self-pathology and self blame.
Confront any CBT therapist and you will see that they do not follow their own advice.
Social anxiety is part of Complex trauma. We experienced abuse - and social anxiety is after-effect of narcissistic abuse. Trauma needs to be healed- not our symptoms nor natural reactions to bully and mobbing.
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I would not go into direction of self-pathology. If we decide to label our inner critic as danger - it will not go away. It will linger and perhaps make anxiety even worse due to:
"The self-absorption paradox describes the contradictory association whereby higher levels of self-awareness are simultaneously associated with higher levels of psychological distress and with psychological well-being."
If we focus on our panic symptoms - we won't remove them - they will get worse. This happens because brain is built to protect us not to make us happy. So if we direct our brain to danger, the brain will notice more danger around to keep us safe.
Social anxiety is part of Complex Trauma -
we were abused and bullied and this mobbing experience created trauma - which comes to surface as inner critic and over thinking.
When we understand trauma and dysregulation - we can notice worry and shift focus. We also can learn that being bullied means we are good nice kind people who are prime target for untreated mentally ill people such as narcissists. This means - overthinking is not our fault and brain tries to keep us safe - by obsessing how other people act towards us.
Egocentrism is not when abused person is feeling fear of being abused again.
Egocentrism is developmental stage during growing up, discovered by Piaget - and if we were raised in critical, dysfunctional ambient, the part related to social situations will get stuck in arrested development - which means we will see social interactions from the place of abused child. There is inability to realize we are on par with other people - not because of egocentrism, but because of abuse and trauma.
Egocentrism is not being able to see life from other people shoes. Socially anxious people are doing this - they are seeing through other people's eyes - due to trauma and conditioned fear. Due to trauma socially anxious people try to keep safe by placing themselves in other people mind and foreseeing the possible attack and aggression. Socially anxious people are not egocentric at all - they have ability for empathy and placing themselves in other people shoes and seeing life from their position.
Socially anxious people are thus zoomed into other people, like under microscope - due to desire to evade any anger and attack from other people - which is codependency and trauma bonding and Stockholm Syndrome.
Egocentric people do not care about other people - since they are involved in their matters. Egocentrism is birthplace for narcissist and selfish people, toxic ones, however egocentrism is not selfishness by definition. Egocentrism is inability to see any matter, opinion or point from other person's perspective.
And socially anxious people are putting themselves into other person's perspective all the time. They try to keep safe and calm down other people by people pleasing and fawning and expecting what other people might need in order to avoid abuse. This is the reason for overthinking and inner critic and trauma bonding. The cause is trauma, CPTSD.
Toxic shame - ingrained invalidation from abuser is the motor that keeps overthinking ongoing.
Toxic shame can be healed by self validation, self acceptance - so the first step is to accept overthinking as normal reaction to abnormal people, abnormal events and abnormal situations. Accept that overthinking is not danger that must be rejected, solved or ashamed. Invalidation of own experience is part of abuse - so CBT is contributing to abuse by invalidating socially anxious traumatized individuals of experiences that they endured.
If we listen to CBT that overthinking is part of our "egocentrism" we will make toxic shame deeper - and it is not true at all.
Overthinking is part of trauma, it is safety mechanism, totally normal survival tool to keep us safe in age when we were at the mercy of toxic people.
The humanistic therapy approach would be obvious one once we understand toxic people, bullying and mobbing as cause of social anxiety: cut toxic people. Minimize, cut contact, ignore, mute them. Do it deliberately and in abundance. There are toxic people out there.
Abuse made us aware to recognize fake people more easily now, it is part of Darwinism - detection of predators and anxiety direct us into healing abuse and adapting to abuse: which is become Sherlock Holmes and scientist and put other people their words and actions in laboratory. Start filtering out good and toxic people. Weed out toxic people - that is the message from social anxiety.
CBT will never instruct us how to protect ourselves since CBT is based on wrong research for social anxiety in 1990s - they interviewed shy people and narcissists who mimic social anxiety symptoms instead of truly socially anxious people.
Cognitive distortions are not endemic to social anxiety.
All people are prone to quick judgements, prejudgments, bias, oversimplifications, confirmation bias, availability heuristics, bigotry. All people do this - even those who claim they are nice and good. We are not gods, we cannot handle all input information, we are forced to make quick decisions in life - which are often wrong and faulty. This is not pathology and this is not something that we ought to waste our time, resources and mental energy to resolve. We can be aware of Descartes Evil demon hypothesis - and assume that other people are wrong in their opinions and that we might be wrong with our conclusions - ability to be wrong instead of hanging on to rigid conclusions is overcoming egocentrism.
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"unapologetically themselves "
You would be surprised that the most people who appear over confident of themselves are actually extremely insecure, and they overcompensate and wear narcissistic mask, especially violent and aggressive ones who appear super confident. Behind superiority complex is always inferiority complex. Inability to apologize is pathology, it is part of psychopathy. Unfortunately we live in sick, narcissistic Trump like world where aggression and rudeness is seen as sign of strength.
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"I try to use them to get out of my head "
Nope, that is wrong conclusion and wrong direction.
This is why CBT is wrong and detrimental to socially anxious individuals - it instructs us to self pathologize and to prolong toxic shame: deep core belief that we are weird, different and that we must fix ourselves in order to crap fit into abuse.
Accept it - this overthinking is part of abuse - we were criticized relentlessly when growing up by untreated mentally ill ambient and now we overthink since we were conditioned to overthink.
Overthinking is hypnosis and trauma stuck inside our body - it was survival mechanism.
IT is totally normal by product of abuse.
The problem is not overthinking - overthinking means our brain is functioning as it ought to function.
Without this ability we would be autistic, egocentric (stuck only in our tunnel vision to ponder about) and possibly sociopaths since we would not have ability to consider what other people think and want.
Accept it as Darwin evolution - we were exposed to predators and now we developed thorns like rosed developed them as reaction to predators.
If we are kind, nice, if we have no evil agenda, if we have no desire to cause harm, hurt and pain to other people - there is nothing wrong with us, nothing to fix. IF we follow CBT advice to label our reaction to trauma as severe personality flaw - we will develop more anxiety and mental illness, and we will live in toxic shame: deep core ingrained belief that we are incapable to handle and manage life.
Accept overthinking and manage it: cut toxic people. Think overly about who is toxic - how they act, what did they say. There are fake people out there with manipulation tools and desire to exploit other people. Abuse made us aware of toxic people and predators - and overthinking is our grown ability to detect toxic people.
If we were in psychological security ambient, if we were around safe normal and kind people - we would not over think.
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"Did the world end?' That's how I always ask myself when things upset me."
Self abuse is part of trauma.
We were conditioned to fix ourselves in order to crap fit into abuse.
We were made blind to see that instead of pointing finger at ourselves that we start pointing finger at toxic people, retort to them and cut contact with them.
.---
I find it fascinating how people totally ignore comments about abuse.
Brain is made to protect us so it is painful and people will reject information about abuse as the cause of social anxiety. I understand that. What I do not understand is that CBT is muddling and obfuscating and leading on socially anxious into totally wrong track of self abuse, self pathology and self blame. I understand that pharma mafia is making huge money profit from neurosis that could be healed by proper information (trauma as the source of psychological issues).
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"Their energy DID change after I said something weird. And then they talked to someone else and their energy went back to how it was. It’s not just in my head."
Yep!
you got it.
CBT is hiding this information since CBT was based on faulty research about social anxiety based on shy, narcissists and paranoid delusional ones - truly socially anxious people would refuse to admit to have social anxiety in the first place - in the mid 1990s when social anxiety was researched.
So now we are stuck with CBT who is directing us with advice intended for narcissists and paranoid delusionals and shy people who overcome social fears by exposure.
Truly socially anxious people were abused and they fear abuse, mobbing and bullying -where overthinking is survival strategy, totally normal reaction to abusive people. IT is not pathology.
Narcissists on the other hand do not care about others, narcissists are only preoccupied about their narcissistic supply: admiration and validation from others, no one abuse them. And CBT got research in 1990s from narcissists - this is why CBT is instructing us now to expose to abuse and toxic people and explain egocentrism as part of problem.
Truly socially anxious individuals are not egocentric - they have high levels of empathy and ability to stand in other people's shoes. With abuse and trauma this will manifest as ovethinking.
Narcissists on the other hand overthink only as a way to gain approval, appraisal, admiration and validation from others.
Truly socially anxious ones are overthinking in order to protect themselves from possible abuse from others.
And there are toxic people out there as you said. There are narcissists out there. There are truly egocentric adult ones who are not concerned about well being of others and hurt others by inappropriate anger outbursts and cruel comments since they are too autistic closed in their world to see how their behaviour affects the target.
I see ability to cut toxic people - whom we feel abusive vibes to cut them immediately out as much better approach then self pathologizing our anxiety which manifests itself as overthinking.
Also another tool is to stop seeking resolutions. Narcissistic people are mentally ill and they create chaos, they do not want solutions nor resolutions - so it is useless to argue or to be assertive with them, this approach will make us stuck inside Karpman Drama Triangle, trauma bonding. We cannot control other people nor outside events - so we can leave things to be unresolves and unsolved. In complex trauma we were conditioned to waster our energy, time and money resources to solve abuser's pain and to regulate them - at the expense of our own mental health.
And they do not want to be regulated - toxic people want to stay toxic, they are parasites and learned to make conscious choice to handle their trauma by abusing other people.
Quotes to consider:
Self-regulation, writes Ross Buck, “involves in part the attainment of emotional competence, which is defined as the ability to deal in an appropriate and satisfactory way with one’s own feelings and desires.”
Dr. Gabor Maté,
"When the Body Says No: The Cost of Hidden Stress"
Escape attempt from pain creates more pain.
We get addicted to it.
Dr. Gabor Maté
"I have to be strong"
The core belief in having to be strong enough, characteristic of many people who develop chronic illness, is a defense.
When the Body Says No - The Cost of Hidden Stress
Book by Gabor Maté
Many of us live, if not alone, then in emotionally inadequate relationships that do not recognize or honour our deepest needs.
Isolation and stress affect many who may believe their lives are quite satisfactory.
"When the Body Says No", Dr. Gabor Maté
For anger to be deployed appropriately, the organism has to distinguish between threat and non-threat.
If I don’t know where my own boundaries begin and end, I cannot know when something potentially dangerous is intruding on them.
"When the Body Says No", Dr. Gabor Maté
See that anxiety is normal response on their part to what actually happened to them. And it can be relieved and recovered if they look at its sources.
YT What Causes Your Anxiety? | Dr. Gabor Mate
“What we call the personality is often a jumble of genuine traits and adopted coping styles that do not reflect our true self at all but the loss of it.”
Quote by Gabor Maté
Almost every mental disorder originates in childhood experience and originates as coping mechanism. When you are threatened with something, you would not be anxious, you would be afraid - as you should be.
YT Dr. Gabor Mate
Cry for help begins as coping mechanism and that becomes generalized. So under certain circumstances there should be fear and anxiety. But when I have anxiety and there is no immediate threat, what is that about?
YT Dr. Gabor Mate
Look at childhood. Anxiety is really the cry of some desperate childhood part of themselves for help and to learn to get help with that part. Not just to take tranquilizers, drink or go to Internet to soothe themselves.
YT Dr. Gabor Mate
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"But it’s hard to say WHY the energy changed."
Nope, it is not hard at all.
We need education about narcissistic abuse and toxic people - and learn their pattern.
This is the point of psychology - and these lessons about red flags ought to be being taught in socially anxious videos instructions. Instead we get instruction to self pathologize and to dis-trust our own instincts which created toxic shame, anxiety and mental imbalance.
Glasser made research about what is controlling behaviour and what is connecting habit. For some unknown reason CBT obfuscate this information and explains that it is hard and the best solution to cBT is to self blame, self hate and self pathologize and to crap fit into abuse and conformism.
" It means you can let it go!"
Socially anxious people cannot let it go, This is why they have social anxiety.
It is the same advice to depressed person to let go of dysregulation and to smile. You can't.
CBT needs to explain this but CBT instead self pathologize targets and instructs to self blame - if we could only fix our fears and reactions to abuse, CBT says that there would be no abuse. Nope. We cannot control other people by lobotomizing our legitimate feelings, emotions and reactions to abuse , bullying nor mobbing.
CBT is making money from drug pushing by obfuscating trauma information - since CBT's crappy and totally non-psychology advice to "let it go" does not work and it keeps neurosis alive and creates new ones to spend money on more drugs.
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"I thought the same thing. They would just get quiet and look at me like they don't know what to say or how to react to what I just said."
This happens due to concept called "External reference locus of control" OR trauma bonding, or Stockholm Syndrome.
This means,
due to toxic ambient while growing up - we were conditioned to people please others, to keep them calm and to regulate them in order to survive punishments when they were dysregulated.
Now, due to conditioning - we overthink and we try to see how other people react, think and act - in order to make them happy and to make them avoid feeling any kind of pain. This locks us inside Karpman Drama Triangle and due to internalized toxic shame (deep core belief we are inept, unacceptable and unable to manage life) we see other people as gods and we wait for their approval, orders and commands that we must follow and please.
This all happens unconsciously and it is called fawning response to trauma and stress.
CBT ought to teach us about this - but instead CBT is instructing us to develop even more toxic shame through self pathology approach, where bias is explained as personal trait that happens only to us, and no one else which is blunt lie.
We cut trauma bonding and develop anti dote to toxic shame by intrinsic locus of control-
which means cutting toxic people out. Minimize, ignore, mute, relocate, stonewall them - anyone whom we feel negative vibe. This means accepting our social anxiety and going along with our instincts.
We will see that we won't be abandoned and paradoxically people will like us even more.
Narcissists are afraid of being abandoned - and narcissism overlaps with social anxiety. CBT does not explain this division at all - it lumps all together and created instruction intended for narcissists.
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" looked at a girl I found attractive without feeling terrified "
That is not social anxiety.
Googling your symptoms is bad take. You can end up to pathologize yourself and make yourself believe you are sick and then try to fix something that is healthy. You literally can do self damage and self sabotage yourself - by making yourself believe you are something you are not.
Social anxiety is being stuck in job type situation where you experience abuse, mobbing and bullying. Social anxiety is not related to mating and inability to approach to opposite sex. It is called social anxiety since it is general anxiety about society in general.
---
"most people are only focused on how they come across"
That is true - but this amazing discovery revelation does not help with social anxiety.
There are predators out there, narcissists, psychopaths who abuse others. They are the problem.
We need to learn how to recognize and handle difficult people - that is the message of social anxiety.
Problem is not our reaction to abuse (overthinking how to avoid abuse) - the problem is not having information nor clarity about abuse and toxic people.
Information that there are good people - does not help with experience of abuse and inability to react to abuse in proper, functional and healthy manner.
If we decide to lobotomize ourselves and force ourselves to stifle down experience of abuse, this leads to neurosis;
---
IF we ran on automatic pilot, without being aware of abuse and the fact that we are like trained animals in circus or Pavlovian dogs being conditioned into social anxiety - we will stay stuck in abuse and fawning and self pathology that CBT promotes with wrong information.
The correct and true information will help us.
Wrong or no information keeps us stuck in labyrinth.
---
"Is anger and social anxiety related?"
Yes.
Very clever observation.
Unfortunately CBT is quack superficial therapy created to make obedient lobotomized sheep who serve corporations and corrupt system, so CBT makes no deeper analysis about social anxiety other than overgeneralization.
It is anger - social anxiety is anger actually. However due to abuse, complex trauma, mobbing, bullying, conditioning, toxic ambient - it made us stifle natural reaction to abuse : the anger - and we shoved it deep in our shadow. So we were conditioned to self abuse and to try to make ourselves change in order to crap fit into abuse and toxic people.
Feeling the anger is therefore a therapy for social anxiety. However since this anger is transmuted into rancour, covered resentment and long term grudge - this expression of anger must be taught. The more we learn how to express natural anger as reaction to manipulative covert narcissists who are the only cause of social anxiety - the more we learn how to react in proper, functional, healthy manner - the more our social anxiety will dissipate - the more we start to see our anxiety as anger, the more we will have options to handle the cause of social anxiety: toxic people in external along with toxic shame in our inner, internal world.
---
"be gentle with yourself."
Yeah, this may seem on surface, however unfortunately it is not easy because -
Social anxiety is form of being gentle with yourself - by refusing to engage in toxic ambient with toxic people.
What you target is inner critic - which is product of conditioning, abuse, CPTSD - it is hypnosis - so logic does not work
"Breathe deeply"
Unfortunately, this is paradox that does not work in real life. This is due to phenomena related to PureOCD intrusive worry:
Any reaction to anxiety makes anxiety worse.
What you resist, persist. Stifling down our emotions leads to mental imbalance - anyone with basic psychology knows this.
"prepare"
Social anxiety is part of Complex Trauma. We were traumatized and then we stifle this abuse away and hide it away from our consciousness.
So this means -
Preparation is trauma response. Hypervigilance - and it leads to more anxiety. Plan the process is conditioned response to abuse and toxic people who abused us. It is urge to crap fit into abuse
"do something kind for someone"
Yeah, unfortunately due to heavy abuse and narcissistic abuse gaslighting, we are convinced that we are bad and that we must be good - even though we already are super nice and totally kind and supernaturally empathic to others.
This means -
Socially anxious people already are doing it. They put up with other people crap, stay silent, self censor when someone clearly crosses common sense any boundary out there, instead of reacting to abuse and mobbing and bullying and mocking, they people please them calm them down and thus end up in Karpman Drama Triangle.
"Stop being perfect"
Yeah, it may seem on surface that all we need is to stop being nitpicking and relax.
However -
This is conditioning - it is hypnosis, programming, it cannot be undone by logic and order. Otherwise, there would be no one with anxiety by now.
Toxic people are the only problem, it is not us.
Our reactions are normal. There is nothing to fix about our thoughts, doing, actions - it is all trauma response - whereas healing trauma means cutting toxic people out - and then we will feel what other people describe as "more confident" and with self esteem.
There is Jane Elliott's Blue Eyes, Brown Eyes experiment, exercise - that showed that social settings can influence the targets.
There is Narcissistic abuse: Long-Term Narcissistic Abuse Can Cause Brain Damage.
There is Stanford prison experiment where it is shown that targets of abuse in toxic ambient where they cannot escape from will develop extreme social anxiety.
There is Skinner's box and Little Albert experiment which shows that people can be conditioned and initiated into social anxiety.
Social anxiety is problem due to trauma and inability to have clear information about what is going on, what is really happening with our body when we are scared - when we learn about CPTSD, we learn that social anxiety is trauma symptom, panic symptoms are dysregulation -
and once we are triggered into dysregulation - there is nothing that we can do, and it is highly wrong to do anything about it - since any action will lead to more dysregulation.
It is similar to skin allergy: you start to scratch, the more you want to scratch - and you only make area of scratching bigger and into a scar that start to hurt instead of itch.
I would urge anyone with social anxiety to seek information related to Complex trauma and start road to mental health.
Abuse was not our fault and there is nothing we could do to stop it and there is nothing we ought to do about ourselves - we are not wrong, we are not damaged, we are not bad ones here.
---
CBT is unfortunately the default main therapy for social anxiety. It is therapy based on faulty social anxiety research in 1990s where shy people were interviewed, not socially anxious - so basic message of CBT is that anxiety is hallucination.
CBT is focused on panic symptoms as primary concern and thus it instructs socially anxious to be even more anxious since it demonstrates that feeling social anxiety is equal to being defective, wrong and inept. This way it installs toxic shame in unsuspecting individuals who seek help for anxiety.
Instead of CBT there is humanistic psychology, humanistic therapies which work since they allow individual to find way out of Plato's cave, humanistic therapies give tools of self worth and self validation which allow anxious to find truth and true cause of anxiety: toxic people.
"Humanistic therapies
This group of therapies encourages an individual to resolve their problems and issues and achieve greater fulfillment by recognizing, understanding, and using their own capacity to develop.
Humanists believe that not only is a person capable of making changes and achieving personal growth but it is their responsibility to do so. This idea places the individual fully in control of their choices and goals.
DK How Psychology Works_ The Facts Visually Explained"
Along with PTSD there is Complex PTSD.
Social anxiety is described as part of Complex Trauma in ICD-11:
"Persistent beliefs about oneself as diminished, defeated or worthless, accompanied by deep and pervasive feelings of shame, guilt or failure related to the stressor. For example, the individual may feel guilty about not having escaped from or succumbing to the adverse circumstance, or not having been able to prevent the suffering of others.
Persistent difficulties in sustaining relationships and in feeling close to others. The person may consistently avoid, deride or have little interest in relationships and social engagement more generally. Alternatively, there may be occasional intense relationships, but the person has difficulty sustaining them."
The difference between PTSD and CPTSD is that PTSD is one time event, while Complex Trauma is being exposed to repeated abuse which may not include physical violence but more repeated exposure to relentless criticism 24/7 in toxic ambient when our brain was developing and suppose to receive nourishment, not exposure adult hysteria.
I see CBT as wrong therapy that misdiagnose narcissists as social anxiety. Narcissists are preoccupied with validation and approval from other people - and in 1990s research the people who sought help were narcissists who are mimicking social anxiety as a tool to manipulate others. So CBT therapy for social anxiety are based on therapy for narcissist; where the anxiety is described as hallucination - and for narcissists it is hallucination - since narcissists imagine their own fantasy world.
The difference which CBT cannot see is that truly socially anxious people try to avoid abuse, temper tantrum and negative emotions -
whereas narcissists try to control others and then feel social anxiety feelings when they cannot control narcissistic supply (other people).
CBT is therapy of errors and totally wrong approach for truly socially anxious individuals.
---
Social anxiety is being in job situation (aka not possible to escape situation) with ongoing, never-ending, repeated abuse, mobbing and bullying. Problem are toxic people - not our reaction to violence and aggression. Social anxiety is part of Complex trauma as described in ICD-11
""
Not having confidence issue is similar to social anxiety, however this is more in the area of narcissism - where other people are seen as narcissistic supply - masses that serve only for purpose to admire and validate the narcissist. Not having admiration produces symptoms similar to social anxiety.
---
exposure cannot undone conditioning, especially if there is toxic ambient.
Think about it logically - if exposure helps, then prisons would be place of mental health - since everyone there is exposed to discomfort all the time.
This also means - if you overcame your social anxiety by talking to random people - you never had social anxiety to begin with.
What you had is narcissistic wound being triggered when you were not validated and approved by others. The feelings associated with this are similar to social anxiety.
And this is where you are at- you want to get rid of narcissism by not feeling feelings which go along with narcissism.
IT is not so easy. It is complex because:
Narcissism is similar to social anxiety - whereas narcissist see other people as narcissistic supply - other people serve to serve the narcissist. Other people are object to use and discard when done. That is narcissism. Narcissism is basis for mental illness and psychopathy.
To be normal and healthy and to form genuine relationships with other people - requires from us to overcome egocentrism - and this means to experience emotions - which will allow us to feel what other people may feel. Narcissists are unable to do this - since they are self involved and stuck in egocentrism.
---
Great insight that there is fuzzy logic with social anxiety (various degree of anxiety). Many mentors and CBT (main default therapy for social anxiety) itself cannot comprehend this at all and thus produce wrong instructions and wrong conclusions due to labelling paradox.
Desensitize does not work - in A Clockwork Orange (1971) it is shown that instead becoming confidence monster - you become lobotomized and depressed. This happens because problem is not inside us, we are not the problem if we feel social anxiety.
Problem are toxic people - external factor. Abuse, bullying, mobbing - narcissists, they create disorder and chaos - which we feel as social anxiety and then we self blame, self hate and self pathologize ourselves and we want to crap fit into abuse by changing ourselves and our natural reaction to toxic people which we feel as social anxiety:
As Lundy Bancroft said:
"Abuse is NOT caused by bad relationship dynamics. You can't manage your partner's abusiveness by changing your behaviour. But he wants you to think you can."
And confidence is great clue in social anxiety.
Truly socially anxious individuals are victims of abuse and toxic people. This means cutting toxic people is road to healing - there is nothing to fix or modulate inside us.
On the other hand - narcissist mimic social anxiety in order to gain narcissistic supply in form of other people. Narcissists are preoccupied with admiration and validation from other people, narcissist desire to impress other people as primary concern. In socially anxious individuals this comes as last concern and it is part of trauma bonding - where other people are seen as gods due to internalized toxic shame which exports self worth into other people.
Socially anxious people do not know how to handle toxic people and abuse when it happens, exposure makes things worse.
Cutting contact with toxic people will break this trauma bonding issue and then we will naturally know how to handle difficult people who are causing our social anxiety.
---
I dunno. 🤔
If we compliment someone toxic, we are crap fitting into their abuse.
The reason we feel anxiety is because someone is fake and toxic and we feel predators as anxiety.
Choosing to Fawning to them is trauma response.
"Fawning is a trauma response where a person develops people-pleasing behaviors to avoid conflict and to establish a sense of safety. In other words, the fawn trauma response is a type of coping mechanism that survivors of complex trauma adopt to "appease" their abusers."
---
Narcissism is mimicking social anxiety. This is good example.
Narcissists seek validation and admiration and feel entitled in front of people.
Narcissists see other people as narcissistic supply - and then feel feelings that mimic social anxiety. Narcissists are afraid of criticism for losing admiration and validation, their narcissistic supply.
On the other hand,
truly socially anxious ones are afraid of abuse due to abuse - it is being conditioned into abuse and now being afraid of violence, aggression - it is not fear of reaction - it is fear of attack and punishment.
Narcissists are afraid of reaction from other people.
Socially anxious are afraid of attack from other people.
---
CBT lumps various totally unrelated social inhibitions into issue with hallucination:
---
Quick solution to break trauma bonding:
cut toxic people.
Anyone who behaves toxically - gone, door slam, ignore.
We don't do this. We stay instead with them. We normalize their abuse and toxic behaviour. We blame ourselves and then try to change ourselves to crap fit into abuse.
--
(7.9.2022)
As I learned about CPTSD, I learned concept called dysregulation -
which means - do nothing to combat it, wait it out to pass, like a storm.
Any resistance, make it worse and more painful and created additional damage.
Yeah, trauma is stuck in side our body - It seems that body movement is good for body to release the stress.
Whereas trauma is combination of immobility and catastrophizing.
I also noticed that amazing tool for intrusive thoughts anti-dote is blocking toxic people - in any way - mute, ignore, stonewall, relocation... persistently and without holding back.
---
I dunno about comfort zone. Think about if logically - if outside comfort zone leads to amazing life - then third world countries would be full of wealthy happy people - yet we see this is not case at all. Also, prisons would be hotbed of scientists, philosophers, tycoons - yet this is not true, either.
I see the difference between "comfort zone" is actually concept called psychological safety - ambient which is healthy. What you said about giving power away to people - I see this as problem. If we put ourselves in problems and issues, we will end up in bad place due to toxic people around us who influence us in negative ways. Emotions are contagious. If we are in toxic ambient, we will pick up corruption and distortions from toxic people - it is like virus.
Respecting yourself is also not too much logical. There is toxicity element, too. Narcissists respect themselves when they abuse others, then they normalize abuse and deflect accountability - so psychopaths are respecting themselves a lot.
What I learned - if we are kind, nice person without ulterior motives to hurt harm or damage other people, the only problem are toxic people out there. If we decide to focus on ourselves to "become confident" - what I learned is that we will overcompensate, and this is part of inferiority complex. Trying to prepare ourselves to be strong and titan - it is reaction to toxic people and it can lead to narcissism. The act of trying to keep impossible and unrealistic image leads to anxiety, hypervigilance and fear that someone might take of our imaginary narcissistic mask.
Maslow discovered that Self-actualization (self improvement) is at the top of pyramid of needs: The first needs are basic safety and psychological needs. If we choose to skip those and focus on higher improvement - we will definitely end up with anxiety issues, depression and mental imbalance as by-product - since we ignore our basic needs and put them away and pretend they do not exist.
Anyone with basic psychology knows that stifling down our emotions is bad idea and it leads to mental illness.
I would start with accepting myself as I am and then building up on it. Trying to crap fit into toxic society, herd mentality, conformism just to be liked, seek approval and validation from other sheep is always bad idea.
---
I would make focus on External factor - toxic people, toxic ambient.
Toxic Shame is not something we are grown with - it is learned, conditioned belief, deep core perception of being inept, wrong and unable to manage life. We are not inventor of it - toxic guilt, toxic shame was imposed on us who feel it.
Once trauma distorts our sense of worth - will trigger our shame and guilt. Trigger is automatic, conditioned.
As with any psychological issue, the second step I would do is clarify-
there are narcissists on one side and normal people who get abused by narcissists at the other side.
Both groups will feel various psychological issues however the direction to heal it goes in opposite direction.
Narcissists will mimic emotions since their goal is to use other people by any mean possible - because they are mentally ill.
This means, CBT instruction to self pathologize and to "heal" guilt by more guilt - will actually work for narcissists, small percentage that seeks help and the only way to become healthy is to go in direction of taking the blame since they create it when sick.
Yet in normal healthy people this guilt tripping to heal guilt will create more trauma already present inside.
For normal people it helps to accept and validate oneself and to realize unprocessed emotions that are the cause of psychological issues stem from not recognizing toxic people and thus not cutting toxic people off when toxicity is noticed. Normal people were being conditioned into normalizing abuse and to crap fit into abuse - by guilt and shame. So,
It is not about manipulation. It is being exposed to toxic ambient and toxic people that creates toxic guilt and toxic shame.
IT is observed on psychology that this conditioning happens in life:
---
(8.9.2022)
Think about it logically.
If comfort zone concept works - then third world countries would be wealthy and organized countries who have success.
Then prisons would be everything that prisoners need in life - prisons would be hotbed of science, progress and wealth.
The secret is in toxic people and toxic ambient - if virus is there, we will be sick, we will get infected with decline.
---
(9.9.2022)
Lisa made me aware that my trials to fix other people's life by expressing it with words was also codependency.
I was convinced that since I am able to express myself and to talk freely - that this act of talking was counter-codependency since it break the prison of self censorship and shutting up to abuse as I was trained and programmed to do.
But it turns out that the core problem is virus planted in our mindset: need to seek validation and to appease others, since we are made believe that our core self is invalid and wrong.
This was missing puzzle - expressing myself, being honest does not automatically means healing.
Healing is to know what is motor behind expression and any action.
For someone who was beat from any direction this is like being stuck in a labyrinth, it seems there are way too many dead ends and thanks to Lisa we can navigate ourselves out of cave.
---
"How do people stop the cycle?"
Step outside of Karpman Drama Triangle.
When we want to meddle in and talk to people how they suppose to live up their lives - especially when they do not ask us - we shut up. It is not shutting up to abuse - it is shutting up to urge to fix other people. We live them to find help themselves.
This does not mean that we shut up completely - we can still talk about it - perhaps via blog, twitter or comments like this, in general without any specific order or command. That is Rescuer role.
For Victim role - it is in cutting toxic people. Without discrimination. There is no quota that we can fill - if someone is toxic and they drain us - block them, mute, ignore, relocate, shift focus, stonewall - make them gone from our awareness. In victim role we believe we must depend on other people to explain us how to manage life.
For Persecutor role - it is feeling we get when we try to explain anger through any other way. This happens because we were punished in toxic ambient when we exhibit our anger.
We can learn to express anger in healthy, functional manner - and this means to ignore people, not getting involved - which may seem as if we hate others. It is about love in all 3 roles - that we respect and accept ourselves and others - where we let go of toxic ways how to handle conflict and confrontation: for example by endless assertive arguing and making other people be taught. Covert narcissists will never learn and they feed their ego on our trials to fix them.
There is pattern - to turn within. Codependency stems from toxic shame, deep core belief we are inept, wrong and unacceptable. So healing comes to trust ourselves and to focus on our own ideas and goals in life, which is the opposite from what we (l)earned in toxic ambient while growing up, when our persona was forming (mental basis for making decisions in life). So obvious solution is to cut contact with draining, toxic narcissistic people whom we will attract in abundance since we will broadcast signal to be subservient to all people, since we were taught to hate ourselves.
---
CBT is unfortunately very limited in regard to trauma.
DSM does not recognize codependency neither Complex Trauma nor toxic shame as concepts.
This is because CBT is focused on lobotomy and stifling down emotions as a "healing" method, that we cut our feelings in order to handle life and people - which is actually part of codependency trauma triangle, CBT is t(r)eaching us to be in victim role and shut up. This way, pharma mafia can make a lot of money by selling drugs to heal "condition" which is mysterious to CBT: trauma.
----
There are predators out there who use Dark psychology to trigger guilt in other people.
This is done by triggering our natural and healthy need to avoid mistakes and avoiding harming someone and causing damage.
Since mistakes are natural part of life - bad things will happen- mistakes will happen, harm will happen, damage will happen.
Toxic people nitpick daily over daily mistakes and then guilt trip people who have high moral codes. They harvest us like fruit and our mistakes is their ripe to pick.
Toxic guilt will not spring on its own.
It is conditioned in toxic ambient over long period of time when we were growing up - via Skinner's box.
Then we develop toxic mindset to serve other people and fix their temper tantrums - and we seek to please other people who are broken, usually narcissists who parasite over our program to people please and fawn to others over totally natural normal daily mistakes - which we were being programmed to perceive as end of world catastrophe. So toxic people will pull strings of our guilt and play us like doll on a string - and we won't know what is going on. We will blame ourselves - since CBT will instruct us to believe that other people cannot influence our emotions, which is a lie.
Narcissists use gaslighting, smear campaign, shift goal, stonewall and love bomb their victims - this is how they manipulate others via emotions and feelings and through thinking and anxiety.
So the crucial step in overcoming toxic guilt is realization that toxic people are the culprit in external world and our toxic shame inside us which is internalized by external factor: toxic people.
CBT does not understand this and thus CBT will instruct us to simply stop feeling guilty.
You can't. This is due to programming during the age when our psyche was forming. We are talking here about conditioning and programming, hypnosis. In the same way depressive person cannot "heal" by ordering depressive person in smiling and toxic positivity.
Healing toxic guilt means self love, self acceptance, self validation, that we build Healthy Self inside us, instead of current False Self that we build due to toxic ambient.
Toxic guilt is growing in place of self hate, learned self blame, conditioned self disgust, deep core belief of toxic shame that we are unacceptable, inept and unable to manage life. Narcissist also self hate and feel self disgust and have issue with toxic shame - however the difference is that narcissists are consciously choosing to harm others and to exploit others as a way to gain validation.
This means, our way in self love is cutting toxic people off - without drama, without explosions, without avoidance - it is as if we shift focus from toxic people as if they never existed at all. There is no grudge or envy or fight response to toxic people, it is in fact accepting ourselves and in the same time accepting other people - that they will not change if they do not choose to change.
This means, it is not up to us to modulate and fix others as we learned in toxic environment - by feeling toxic guilt and self blame and self hate.
The amazing cure is to cut toxic people - in abundance. We can vibe alone until we find out our tribe that will respect us as we are.
If we have no urge to hurt other people nor to exploit them - we have nothing to feel guilty about our core self.
Mistakes are natural part of life - any action will cause mistakes. With mistakes we learn what is wrong - mistakes are not proof that our character is inept, stupid nor wrong, as we were programmed to believe in toxic ambient by toxic people.
---
I see both worry and anxiety as related to predators who hurt us in the past and new predators in today's environment.
Toxic people being culprit for triggering both worry and anxiety.
If we choose to label worry and anxiety as disgusting, something to get rid off, something to stifle down and escape from - we will resist - and what we resist, persist. Feeling and emotions inside us are not problem. Problem is in external factor: toxic people.
The more we have ability to de-fuse feeling of panic and hypervigilance from our core Self persona character, and actually shift focus of panic to external world which is causing the disorder - the more we will be successful in dealing with dysregulation.
If we choose to focus only on ourselves and label panic as disorder and some kind of personal basic flaw related to our self - we will develop toxic shame and mental imbalance.
Predators are out there, there are manipulative people, giving wrong information, they gaslight and shift goal posts - the more we are successful in recognizing these, the more we will notice worry to lessen - since we will have choices and options to do something about toxic people - the most common one is cutting contact with toxic people.
---
(10.9.2022)
imdb
"It's unfortunate that we live in a world where in order to fight the monster we have to become the monster. But it is what it is."
That is philosophy of Jordan Peterson and it is instruction how to become narcissist and aggressive borderliner, it is instruction and recipe for mental illness.
"People will step all over us "
Only toxic people do this.
Problem are toxic people. And not all people are toxic, and we can, we are allowed to cut toxic people off.
With trauma we believe we must people please everyone and due to growing up in narcissistic abuse we believe there are only 2 choices in life
1) to fawn and to be pushover
or
2) to be monster and exploit others
We are condition to label people pleasing as bad and being monster as bad, we do not allow grey area - instead we stick with absolute labels and descriptions. This is due to conditioning and growing up with untreated mentally ill person close to us.
In reality - we can be nice to people and in the same time cut them off, speak the truth and stonewall them. We can love all people and shut the door to people who are disrespectful. We can forgive and be nice to everyone and yet in the same time to express our opinion and describe the abuse to the abuser when we are abused. In dysfunctional home we were taught that speaking the truth is being a monster, that it is the same as hurting others and exploiting them.
Toxic shame is equating our mistakes with our character. These inner beliefs are wrong and need to be corrected.
---
(12.9.2022)
Social anxiety is not the same as social anxiety disorder.
IF anyone reads hidden, small print you can notice that social anxiety disorder is connected to mild schizophrenia, paranoid delusional disorder.
This is the first misconception promoted on purpose by corrupt medical institutions due to Pharma mafia making money on human neurosis. The more unclarity means more money profit by selling drugs selling mysterious and unknown fears.
Another misconstrued concept is narcissism which is intertwined with social anxiety. Narcissist mimic social anxiety in order to manipulate others - so fear of rejection is more on hidden, covert narcissistic spectrum.
True social anxiety is being in toxic job, without ability to escape it - and in the same time being abused, mobbed and bullied by everyone around. IT is lack of psychological security, and social anxiety is related to Complex Trauma - growing up in unhealthy toxic narcissistic abuse: neglect and relentless criticism.
Social anxiety means being raised in toxic ambient where we were arrested in development by developing toxic shame as reaction and survival mechanism, and later in adult life we create and attract toxic people - since we were programmed to do so, to be subservient and codependent: to fix broken people. From availability heuristics this will appear as all people are toxic and we cannot do nothing about it.
So when we understand trauma and Skinner's box conditioning into toxic shame - it is clear that social anxiety is survival mechanism - it is not something to ignore, reject or fix. What we need to focus on, accept and modulate is toxic shame internalized inside us along with cutting contact with toxic people indiscriminately.
IT is very likely that most connections we have are with parasites and narcissists. We do not cut contact due to external reference locus of control which is natural trauma bonding effect due to deep core belief we are inept and unable to manage life without someone else's help.
The way we heal toxic shame is cutting toxic people and to become aware of toxic shame voices - this is not mentioned at all with CBT - which is main default therapy for social anxiety. Toxic shame voices appear as automatic order, command and it displays like this:
SELF:
I am inept.
I can't do it.
I am the only one wrong.
I am the only one guilty.
APPEARANCE:
I look ugly.
I dress ugly.
I look cheap.
I appear ridiculous.
CONSEQUENCES:
I am responsible to fix all errors all the time.
Other people do it better, do it in general.
I am not allowed to error.
I must say only what would be approved by other(s).
These will appear as soon as trigger appear - trigger is any situation or toxic person who appears randomly around us - in our mind or in our reality.
Exposure therapy therefore will not work - since we will attract toxic people - there is also small print that exposure needs to be done supervised and in closely watched ambient - exposure will make anxiety worse. CBT is therapy of self-pathology and lobotomy - with CBT the idea is to lobotomize abused person, to blame abuse on the victim/survivor and to diminish higher IQ/empathy levels that socially anxious people have. CBT does not recognize trauma at all, neither CBT makes distinguishing filter between narcissist who mimic social anxiety with true victims of abuse who now suffer from social anxiety. CBT lumps it all together since CBT is made by narcissists to create more narcissism in the world.
CBT leads to people pleasing and fawning as anyone with anxious thoughts after CBT therapy will label all emotions as hallucinations - which is extremely damaging when in toxic relationship/contact of any kind.
---
" "fun guy" but in negative ways like making jokes about my teachers, insulting my classmates, chit chatting and laughing during the classes. "
This is great example that narcissism tries to explain itself through social anxiety.
Narcissists have been traumatized as socially anxious people, however narcissists consciously are aggressive to others.
Truly socially anxious people withdraw,
and this is what CBT does not recognizes at all.
Narcissists wants narcissistic supply: narcissists wants admiration and validation from others, this is essential to heal wound of trauma and narcissists tries to get this supply by abuse. Narcissism is mental illness since it can develop into crime activities such as femicide.
On the other hand truly socially anxious people want to prevent abuse by creating ambient of positivity which appears as looking for admiration and validation from others. What truly socially anxious person does is to evade and escape potential attack from aggressive person. This is what CBT cannot comprehend - and instead it lumps both narcissists who mimic social anxiety to get appraisal with truly socially anxious individuals who are afraid of being abused (again).
So CBT is directed in managing narcissism - since narcissist are extremally vocal - and they appear as spokesmen for social anxiety - while in the same time truly socially anxious survivors of abuse stay silent - since they truly have social anxiety and fear from talking to people and speaking it all out.
This is why CBT ought to be banned - it is creating disorder and applying wrong technique to wrong people.
Advice for narcissists is to self pathologize, to lobotomize aggressive urges and to people please - which is CBT at it's core.
Truly socially anxious individuals need the opposite - healthy amount of narcissism. This means cutting toxic people, which social anxiety is at its core - to avoid toxic people, it is signaling us to filter out toxic people and avoid them. CBT is making wrong instructions to us - since it is based on narcissism, not social anxiety.
CBT is based on faulty research in early 90s where narcissists who were mimicking social anxiety appeared to be tested - and this catastrophic blunder resulted in wrong conclusions and totally wrong therapy for social anxiety.
Social anxiety is fear from people - it is panic from people. This is not self-anxiety - where I am the center of the universe and where other people must serve me, love me, obey me - as you so clearly explained:
" I ended up being the one who's hated by the teachers and students so I just continued the character because I was afraid, again, to be rejected by my peers"
Truly socially anxious people are stigmatized by others for doing nothing - just for being themselves. Truly socially anxious individuals are extremely kind and have high levels of empathy so they can feel what other people feel - and this prevents them from doing any abusive activity, which is so easy for narcissists - since they have mental disorder - total lack of empathy.
---
I would check toxic shame beliefs and bring them out in the light. They pop up - not social anxiety. Social anxiety is after-effect of being in contact with toxic people/person. It is totally normal reaction to abnormal people, abnormal situations, abnormal events. What is problem the one and only problem is internalized toxic shame: programmed conditioned beliefs that are automatic and they fuse so quickly with our triggers that we do not notice that they guide our decision making process. Toxic shame voices thwart and distort our decision making - since it triggers us into amygdala hijacking and then they command our actions : which are usually being inactive, being immobile, self hate, self blame and catastrophizing.
This happens due to Skinner's box conditioning programming that we went through in times of growing up when we were suppose to receive love and validation - instead we received constant and relentless criticism 24/7 which installed toxic shame voices inside our head.
If we decide to self pathologize our social anxiety as problem - we will repeat the act of abuse, we will re-traumatize ourselves: this means invalidate our natural and totally normal reactions to toxic people - and this keeps toxic shame ongoing.
We can start to cut toxic people off and see if social anxiety gets soothed. Not exposure - if we are in toxic ambient. If we live in slum part of city, hanging out with cocaine abusers is bad idea of exposure.
We can vibe alone until we find healthy people to expose to.
I also see changing toxic shame orders as crucial part in healing trauma -
because the only problem here is complex trauma - OCD and anxiety are natural after-effects of abuse - and it is detrimental to nitpick on those - since this will signal our brain that we are inept to manage life, that we are different from others in negative way - we will create inferiority complex.
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" It's not opening up to people because you're convinced they wouldn't like you."
That is pure narcissism. Feeling entitled to be liked by other people and seeking validation from them to feel worthy enough. Totally narcissistic issue.
Social anxiety on the other hand is being abused and suffering from CPTSD - fear that abuse will happen again. That is social anxiety: being bullied and fearing that bulling will happen again. That is why it is called social anxiety - it is fear from people. It is not self-anxiety - fear of not being liked. Truly socially anxious survivors of abuse would be happy that people do not like them so that they do not bother them and invite them to narcissistic abuse experience or doing criminal activities if in teens.
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"Woaahhhh! I have always said that I may be withdrawn but I am an extrovert at heart and this video perfectly sums up the reason why! Btw could you possibly do a video on understanding the autism spectrum next?"
Social anxiety is not the same as autism.
If you "heal" your autism with social anxiety, especially with CBT - you will receive instruction to self pathologize and lobotomize yourself. Googling your symptoms over internet is always a bad idea.
Social anxiety is not being withdrawn. Social anxiety is being withdrawn due to experience of abuse - and now fearing that abuse will happen at any moment.
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CBT lumps many different social inhibitions into mild schizophrenia - since it does not understand neither trauma nor narcissism. It simply lumps it all together and then heal it with fictious-like Ludovico Method from Clockwork Orange: lobotomy and self pathology.
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Social anxiety is not the same as social anxiety disorder.
Social phobia is archaic label for social anxiety - it was rendered, out of usage since late 1990s. This is because it is not phobia - it does not wear of with exposure as any phobia would.
Social anxiety is fear from being abused, bullied as it was in the past. IT is being stuck in toxic job and being yelled and screamed at by anyone without ability to escape from it (due to finances to pay the bills). Therefore social anxiety is part of Complex Trauma.
2:39 "CBT helps remove cynical thoughts"
What the heck is cynical thought? Socially anxious people are afraid of people - there is no place to cynicism, it is too risky.
Wrong information can be extremely detrimental since it will force person who seeks help to stay stuck in labyrinth.
"How to overcome social anxiety disorder"
First, social anxiety disorder is mild schizofrenia - it is being paranoid delusional, so it is different from social anxiety in that respect. If we are unable to clearly define the problem, how can we offer functional solutions - to something that is muddled and unclear?
"in social situations tend to get caught up in our anxious thoughts and feelings"
This is incomplete information.
First there is amygdala hijacking - which occurs with specific triggers. This means, our lymbic brain becomes active (which is basic survival mode) and our thinking part of brain (cortex) is offline. So of course there will be different than usual thoughts and feelings - it is natural reaction to toxic ambient and toxic people who have triggered us into totally normal brain mode of survival threat. If we decide to pathologize this totally natural state - we will develop self hatred, self blame, plethora of additional anxiety and unnecessary panic. So this "advice" to label our natural and normal state of emergency as pathology is extremely detrimental. Please stop using it, you are creating more damage than good.
"your focus is on your bodily sensations"
That is not true at all. Total focus is on the external threat - it is being zoomed onto other people who appear aggressive, rude and obnoxious, similar to unhealed original trauma that caused social anxiety triggers.
"Train in managing breathing"
Again, totally wrong advice that creates more anxiety. Any reaction to anxiety will deepen the anxiety - including forced breathing. It is of course ok to calm yourself- this is called self regulation, emotional regulation - however it cannot be done by force. Think about it logically - if people are able to calm themselves down at the snap of a finger - everybody would be calm already. Self regulation comes when we learn about trauma , when we learn about narcissistic abuse and when we learn how to respond to toxic people in functional manner.
"Fight against bad thoughts"
Nope. Jung said What you resist, persist.
And socially anxious or better description - victims of abuse are already doing it through self blame.
"Fighting the mindset"
This "advice" leads to self pathology, inferiority complex and more anxiety and panic.
It tells the brain that we cannot trust ourselves, that we are rotten to the core, in our mind, and we must reject ourselves - and change it with some unknown entity of narcissism - some superiority complex that somehow has better mind.
The one and only problem is internalized toxic shame voices. Toxic shame is not mindset - it is virus that was programmed and installed by untreated mentally ill person in our midst when we were growing up through relentless criticism and invalidation.
"Anxiety can be fought by instead of avoiding social scenarios"
Ok, so if we live in slum part of city, it is great idea to hang around with cocaine drug pushers?
If we are in toxic relationship it is great to expose to more abuse?
If we have urge to avoid - this means there is some external factor that is toxic and that needs to be avoided. Why there is no advice how to retort to toxic people?
"try to be more social"
Really?
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"We constantly isolate ourselves"
Ok, so this logical fallacy would mean that isolated areas of the world would be filled with socially anxious individuals. I do not see that in remote areas at all.
"in the past"
In the past, before sexual revolution in 1960s there was universal etiquette of behaviour - there was protocol what is accepted in social situations. We can see this in 1950s movies with teens wearing adult clothes (suit and ties).
Social anxiety is not shyness.
Social anxiety is part of Complex trauma - it is being stuck in toxic job with mobbing and bullying, people screaming and yelling and degrading you all the time. This cannot be "healed" by exposure - since it does not address toxic people nor toxic shame.
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You are yapping about shyness.
Social anxiety is being stuck in toxic job with people yelling and screaming at you. Social anxiety is not about parties and being narcissistic.
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Narcissistic people prey over socially anxious ones, see them as easy pray and then parasite over abused individuals.
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Maslow hierarchy of needs tell us that we can't focus on relationship if we did not resolve basic human needs.
Social anxiety is part of Complex Trauma.
IF we do not heal trauma, we will trauma bond with other people, people please them and fawn - until we become aware of internalized toxic shame voices that are at the core of social anxiety and trauma.
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It is double binding - avoidance and exposure both make it worse.
Exposure because we will have toxic shame voices inside us that will propel us to trauma bond and get exploited by narcissists and toxic people out there.
Social anxiety is part of Complex Trauma, it is being abused and now fearing that abuse will happen again. Since in the childhood we were conditioned to self hate, we will attract toxic people in our lives. This means - exposure will bring toxic people in our life making it worse.
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That is the problem. That we wait for external guidance - which happens due to internalized toxic shame. We distrust ourselves, our own common sense and in the same time we see other people as gods and we soak up their "advice" which is based on wrong CBT research about social anxiety anyways.
With toxic shame we trauma bond with others - we have inferiority complex - due to exposure to relentless criticism 24/7 while growing up.
We need to trust ourselves, accept ourselves and be willing to be vibing along until we find healthy people.
Desperately seeking others just for the fear of being alone is unhealthy, it is narcissistic and it will make us appear desperate - and obnoxious, clingy - this is trauma bonding and advice to become codependent.
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"Social Anxiety is caused by your EGO"
Yes and no.
Social anxiety is effect of abuse and bullying.
However there are narcissists who mimic social anxiety. That is ego causing social anxiety. They explain their lack of narcissistic supply as social anxiety since it is similar to symptoms of social anxiety.
Socially anxious individuals, people with real social anxiety are already focused on other people - they are zoomed onto other people like with microscope. This happens as protective mechanism - to foresee abuse and evade it. There is abundance of empathy and putting oneself in other people's shoes - and this is causing social anxiety panic symptoms and codependency issues: trying to fix other people's anger and temper tantrums. There is real threat - toxic people.
On the other hand narcissists look for admiration, validation and recognition from other people due to sense of entitlement and lack of empathy. There is only predatory scan of environment to find easy target to prey and parasite on. So for narcissists it is ego issue. And there is no real threat. Narcissists themselves are toxic due to mental illness: inability to have empathy which they express through abuse - and using vocabulary from prominent mentally ill people such as Jordan Peterson -he rationalize his mental illness, "as having teeth".
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Social anxiety is not problem.
Trauma is the only problem, toxic people in external and toxic shame in internal.
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You are talking about shyness.
Social anxiety is after-effect of abuse in childhood (neglect through repetitive relentless criticism 24/7) which is now installed as programmed hypnosis of toxic shame. This means socially anxious people do go out in public and do talk with everyone, go to gym and laugh and talk to waitress.
The being who you really are will not work due to internalized toxic shame voices - which cannot be "healed" by public, laugh, talk - since it is conditioning.
Please read more books about official psychology and not Jordan Peterson types of marketing corporate crap from someone who is mentally ill toxic person, narcissist.
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People with social anxiety cannot rely on themselves due to internalized toxic shame voices.
This happens due to Complex trauma: being exposed to neglect: constant and relentless criticism 24/7 over smallest mistakes in age when our psyche was forming and when mistakes are totally natural part of life and not part of deliberate error to hurt someone as we were being programmed to believe.
Formally, relying on yourself is called in psychology as Internal locus of control.
Jung called it Persona, true Self.
When there is Toxic shame internalized as it is the case with social anxiety - then there is False Self inside.
Abuse is the problem. Problem is not social anxiety at all. Social anxiety is alarm that there was abuse and that abuse is not healed.
The one and only problem are toxic people in external source of anxiety and toxic shame as internal source of anxiety.
Toxic shame is automatic inner critic and PureOCD intrusive thought that appears as command, order to obey and it is literally being hypnotized into fears, subservience, people pleasing and fawning - and this happens as reaction to abuse, bullying and mobbing.
Toxic shame which prevents relying on ourselves is hallucination - but it appears real and it is very hard to detect it and thus to ignore it and move on, make better decisions in life. Instead toxic shame appears along with triggers (abusive people in real life or from our memory) and it creates domino effect of social anxiety inhibitions symptoms - which is very hard to control. We are talking here about trauma in our brain - it is not something you can remove at the flip of switch.
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Shyness is not the same as social anxiety.
Trying to fit in is more narcissistic issue than social anxiety.
Thinking something is wrong with me is internalized toxic shame and it is after effect of neglect and constant relentless criticism 24/7 while growing up, we are talking here about Complex Trauma.
So up to 1 minute - there are 3 conditions behind your social anxiety: shyness, narcissism and CPTSD.
Pissed off - definitely sign of narcissism. Truly socially anxious individuals are scared of people - that is why social anxiety got its name - it is fear from people , it is not aggression to people - it would be anti-social disorder.
Waving at them - definitely another sign of narcissism. It is sense of entitlement that other people must approve and validate you.
"They were enthusiastic at me" Yep, you had narcissism which mimicked social anxiety inhibitions..
You never had social anxiety at all.
"Make them feel admired" - you are literally describing narcissism here.
"Huge way to tackle social anxiety" - nope. Truly socially anxious individuals were abused by toxic people and narcissists - it is being afraid of abuse to repeat itself. So protective measure is already people pleasing and fawning. You never ever had social anxiety at all.
"You get what you give"
Yep - you want to feel admired by others. That is classic definition of narcissism. You see other people as narcissistic supply to feel validated and good about yourself. Then when you do not get it, you feel emotions that you rationalize as social anxiety.
Social anxiety is related to mobbing and bullying - not seeking validation from others.
Narcissists mimic social anxiety to secure narcissistic supply - other people's approval.
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Going out and meet people is not social anxiety, that is shyness.
Social anxiety is being survivor of abuse, bullying and mobbing.
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Need to be liked by others is narcissism.
Social anxiety is being afraid of getting hurt and harmed by abusive and toxic people through their dislike.
There is difference here which you lump together due to bias and logical fallacy and overgeneralization; be yourself.
The more we are aware of toxic shame, the more we will "be ourself".
Social anxiety is internalized toxic shame with false Self inside - where be yourself will not work since toxic shame distorts reality:
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If Johnny Depp stopped and listened to Amber he would be broke now, without movie career and labeled as abuser even after his death,
there are toxic people out there - we do not live in rose garden.
If we feel social anxiety it is signal that there is someone toxic there - self pathologizing won't help with trying to assert situation and see what is truly going on.
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"Talk to your friends"
Socially anxious survivors of abuse do not have friends. Instead they have social anxiety.
"Exercise regulary"
Will not help with actual abuse, mobbing nor bullying.
"Slow breathing"
Any reaction to anxiety makes it worse since it signals the brain that there is danger. Jung said What you resist, persist.
"Thought are not facts"
Toxic shame is conditioning, programming, hypnosis - so in this case thoughts are facts.
Jung said: 'Until you make the unconscious conscious, it will direct your life and you will call it fate.'
"They think you are ugly, That is only thought, not reality."
That is not thought, that is toxic shame internalized as command, order. IT is part of Skinner's box conditioning, similar to Pavlovian dogs who react to bell and being to salivate expecting the food - the same principle with toxic shame and toxic guilt. Exposure to Trauma is the cause of social anxiety.
"You don't know what they are thinking"
This is not always correct statement. When abused, we can recognize red flags more easily than people who have been fed with silver spoon from their births onwards. This is called evolution and it is ability to detect predators easily than for people who were not experiencing narcissistic abuse.
"Being yourself is important"
There is concept called False self - and it is by product of toxic shame. It is all connected, yet you overgeneralize and oversimplify very complex issue - making it being exposed to abuse and trauma look like Disneyland commercial.
"It is important to be in touch with your emotions and not to be ashamed how you feel"
A minute ago you labeled toxic shame as hallucination - you instructed us to suppress emotions and to be ashamed of how we feel due to toxic shame, as it is some wart that can come off with laser surgery. You have no idea what negative affect your "advice" is doing to people-
"You deserve to be happy and confident in your own skin"
Yet in the same time you do not tell any advice what to do when someone is verbally abused - which is the social anxiety in its core.
How to retort to toxic people. You totally neglect this, and this is repetition of trauma - where we are suppose to invalidate abuse and ignore it as it never happened and pathologize it as hallucination.
Please read more about social anxiety. Wrong advice can do much harm to socially anxious individuals who are seeking true help and functional and healthy advice, not promotion.
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Initiating conversation will come naturally after we tackle internalized toxic shame.
With toxic shame, toxic shame internalized inside us due to abuse will cloud our judgement, actions and thoughts and feelings.
Forcing ourself to speak with someone will only make us into parrot, obnoxious person who talks randomly - social anxiety will still be there.
Problem is not social anxiety, social anxiety is only symptom.
Think it like you blame blood for being red and coming out of body and that you must heal wound putting compress on it.
That is your advice.
In reality - we need to find out what happened, why cut happened - was it accidental - and where so we can avoid the cut again. Or was it from external - which means notifying police to catch madmen with knife. The problem is not in our bleeding as after effect of knife attack.
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Grounding - this looks to me more like crap fitting into toxic ambient
Change posture, breathing - What we resist, persist. Any reaction to anxiety leads to more anxiety and hypervigilance, since we signal our brain that there is danger and hysteria
Visualize - Would that help Johnny Depp to handle his social anxiety with Amber? Nope, he would then do nothing about leaving abuser and he would end up filling for bankruptcy.
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Whatever you make yourself believe, whatever you explain to yourself - that will be your reality.
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Social anxiety is part of Complex Trauma, it is described in ICD-11
...
Jordan Peterson is narcissist and he is mimicking social anxiety - narcissist seek narcissistic supply - other people. When they do not receive admiration, appraisal, validation that they feel entitled to - they feel social inhibitions emotions which they rationalize as social anxiety-
And this mix up is causing severe wrong conclusions in DSM and CBT where research in social anxiety in 1990s was based on people like Jordan Petersons: narcissists who are mimicking social anxiety as a tool to impress other people - they are vocal and they have no problem to expose themselves to research. Truly socially anxious people are ashamed of their anxiety issues and they rationalize it off in order for others not to embarrass nor mock them.
This way narcissists are spokesmen of socially anxious individuals, giving wrong impression and wrong conclusions-
where social anxiety is caused by narcissistic abuse in the first place.
This is as if victims of serial killers are dead - and serial killer in form of detective is seeking for their murderer out there - while he is the one who killed them, giving wrong reports to the public and scapegoating irrelevant focus of investigation.
The trauma and toxic shame are the cause of social anxiety. Narcissists cannot handle the wound nor facing toxic shame - while socially anxious people are gaslight to self pathologize by narcissists in medical industry - such as Jordan Peterson.
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Narcissists hate being disliked - since other people are narcissistic supply to them.
Socially anxious people dislike hate.
Notice the difference here?
Narcissists mimic social anxiety to get sympathy and to attract new victims to parasite.
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(13.9.2022)
Jordan Peterson is narcissists and he instructs young men to become narcissists themselves.
He is literally spreading mental illness: hysteria and lack of empathy.
Being pushover is trauma response, it is called Fawning. IT is part of Complex Trauma, and it springs up as Codependency issue: trying to fix other people's emotions and their temper tantrums in order to evade punishment.
Being pushover is conditioning, it is not choice.
Being pushover is hypnosis, it cannot be undone by self blame and self pathologizing as he tries to instill mental illness in others.
When someone is pushover - there is psychopath on the other side who is aggressive and who is blackmailing their targets into subservience and people pleasing. Problem is trauma from the past that created mindset of fawning and later in adult life this programming is attracting toxic people, covert narcissists who appear as friend and help - and we end up fawning to them without realizing what is going on. The problem is not in our character as Jordan Peterson is "explaining" to us.
The problem is not inside us, as he tries to implant toxic shame inside us, because he is mentally ill person.
Toxic shame inside internalized came from external source: toxic people - it is like virus being inside us and wrecking havoc inside. The virus , external element is problem here:
toxic shame and toxic people.
Toxic shame is ingrained deep core belief that we are inept, stupid, unworthy and unacceptable as person. That programming and hallucination and implanted hysteria stems from the external - being pushover is simply reaction to abnormal people, abnormal situations and abnormal events.
Healing pushover issue means healing toxic shame and trauma and cutting toxic people off, toxic people like Jordan Peterson and their "advice" that covert narcissists like to spread because they are mentally ill and they spread mental illness around like virus, infecting people into zombies and hysterics and aggressive psychopaths - who in turn will produce more pushovers from the healthy population.
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" You don’t have to be a dick to succeed you have to not be weak and nice doesn’t mean weak"
Everybody knows that. That goes without saying.
Problem are narcissists who explain that our mistakes and flaws are basic flaw of our character - that is instilling toxic shame, mental illness in other people.
Jordan Peterson is mentally ill person, narcissists and he is spreading and instructing mental illness in young men, making them into aggressive drama queens - by hypnotizing them with belief that being pushover is choice and not trauma, and that being pushover can be "healed" by becoming psychopath.
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Being assertive with toxic people?
Good luck with that, they prey on people who like to assert themselves so you end up in toxic cycle of gaslighting, smear campaign and trying to solve crap that they produce.
Assertive is marketing ploy, it does not exist.
Toxic people are creating toxic ambient where you then are instructed to take Victim role in Karpman Drama Triangle and try to solve their mental illness of drama and hysteria that they create.
Then you explain your trials as good and nice - without realizing you are codependent.
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"Ive never been a pushover",,,"fear losing my job"
Fearing losing your job leads to being pushover. These two things are connected.
You simply are afraid to admit your vulnerabilities since Jordan Peterson creates narcissists by creating stigma around toxic ambient which is not our fault and present it as it is our character flaw.
This is action live example what Jordan Peterson is doing to young men - he is instructing them to suppress emotion, to become narcissist and not to resolve toxic ambient - and react to it instead by hysteria and drama.
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"Habit of pleasing others"
is trauma response. It is conditioning, hypnosis, programming. It is not habit. It is not choice. It is not character flaw. It is not character, it is not persona.
People pleasing is fawning, survival mechanism stemming from abuse and being in contact with untreated mentally ill person.
"Defining who you want to be in life"
This is impossible due to internalized toxic shame, shame that was implanted by mentally ill person who never sought help for mental issues. Toxic shame are voices in form of inner critic and catastrophizing - this created False Self - being unable to define your Self.
"Practice saying no"
This comes with warning: to have money to support yourself when you get fired. This information is always omitted by internet stoic quick gurus.
Also femicide statistics show this is not safe. Johnny Depp said no to Amber and he almost was labeled as abuser and lost career and money.
"Asking question instead of assumptions"
This is recipe for Codependency and being stuck inside Karpman Drama Triangle with endless cycle of solving abuser's gaslighting, smear campaign, goal shifting, trying to solve problems abusers create on purpose.
"Create boundaries"
This will not work with someone with toxic shame, false Self - since trauma will make covert narcissists and aggressive borderliners invisible - so anyone who appears respecting our boundaries will be labeled as safe.
"Assertive communication"
is marketing ploy. It does not exist. In real life if we are assertive all the time - we are annoying and obnoxious always yapping what we want.
"Become aware of needs and fears"
With toxic shame this is impossible. And brain itself is created to protect ourselves from pain, it is built that way.
Horrible advice, explanations, please stop it, you are creating more damage than good.
You yourself is toxic since you are Rescuer role in Karpman Drama Triangle - you feel good about yourself when you label others as deficient and give them useless advice that does not work in real life, without true knowledge to help them to begin with.
Please seek help first about yourself.
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(14.9.2022)
You lump healthy and toxic shame as one entity.
Without shame we would not be able to express vulnerability and admit our mistakes - where not being able to express vulnerability and admit mistakes is the road to narcissism and mental illness - ultimately abuse and criminal activities.
Also you claim as if shame pours down as rain from mysterious and unknown source.
The truth is that toxic, aggressive mentally ill people use toxic shame to ashame others.
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If we are in toxic ambient, it will influence our thoughts.
All people have bias, jump to quick conclusions - this is called Availability heuristics, Confirmation bias, Logical Fallacies. This is not pathology - this is not sign that our character if defective for having thinking errors.
Urge to be ashamed about errors is toxic shame - and it will lead to mental illness, hysteria and more anxiety.
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Toxic shame is at the core of trauma and abuse. There is a lack of correct information about toxic shame and as soon as I heard in video
"Remember you are not them and they are not you."
I knew this is expert talking.
There are a lot of videos about pushover issues, social anxiety, cognitive distortions, people pleasing, inferiority complex, low confidence - and these are all related to toxic shame while 99% of videos will instruct you to more shame and they will not mention toxic shame concept nor complex trauma as the motor and not even toxic people and toxic ambient that keeps all these trauma issues ongoing.
"When we experience shame, first think I am not them, they are not me" - this is lesson I learned very hard since trauma bonding is automatic process and habit from living with toxic shame in toxic ambient for long time. I learned that this could be done as with social media: ignoring, blocking, muting - relentlessly and without exclusions or normalizations nor rationalizations and explanations of abuse as something to endure for higher purpose.
I started to make a list of retort to narcissistic abuse and toxic shaming, I will add these on my blog list of Retort:
"I refuse to fuse with them, I am not them, they are not me. I don't control nor cause their thoughts or feelings
I wish I could see it that way, but I don't.
I see you sound so disappointed, that must be very uncomfortable
Does it worry you, it doesn't worry me.
If you feel that, I can't change that.
I am not all knowing.
Do you believe it was done on purpose? I don't remember having that purpose."
I like using word Retort - because it is like being in Court where I advocate myself from being wrongly accused by someone highly manipulative and highly conflict personality.
"She's not arguing, she is telling her experience or affirming what his experience is."
Yep, this was missing puzzle for me.
I understood that arguing with covert narcissist keeps Karpman Drama Triangle ongoing - and this is where I got stuck in dead end - it was Catch 22: that if I shut up I condone to abuse, and if I speak up I am keeping abuse ongoing since narcissists and aggressive borderliners like drama and conflict.
This was missing puzzle: stating facts is not arguing. It is being objective - that is not attacking anyone. I was so toxically ashamed that I believed all this time that any form of speaking back to abuser is conflict, confrontation and something bad. IT is not. Speaking the truth, being objective, stating the facts is not arguing - even though abuser will turn it into conflict and use Ad Hominem to make drama and hysteria and elicit reactive abuse so that they could play victim afterwards. This is impossible when there are objective facts.
"You can have your experience Jack, I can have mine."
Yes, this is message we were not being told while growing up. Instead there was only one experience - of the abuser, the ultimate truth which I had to obey and be subservient and believe in it. My side of story was non existent and met with punishment if spoken.
Bullying and mobbing - the panic inside that accompanies toxic shame is like inner child wanting us to protect ourselves - that we do not stay in such situation and that we do not bring ourselves in toxic ambient. This need re-constructions in our mind to shift our beliefs -
for example - that we realize that is it money and profit really so much important over mental health and staying in abusive ambient - does the all money compensate - for what? To impress people who would not care for us for a second? Can I lower my expenses and not depend on toxic job that I might choose due to money?
And another belief is related to being courageous - to state objective facts. Bullying and mobbing is criminal activity - it is stemming from person who is criminal, psychopath. This means, we need to document it and see if there are grounds for legal act. We saw this with Johnny Depp as he documented Amber's abuse - without documentation he would be labeled as abuser and he would be bankrupt now, losing his career and reputation and employment in his industry.
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This "abandonment" concept is very hard for me to grasp. It is the same as with word "rejection". Perhaps in English language it has more meaning - but as I see it - I cannot relate to it in when we talk about toxic shame - since we are in our own body, we cannot literally escape from it , so we are stuck with it.
What I believe behind "abandonment" really is - is being pushover, people pleasing, fawning, self-censorship, not standing up for ourselves - that what abandonment is. That I pretend that I am not existing, that I am not important to speak up, belief that I am not significant to protest, that I am not worthy enough and that I am second or third grade of object that is not allowed to be among higher class. That is abandonment - it is toxic shame at its core.
I believe this is why rude and aggressive people seems to get more in life - since they make noise, they are very loud, they are not afraid to make protest and ask for what they need at any given moment, with high entitlement beliefs.
While we were growing up in narcissistic abuse where the narcissists felt entitled to make noise and to serve to their feelings and regulating them through us being silent and not needy. This is enforced by society - which is trying to curb narcissists and their exploitation of others and nature - that messages which are intended for pushy and arrogant people actually end up with us - that we must be silent, not asking for anything, that this is a sign of "good" person. The paradox is that narcissists do not listen to these societal messages at all - even though etiquette and laws and limitations and restrictions are placed for narcissists only - since they do not obey the law, they only go after their slightest and non important needs and pursuing their own pleasure and greed.
It is us, who are already "good" and nice and silent and reserved that get punished by society - with tools which are intended for narcissists, bullies and abusers out there. We listen to these messages of be silent and do not argue and do not rock the boat - and this way we "abandon" ourselves - since we suppress our own needs which are realistically important.
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"After a stressful week where I was shamed by my new coworkers multiple times for not doing things exactly their way"
Yep - it is their belief that when we do something new that it must be perfect. That is so annoying. And it is unbelievable how egocentric some people can be to actually believe that we can to the new job in the same way as we would have done it if we were doing it for 20 or 30 years.
I believe this is something that needs to be vocalized - as a fact. Without arguing. Without drama, Without conflict, simply state it out when someone is critical about our errors: I am new here. I will learn it, as everyone else did. I cannot know something the first week - as I would know it if I done it for 20 years.
I see that this inability to retort to critical people is huge problem with domino effect.
This is because critical people - are critical. They are messed up, and they will not stop being critical when we actually do anything right. This is their mode of thinking, they are toxic, they are exploitative -
and the biggest blunder with our own toxic shame is that we believe that we must be pushover and please them - so we "abandon" ourselves: we shut up. We were programmed to believe that stating the objective fact is aggression and sign that we are bad person: stating the fact that I cannot know this job right now, I need time as everyone else.
We believe that if we are silent and if we do not cause the scene - that abusive and critical person will like us. But such person is incapable of love, they are predators - and we get hooked up on their approval, validation like a drug, it is addiction.
That is toxic shame issue. We trauma bond with toxic people and we try to be good and nice for pursuing abuser's love and affection. Which will never happen since toxic people are sick, they are incapable of feeling love, empathy or any human emotion.
In reality - if we gather courage and break toxic shame mindset of seeking approval and fawning, as we learned with Complex Trauma automatic response to trigger abuse - we will actually create change in dynamics.
Most people are afraid of their reputation and most of them will avoid drama - but this will happen only if we speak up - and leave if they throw temper tantrum - so that we show we will not tolerate abuse.
With toxic shame is the opposite- we stay silent, and toxic people move boundaries of common sense and courtesy more and more - they become more toxic and abusive and intolerant and discriminant with the time. And we get stuck and hooked on trauma bonding with them - trying to fix their anger and temper tantrums, which is codependency issue.
From my experience - this is silence and not warning someone who is abusive and not alerting abusive person to stop and to retort to them - will enforce toxic shame and mental instability inside us.
With learning about narcissistic abuse we can already know how abusers react - they gaslight and have smear campaign - they will deflect their accountability and place the blame on us - that we are over-sensitive and they use Ad Hominem arguments. When we know this in advance - we can know how to retort with objective facts and when not to engage in useless arguments. With toxic shame we were programmed to believe that stating objective facts is evil and it results in punishment, pain and hurt and it is best to stay silent and shut up.
---
Yep, that is called "Crap fitting". Anna Runkle with Crappy childhood fairy channel explained it in her videos.
Toxic shame is form of lobotomy, attempt to make us into Philosophical Zombie, NPC Wojak - person without own voice, without own preferences, without own distinctions, without own objections, it is road to conformism, group think and herd mentality.
In reality most people value polarizing - especially if it is done without drama, attack, explosions or aggression: stating the objective facts from our side.
---
"Sometimes it is about standing up to the other person and sometimes it is about ignoring them and sometimes it is about walking away. Checking in with myself. Am I dissociating? Why? "
From my own experience of fawning, people pleasing and being pushover and codependent victim role - I learned that cutting contact with anyone toxic is healing for me. Ignoring them, stone walling, muting. If someone is toxic - they are gone, without hating them, without seeking justice, without arguing - I still love them, I still have respect for them as human beings, but if they are toxic - they are not part of my life anymore. Before I was convinced that there is a certain quota or norm or certain number of how many people I can cut out. Now I learned that I can vibe alone until I meet the right people. And due to social anxiety issues - I already isolate myself, so there will simply be no more pursuing and seeking approval and validation from toxic people who are not interested in me anyway.
---
This is why it is important to realize and be objective -
what is wrong. If I am kind person, if I do not harm others, if there is no internal urge to harm, cause pain, take advantage and to exploit other people - objectively speaking there is nothing wrong, there is no reason for guilt nor shame.
This is why Jordan Peterson is creating disorder and narcissism - since he is instructing people to have teeth and to be monster.
Then - when we are causing disorder, chaos, drama, conflict and borderline behaviour of mood swings and aggressive outbursts - that is reason to feel guilty, when we feel entitled to harm other people through drama that we normalized and rationalized as proof that we are strong or whatever toxic person will reason their abuse.
In the same way, being vulnerable and admitting our mistakes is sign we are healthy and not guilty - since narcissists and toxic people never admit their mistakes, they are unable to apologize and own their mistakes, mistakes which are part of life. Social situations are equal to making mistakes, any social situation comes along with blunder, saying and doing the wrong thing - that is part of any social interaction - in toxic ambient we are programmed to believe that mistakes are wrong and errors are sign of deficient character, basic flaw in our worth and persona.
Errors, mistakes are normal part of life - we learn by our mistakes. Shaming ourselves and others for natural accidents is toxic and abusive.
---
"deep feelings of inadequacy, lead to mental health issues like anxiety disorder, lack of unconditional love, nothing was good or important to them in any way."
Yes,
Problem starts when we start to seek help - and CBT instructs to more self pathology, that panic attacks are hallucination and trauma does not exist and that we can change abuse and toxic people by magically changing our thoughts (CBT calls this lobotomy method as ABC model)
---
Toxic shame is part of Complex Trauma. This means we need direction, general information and tools - which we need to adapt to our own personal cultural detailed circumstances - which means it is not about concrete steps to take - like holding on to a teddy bear advice. Jung said that we create neurosis and mental illness when we do not confront reality, so that advice is avoiding reality, not good one unless for certain situations or if toys we comforting object in childhood. The idea is that we come up with our own solutions and that the basic focus is to become active in life and that we - do not feel toxic shame which blinds and blocks us from living our life.
---
(16.9.2022)
Author of Human Magnet Syndrome, Ross Rosenberg said that codependency does not exist - it is misleading label. He proposed to be called Lack of Self Love. Codependency itself it part of interdependence - diplomacy and empathy are not wrong per se. What is wrong is addiction to other person due to toxic shame (deep core belief we are inept - due to trauma programming conditioned hypnosis), what is also wrong is fawning as survival mechanisms - yet fawning enabled us to survive punishments, so it is not something that is evil, it was necessary evil to counter evil people. Also there is trauma bonding - which is natural effect of toxic shame internalized inside us.
The one and only problem is internalized toxic shame - deep core belief we are not able to manage life due to inferiority complex. And another critical component are toxic people and toxic ambient which needs to be cut off with secure and safe plan.
---
“Because feeling needed is mistaken for being loved, they experience a wealth of distorted “love” in relationships with narcissists.”
― Ross Rosenberg, The Human Magnet Syndrome: The Codependent Narcissist Trap
“Codependents confuse caretaking and sacrifice with loyalty and love. Although they are proud of their unwavering dedication to the person they love, they end up feeling unappreciated and used. Codependents yearn to be loved, but because of their choice of dance partner, find their dreams unrealized. With the heartbreak of unfulfilled dreams, codependents silently and bitterly swallow their unhappiness. Codependents are essentially stuck in a pattern of giving and sacrificing, without the possibility of ever receiving the same from their partner. They pretend to enjoy the dance, but secretly harbor feelings of anger, bitterness, and sadness for not taking a more active role in their dance experience. They are convinced they will never find a dance partner who will love them for who they are, as opposed to what they can do for them. Their low self-esteem and pessimism manifests as a form of learned helplessness that ultimately keeps them on the dance floor with their narcissistic partner.”
― Ross Rosenberg, The Human Magnet Syndrome: The Codependent Narcissist Trap
“Due to unconscious, trauma-based psychological forces, codependents and pathological narcissists are almost always attracted to each other. The resulting relationship is mostly breakup resistant. Narcissists benefit the most from this situation.”
― Ross Rosenberg, The Human Magnet Syndrome: The Codependent Narcissist Trap
“Most codependents are selfless and deferential to the needs and desires of others over themselves. They are pathologically caring, responsible, and sacrificing people whose altruism and good deeds are rarely reciprocated.”
― Ross Rosenberg, The Human Magnet Syndrome: The Codependent Narcissist Trap
“Codependents are drawn to pathological narcissists because they feel comfortable and familiar with a person who knows how to direct, control, and lead. The narcissistic dancer is simply the yin to their yang. Their giving, sacrificial, and passive codependence matches up perfectly with their partners entitled, demanding, and self-centered nature.”
― Ross Rosenberg, The Human Magnet Syndrome: The Codependent Narcissist Trap
“They cannot leave their narcissistic partner because their lack of self-esteem and self-respect makes them feel like they can do no better. Being alone is the equivalent of feeling lonely, and loneliness is too painful to bear.”
― Ross Rosenberg, The Human Magnet Syndrome: The Codependent Narcissist Trap
“To varying degrees, all pathological narcissists are selfish, self-consumed, demanding, entitled, and controlling. They are exploitative people who rarely or selectively reciprocate any form of generosity. Pathological narcissists are only empathetic or sensitive to others when doing so results in a tangible reward for themselves and/or when it makes them feel valued, important, and appreciated. Because narcissists are deeply impacted by their personal shame and loneliness, but consciously unaware of it, they do not end their relationships. Positive treatment results are rare for narcissists.”
― Ross Rosenberg, The Human Magnet Syndrome: The Codependent Narcissist Trap
“This is because pathological narcissists lack the psychological resources, ability, and insight to stay focused on what is wrong with themselves.”
― Ross Rosenberg, The Human Magnet Syndrome: The Codependent Narcissist Trap
“A self-orientation is defined as the manner in which we love, care for and respect ourselves and others while in a relationship.”
― Ross Rosenberg, The Human Magnet Syndrome: Why We Love People Who Hurt Us
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Accepting is at the core of humanistic psychology, as oppose to CBT which is based on self-pathology, self blame and toxic shaming.
CBT is based on symptoms and wasting money, resources and time on nitpicking our natural reactions by-products of exposure to toxic ambient and toxic people. Rejecting our emotions leads to mental illness as Jung said - so CBT is unhealthy approach.
This accepting on another hand is act of self love, validation - which is anti-dote to trauma and toxic shame.
.....
"Aviv’s considerable storytelling abilities are on full display here as she renders compassionate and nuanced portraits of individuals wrestling to gain a coherent sense of identity from the limited lexicon of psychiatry.
The acclaimed, award-winning New Yorker writer Rachel Aviv offers a groundbreaking exploration of mental illness and the mind, and illuminates the startling connections between diagnosis and identity."
Strangers to Ourselves: Unsettled Minds and the Stories That Make Us
Book by Rachel Aviv
---
Social anxiety by definition is fear of criticism and negative evaluation.
That is not genetics. Social anxiety is conditioning, trauma and being exposed to bullying and mobbing - afraid of people.
That is why it is called social anxiety - there is fear from people - it is not called self-anxiety.
Another typical misunderstanding is social anxiety can be mimicked by narcissists - who hide behind social anxiety and mimic social anxiety since this provides them perfect shelter to gain sympathy from others by playing victim.
The best way to discern narcissism from social anxiety is when we look at fears.
Truly socially anxious person will be afraid of punishment and violence from others.
Narcissists who are mimicking social anxiety are afraid of not fulfilling narcissistic supply: appraisal from other people, validation, recognition, feeling entitled that other people must reflect narcissists imposed and imaginary worth. Narcissists are afraid of admitting vulnerabilities and mistakes - so they will never connect social anxiety with fear from people - they perceive this as cowardness, since they lack empathy and have severe mental illness - which makes them prone to criminal activities and violence towards others - which is another giveaway how to recognize covert narcissists who are playing and mimicking social anxiety to gain advantage from others: narcissists will criticize, attack and be aggressive to others.
Narcissists do a lot of damage to truly socially anxious individuals because narcissistic abuse is the cause of social anxiety.
Then since they discovered that playing victims attracts new narc supply, they present themselves as socially anxious and they become spokesmen for social anxiety - giving in turn wrong results in social anxiety research, as it happened in 1990s where CBT based social anxiety therapy based on narcissists: and concluded that social anxiety is hallucination and result of genes, and not result of trauma and abuse.
DSM and CBT are products of narcissism also, Trump-like managers in positions of power using neurosis to make profit by selling drugs and being drug pusher for pharma mafia.
DSM and CBT are doing damage since they use labels and quick conclusions about limited psychology terms to describe complex human behaviour and complex human mind. This way, DSM and CBT puts themselves into position of Church or tyrannical politician who is prescribing the "correct" behaviour and dismissing and rejecting and behaviour that is objectively healthy but do not fit into corporate Republican machinery where Jordan Peterson is perfect example of this narcissistic tyranny or rules for life by narcissists, mentally ill people who hide in medical industry.
Introversion is not social anxiety. Introversion is not pathology.
Social anxiety comes down to toxic ambient and toxic people. Toxic people, narcissists are like virus who is infecting easy targets - tissues with low immunity - someone with Complex trauma programming and conditioning which keeps survivors of abuse in constant survival mechanism.
Social anxiety is not problem, it is normal reaction to abnormal people, abnormal events, abnormal situations.
---
Self-lobotomy will make us passive and crap fit into abuse and toxic ambient.
Intrusive thoughts are installed by trauma, narcissistic abuse - and now they get activated by the presence of evil people - intrusive toxic people. If we ignore it, we will never change surroundings, we will never block toxic people.
I would try to block toxic people first and see if intrusive thought calm down naturally.
---
(19.9.2022)
"no one will want to be around me, rejected"
This is definition of Borderline.
Social anxiety disorder is fear of attack and aggression from all people, including the safe ones. It is mild form of schizofrenia.
Please study more about SAD.
Providing wrong information is leading people with social inhibitions further into cave labyrinth.
CBT lumps various social inhibitions into issue with hallucination:
(1) Shyness - it is feeling social threat feelings at some social event, but social fear wear off quickly and shy person is not bothered by it again
(2) Social anxiety - it is feeling of social threat before the event, during event and after event. Fears do not wear off and you keep ruminating about it. This is due to trauma, condition called CPTSD and it is not hallucination neither delusion nor illusion.
(3) Social anxiety disorder - it is feeling of social threat at safe events, when you know that person around you will not harm you. For example in safe, empty room, and you are with Oprah or Mandela or Mother Theresa or Gandhi - the safest person you can ever imagine - but you still feel threat that they might harm you. This condition is part of Paranoid Delusional Disorder, and only 1% of population has it.
(4) Narcissistic disorder - it is feeling of social threat triggered when someone warns and alarms you for being intrusive. Due to confirmation bias you are not realizing that you are rude and arrogant and intrusive - so you conclude that you feel social anxiety due to unknown reason from random people.
(5) Autistic disorder - you live in your world and you are not aware that you appear threatening to people, for example you do not say Hi to them or smile back to them. So you feel social anxiety because you feel tense and awkward in social situations and you have no idea why.
(6) Performance anxiety - when you feel social fears when performing in public and it has nothing to do with social anxiety at all, it only overlaps panic symptoms - where primary concern is embarrassment, not violent attack from others.
(7) Borderline - half baked narcissists, often aggressive and fear of being abandoned as primary concern which mimics social anxiety symptoms.
CBT lumps all these as hallucination in order to make it easier to handle complex matter. However oversimplifications leads to distortions.
Ironically CBT is using cognitive distortion concept such as over-generalization paradoxically to explain social anxiety as cognitive distortion.
CBT does not distinguish between narcissism/boderliners with primary concern to be liked from others on one side, cannot distinguish it from the real social anxiety which is - fear of punishment, attack and fear of aggression from others. Narcissists thus became spokesmen for socially anxious, explaining the symptoms where the abuser becomes the advocate for their targets that they abuse, as if the wolf is given watchdog job to watch over sheep.
There is Jane Elliott's Blue Eyes, Brown Eyes experiment, exercise - that showed that social settings can influence the targets.
There is Narcissistic abuse: Long-Term Narcissistic Abuse Can Cause Brain Damage.
There is Stanford prison experiment where it is shown that targets of abuse in toxic ambient where they cannot escape from will develop extreme social anxiety.
There is Skinner's box and Little Albert experiment which shows that people can be conditioned and initiated into social anxiety.
---
Think about it more logically.
If this was true, then third world countries would be super wealthy, super organized, full of adventures and super confident people - and we know this is far from truth -
in toxic ambient you can expose as much as you want, you will still be exposed to aggressive mental ill abusers and criminals, and no, you won't become healthy in toxic ambient.
If exposure and stepping outside of comfort zone really works then the prisons would be hotbed of scientists, athletes, tycoons, talk show hosts, university scholars and philosophers.
Please do not spread false information,
you are instructing abused people to expose to more abuse and potentially dangerous situations.
We can see Femicide statistics that exposure does not work at all and it can be deadly.
The one and only element that popular psychology and CBT does not recognize is that abusers, narcissists and toxic people in general are the only problem out there.
If Johnny Depp decided to expose himself to abusers like Amber, he would be now broke, without movie career and labelled falsely as rapist by the whole world.
----
Any reaction to anxiety will make anxiety worse.
Your recipe to nitpick your automatic thoughts lead to PureOCD. Check out Mark Freeman videos about intrusive thoughts.
IF you have automatic thoughts - these thoughts did not fall out of heaven by themselves. This is red flag that you were either abused in times when you were growing up - being exposed to untreated mentally ill person, narcissistic abuse - or you are in toxic ambient with toxic people, injecting you with criticism and nagging and complaining all the time, masked as "help" and "advice".
---
Social anxiety is not the same as social anxiety disorder.
This is the first problem since CBT deliberately muddles the definitions of social anxiety in order to make money for drug pushing program with pharma mafia.
CBT does not recognizes Complex trauma, which is part of social anxiety: growing up with neglect, relentless criticism and constant verbal abuse.
CBT instead of pinpointing and defining trauma as the cause of social anxiety - instead CBT instructs us to self pathologize, self blame and self hate ourselves, adding up to abuse and toxic shaming. CBT ought to be banned, it is therapy of lobotomy and errors, created by narcissists to make money from neuroticism and keep masses quiet and obedient to unfair treatment such as from corporations.
---
Social anxiety is muddled from official medical resources - since it provides regular source of profit for drug pushing program by pharma mafia. In 1990s there was social phobia (back then it was defined as phobia - only to be discovered by the end of 1990s that it does not wear off with exposure at all as any phobia would) - and they based social anxiety research based on narcissists and borderliners and shy people who were not scared of being researched. Truly social anxiety individuals would never admit having social anxiety in early times of 1990s when this term was not defined. Instead just as homosexuals, socially anxious individuals would feel toxic shame for feeling inhibitions which other people obviously do not display in public - so they would do anything to ignore any inhibition and to cover it up and feel extreme embarrassment for having inhibitions. This is true especially for man who were told by society to be loud, obnoxious and aggressive as social norm.
Social anxiety is part of Complex Trauma. And this is the first blockage and red flag that medical community in USA is corrupt: Complex trauma is not recognized by DSM. DSM is official list of concepts related to psychological issues. If Complex trauma was recognized as true concept, then it would force laws and corporations to handle more strictly abusers, mobbing and bullying in society and corporations - which is trouble, since most of managerial seats are composed of aggressive mentally ill people like Trump. They did not came to managerial seats by competence and intelligence - they simply pushed and shoved and played illegal and criminal moves that enabled them to get to higher hierarchy and place themselves in decision making positions.
WHO has ICD-11 which recognized Complex Trauma as psychological issue.
With this being said - which is often not told in any official resource about social anxiety, there is another perplexed issue about social anxiety.
Social anxiety can be mimicked by narcissist - abusers do this because they manipulate others in order to exploit others.
This means that narcissists will feel social anxiety symptoms, then they will be loud and talkative about it - and this way they will provide false information to research medical personnel - and social anxiety turns out complex and distorted.
This means, narcissistic primary concern is narcissistic supply: other people. Narcissist will have primary concern to be liked, admired, valued, and appraised by others. This is the primary focus for narcissists. This is not social anxiety at all - but they will claim this is social anxiety and they impose false image and false definition of social anxiety to public and to researchers.
True social anxiety is part of Complex trauma - this means that primary concern for truly socially anxious people is fear of punishment, attack and aggression from other people, due to trauma. Being liked is not primary concern to socially anxious. Confidence is not primary focus to socially anxious - that is the difference from narcissism which mimics social anxiety to gain sympathy from others.
Social anxiety by definition is fear of criticism and negative evaluation from others.
So we are talking here about trauma. Trauma means that abuse is stuck inside our body.
Exposure is the final stage - when we heal trauma. If we expose as CBT instructs us - it will make things worse since we will not know how to handle difficult and dangerous obnoxious and manipulative people.
CBT includes and forces Exposure therapy since it is based on narcissists who mimicked social anxiety. To narcissists . exposure to social situations is intended for narcissists to learn to respect others, not to take advantage of them and to learn how to be cooperative. Basically it is about learning empathy in mechanical way ,since narcissists are mentally ill and have no natural empathy.
Narcissists will be rude to others - and they will feel inhibitions which when googled - for them they appear as social anxiety. They also have google results for psychopathy - but since they like others to gain for admiration and as resource to exploit, they will ignore information about psychopathy and instead they will decide to label themselves as socially anxious, since this makes them victim and they can extort sympathy from others, as they believe.
All these socially anxious individuals already know how to have empathy , empathy is not problem here. So exposure is not critical for truly socially anxious.
We can think about it more logically - if exposure heals fears and turns us into "confident" ones, then 3rd world countries would be full of happy and successful people. Prisons would be hotbed of scientists, athletes, tycoons and philosophers - people who are self actualized. Slums would not have drug and mafia issues- the critical factor here are toxic people and toxic ambient, abuse, mobbing ,toxic shaming and narcissism as the only problem in the world. And DSM and CBT ignores this since if we start to clean the world from narcissists then drug pharma mafia would be gone too, and there would be no easy money profit for corporations who are making money from neuroticism and human fears.
---
"social anxiety is intense anxiety or fear of being judged, negatively evaluated or rejected in a social or performance situation"
True.
It is shame that CBT forgets this definition of being victim of abuse later on.
Social anxiety is a part of Complex Trauma, Social anxiety is part of CPTSD: raised up in dysfunctional ,toxic ambient with relentless criticism 24/7. Anything else is narcissism: fear of abandonment and thus losing narcissistic supply: easy targets in form of other people who serve to admire narcissists.
"people with social anxiety disorder"
This is the first error. You are mixing up social anxiety with social anxiety disorder. These are two different concepts, which may overlap. Any psychological issue - has social anxiety as the first issue: not connecting with people as the first symptoms.
This muddled and mixed up definitions and labels by CBT is creating huge problems and issues which are giving socially anxious people additional anxiety and confusion.
Social anxiety disorder is part of mild schizophrenia, it is part of Paranoid delusional disorder where the person is convinced everyone is a threat, including safe people. Social anxiety is not this, social anxiety occurs in toxic ambient with toxic people present.ž
"Physical symptoms"
are dysregulation. It is amygdala hijacking. CBT does not recognize trauma concepts - and this way CBT is creating huge damage to socially anxious individuals, since CBT explains natural and normal reaction to abnormal people, abnormal events and abnormal situations as hallucination. This way CBT is instructing socially anxious individuals to self pathologize, self hate and self blame for the abuse which was caused by external source: toxic people, abusers, mobbing and bullying.
1:09
here you are mixing up social anxiety along with social anxiety disorder. This is because CBT is deliberately mixing up different concepts to make money from confusion.
1:53 "to manage anxiety"
Here CBT is nitpicking anxiety - and this way CBT is creating additional neurosis. Any reaction to anxiety creates more anxiety. Check out Mark Freeman videos about intrusive thoughts and PureOCD. Even Jung said What resists, persists.
Anxiety here is a messenger - it is trying to tell us that something is wrong, it is alarm system - and with trauma we have ability to detect mobbing and bullying at much more detailed and zoomed way than "normal" people who were not abused. We can pick up small details of abusers and manipulation - and self pathologizing our natural symptoms will create additional disorder which was not present before CBT information of self pathology.
2:29
"Anxiety is normal feeling"
Think of anxiety as in the movie Arrival from 2016:
"Louise Banks, a linguistics expert, along with her team, must interpret the language of aliens who have come to Earth in a mysterious spaceship." Anxiety tries to tells us something but it is not using our logic nor our language, instead it is using feelings and panic to explain us something and give us important message that we need to decyphre.
IF we follow CBT advice we would ignore this message from inside us, and CBT will teach us to become people pleaser, philosophical zombie, it is form of self-lobotomy where we kill any feelings and emotions inside us. Jung said this process of ignoring our emotions is very dangerous:
Carl Jung | Psychology and Philosophy 🧠, TWITTER:
The foundation of all mental illness is the unwillingness to experience legitimate suffering.
"We misinterpret these signals to mean that real danger is present when in fact none is there"
How can you know this?
How CBT knows that there is no real danger? Can you read minds and foresee any situation in the future? CBT is actually telling us that there are no toxic people out there. That narcissists do not exist. That evil people do not exist at all. This is why CBT is dangerous therapy full of errors and it is based by narcissists to abolish narcissistic abuse and spread abuse around and to pacify any resistance to abusers and psychopaths. If Johnny Depp decided to ignore signals, he would be stuck now with Amber, he would be broke, his movie career would be over and he would be bankrupt. CBT is repeating the abuse and it is using gaslighting and smear campaign - to ignore and normalize abuse, to relativize abuse and to shift blame on the survivor of abuse - to place toxic shame, toxic guilt and self blame onto person who was abused. CBT ought to be banned.
"When we buy into our anxiety we accept our thoughts about the situation as an absolute truth"
Horrible information.
Think about people stuck in narcissistic abuse and someone is telling you that you are hallucinating the abuse. Just awful.
I hope someone will sue CBT practice, this is criminal act of ignoring the abuse.
But for the purpose of argument, ok, let's say that CBT is correct. Let's say that we do hallucinate bullying, mobbing and abuse -
well, why CBT is not offering any , absolutely any advice about bullying, mobbing and abuse. Instead of giving information how to retort to abusers, CBT is instructing us to take deep breaths and to be calm and to lobotomize ourselves. Can you see how dangerous this is?
What is Putin decided your house belongs to him and he starts to shoot at it? Would you take deep breaths? Would you meditate?
Why CBT is ignoring abuse is beyond me to comprehend - other than CBT is created by narcissist to keep abuse ongoing, to create slaves who are serving parasites to feast on.
3:05
"Social anxiety can occur when we focus our attention on our internal monologues and anxiety cues."
This information is not true. Socially anxious people are focused on other people, they are zoomed onto other people due to predators - it is looking out for any sign of potential attack, looking over someone's tone of voice and expecting the manipulation and unfair attack to occur.
"We often live in these worlds that we create in ourselves"
This is trauma being stuck inside our body. CBT ignores trauma and this way CBT is interpreting complex feelings and concepts by over-simplifications - which leads to distorted reality - which only confuses socially anxious and leads them even deeper in labyrinth. This way CBT is creating damage to socially anxious people.
"Get out of your head and experience world around you"
Socially anxious people are already outside and they closely watch other people and ambient around.
This is why social anxiety is called social anxiety. It is not called self-anxiety. Even simple logic tells you that you have distorted definition of social anxiety, based on narcissism.
CBT does not recognize that narcissists are mimicking social anxiety and CBT buys into messages from vocal narcissists, while truly socially anxious individuals are quiet and obedient and confirm any lies that CBT is explaining - which CBT gathered from false socially anxious people: narcissists.
6:19
"Watch your thinking"
Leads to more anxiety. Analysis leads to paralysis.
What is the self reflection paradox?
The self-absorption paradox describes the contradictory association whereby higher levels of self-awareness are simultaneously associated with higher levels of psychological distress and with psychological well-being.
Thinking is not problem. Problem is in external: toxic people and toxic shame internalized from psychopaths around.
7:55
"relax"
Then person when cannot relax, will feel more anxiety - now this anxiety will be additional since one cannot relax when faced with abuse, bullying and mobbing. Horrible advice.
---
Social anxiety is fear from abuse, mobbing and bullying. The confidence is not primary concern in social anxiety.
Fear of low confidence and not receiving admiration from others is a mere narcissism. It is narcissistic issue.
Narcissists deliberately mimic social anxiety because this way it is easier to gain sympathy from others and gather more narcissistic supply: other people admiration, appraisal and validation.
For socially anxious individuals social discomfort will last forever due to abuse, due to exposure to narcissistic abuse - narcissists who are seeking narcissistic supply and creating social anxiety in their codependent targets.
For social anxiety social discomfort lasts because trauma is stuck inside the body. Social anxiety is part of Complex Trauma. Anything other social issue than this fear of abuse is narcissism.
Going in very anxious situations - truly social anxious individuals feel 4F : fawning response, due to trauma. Narcissist will feel only Fight response since they are psychopaths and have mentally ill mind without ability to have empathy.
Exposure will not help with social anxiety - because social anxiety is trauma conditioning, it is trauma programming created by aggressive mentally ill narcissistic abuser. We are taking here about hypnosis into subservience and fawning and catastrophizing, implanted by aggressive mentally ill person when we were growing up: relentless criticism 24/7 and exposure to narcissistic abuse.
Socially anxious person will fear judgement because of potential attack and aggression.
Narcissists will fear judgement because of lack of narcissistic supply: admiration from other people.
The healing of social anxiety is accepting social anxiety - and dealing with external factor: toxic people - cutting contact, relocation and handling internalized toxic shame which was implanted by external factor: narcissist.
---
What happens when anxiety is based on real threat?
Why is it to easy to suppose that anxiety is always imagined? Why is it so hard to talk about abuse, mobbing and bullying and techniques how to handle the motor that sets anxiety ongoing: toxic people and toxic shame which is internalized by toxic people.
Why would anyone think that lobotomy is cure? Why would anyone try to self pathologize someone and perceive someone that their fears, anxiety and panic are invalid? Why?
I do not understand why medical community is abusing survivors of abuse through gaslighting and invalidation about abuse and defining panic attack as hallucination? Have you any idea what kind of psychological damage you are doing by instructing victims of abuse to self-pathologize and crap fit into abuse and toxic ambient which is causing anxiety?
What would happen if Johnny Depp decided to label his experience with Amber as anxiety?
He would be broke now, without movie career and the whole world would label him as rapist.
Anxiety is not abnormal, neither are our emotions and feelings. Even anyone with slightest knowledge of psychology knows that stifling down emotions is sickness and leads to illness.
----
This is not social anxiety. This is narcissism.
Narcissists see other people are resource, as narcissistic supply - selling them something and parasiting over other people. It is easy to mimic this fear of not receiving admiration from others as social anxiety since this way it is easier to present oneself as victim and gain sympathy from other people.
Truly socially anxious people are victims of abuse, mobbing and bullying and they are afraid of being abused again.
Anything other than this fear is narcissism, as this video shows - there is social fear that seller cannot parasite over other people. There is no empathy, narcissists make fun of others, there is no real fear from other people, there is only fear that there will be no parasiting over other people.
Truly socially anxious people have empathy and they do not mock others, they do not use F words to describe other person.
Narcissism is mental illness.
----
Fawning to others is still trauma response, and it is part of social anxiety.
Seeking admiration and validation from others is narcissism, it is not social anxiety.
Business card? People are not business opportunity - this is narcissistic supply: narcissists see other people as supply, something to exploit. Then of course when people react negatively to this, narcissists will not (due to mental illness) perceive own parasitical issues, but will google symptoms and conclude that this is social anxiety - in order to gain sympathy and to reinforce own delusional belief about being good person.
Truly socially anxious people are afraid of people due to past abuse. Abuse and avoidance of abuse is primary concern, not smiling to everyone, not clothes nor seeing other people as business opportunities.
---
Social anxiety is part of Complex trauma, it is described in ICD.11:
"Persistent beliefs about oneself as diminished, defeated or worthless, accompanied by deep and pervasive feelings of shame, guilt or failure related to the stressor. For example, the individual may feel guilty about not having escaped from or succumbing to the adverse circumstance, or not having been able to prevent the suffering of others.
Persistent difficulties in sustaining relationships and in feeling close to others. The person may consistently avoid, deride or have little interest in relationships and social engagement more generally. Alternatively, there may be occasional intense relationships, but the person has difficulty sustaining them."
It is result of growing up in toxic ambient filled with constant and relentless criticism 24/7 and toxic shaming which we internalized and it is now stuck inside our body and it resurfaces due to triggers and flashbacks similar to original abuse: someone's criticism, yelling, violence, temper tantrums, rage without motive, mood swings etc.
Trauma also means we will not have self love- which means having toxic shame instead. With toxic shame we have no boundaries and we will attract toxic people who sniff our toxic shame inside us - they basically see that we are quiet, nice, friendly and open to others and that we avoid conflict. All these are traits of normal and healthy person - however with toxic shame we stay silent to someone's abuse and we miss red flags and we rationalize abuse - as we were programmed during narcissistic abuse.
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(21.9.2022)
Not necessarily.
Those who choose to overcompensate will use Fight response - and superiority complex is covert actually inferiority complex.
Yep, superiority complex can have devastating effect on society, narcissism is mental illness and people like Trump or Putin ought to be banned from reaching any managerial seat - there ought to be severe psychological tests for any job related in managing people. This way we will prevent wars on global level and crime & corruption on local level.
There is Jane Elliott's Blue Eyes, Brown Eyes experiment, exercise - that showed that social settings can influence the targets, quote from wikipedia:
" For this corporate exercise, Elliott divides a multiracial group based on the color of their eyes and then subjects the blue-eyed individuals to a withering regime of humiliation and contempt. In only a few hours, Elliott's treatment makes the blue-eyed workers become distracted and despondent, stumbling over the simplest commands"
Toxic shame is causing psychological disorder in its targets.
---
"There is nothing worse than having somebody always trying to run your life for you, where you never have any freedom, constantly being told how to act, what to say, what to do."
This is Complex Trauma. It is emotional neglect - it causes social anxiety later in life, fawning issues, being pushover - it is discrimination effect similar to Jane Elliott's Blue Eyes, Brown Eyes experiment, exercise from 1968. It is conditioning, Skinner's box. It is hypnosis. It is toxic shame. It cannot be removed by logic - it is trauma being stuck inside our body.
IT can be handled with concept called Titration invented by Peter Levine. It is going from comfort zone to discomfort and back again - it is like bringing water and food to starved and thirsty parts of ourselves and nourishing it. I am talking about deep suppressed parts of ourselves that we were conditioned to hide and to be ashamed of - for example to express our opinion when something is wrong. We were being conditioned to feel extreme shame, guilt and blame if we speak up and place boundary. That is hypnosis, conditioning, it is trauma, it is called officially Complex Trauma. Current medical community in USA is ignoring trauma as concept and instead it is promoting pharma mafia program - suppressing abuse with drug pusher program due to money profit from human neurosis.
---
Excellent work!
I discovered Jung repressed parts in June this year, that social anxiety is connected with trauma which caused us to repress and stifle down our child parts - tricksters - without which we cannot cope reality, filled with dishonesty since we do not live in Just World.
The criminals, narcissists, abusers will trick the law, they will not follow unwritten social norms - and they will disobey the rules - which leaves anyone programmed to be kind and nice always finishing the last. We are programmed to believe that if we do not follow conformism that we are evil and criminal. That is trauma.
I see anti-dote to toxic shame in allowing trickster archetype inside us out of chains and into the open. With trauma and abuse we will repress it and feel shame, blame, guilt for making mistakes and not being perfect. With trickster concept in mind, we can allow ourselves to create our own rules when disrespect is served as only mean. It allows us to balance out our ego with being pushover.
Also,
in Zoroastrianism, it is said that evil is trapped in the world so it can show itself - and believe it is free to roam around, yet it is forced to be examined like in a laboratory by higher entities. This trickster concept explains Zoroastrianism in much more detail: it tells us that this planet is laboratory as Zoroastrianism talks about - however it is experimental area - in order to divide Satan from trickster - since these two are alike and can appear similar.
For anyone with social anxiety, trauma and psychological disorder - it is reminder to be ourselves, to be true to our Self -
where trauma will make us believe that we must repress parts of ourselves in order to be accepted and good. Evil forces will convince us that certain neutral parts of ourselves are wrong - such as trickster - in order to control us and manipulate us. With perfectionism installed and programmed through Complex Trauma - we will develop toxic shame and restrict our truth telling, we will shut up to evil and we will thus allow evil to flourish, We will rationalize speaking the truth as evil.
Any socially anxious person will speak that they feel embarrassed and that they are very much scared of being embarrased and saying and doing the wrong thing -
with trickster concept we understand that making mistakes is natural and that even more than that - mistakes will pinpoint errors that our outside of ourselves - in the system, in other people. When we have toxic shame and social anxiety - we will take the blame and guilt on ourselves and in the same time we will allow evil to exist, we will shut up to toxic people and we will become dependent on them, since we will be programmed to believe we are inept and unable to manage life. With suppressed trickster - we will indeed have no energy for life - however this is not our fault and this is not permanent and this is lie programmed by the evil - that we believe that we are incapable to live normal life - and instead that we must depend on toxic people to survive.
With Complex trauma we will be stuck in survival mode.
The anti-dote to trauma, toxic shame and evil is in trickster concept.
Allowing our suppressed parts to come out and play.
---
Important topic, it is great that we are exposed to trauma aware information - where our anxieties are explained through the prism of abuse rather then explaining our fears as hallucination or something imaginary. Once we can shape our anxiety, when we can lighten up the dark room which is fear - we can start doing something about it in constructive, healthy and functional manner. When we are in the dark, when we have no knowledge about our true reality around us, we are powerless and we make wrong decisions, often making everything worse than before doing anything at all. Very often in life we are forced to make quick decisions all the time - without correct information we will self sabotage ourselves.
With toxic shame internalized inside us (because of relentless criticism while growing up) we will develop external reference locus of control, or trauma bonding, or Stockholm Syndrome. This happens because we have internalized deep core belief of toxic shame that we are inept to manage our life - and therefore we rely on other people to instruct us what to do - which toxic people will sniff out and take advantage of us. Toxic shame will force us to fawn and to be people pleaser and pushover - making trauma bonding even more firm: where other person's validation and opinion is the ultimate truth and appears as addiction, pushing us into codependency, or lack of self love (explained by Ross Rosenberg).
Anti-dote to trauma bonding is learning about Jung - that we allow suppressed parts of ourselves to come alive - childish parts of ourselves which will give us energy where previously we had none - to cut contact, to retort to disrespect. In short, to allow ourselves to have natural reaction to abuse - where previously we would self censor, shut up and take the blame and other person's aggression and violence as something normal and something to live with. Cutting contact with toxic people is anti-dote to trauma bonding.
Being nice, being cooperative, being kind is not pathology. It becomes dangerous only with the presence of exploitative, Machiavellian toxic person in our ambient presenting themselves as saviour, help or friend yet filled with criticism, nagging, complaints, attacks and exploitation/extortion.
---
Trauma bond occurs when we rely on other person to make decisions for us, when we seek their validation and approval and when their words and opinions appear as ultimate truth to us, command and universal rule to follow. Trauma bond occurs when we hate our self and when we have toxic shame inside us. Toxic people sniff this easily and they present themselves as saviours, help, friend - yet in the same time they have mood swings, order us how to talk, think and act, they throw temper tantrums especially when we slighted them in any way which is difficult to live with yet we believe we are at fault and that we must magically change something about ourselves inside which they define all the time - toxic shaming is integral part of trauma bonding. It is us being inferior and they are presenting themselves as superior, competent, good, strong, capable.
---
"How can you have bond with someone who is constantly trying to put you down "
Good question -
the difference is Complex trauma.
Growing up in verbal abuse, narcissistic abuse and neglect: constant and relentless criticism 24/7 we get conditioned to be passive and to trauma bond - this happens through system called Skinner's box: it is form of hypnosis where you are punished if you speak up, if you show emotions and when you are not appeasing to the abuser, untreated mentally ill person in toxic ambient. With such conditioning, you feel trauma bond with abusers - you crave for their approval and validation because when we were growing up - instead of learning about cooperation and being equal and self love and taking care of ourselves - we were conditioned to serve, to be subservient and to fear mistakes and feel enormous toxic shame, internalized guilt about anything that anyone who is loud objects about. Then your availability heuristics (this is the way we see world) becomes filtered through perfectionism and deep self hatred. Then we end up with attracting similar toxic people - since this is familiar to us. When we are constantly triggered - we are in survival mode - and our amygdala gets hijacked - all the time - and this makes us into mental fog, we have veil over our eyes and we cannot see reality clearly. With conditioning we interpret gaslighting as normal - and this is recipe for trauma bonding.
When we try to seek help - CBT will explain us that we are hallucinating anxiety and that our panic attacks are imaginary, and that toxic people do not exist at all, and that we can change the abuse by lobotomy: CBT does this through ABC model: where we are instructed to change our thoughts in order to crap fit into abuse. This "help" from CBT created even more of trauma bonding - which I experienced as being pushover, fawning and people pleasing.
That is why there are people who are confused about blunt disrespect - to us we will normalize put downs as normal part of life and something that is our fault, and that we must fit into.
The main shock here is:
This all springs up from growing up in ambient of constant and relentless criticism 24/7. Words do have impact on human psyche, whereas CBT tells that thoughts are not facts and that other people cannot influence our emotions (which is untrue).
There is research that exposure to long term narcissistic abuse can cause brain injury.
Your question is excellent - since "normal" people who were not brought up in Complex Trauma ambient will notice abuse - first of all, it is highly likely that they will repel abusers with being honest and authentic - abusers hate this. "Normal" and "healthy" individuals brought up in functional homes will react to red flags in natural way - they will even scream and yell at abuser, be anti-social and this will put off many abusers away. With Complex Trauma conditioning we were programmed to be nice, kind, silent and friendly to everyone all the time, especially if the other persons are aggressive and violent and disrespectful.
More importantly - "normal" and healthy individuals without Complex trauma conditioning will cut contact with toxic people.
With Complex trauma we feel deep shame and guilt if we cut contact, due to conditioning.
This conditioning was observed in 1968 by Jane Elliot in racial issues: she noticed in her exercise of abuse that children who were exposed to disrespect had developed symptoms of isolation and confusion and the children were failing in previously excellent levels of test results. So toxic people have a great influence on our trauma bonding, our cognitive skills and social skills, too.
Your question is excellent because it shows that due to circumstances, even "normal" and non traumatized individuals can get into traumatic traumatized trauma bonding environment - and unlike the individuals with complex trauma, they will react naturally to abuse: 1) you will wonder how can you trauma bond with abuser 2) you will externalize anxiety and fears and blame the true source of abuse: toxic person.
Complex trauma prevents this - we never accuse the other person, we turn blame inside. And CBT joins into hysteria and promoted self hatred and self blame.
Of course, there are narcissists out there who will blame other people for everything - and narcissism must be addressed too.
The difference between narcissist and "normal" people who blame toxic people for problems rather than self blaming oneself - is that narcissists are focused on chaos, destruction and keeping problem ongoing, there will never be admission of mistake and any vulnerabilities. Whereas normal people will strive to find solutions without hurting the other person in the process as narcissists do.
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"Harder to break than a heroin addiction."
Yep, because abuse is targeting parts of ourselves and it instructs us to stifle down the parts of ourselves which would put boundaries. It is like being invaded by Putin and the first thing aggressor would do is they target police, army, culture and administration - so that we lose our basic identity - and then we rely and depend on abuser to give us those basic parts of ourselves through them.
They give their opinion - which appears as ultimate truth to us. They appear as god to us. We are then punished for natural and normal mistakes - where universal double binding paradox and dualism phenomena is used against us: anything we do is explained as wrong. CBT does this through instruction that we are imagining the abuse and that we must change our thinking in order to crap fit into narcissistic abuse (ABC Model).
Anti dote is in Jung's archetype called trickster.
It means that we rely on ourselves, that we build self acceptance and start cutting toxic people out and relocate with time.
Until then we use defense mechanisms to survive and spoil the milk to parasite(s) in whatever means available or possible.
---
CBT is lying to us. All people have thinking errors. This is called logical fallacies, cognitive bias, confirmation bias, availability heuristics. It is normal human condition, it reminds us that we are limited and prone to errors and that we are not gods and that we cannot become god by having a good intentions.
If we decide to self pathologize our bias as something abnormal and then nitpick our thoughts - we will develop toxic shame instead of becoming enlightened. This paradox is called:
"The self-absorption paradox describes the contradictory association whereby higher levels of self-awareness are simultaneously associated with higher levels of psychological distress and with psychological well-being. Wikipedia"
If there are negative thoughts, if there are thinking errors so much that we notice them - this is sign we are in presence of toxic ambient and toxic people who are influencing our mental balance. Such as aggressive borderliners or Rescuers in Karpman drama triangle who pontificate others and try to give unsolicited advice about issues which are none of their business to begin with. Altruistic narcissists will try to gain narcissistic supply by pretending to be help, Mother Theresa without actual empathy to help someone, in fact they are disgusted by others especially if there is no validation in return.
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"Isn't that any movement of thought whether positive or negetive is a reflection of our own motivations and experience?"
Yes-
"when you understand this any thought that comes to mind is not free in nature and is bounded to a past conditioning"
Yes
"then thinking stops naturally."
No.
People are forced to make decisions all the time.
Problem start with toxic ambient and toxic people, Machiavellians who are manipulating their targets and use Dark Psychology to control and exploit their targets.
When thinking stops - it is sign we are NPC Wojak - philosophical zombie without own preferences, likes, dislikes, caprices, quirks or perks. Instead we are nothing. We have no preferences.
Thinking also stops when we are on automatic pilot. Where can you end up if autopilot is constantly on? You will eventually run out if fuel and crash down. You need to know your end destination and where you want to go. Unless you are being controlled by someone who is controlling your automatic pilot.
Descartes discovered in 17th century that we start to be ourselves and really think when we start to doubt. The act of doubt is above the act of thinking. In toxic ambient, or when in the presence of someone mentally ill in authority - the first thing that is attacked is our ability to doubt - because this way we can set up boundary and cut contact and leave toxic people.
Without doubting our thinking can be controlled by toxic people, external element - and we will not be aware that we are in their prison.
The point here is that thinking never stops.
IT is only a matter of our control, our locus of control - it can be either intrinsic (doubting our thoughts and others to produce our truth and our goals) or external (automatic, conformism, groupthink, trauma bond, codependency and social anxiety).
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(22.9.2022)
I discovered thanks to Twitter that I can actually ignore, mute and block people - both online and in real life - without feeling guilty about it, there will be no catastrophe nor the world will end. Instead the heaven will happen and life will become better - the opposite of our conditioned fears.
Before I would think I have certain number of people that I am allowed to block in a span of 10 years for example.
Due to this belief even after I joined Twitter it never occurred to me that I can use mute, ignore or block option - I would instead think that the other person will say something critical and important and that I must stayed tuned to listen to it. I don't. They are not gods that I made them to be.
When disrespect is served, we are allowed to leave the table.
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"Sometimes it is necessary to call people out on their BS, it is not always bad thing"
I disagree.
It is always a bad thing.
Please, allow me to explain.
First,
without realizing it - you are actually controlling someone, by controlling someone's BS. You said that your excuse to be brutally honest is to bring freedom to everyone and better quality of life. Ok, however
Any evil in this world is done because there is pontificator, Crusader who is convinced his own definition of truth is the ultimate one and that this conviction gives him the right to represent the truth and goodwill to perceived majority.
Think about it -
You are the one who is defining BS - what is BS to you, it might not be BS to this particular person nor to particular situation. What if the person has a pollen allergy - opening the window in the August with ragweed pollenating will make this person suffer just for you to feel comfortable. Some people get serious skin rash and asthma issues due to pollen allergy. Who's comfort is primary here? It will be yours since you are loud and obnoxious - where quiet and calm people will not confront you and tell you that they have allergy fever in order to not make you feel bad.
I know you are not the bad person and you do not mean harm to anyone, however path to hell is paved with good intentions.
Second,
By you being vocal and loud - you are the one who is turning into tyrant without even noticing this. You are the one who is becoming domineering and you do not understand nor get that some people are quiet and stay quiet and do not express their opinion - not because they are weak or stupid or whatever reason - but simply because they want to have peace and harmony and not to rock the boat. So this turns into you being captain of the ship - someone who is deciding about everything. Why? What makes you so intelligent and capable and strong to be leader? Just because you are talking and being blunt honest about anything.
What I am saying - you cannot handle your own medicine. If silent and quiet people who are very and extremely considerate of other people's feelings truly talk and truly express and being truly honest - you would not be able to handle it.
You would experience their calling out of your BS as attack, aggression, manipulation and criticism. And soon enough it would turn into toxic relationship of blame and hate and temper tantrums about what you do wrong. That is not healthy environment.
So what happens in real life is that people like you are talkative and loud and you call other people BS without realizing that other people are quiet just for the sake of peace, not because you are correct and right nor justified in your observations about what is BS.
Calling out BS is a weapon and it is a tool and in your ego-centricism you are convinced that you have some kind of magical, secret weapon to control people. In reality, your weapon will work only on nice and kind people - and basically you are not alfa neither strong nor better than others - you are simply parasite, parasiting over nice and kind people who are tolerating your BS.
I know you are nice and kind person and you would never ever hurt or exploit or take advantage of anyone - however you are doing it every time you ignore other person and not explore their reason why they do their BS.
You simply are not god creature superior to others with ability to detect BS where others are somehow not capable, you cannot know everything and no, you are not intelligent enough to understand the world and life nor people - none of us are, no one is.
I say it is always a bad thing to call someone's BS -
because the other person with BS, well - if he is doing something weird, wrong and criminal - it is because they are living in parallel universe, they live in their own fantasy world, many of them are untreated mentally ill - and what you are doing is evading their space, you invade their Universe, and you insert the rules of reality to them. That is always a bad thing - it is by definition invasion, you are invading their world. These people are not morons, they have ability to perceive reality - they just choose not to - due to any reason that is guiding their hallucination - very oftentimes it is trauma and conditioning that is making them do BS.
Well,
From your perspective you see yourself as Christ, someone who is bringing good and better life - but to them you are Putin who is invading their country and blaming them for being Nazi. Can you see what you are from their perspective?
It is great that USA did end WW2, however we know now that nuclear attacks were not necessary at all. You will allow yourself to nuke others for what you believe at any given moment is correct and justified. This makes you extremely dangerous and aggressive, since you have hallucination that you are the god-like figure who knows the difference between right and wrong. No one has this ability - we are human beings with limited bodies and limited mind, not matter what your IQ level is high - you are still not and never will be God.
And no, you do not have right to pontificate others.
Glasser discovered that you can negotiate instead of calling out and being critical. Can you just imagine how toxic you are when you are expressing your opinion all the time 24/7? Can you just imagine how over-bearing and opiniated you are when you assert yourself all the time?
This expression of your truth is borderline with narcissism and narcissistic abuse.
And exposure to relentless criticism and narcissistic abuse over long period of time causes brain injury in the recipient.
Relentless criticism leads to mental illness in the target: perfectionism, social anxiety, panic attacks, anxiety, agoraphobia.
You cannot know everything so your perceived pontification status does not give you right to be rude.
This is why INFJ stay off from pontificating and being brutally honest - we always have ability to put ourselves in other person's shoe.
Of course, this is not always correct- it is not always healthy nor good - but that is another subject.
Being silent and ignoring the problem is also unhealthy and speaking out and expressing yourself is healthy - and that is lesson we INxx need to learn ourselves.
It is necessary to voice out the elephant in the room.
I believe the truth is somewhere in the middle - I am starting to discover that the key lies in the Jung's archetype called The Trickster.
---
(23.9.2022)
"I didn't see that as mean, as passive aggressive or just aggressive, I didn't even see it as narcissistic, I didn't see it as manipulative because I didn't have the knowledge about toxic relationship dynamics."
Yep!
And what did see is our subconsciousness, our unconsciousness - in form of anxiety. And if we sought official help about anxiety - CBT would explain us that we are hallucinating it. The official definition of panic attack is that it is imaginary, by Mayo clinic:
"A panic attack is a sudden episode of intense fear that triggers severe physical reactions when there is no real danger or apparent cause."
So when we seek official medical help - we will be explained that we are too sensitive and that we are paranoid and delusional and that we must fix our thoughts in order to crap fit into toxic ambient - CBT is doing this process of lobotomy through their ABC model where they claim that our definitions and explanations of anything abusive is faulty and wrong and that we can change our descriptions and thus feel good and better - and that toxic people do not exist at all. This is at the core of any self help book based on CBT.
Once I understood that CBT is totally wrong and detrimental - I commented this at you tube videos from CBT practitioners- and surprise surprise - they suddenly were not calm any more themselves, they become very anxious, afraid, panicked and toxic themselves. So at one hand they will profess us to be calm and cheerful and take abuse as our imagination - while in the same time if they are confronted with what they perceive as aggression - they are not so calm and collected as they are forcing others to be. They are in fact very rude and childish. In this manner, CBT is form of narcissism , it is therapy of errors and abuse and hypocrisy - where we are explained that we must be saints and good, quiet and nice, and lobotomized, while in the same time, the same people who are preaching CBT are allowing themselves to break rules, to cross boundaries and to be hurtful and rude to others.
Also CBT is preaching "assertiveness" as a way to express your opinion - which again is narcissistic tool : it is signaling us that we can manage and fix and control narcissists by talking to them endlessly (as explained in video too) - while in reality the best way to handle covert narcissists is to leave/cut contact/ignore,mute,block. Narcissists love endless arguments since they do not play by the rules and they manipulate and gaslight and lie and do anything to discredit you and enjoy in your reaction when you lose control - so that they can blame you for being "abusive" to them.
In healthy ambient there is no need to be assertive, we simply talk and be ourselves without need to be in court and present our case in long sessions to prove a point to someone who is not willing to listen nor find solutions.
"Narcissist is afraid of you telling the truth"
Yep,
I see solution in Jung's archetype called The Trickster -
we use tools that narcissists stole from this archetype - mocking the king by speaking how it is.
The difference is that we are not preoccupied with our ego - and we can handle being vulnerable, we can admit our own mistakes and we are focused on finding solutions and seeking harmony and balance.
Like Br'er Rabbit we can use our tricks to handle bullies when we cannot escape immediately and ultimately run away/cut contact from them.
----
(26.9.2022)
For starters, social anxiety is not the same as social anxiety disorder.
CBT is not working, even official science now reports this:
"Taking into account that a considerable number of patients do not sufficiently respond to either cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) or psychodynamic therapy (PDT) (Leichsenring and Leweke, 2017), there is a need to further improve the available treatments."
(sciencedirect, 'The role of shame and guilt in social anxiety disorder')
"When I am socially anxious I am afraid people will think ___"
This exercise does work in safe place. Then when we are faced with bullying, mobbing, unfair criticism and narcissistic abuse - this exercise does not work. This analysis will not work when we have to work in toxic ambient where we are being ashamed about our mistakes in our work, yelled at - and when we cannot quit this job. Then we have social anxiety and this exercise does not help with real problems in life.
"Make friends with it"
I agree that acceptance of social anxiety is correct path since it is part of Humanistic psychology which works as oppose to CBT,
the acceptance is not about accepting abuse nor toxic people. IT is accepting our reactions yet allowing ourselves to have natural reactions to unfair treatment and disrespect.
"Heart racing"
I would go with Elaine Aron advice in her book "HSP" that we look at panic as neutral and extra stimuli processing rather than associating panic with anxiety and fears.
"Avoidance, keeps us trapped"
No.
"Put yourself in situation that trigger so you learn from your experiences, called this exposure"
Incorrect.
Just think about it logically - if exposure to abuse, unfair treatment and trauma really works, then third world countries would be Scandinavia - progressive, happy, organized, wealthy, functional and without hysteria. We see that this is not the case. Also this would mean that dysfunctional childhoods and dysfunctional families would not produce serial killers and depressive adults scared of life. This exposure idea would also mean that prisons are hotbeds of scientists, tycoons, innovators and happy people without any violence or drug issues.
Exposure works only if we take care of ourselves first - by cutting toxic people out - if not physically then ignoring, stonewalling them.
This information about toxic people is crucial however CBT is forbidding this knowledge about trauma and narcissistic abuse in order to make pharma mafia wealthy by selling drugs to neurotics.
"Write what you learned"
What can we learn in dysfunctional toxic ambient? And when we cannot leave it?
We can learn that avoiding toxic people is healthy. And that panic reaction to bullying and mobbing is normal reaction to abnormal people. And that we cannot control other people - so we cannot change abuse. So exposure does not help with dealing with mobbing and bullying which is at the core of social anxiety, no matter how much CBT tries to obfuscate this fact.
"Distance from them"
CBT does not cover trauma bonding neither toxic shame nor codependency issues - which is addiction to narcissists - since Complex Trauma programs us to be subservient. Accepting oneself is also not hot topic in CBT - rather it is self pathology and crap fitting into abuse.
"Drop, trip in front of people, wear mismatch socks"
You are talking about Jung's Trickster - and it is anti-dote to toxic shame programming and abuse.
Instead of naming it so people can search and learn about what Trickster is, you are instructing people to ashame themselves - without explaining what to do when we are bullied and attacked from others - which is at the core of social anxiety.
I have no idea why CBT is forcing people to expose - which leads to people pleasing - since CBT does not offer any advice how to handle abuse, difficult people and bullying at all. These trauma issues which caused social anxiety trauma in the first place are not mentioned by CBT at all - and reason for this is pharma mafia - since most people will expose and make mistakes deliberately - and it will not work since there will always be Karen and our codependency issues that force us as under hypnosis into Karpman Drama Triangle - and then the only solution that CBT sells is being drug pusher in pharma mafia solving neuroticism by making medical drug sellers rich.
Toxic shame is not shame. Mere making mistakes in purpose will not work - it is complex - because social anxiety is social, it is not self-anxiety. It is fear from people, people, social situations are crucial ingredient in anxiety, that is why it is called social anxiety.
If shame itself was issue, then it would be called self-anxiety.
"Not everyone would be interested in you"
This is another failure from CBT - that is does not recognize false social anxiety in the form of narcissism. Narcissists are hiding behind social anxiety, mimicking social anxiety to gain approval and sympathy - and they are giving false report to CBT researchers who are more focused on making pharma mafia rich then actually helping and solving psychological issues.
---
Fear of abandonment is Borderline issue.
Truly socially anxious people would be glad to be left alone and that people do not invite them to boring social gatherings, pretending to be something we are not.
---
Check out The Trickster video by The Psychology of The Trickster
Eternalised
It explains how to handle this exposure without changing anything.
Thing is that in social situation (no matter what kind or level of social exposure - party, shopping, close, distant any social contact) - will result in us making mistakes. Mistakes and saying something stupid and embarrassing ourselves will happen, it is part of social settings, it is part of human condition, it will happen. With social anxiety due to Complex trauma (exposure to unfair criticism over long period of time and mocking) we are afraid of speaking up.
If we voiced our opinion we would embarrass ourselves -
and Trickster by Jung is saying that is ok, it is part of us. With toxic ambient we suppressed this part of our psyche - and we need to set it free.
Then we can see our mistakes, blunders, bias, wrong conclusions, being weird and flawed - not as toxic shame core feeling that we are inept and unacceptable - yet we can see it as being human, allowing ourselves to free all repressed aspects of us that bullying and abuse made us to hide and cover up - which is causing social anxiety in the first place.
So we do not need to deliberately provoke mistakes - mistakes will happen on its own, mistakes are part of life and they especially are visible in social situations where there is independent critic who will mock us and criticize us for our mistakes. Now instead of toxic shame programming - we can actually be proud of our mistakes as it is reminder that we are normal human beings and that mistakes are normal part of life - and that mistakes are part of being Trickster.
Then we can see that ambient that is rigid is fascism, sick, abnormal. That people who are pontificating others to be normal are actually abnormal and they are creating chaos and disorder by trying to ashame others into obedience of what they define as normal.
So without triggering our toxic shame whenever we make mistake - now we can label our mistake as Jung's Trickster, something funny that makes balance in life.
CBT does not explain like that.
CBT maintains that we can make fool of ourselves BUT we are still rigid, CBT does not explain false self concept. This will make us hooked into being afraid of making mistakes. This is because when we allow ourselves to make mistakes, the whole structure of society that is sick will collapse: I am talking about sick people like Trump who are sitting in managerial seats and make destructive decisions about anything - and we are all silent to bullies because we were programmed to be normal and silent and obeying, afraid of being different, afraid of being ourselves.
When in reality criminals are not afraid of being themselves: psychopaths who are crossing boundaries all the time and make deliberate mistakes and thus are successful in life - while we with social anxiety issues are trying to be normal, kind and nice at the expense of our true personality: someone who is HSP, someone who does not like boring parties, someone who is not interested into working to corporations to make money to impress people who are not interested in us at all.
CBT keeps us trapped in prison mindset that we must be obeying, normal, socially acceptable and that we must not be different from groupthink herd mentality. CBT is form of mass control and it is contributing to social anxiety.
Humanistic psychology and Liberation psychology on the other hand are anti-dote to social anxiety: that we accept ourselves as we are, with mistakes and flaws and live life with integrity, without secrets and without narcissistic mask to keep image of false self.
---
Think about it logically.
How "normal" people without social anxiety are socializing? Are they making exercises?
Nope - they are simply themselves.
Social anxiety is part of Complex Trauma, it means that we are running in survival mode with amygdala hijacking. This means that our cortex brain is offline in social situations.
Therefore, logical exercises will not work - since our brain will be hijacked - and brain will focus on the threat: other people. This CBT exposure crap will result in us being people pleaser, fawning to abuse and tolerating criminal acts like bullying and mobbing. Socializing is not healthy if there are toxic people out there.
If we live in slum part of city, hanging out with drug dealers, hookers and mafia will not make us non-anxious - it will traumatize us even more because the core of social anxiety is abuse from other people.
We cannot cancel poison by drinking more poison.
---
Stay in psychological safety - concept that CBT forbids us to know. CBT is focused on panic symptoms since this way pharma mafia can make a lot of money by parasiting on our neurosis and then blame us for being lazy and non-cooperative.
When we have change perspective: by realizing what is truth - we will cancel out hypnosis, veil over our eyes that is distorting our reality.
Abuse, bullying, mobbing, toxic people caused our social anxiety. Unsafe people are problem - not us.
Abuse also taught us to trauma bond with toxic people and be codependent with them since we have internalized toxic shame (core belief that we are beta, subservient, passive, inept to handle and manage life) - and this means even with exposure we will end up with toxic people - like Johnny Depp ended up with Amber.
It is about realization that we self love self validate and take care of our inner child, inner suppressed emotions - and allow them to come out in light and prosper - which means accepting our weirdness and any label that "society" labeled us in the past -
this means being ourselves as we are, to come as we are -
and cut contact with toxic people.
Schopenhauer said that intelligent people are alone since stupid ones cannot handle the truth. He basically explained social anxiety.
When we are silent and when we do not show ourselves in public, when we do not express ourselves - we allow evil to flourish.
Now, exposure has totally different meaning.
Exposure is not about other people at all. CBT is placing other people at the highest rank - that we have to depend on other people and their reactions-
Nope, we can have intrinsic locus of control instead -
and this means vibing alone until we meet our crew, our team.
---
If exposure works, then third world countries would be happy, wealthy and organized countries.
Prisons would be hotbed of scientists and tycoons and innovators.
Slums would be spring of psychological safety and children of love flowers-
Exposure will simply not work with toxic ambient, with toxic people, with narcissistic abuse.
---
He is saying that you go out and meet people and talk to strangers in order to feel less scared among people.
This will work until you meet bully, psychopath, narcissist and aggressive borderliner.
Then exposure will turn into trauma.
---
Googling your symptoms is always bad idea.
Social anxiety is not researched and pharma mafia is keeping results and research hidden and they made blunder with experiments in 1990s - they interviewed people who did not have social anxiety at all, (shy and narcissistic individuals) and now social anxiety is crippled with false information and thus false instructions.
So if you decide to "cure" and "heal" any social inhibitions you might have with advice offered by official medical resources (CBT) - you will end up addicted to drugs and stuck in fawning stress response, which is the purpose of pharma mafia: to make money on human neurosis and never heal actual psychological problems.
---
Think about it logically - if social anxiety is easily solved by exposure - then
1) it would still be named social phobia as phobias are resolved by exposure
2) there would be no social anxiety at all and "cured" individuals would flood social anxiety forums at reddit with magical cure by now.
Exposure was talked since the early days of social anxiety at the end of 1990s -
I ended up with people pleasing issues, fawning and being subservient and passive, suicidal ideations were still present and I did not know how to handle criminal bullying, mobbing, abuse and narcissistic abuse at all - keeping me trapped in trauma. Exposure does not work in toxic ambient and when there is trauma bonding programmed in our psyche due to Complex Trauma.
---
Social anxiety is not social anxiety disorder.
These are two totally different concepts which are muddled in all resources - and thus not easily detected. This mix is created deliberately by narcissists and toxic people in managerial seats who are making profit rather than helping people in need.
And social phobia is archaic term - it was abandoned since research showed that mere exposure does not "cure" it as any phobia would be gone by exposing acts.
CBT is deliberately muddling these concepts because it makes Pharma mafia rich, parasiting over neuroticism.
The true solution is Humanistic psychology and Liberation psychology which is focused on self acceptance and self validation which is anti-dote to trauma.
CBT is focused on panic symptoms and thus makes socially anxious individuals to self pathologize, develop more anxiety and toxic shame then already present.
There are bullies and psychopaths who are noticing others in order to abuse them. Bullying and mobbing and abuse is the cause of social anxiety. It is not issue of thinking pattern that is pathology - it is abuse that caused natura panic reactions to abuse. Problem are toxic people who are triggering and causing trauma in others. Problem is not abused person who experienced abuse as CBT is instructing socially anxious people to believe.
I have no idea why CBT does not explain how to handle difficult people. Instead CBT is focusing on self pathology - to self blame oneself and being labelled as weird and to calm down panic symptoms - which will not help if we are inside Karpman Drama Triangle abuse environment. CBT makes even more damage by Assertiveness concept - which only makes covert narcissists to exploit us even more, since narcissists like endless arguments and triggering reaction in us - which is assertiveness by definition: to assert yourself. Asserting does not work with psychopaths who are living in their fantasy world and who use DARVO to deflect accountability.
Social anxiety is being trapped in job situation with mobbing and bullying where we cannot leave. That is social anxiety. Anything other than that is narcissism and narcissists mimicking social anxiety in order to gain sympathy from others and secure their narcissistic supply by victimhood.
Interpreting things positively which CBT promotes leads to crap fitting and staying stuck in abuse.
Toxic people need to be cut, stonewalled - and mere toxic positivity is horrible advice.
---
Humanistic psychology works (as oppose to CBT) - to accept ourselves and validate our emotions, without stifling any of them down.
I discovered that Jung's Trickster was the missing link, missing puzzle.
Where we accept our mistakes and blunders as normal part of human experience - where narcissistic abuse is causing social anxiety and rigid mindset. Trickster is healing this - by allowing ourselves to be ourselves as we are, using tricks and magic as tools that we were programmed to not use - and thus we ended up without tools to manage life and difficult situations.
Narcissists, bullies and criminals are using all tools available, they cross boundaries without feeling guilty - and by doing this they are creating social anxiety in people who are wired and disciplined to be good and nice and to follow rules too much. And they are successful in life - where we stay hidden and away from life since we try to be normal and good and kind.
We are programmed to believe that mistakes are evil and that if we are not good that alternative is being hysterical evil and out of control. These beliefs are implanted and they are erroneous. We can balance out our thinking by learning about Jung's Trickster.
Instead of trying to fit in, without herd mentality and seeking approval and trauma bond - we turn inward into Intrinsic locus of control - which is anti-dote to toxic shame, trauma. Allowing ourselves to make mistakes and be ourselves as we are will give us energy that we do not have now, with trauma programming to fit in into abuse and toxic ambient.
With Trickster concept we can accept our social anxiety as mind trick to handle toxic people. And we can accept our thoughts, conclusions, decisions as normal and something that is valid. With social anxiety we are programmed to feel toxic shame and thus to believe that we cannot trust our thoughts, opinions, feelings. If we accept everything about us that was labeled as stupid, weird and abnormal as normal and good and healthy - we will dissipate toxic shame, trauma and abuse - and we will cut contact with toxic people, since we will from now on rely on our mind, on our decisions, thoughts and emotions -
with social anxiety we do not rely on ourselves at all -since we are being programmed to self blame and self hate ourselves.
Stifling down our shadow parts - is not healthy.
---
He interviewed narcissists like himself who are mimicking social anxiety to gain narcissistic supply: other people's admiration and appraisal.
Social anxiety is being stuck in job with mobbing and bullying and you cannot leave or run away. That is social anxiety. Anything other than this is narcissism - being preoccupied about fear of abandonment since narcissists seek others to exploit and gain validation from others.
Truly socially anxious individuals on the other hand are victims of narcissistic abuse - constant and relentless criticism.
---
This focus on others works for narcissists who are mimicking social anxiety - and they will never learn it since they lack empathy.
On the other hand,
Truly social anxious individuals are victims of narcissistic abuse - bullying and mobbing by people who lack empathy - and they are already focused on other people, zoomed onto them seeking for signs of danger and potential attack.
I see solution in changing mindset altogether, that I am fine with myself as I am, doing what I truly want to do, not as trauma bonding or expecting what other person would want me to think, act - where I rely on my common sense what to do, whatever that is.
---
Exposure did not help me at all. All I become was pushover and people pleaser since no one instructed me how to handle abuse, bullying, mobbing - and how to survive without money/job after I confront abusers and they fire me for speaking the truth and hold them accountable.
In the end, if exposure works then third world countries would be wealthy, organized and happy like Scandinavia - yet they are up the their neck in corruption, crime, abuse, mafia.
Exposure works in psychological security, safety.
It does not work in narcissistic abuse ambient.
---
It is double binding.
If we decide to self lobotomize ourselves we will become Francis Farmer, philosophical zombie, NPC Wojak - empty person without emotions, caprices, perks, quirks, difference, own personality. We need our flaws and mistakes.
The fear of flaws and mistakes is the real problem: toxic people, abusers, narcissistic abuse which causes our issues with PureOCD in the first place.
Also this is double binding since if we go along with our intrusive worries we will live in hypervigilance.
I see problem in external : toxic ambient.
We need our brain, we need our thoughts - they will be toxic if we are inside Karpman Drama Triangle and being codependent with toxic person and trauma bond with covert narcissists.
This means if I feel worry and panic - I would seek if there is someone out there who is toxic and whom I consider help, service, friend - then cut them and see if it gets better.
I would go into direction of self acceptance and self validation rather than self-pathologizing as CBT is instructing us.
---
(27.9.2022)
I would add that toxic people and toxic ambient plays a huge role in our inner critic issues.
If we are surrounded by someone critical, negating, violent, aggressive - our thoughts will be toxic, too.
Especially with internalized toxic shame inside us - whereas self validation as said in video is anti-dote to toxic shame.
With toxic shame we turn to other people for validation, guidance and explanations and definitions about anything in life which is deadly combination if those people are toxic - and with toxic shame we will attract toxic people, they sniff it out inside us and parasite on our inner critic.
---
Try it.
Does it work?
Nope.
IT does not work because problem is outside of ourselves:
problem are toxic people covered up as help, service, friend, someone to depend on-
and on our internalized toxic shame which stems from external source: untreated mentally ill people such as narcissists.
We are talking here about virus and being able to detect virus - rather than nitpicking our own self which is probably false and rigid due to trauma, toxic people around us who programmed us to be scared of people and their approval.
---
"this sounds a lot like self erasure."
You are onto something here.
It is issue of Self.
With toxic shame and trauma we do not have authentic intrinsic self, instead we have false self, dependent on other people to define us. So changing our perspective will feel like self erasure -
especially when we start to stand up for ourselves and no longer people please nor fawn to other people. Then our Self will no longer be defined by other people's criticism, their nagging and complaints - and this will feel like self erasure - since self never existed at all, it was hologram of Self.
When we focus inside, we can find repressed parts of ourselves which toxic people instructed us to be ashamed of and hide away - labeled it as evil even though it is not violent, aggressive nor dangerous at all.
---
The trick is that we find anti-dote to toxic shame internalized inside us (by self validation) and then trauma bonding with evil people will break apart - and our locus of control will shift from external into intrinsic values inside us, our common sense and being authentic self.
---
Trauma splitting makes us label anything evil that is not perceived as good.
That is trauma all about - that we look at life in black and white.
If something does not seem validating, nice, safe - then it appears as evil to us. As if there is no fuzzy logic, instead we follow Aristotelian logic : where you are either friend or enemy, there is no neutral nor shades.
Medical experts are not our friends, they cannot be - they cannot be our friends online without interaction - so our trauma injury will interpret their general truth about certain issue as enemy and personal attack.
Learning about Trauma splitting can clean our mind from bias that trauma programmed inside us, brainwashed us into splitting - which cases a lot of issues in daily life.
---
Any reaction to anxiety breeds more anxiety.
If we stifle down our emotions, we are creating mental illness. Jung said it:
Carl Jung | Psychology and Philosophy 🧠, TWITTER:
The foundation of all mental illness is the unwillingness to experience legitimate suffering.
Elaine Aron said that anxiety as well might be HSP, that we process extra stimuli. If we label this as anxiety, we will create anxiety and panic:
Since most non-HSPs do not seem to enjoy thinking about solutions, they assume we must be unhappy doing all that pondering.
Preferring toughness, the culture sees our trait as something difficult to live with, something to be cured.
The Highly Sensitive Person,
Elaine N. Aron
They see us as timid, shy, weak, or unsociable. Fearing these labels, we try to be like others. But that leads to our becoming overaroused and distressed. Then that gets us labeled neurotic or crazy, first by others then by ourselves.
The Highly Sensitive Person, Elaine N. Aron
Learning to see our trait as a neutral thing-useful in some situations, not in others-but our culture definitely does not see it, or any trait, as neutral.
Be careful about accepting labels for yourself such as "inhibited", "introverted", "shy"
The Highly Sensitive Person,E. Aron
I see anxiety as a messenger from our unconsciousness. It is message from alien system that lives inside us and it is autonomous, it has its own goals and interests - and it is trying to tell us something, usually that we need to change something and make different decisions. I see anxiety as hysteria. I see this hysteria as message - rather then pathology. If we decide to label anxiety as panic and something dangerous - we will scare ourselves, we will tell our brain that there is unknown danger and it must create panic in order to protect brain. This is how brain works - brain is not built to make us happy - it is created to keep us safe and to avoid harm and pain.
If we decide to shift our mindset and decide to look and accept anxiety as message then we can listen to it, similar to sci fi movie from 2016:
"Louise Banks, a linguistics expert, along with her team, must interpret the language of aliens who have come to Earth in a mysterious spaceship."
Once we see anxiety as murder mystery - we can shift our panic and danger and allergy into puzzle to be solved: we can be like Sherlock Holmes to seek clues or like scientist who is in laboratory with mysterious never previously discovered organism that requires to prune layers and study - where facts and objectivity is primary focus.
Also, I see anxiety as part of Darwin evolution - where our cells and genes are made to detect predators to keep us safe and then evolute and find different ways how to avoid predators by camouflage or relocation.
This means, if there is anxiety - problem is not inside us. Problem is external: toxic people who appear as friends and service or help to us so we keep parasites to suck us dry because we are not aware they are parasites to be blocked, ward off, ignore, mute or stonewall.
If we go with CBT advice that we convince ourselves if we are in danger that we need to leave.
In real life - we are in danger and we cannot leave - which is causing anxiety. Such as being in mobbing and bullying and we cannot quit our job if we do not want to end up homeless. Whereas in this situation it is necessary to stand up for ourselves and find locus of control inside us - and trauma taught us instead to trauma bond and to trauma split: that we define as evil and dangerous something that is neutral. That is why we need to be Sherlock Holmes or scientist to find out what is triggering anxiety. Is it toxic people, past trauma or toxic shame internalized inside us which stems from toxic people - external source: constant and relentless criticism of our mistakes and flaws which may even be external.
The point is that we do not self pathologize - that we do not change our behaviour, as Lundy said:
Abuse is NOT caused by bad relationship dynamics. You can't manage your partner's abusiveness by changing your behaviour. But he wants you to think you can.
Lundy Bancroft
I would not listen to CBT because it is therapy of brainwashing and self pathology - and blaming ourselves leads to more anxiety:
Any attempt to dictate what thoughts, feelings, and sensations are proper or improper creates a breeding ground for guilt and shame.
Peter A. Levine
Another issue is narcissism. If there is no external threat, if there is no abuse, if there is no narcissistic abuse that is causing anxiety - then the problem is narcissism - that we are wearing fake mask to impress people to gain narcissistic supply from them and this is causing anxiety - seeking admiration from other people, since narcissists are unable to admit mistakes, vulnerabilities. In this case CBT actually works - and issues ought to be regarded as hallucination and focus needs to be inside to clean up the trauma injury and realize that narcissists will exploit other people and be difficult and toxic to other people because they are unable to clean their own house.
---
(28.9.2022)
"The best way to manage Complex PTSD is to identify the triggers and avoid them whenever possible."
Now imagine when you feel anxiety and triggers from rude abusive people - and you google your symptoms - and it shows up as social anxiety. Then you mis-diagnose your issue as paranoia and delusion as CBT is describing social anxiety. And CBT instructs you to expose and CBT explains that toxic people do not exist and that we cannot control other people as much as they cannot control us. While in reality they do trigger our panic symptoms through toxic behaviour. And then we end up exposed to abuse, bullying and mobbing - and social anxiety does not go away. CBT also instructs to be assertive in order to handle conflict. Which is the worst possible advice in dealing with toxic people such as covert narcissists who are not willing to seek solutions, they live in their imaginary fantasy world and they get energized by endless conflict loops which they handle by gaslighting - which means you cannot win argument with them and they keep you trapped in Karpman Drama Triangle dynamics - where we are constant victim and labelled also as hypersensitive while they are never wrong, they are never culprit of abuse and they are never questioned about accountability - and being assertive in such toxic ambient keeps you trapped and being codependent on their opinion, explanations, definitions and approval which you constantly seek by being assertive with them.
In reality - CBT is therapy of errors since it does not recognize trauma and it is focused on self pathology - explaining that symptoms of panic are delusion and sign of defunct mind which fuels toxic shame already internalized due to narcissistic abuse from before.
In reality - avoidance works with toxic people - and CPTSD is umbrella condition that hovers above social anxiety, social anxiety is small part of Complex Trauma. CBT is giving wrong advice which is actually detrimental because CBT decided to view social anxiety as fantasy, not condition based on actual and real abuse. When I confronted CBT therapist with this information they all said - that abuse can be easily dealt by leaving abuser. However in real life we live in poor conditions where we cannot just leave toxic job - for we need to pay the bills and rent. Also in certain situations due to service, help, information and some resource we cannot leave toxic person and instead we depend on them to get these resources. Then we are exposed to untreated mentally ill person who will cause trauma in the recipient of abuse.
I see Humanistic therapies as correct therapy - since it is focused on self validation and self love - which is anti dote both to toxic shame and trauma.
---
(29.9.2022)
"Telling other people what you like, what you want, expect in confident manner"
Problem is toxic shame which many people struggle with - with toxic shame we do not know what we like - and we base what we like on other people's validation.
People who grew up in complex trauma with constant and relentless criticism are conditioned to not know what they want, they are instructed, programmed and hypnotized into solving and fixing other people's emotional issues and problems in life. This is hypnosis and it cannot be stopped by being aware of it or by deciding to stop - due to chemicals released - stress hormones will be released when such person say No or start being "assertive" -
where instruction to be "masculine" and "man" will only add up to toxic shame.
Another problem is that once we start to be opiniated we become toxic - someone who is high maintenance, always asking and this soon will turn into parasiting over people who are pushovers and willing to put up with out complaints and naggings and neediness. Yeah, neediness is another product of "assertiveness" even when it is done in respective manner. Codependency being the result.
Why on the other hand we would not listen to psychology?
There is clear instruction on interdependence and Glasser's communication and connecting habits such as negotiation.
Allegory of long spoons.
Give and take. We cannot be always right and correct, sometimes we make wrong judgements - so sometimes it is best to admit mistakes and being vulnerable - anything other than that is road to narcissism, which is sinister mental illness.
---
This (assertive statement "I feel this and that because...") works in fine healthy and mentally balanced ambient.
However,
With covert narcissists, toxic ambient - this is exploited whereas aggressive mentally ill people use up our vulnerabilities, information and anything we say as tool to create drama and something labelled as unnecessary in order to make us feel guilty and ashamed - tools of control.
Problem is that people who have issues in self censorship and shutting up are being brought up in toxic ambient and codependency is conditioned early on - so not only people who are seeking help how to start talking are already in toxic ambient and surrounded by toxic people - they also have toxic shame which is hidden motor of not being assertive - which needs to be addressed:
toxic shame, complex trauma, codependency, conditioning.
If we do not cut contact with toxic people - they will drag us into endless arguments where instruction to be assertive is the worst possible choice with covert or overt narcissists, since they feed off making drama and sucking soul & energy from people dry, making them feel ashamed of their emotions and existence in order to control them. Any further argument, declaration and communication with such toxic people is an act of self sabotage.
In normal healthy relationships us being assertive is daily routine - normal talking and normal course of day, making statements of being honest, authentic and true, without secrets, shame and holding on in order not to make toxic person angry due to our needs and errors and problems.
---
Instead of Assertive I use Retort, something like being in court and defending your case.
If you choose "assertive" concept - you turn into feminine drama queen who is reacting to anything that you find slightest discomfortable. Many narcissist mask this with curse words, temper tantrums and yelling to appear masculine and strong - but in reality it is still being drama queen.
When we are drama queens and when we react to everything that feels "rude" to us - we will push people away and we will actually parasite over kind and nice people who are scared of us - and this will then make us parasite.
So this topic is not so straightforward and easy as it seems: that we react around. With time we will become narcissist who is living in his imaginary fantasy world and abusing people who choose to stay along with you due to fear and codependency issues that they have on their part of spectrum.
Glasser described interdependency as ultimate goal in healthy relationships with people. It is give and take, allegory of Long spoons.
When we are over opiniated about what we want in life - this is only take and take. This makes normal and healthy relationship with other people impossible.
---
Assertive does not exist, it is marketing ploy.
In normal, healthy ambient we speak in normal, confident way which appears as strong.
In toxic ambient with mobbing and bullying - being assertive does not work since there is aggressive mentally ill person who is abusing others. Being assertive will render you being fired or severely abused before being fired.
---
If comfort zone concept really works then third world countries would be happy lands with high functional government without corruption and high organization without chaos and poverty.
Think about it more logically.
The secret is in normal and healthy people who are using interdependence and Long spoon analogy.
Toxic ambient will not work no matter how much you step outside this magical fantasy concept called "stepping outside your comfort zone"
--
If comfort is cancer and drug - and eagerly doing hard things excited and stress is growth - then third world countries would be pinnacle of great life. They are not, they are cancerous and filled with drug crime and corruption.
The secret is in toxic people - not comfort of discomfort. Toxic people are cancer and drug, death and decay.
---
Sorry to burst your toxic positivity bias,
but stepping outside of comfort zone obviously does not work in poor, corrupt, third world countries where anything in daily life is uncomfortable.
The trick and secret is in toxic ambient and toxic people - not something being fearful, uncomfortable.
If growth takes place in taking challenges - then slum parts of cities would not be filled with drug and crime.
Prisons would be filled with scientists, tycoons and gurus.
---
In toxic ambient nothing will work.
If uncomfortable zone concept works - then third world countries would be filled with money, organization and functionality - yet they are filled with chaos, corruption, crime and violence.
The trick is in toxic people and toxic ambient - it is logical fallacy to generalize and equate discomfort with growth.
---
Comfort / discomfort is logical fallacy.
Instead the trick is in something that is normal, healthy.
Toxic will always produce toxic results.
---
Fawning is trauma response - it is conditioning, programming, hypnosis. It cannot be undone by awareness, although it helps a lot to learn about fawning and complex trauma so that we stop self blame and self hatred loop for being ashamed for fawning.
Trauma is stuck inside our body, so the problem with fawning can not be solved in correcting our thoughts. Nitpicking our thoughts will only add up to more of toxic shame already present and internalized inside us.
In the past, Charcot described fawning (lack of boundaries) as hysteria and it was contributed to women due to poor research, bias and logical fallacy.
Freud discovered that hysteria can effect everyone, not only women and that is can be healed by finding out the trauma by using hypnosis -
not because hypnosis is magical tool but because the problem is in unconsciousness. We have autonomous system in our brain called subconsciousness. It has a mind of its own and it is another person that is inside us - which is controlling our decisions, thoughts and explanations. Similar to homunculus, little person looking at the screen of our life.
If we try to nitpick and fix our logic - we are not working on unconsciousness, we are not working on the problem where problems stems from. Trauma is portal that allows us to see unconsciousness and we become aware of it. It is like bleeding when we are cut.
The problem is not blood - shaming ourselves for making our clothes dirty due to bleeding and struggle in washing our clothes to appear clean will not "fix" the wound.
Any advice how to set boundaries will not work - we will forget them due to Ebbinghaus Forgetting Curve - and we will rely on our automatic pilot, subconsciousness, hypnosis, conditioning to run our life.
The real question is what caused the cut and how to avoid getting cut, and becoming aware who is cutting - are we in real danger.
Anything else is not working on the core problem - trauma.
I see toxic ambient and toxic people as culprit with issues with boundaries.
In normal, healthy environment we will act normally without fawning and without throwing money, energy and mental struggle to maintain boundaries. Narcissistic abuse is being in contact with someone who will nitpick our boundaries since this is draining and with time it becomes controlling - we are made to believe we are causing some kind of damage and we need to apologize and be small and silent all the time. The problem is not us - the problem is not in not knowing how to live and manage life: the one and only problem is toxic person, toxic ambient.
Whereas cutting toxic people off is healing.
If we focus on our reaction to abuse as something unhealthy and abnormal we will stay stuck in Karpman Drama Triangle in victim role where we depend on other people to explain us reality and how to stand up for ourselves.
I would resolve any personal issue with analyzing people who are around us - and dump toxic people off - without drama or explosions or hate - stonewalling , muting, ignoring or direct warning and alarm of their accountability in their abuse.
---
(30.9.2022)
"Codependent is motivated to enmash with partner and make surrogate parent: you need to make me love myself, I only feel valuable when you love me, feel valid and real if you see me as valid and real. This is called burdening."
This is very fuzzy are for me. I do see that I put burden on other people where their validation and approval hurts me if they are angry at me. It feels like I am seeking their acceptance... but I do not seek it to feel loved and approved as primary concern. The primary concern is that they do not hurt or harm me. That I do not get fired from job. That I do not get violently attacked by them or that they do not backstab me or mock me when I make unintentional errors and that they do not create life threatening drama about some urgent task that they expect me to do. It is fear of attack and aggression as primary concern, for me.
The burden is still there - I put burden on other people to guide me and I do not allow myself to be the boss and to stand up behind my opinion, standpoint, reality of what I am capable to do - and instead I fawn onto others so that they do not throw temper tantrum in case I decline their requests which are mostly unreasonable and neurotic, sprinkled with their hysteria, screaming and yelling at me if I even consider to say no to their requests. This pattern of fear from other people being angry for not complying to their request repeats for me in any relationship or contact - and I solve this by social anxiety and general avoidance - where I do not make unnecessary contacts with other people - where I would be slave to them due to fear of their latent aggression and potential screaming temper tantrums when things do not go their way.
And I solve it by burdening - in any contact that I have with people - including job - I solve it by fawning and burdening other people to be leader and to decide what to do and how it must be done, anything.
What is the worst, until 2 years ago I did not even have a name for this behaviour, Marshall video taught me that this is called Fawning. Until then for decades it was fear and phobia, and I called it social anxiety and I tried to solve it by CBT advice: to fawn even more: to expose myself to toxic people and to crap fit into toxic demands and if I felt unfair and disrespect, CBT advised me to label these thoughts as hallucination and delusion (ABC Model). CBT never ever mentioned fawning, neither trauma nor codependency as issue to look at - CBT instructed me to self hate and self blame myself for feeling scared when around scary people and to "resolve" it by exposing myself to toxic people in order to get used to abuse (via CBT's Exposure concept).
---
I learned this picking up quick bias conclusions - is common human condition, it is not endemic to HSP. Jumping to conclusions and oversimplifications is effecting everyone.
Also, I learned concept called Trauma splitting - which adds drama and pain to this bias -
there splitting occurs when we divide world in black and white. If something does not feel fluffy - we observe it as satanic evil that is the cause of all problems in the Universe. There is black and white thinking - and as any trauma, it is unconscious and programmed - we learned this cognitive error in toxic ambient, it is programmed in our mind - and automatic - until we learn and start to be aware that this behaviour has a name and label and we can educate ourselves about trauma splitting and then learn how to avoid it as programmed reaction.
Yeah, based on little things to see danger where there is none is trauma splitting. It is important to label it as trauma in order to deflect toxic shame - self blame and self hate that otherwise would occur.
---
From my own experience I did succeed to be calm and collective with toxic people and their temper tantrums - and I ended up with people pleasing and fawning - since I would suppress my emotions that would make boundaries. Toxic people see us being calm and not reactive against us - they cross boundaries and they make even more drama, more hysteria, more screaming, more temper tantrums, more accusations, more cursing - they see we do not react - they become more and more aggressive and toxic - and us not reacting we become more pushovers and people pleasers and fawning.
I see that I lacked concept called Retort - for example
to actually say to this person "I disagree with you". Instead my focus would be to be calm and collective - not to react to their aggression - while in reality not being reactive is still reaction. I would react to their abuse by not reacting - paradoxically this is still reaction. Non-reaction is reaction.
And toxic people break norms, they break boundaries and thus they get away with their abuse, we do not hold them accountable for their abuse. This gives them green light to continue abuse.
I would cut contact with toxic people - wherever there is no obligation to stay with them.
And I would use Retort , healthy functional response to their abuse as way of coping with toxic people - not reacting at all will be taken advantage of and they will react in the same way as if we are directly confronting them. These people are abnormal, they are predators, they do not care for other people, they only want to destroy and eat other people.
---
Totally agree that we have tenet about how we want something before venturing into real world.
In real life however we will lose job, other people will attack us, backstab us for our convictions and mock us - so we need to have money for our beliefs, or face being homeless. We need to have psychological knowledge about Complex trauma and trauma bonding to know how fawning works and conditioning to conformism and people pleasing.
There are pre-requirements when we decide to be a person with true Self:
we need to have money to support ourselves
and we need to have super knowledge and education about psychology and philosophy.
---
"i would think of consequences if you don't"
This becomes problem when we cannot quit our jobs unless willing to become homeless or being part of femicide statistics or domestic violence. What we do when we are not allowed to have boundaries due to serious percussions in setting them?
People who have issues with boundaries are in this trap. They cannot simply state I am not going to absorb your feeling about me - if I get fired for doing so or getting beaten up.
Enmashment is not our fault - there is untreated mentally ill person, tyrant like Trump or Putin who is taken hostages.
How hostages can break free if tyrant closed borders and you cannot escape - of you have no money to run away?
What then?
Idea of not caring is trauma. It is called suppressing. It seems to us like escape - but this leads to schizophrenia, catatonic one - where we are cut off from reality. Suppressing emotions is never good idea.
---
(1.10.2022)
Things start to be extremely complex when we are being programmed by the same toxic environment to normalize the abuse and convince ourselves that we are too sensitive and must be strong.
Then the advice from third party who cannot see toxic dynamics will unintentionally add up to invalidation...
Especially if there is reactive abuse (when someone loses cool with the abuser and then appears as aggressive one).
I see trauma, abuse and narcissism as the common ground and cause of any psychological disorder which is often hidden from the view and all the blame is shifted onto the victim of abuse, the survivor.
---
Yep, I have been blogging and found writing as excellent resource to sort out emotional dysregulation caused by mobbing and bullying experience, exposed to relentless criticism, toxic ambient when growing up.
I have been watching closely You tube resources since 2015 regarding issues that bothered me: social anxiety and inability to defend myself. Until 2020 none of them mentioned fawning, Complex Trauma or Polyvagal Theory at all. All of videos about pushover issues, self esteem, confidence, fear of conflict are based on self-pathology and CBT: that we are imagining the panic and that there are no toxic people out there at all.
I also read tons of self help books ever since 1997 almost on daily basis.
None of them ever mentioned neither fawning nor complex trauma as concept, even though Complex Trauma was discovered in 1994. None! That is extremely frustrating - the lack of correct and laser sharp information.
I discovered that trauma is issue by reading general book about health by DK publisher.
There they mentioned PTSD and that symptoms are flashbacks and that there are triggers. This piece of information led me to discover CPTSD.
Until that moment, none of resources about psychology (which are mostly based on CBT) never mentioned flashbacks nor triggers - instead this is described as personal flaw, something to destroy and to be ashamed of, hide and not talk about (CBT explains panic symptoms a part of cognitive distortions and endemic to sickness - without explaining that all people - with fears or without fears - are extremely prone to having mental filters, bias and quick mental shortcuts, oversimplifications, adding up to already present internalized toxic shame).
---
I have been reading self help books since 1997 almost on daily basis, trying to seek "cure" for social anxiety -
only to learn this is actually Complex Trauma 2 years ago,
As I learned the correct approach to psychological issues is Humanistic psychology - it is to trust yourself. That we do not seek outside guidance. I am not therapist, I can only share my knowledge and personal experience, so you can check out my blog and reddit forum - the link is in my profile - About. You tube censors if I put links here in the comment section.
I have wrote very detailed knowledge about what I learned there.
I am trying to find the easy "advice" and it all leads to realizing we have the missing puzzle within ourselves, not in other people. Other people are here to share experience - but how we interpret information and apply it - is on us. It is like learning a foreign language and the act of understanding the unknown language depends on you - not on automatic translator or having a person beside you doing the translation.
The other person can only teach you foreign words and meanings - but it is up to you to make it into coherent experience - where one day you can learn new things on your own and even create new sentences on your own.
Check out also my Playlist - Psychology and Philosophy.
I would encourage you to look at yourself as the only person who can help you, think of it as if you are trapped in a cave on a distant planet, and people can only give you general advice about cave system - but the navigation and action and willingness to learn and educate yourself is only in your hands.
If we depend on other people to give us guidance, we will develop toxic shame, codependency, inability to have our own GPS, conformism and trauma bonding. The idea of humanistic therapies is that we realize we are unique, that we have all answers within us, and that we need to take responsibility for our own actions and decisions in life - good or bad, correct or with errors.
We all have unique experience, unique culture where we live, unique ambient - and my advice would simply be wrong to give you, because if it was so easy - you would figure it out yourself. This is similar to Wizard of Oz and ruby slippers concept. If I put myself in position to offer you advice - I am putting myself in superior position as if I am above you, this is also part of Karpman Drama Triangle. That is why I would refrain from advising you about anything - as I said, I am neither professional nor I am allowed to nitpick in your personal life- that is boundary of each of us to hold on to.
For example,
I tried to follow CBT advice for 20 years and it left me in dead end labyrinth of people pleasing and trying to be good and nice to everyone including toxic people.
I discovered that the only thing that helped me was general education and then it is up to me to apply it. Piaget talked about that concept:
To understand is to invent.
JEAN PIAGET
Are we forming children who are only capable of learning what is already known?
JEAN PIAGET
The goal of education is to create men and women who are capable of doing new things.
Approach: Genetic epistemology
JEAN PIAGET (1896-1980)
DK THE PSYCHOLOGY BOOK
Educators should not insist on a particular way of doing or understanding something, Piaget asserted, but nurture children's natural learning processes.
JEAN PIAGET
DK THE PSYCHOLOGY BOOK
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(2.10.2022)
"Suffering teaches us to be kind."
Enter trauma and narcissistic abuse.
Then we are taught to be kind - too kind, too nice. Then toxic people sniff our inability to be rude and unkind - and we become victims of their abuse , as programmed while growing up to be codependent.
It is great to be nice and kind - in kind and nice ambient. In toxic ambient, being kind is recipe to become pushover, people pleaser and victim of abuse. Our definitions of being kind is causing concept called trauma splitting:
where we define kind as being nice to everyone, including people who are lying, using manipulation, gaslighting, smear campaign and who have hidden agenda to exploit and take advantage of others -
and in the same time we equate as being kind to be silent, to self censor and not speaking the truth when someone is clearly toxic, pushing - crossing boundaries -
then our definitions of being kind and nice are doing us huge disservice and we make ourselves to be victims of abuse.
Then we focus on parasites and abusers and we try to fix their lives, fix their problems and fix their temper tantrums - while in the same time we have no time , money or focus on really good and kind people around us - instead we focus on ongoing drama and constant alarm triggered by toxic people with clear agenda to suck our energy, time and money away from us. But from our rigid standpoint - we will appear as being kind, and being kind is primary concern to us - without realizing that we are being tricked and exploited by Machiavellians. We end up normalizing abuse and enabling abuse - all in the name of being "kind".
This way our kindness is being exploited and manipulated by toxic people - our kindness is being used as a weapon to abuse ourselves.
Therefore - rule and urge to be kind is actually extremely dangerous - since it can hypnotize us to be exploited by criminals. We can see this happening on larger scale in Russia where people encourage and follow clearly person who is mentally ill and psychopathic - they simply want to be kind. Their kindness is causing war in Ukraine.
Therefore -
I would re-define the definition of kindness and I would challenge to use kindness with kind people. Unkind, rude, violent people do not deserve our kindness at all.
---
(3.10.2022)
", try pretending that you do not know everything,"
We do not know everything.
Descartes discovered this 350 years ago, he called it Evil Demon Hypothesis - and it was birth of modern philosophy.
We are mere human beings, we are limited by our body and mental capacities, we are all prone to bias, quick mental shortcuts, prejudgments, bigotry in order to make sense of reality and in the same time we create automatic delusions without being aware of it - all due to limitation of our body, brain. We are not gods.
Also - nothing can be proven as truth, this is called Münchhausen trilemma, there is no ultimate truth -
In the same time - we are forced to make our own truth - because without it we would have low self esteem, toxic shame and we would become pushovers and depend on other people to explain us reality - which is based on their bias and their filter. So we are forced to be trapped in Plato's cave -
we can try to see truth, reality though -
but with constant Descartes scepticism - that we might be wrong about our conclusions, definitions and explanations.
That is double binding and dualism - to be aware that we do not know anything and that we are forced to believe in reality as it appears to us, with facts and objectivity.
The world itself is dualistic and full of double binding.
Toxic people, narcissists and psychopaths are using this fact to their advantage - they present themselves as ultimate truth tellers and through manipulation, control and violence they present and impose their own truth to others. Such as Putin in Russia or Trump in USA - evil Machiavellians using and exploiting double binding and dualism into their advantage to exploit people who are not aware of Münchhausen trilemma. this is how cults are born, this is how marketing and politics work.
The more we are aware of ability to doubt into everything, anyone and including our own thoughts, conclusions and definitions - the more we will be clear and less egocentric, we will come up with better decisions and more functional ideas and solutions in life.
Without it, we will develop codependency issues and inferiority complex.
---
" Your responsibility is not to fix others, it is to return home to Heaven"
We cannot control others, so we cannot fix them.
However we can help them, we can share our knowledge - and perhaps this is the reason why we are here in the first place.
IF the tourist visit was the only purpose of our stay on Earth, it would last much shorter than the span of 60-90 years.
Without other people we will stay stuck in egocentrism and solipsism. We can learn through other people - and perhaps if other people came from other dimensions and other places than our own, this is unique opportunity to come into contact with them and learn about their ways and their solutions and their ideas and their standpoints - which may clear out certain issues, problems and blockages that we might struggle with. Each of us carry puzzle inside - it would be criminal to ignore this fact and not get into contact with others.
Also, it is obvious that apart from knowledge, we are here to learn about toxic people and predators - and ways how to protect ourselves, how to recognize red flags and how to adapt to the danger.
The life and system on this planet is created in such way - that we make contact with other people and that we adjust to life and people who are different than our own needs and preferences and to learn how to find middle spot - The long spoon analogy where we equally give and take.
In toxic ambient we will learn that there are extremely toxic people out there who appear as friend and help and service - and that we must cut contact with them - the lesson here is to recognize them and how to cut contact and how to deal with predators in functional manner, rather then aggression. IT is also about learning empathy and understanding that some people are evil because of trauma and that violence will give bad example to others. These are lessons we need to learn -
being autistic and building walls as a way to wait our death - is a waste of the reason why we are here in the first place.
---
Social anxiety challenges will come and spring up automatically - after we dealt with trauma, the source of trauma.
In social anxiety I see abuse, bullying, mobbing as the source of social anxiety and triggers. This means, being helpless, being coward, being unable to respond to abuse and being stuck in abuse and bullying - how can I work on that is different than challenges.
I can learn to retort to toxic people without being aggressive and monster (as Jordan Peterson suggest to have teeth as he says).
I can learn to let go urge to resolve issues which are outside of my control.
I can learn to challenge programming from abuse which propels me to be perfect, normal and allow myself to have mistakes and challenge social norms and conformism.
I can learn how to explain and define being kind and nice differently from the programming in toxic ambient.
I see challenging our definitions, explanations, conclusions about being kind and nice and normal as key in working with social anxiety Charcot hysteria - automatic panic and automatic fears in the presence of difficult people or potential of someone being difficult.
I see our ability to cut contact as opposed to learned trauma response in the form of fawning and staying frozen with abusive people.
I see way out in detection of toxic people - which trauma makes us fuzzy and unclear - inability to define toxic person as toxic person - and thus we stay stuck with them, with normalization of abuse, relativization of their abuse, with enabling their abuse.
---
"anxiety is hitting me hard"
When?
Light up the dark room. Bring in LED light instead of candle. Enlighten the dark parts of anxiety room.
Become scientist and Sherlock Holmes - pick up the clues - what happens when anxiety hits. Is it triggered by someone or in your head? Was someone rude? If so, what they said?
If we can get clear what is bugging us and triggering us - we can make anxiety solid as object to chisel and modulate and fix.
For example, if you are in toxic ambient - nothing you do to change and modulate yourself - it will not change it.
Is there mobbing and bullying there?
We can retort to toxic people - and see if they are clueless toxic - which will help when we retort and be authentic and honest. If they are toxic they will not stop with the abuse.
I would become objective and seek what is the true problem - are we in true real danger, is there mobbing and bullying? Or are we reacting to past trauma.
From my experience - with social anxiety we have ability to detect toxic fake manipulative controlling people - and this is creating uncomfortable feelings of anxiety in social situations. IF I define this ability as danger, annoyance, stupid, weird, weak, unmanly, something to destroy and to be ashamed about - I will create toxic shame and I will create additional anxiety which was not present before. And the fear will spread with time since now I am making myself into hysteria of not trusting myself.
When we know inside that we can rely on ourselves that we will protect ourselves from bullying, mobbing and abuse - by any means possible: retort in functional manner or leaving the toxic place or cutting contact with toxic person - or by being scientist and see if there is real true danger or is it my imagination - I believe we will start to rely on ourselves and social anxiety will lessen.
I see social anxiety as alarm system, it is nothing to be destroyed. Without it, we would become people pleasers and fawn to others since we would not have boundaries to reject and deflect toxic people. Social anxiety that we feel is suppressed and repressed anger, it is also suppressed and repressed child like parts of ourselves that we learned to be ashamed of. So we try to be normal, kind, nice and cooperative and agreeable - which toxic people will exploit and take advantage of. We believe that being silent, quiet and self censorship is sign that we are good, nice, kind, empathic, better than violent others, and that we must not rock the boat and that we must suppress natural responses to someone rudeness by being quiet and "strong" and "manly" - which are all wrong interpretations of how we react to difficult people. These wrong definitions and explanations about being kind, nice, strong, good, accepted, confident are creating social anxiety.
I would allow ourselves to react in ways that we label now as arrogant, stupid, weak, unacceptable. And then see if social anxiety will lessen. It will.
Dr Aziz talked about this in his book - however it was not explained from social anxiety perspective. With social anxiety we have crude and rigid explanations, conclusions and definitions of what is evil and what is nice. This is due to CPTSD, exposure to untreated mentally ill people, constant criticism and dysfunctional and toxic ambient - where our perspective of what is normal was thwarted and distorted - while it appears as ultimate truth in our mind - due to exposure to abuse.
As Gabor Mate said, being normal is creating chaos.
---
The more you try to do anything about anxiety - you will aggravate it more and make it more irritant than it was in the beginning. It is like scratching urticaria, skin rash, skin allergy - with scratching you are making it to itch more and you can create wounds by scratching it, reacting to it. On the other hand if you accept it, and apply certain healing oils - it will be soothed. I see acceptance of anxiety and learning from it, listening to its message as way "out" of anxiety.
Anxiety is natural part of our brain and emotions - if we remove it, it is like lobotomy - we will also destroy our character, our preferences, our perks and quirks, parts of ourselves that make us happy and confident, what feels good to us.
Our brain is made to protect us - it is not created to make us happy.
Darwin discovered that all living beings are created to adapt to their environment in relation to the danger: predator.
With social anxiety we were attacked and experienced abuse and aggression from predators - and now our brain is highly aware of the danger. That is good. Without it, we would become victims of abuse, we would stay with toxic people, they would parasite over us, steal from us, manipulate and control us and perhaps even kill us. Like Amber with Johnny Depp. If he healed his "anxiety" and uncomfortable feelings that naturally arise from living with someone toxic like her, he would be broke now, the whole world would falsely label him as rapist, his movie career would be over and everyone would hate him, even though he is innocent and victim of abuse. Anxiety tries to protect us from Ambers, from predators, from true evil in this world. We do not live in rose garden, this planet hosts parasites and predators and we need to learn to detect covert narcissists and fake people out there. Our social anxiety is ability to sniff out people with narcissistic mask, serial killers, abusers, toxic people.
Explanations from CBT, official therapy are making us to suppress these natural reactions to toxic people - and we are being told that having anxiety means we are ill, stupid, weird, unaccepted and weak. Then we try to crap fit into abuse - and social anxiety only gets worse with programmed fawning and people pleasing and trying to seek admiration, approval and validation from others - so that we attract toxic people and narcissist who are seeking narcissistic supply in traumatized and scared individuals programmed to be subservient to them - all in the name of CBT exposure and explanation that toxic people do not exist.
Instead of focusing on our panic symptoms as CBT instructs us (CBT is main default therapy for social anxiety) - I would accept our social anxiety as alarm system, our ally - and we need to listen to it, become scientist and Sherlock Holmes and seek proof, reality, objective facts and see what is bugging us. Is it true danger or are we having CPTSD triggers -
true danger is dealt with retort in functional manner, natural reactions to abnormal people, cutting toxic people off.
Triggers in CPTSD are dealt with emotional regulation. None of these approached include self pathologizing ourselves for feeling scared, self blame nor self hatred as CBT is instructing us to feel and explain anxiety, something to destroy and to be ashamed of.
---
" to just connect to whoever they want despite their tribe"
So many questions here.
Why would you want to connect with anyone? What is the urge behind it? Do you distrust yourself and your own intrinsic values inside and instead seek guidance from others?
What you hope to gain from others?
Security? Because you have none inside you?
Gain? Do you want to parasite on other people and their resources?
Do you seek their approval and admiration due to narcissistic urge to have other people as your narcissistic supply?
Do you want to connect with just about anybody to feel safe so that they do not attack you?
Can you make safety in different way other than learned fawning and people pleasing and appeasing others?
I would make first clear about what you want and why you want it?
It is not natural to connect with anyone and everyone. There are predators out there, covert narcissists - they appear as your friend, help service but they only have hidden agenda to exploit you or even kill you when they are done.
If we have urge to connect with anyone and everyone - that is sign that there is something wrong.
And of course, when we cannot connect - we will feel social anxiety.
Some people do not want to connect, they are egocentric. Some people have social anxiety and trauma and some people are avoidants - some people are disgusted by other people - in any case it will be impossible to connect with everybody.
Expectation that we must love all people is also distortion and sign of abuse and trauma hidden in our subconsciousness that drives us to seek love from external locus of control - which ends up as depression, disappointment when we face real life.
Urge to connect with all people to evade punishment, pain and hurt and aggression is called trauma bonding and it is at heart of social anxiety. Other label for this is Stockholm Syndrome. We live in unrealistic belief that all people are good and there are no toxic people out there - and this belief will cause us make self sabotaging decisions in life. And we will attract extremely dangerous and toxic people with this belief and attitude.
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I would let go of CBT and CBT approach, it is totally wrong and even dangerous and detrimental.
First danger of CBT is that it muddles social anxiety - it has no clear definition what is social anxiety and it mixes it with social anxiety disorder which is mild schizophrenia. This way it is instructing totally normal social anxiety as severe mental illness and then tries to cover up artificial damage by selling drugs in cooperation with Pharma mafia, making money on human neurosis for Trump like narcissists hidden in managerial seats of medical industry.
CBT based its research on faulty research in early 1990s - basing social anxiety on narcissists who were feeling social anxiety symptoms due to their inability to exploit easy targets to complete their narcissistic supply pool.
-
Public speech issue is not social anxiety.
Performance anxiety - when you feel social fears when performing in public - it is totally different from social anxiety.
Social anxiety is connected with bullying, abuse and mobbing, toxic ambient like tyrannical oppression
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"Report that they do not live to their lives potential"
No say Sherlock. This is secondary effect. This is not primary concern. If we have agoraphobia, we won't go outside, we won't take risks and we won't make any potential. That goes without saying.
This is not primary fear. This is not primary focus.
When we tackle trauma behind social anxiety - we will naturally follow our goals - and we will live our potential - this will come naturally, without us meddling and tackling or focusing on it.
Social anxiety is trauma, it is part of Complex Trauma, there is bullying and mobbing and abuse that caused social anxiety.
Avoidance thus is protective mechanism - this is not pathology. Avoidance is normal reaction to abnormal people , abnormal situations abnormal events.
If we pathologize avoidance or awareness that we do not live our potential - this will add to toxic shame - which means more anxiety and panic and inferiority complex.
Trauma is not being hurt in relation. There was abuse.
There is difference - there was programming, hypnosis, exposure to debilitating criticism -
hurt itself would be like a bruise. Trauma and abuse is like being cut deep, being shot at, being tried to be murdered.
This is important to realize since many narcissists are mimicking social anxiety and they are very vocal and give false impression about what is true social anxiety. Narcissists are focused on exploiting others and blame victims and play victim. That is not social anxiety. Narcissists are focused on having pool of narcissistic supply - to exploit others.
It is true that trauma is stored in our body, trapped inside us.
However I do not see "dissolving" it by noticing it or being aware of it -
this will not help.
Trauma in social anxiety is connected to abuse, where we are programmed to fawn to others. We have no ability to defend ourselves, we never learned how - and instead we learned false and wrong definitions about what is normal social behaviour, wrong definitions about what is normal and wrong definitions about what is wrong and evil in social situations.
Therefore obvious trauma resolving is in learning how to adopt to predators toxic people - learn how to recognize them, how to retort to them in functional manner and how to cut contact with them immediately - instead of programmed normalization of abuse, instead of hypnotized rationalization of abuse.
I would step away from self pathologizing us, away from our panic symptoms - and I would go in direction of seeing external cause of trauma - and how can we protect ourselves in functional proper and healthy manner -
which may include conflict, being unreasonable and making mistakes and errors, making wrong decisions - and to normalize what we suppressed and rejected in ourselves. If we seek to hunt our anxiety - this is part of trauma - that we believe we are faulty, wrong, that we must invalidate ourselves and reject parts of ourselves.
While being normal and healthy means having all our emotions - good or bad, fine or disturbing , without pathologizing them - as we learned in the abuse.
---
Being preoccupied how other people perceive you is narcissism.
True empathy have ability to put themselves in other people shoes.
Truly socially anxious people are afraid of trauma, abuse, mobbing and bullying, there is fear of punishment, abuse and pain and hurt as primary concern.
Narcissist on the other hand are also preoccupied about other people - but this inhibition springs from narcissism, inability to fill up the pool of narcissistic supply - where other people are seen as object to exploit, get advantage of and to parasite on, where role of other people is to appease, appraise, approve and validate narcissist.
Narcissism is covert serious mental illness and it is based on lack of true empathy, inability to be normal and sane, it is based on psychopathology and to harm and hurt other people - and thus cause social anxiety in others.
--
"I tried exposure but it make it worst"
Huge smoking gun where social anxiety started from and where it is getting triggered.
We cannot heal in same toxic ambient where problem is caused in the first place.
Exposure in healthy, functional, normal environment would make it better - we would feel psychological security. In toxic ambient we cannot feel safe - it is outside our control: it is outside of our control when someone is abusive, when someone is manipulative, when someone use coercive tactics and Machiavellianism dark triad.
Problem is not us. We are not evil. We are not creating disorder, we are not the ones with hidden agenda - toxic people do this. If we self pathologize, if we try to calm ourselves down - we tell our body and mind that we are inferior, that we are cowards, that we cannot stand up to toxic people, that we are unable to detect toxic people in the first place.
When we self pathologize we will try to crap fit into abuse - we will try meditation, we will try to modulate and fix our brain - which is not broken at all - it works fine and healthy - it reacts to toxic people and narcissists who are abusive.
Toxic shame which is the internalized trauma and motor that keeps triggers ongoing tell us and instruct us that we must change fix ourselves to fit into abuse and crap.
So obvious solution is instead of nitpicking ourselves, changing our brain and calming ourselves down - is to do the opposite: rock the boat, be abnormal, be unreasonable, be what we define as evil and unkind but in reality it is being confident.
Social anxiety will naturally compel us to meditate and to calm down and not to face trauma, bullies and narcissistic abuse - we will develop all sorts of addiction to distract us from the real problem. Meditation is helping social anxiety as oil on fire.
---
Confidence is not something to keep up.
IF you need to "keep up" confidence, this is inferiority complex and it is called overcompensation - where you try to be confident without working on trauma and wounds which are prohibiting us from living with full energy.
Confidence is paradox - if you try to achieve it, you will never get it.
If you let go, you will be confident: being ok with being imperfect, being fine with errors and set backs where locus of control is intrinsic, it does not depend on approval, recognition outside of ourselves.
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"Im not sure why"
Due to Complex trauma: exposed to relentless criticism 24/7 while growing up when we were suppose to feel psychological security, safety and validation. It is also result of narcissistic abuse, bullying and mobbing. That is why.
---
Social anxiety is not issue with talking to other people.
Social anxiety is not introversion.
Social anxiety is not issue with confidence as primary concern.
Social anxiety is not practice of talking to other people.
Social anxiety is being abused, it is experience of Complex Trauma, being in mobbing and bullying experience, being punished for being oneself.
Narcissists mimic social anxiety where abusers see other people as pool of narcissistic supply: objects to parasite and reject and discard when finished.
Primary concern for narcissists is to exploit and take advantage of other people - and when validation from other people is not available, narcissists will feel symptoms of social anxiety. Due to not having actual social anxiety, narcissist will be spokesmen for social anxiety giving false impression of social anxiety to the public.
For most of narcissists and shy people - repetition will work - since there is no social anxiety at all.
That is why exposure works for people who mimic social anxiety and thus give false impression what really social anxiety is.
---
CBT is horrible. Healthier version are Humanistic therapies, humanistic psychology.
"Gradually work to what you fear the most"
What the heck this means? You work up to Putin? To serial killer? To Amber? There are toxic people out there who are causing abuse trauma and anxiety in their victims of abuse - there is nothing to resolve here, we cannot appease abusers, we cannot make them feel better, we cannot fix them. We can leave abusers undone, unresolved. CBT is thus urging us to fawn and people please abusers. CBT is based on faulty research in 1990s where they interviewed shy and narcissistic people who were mimicking social anxiety - and CBT is based on narcissism and narcissistic abuse: invalidation and stifling emotions down. Behind CBT are narcissists in managerial seats and making profit for Pharma mafia as primary concern.
---
Social anxiety is being helpless and trapped in a situation of constant, endless bullying, mobbing and abuse without means of escape.
This is trauma, CPTSD - and it is part of Charcot hysteria; being frozen and being unable to go up to anyone, being unable to speak up, being unable to go to next person. That is why this is condition - it cannot be resolved by exposure -that is why social anxiety was renamed from social phobia - where all phobias are healed by exposure. Social anxiety lingers due to experience of trauma, abuse, bullying and mobbing, this trauma is trapped inside the body. It forms toxic shame inside, toxic shame becomes internalized and causes fawning, people pleasing and external referencing locus of control - depending on other people for approval, appraisal, validation and guidance.
The problem even though it is trauma trapped inside the body - true problem is external: toxic people. There are predators out there. Due to trauma and toxic ambient, socially anxious individuals survivors of abuse never learned how to recognize toxic people, how to deal with toxic people in healthy and functional manner. Mere exposure therefore will not work - it will only aggravate social anxiety and attract hoards of toxic people. Social anxiety is part of empathy and empaths attract master manipulators - since narcissists are attracted to nice, kind, friendly and open people filled with empathy - where abuse is conditioned us to equate saying no as evil and something unacceptable.
Instead of exposure I would rather work on my programmed beliefs which are dysfunctional and unrealistic - such as equating self expression as arrogance and that I am not allowed to make mistakes, and that I am not allowed to cut contact or retort to toxic people.
---
This is not issue of perfectionism as primary concern.
This is trauma - and if you invalidate trauma, you are repeating the abuse and side along with abusers.
Social phobia was renamed into social anxiety since this is not phobia - exposure will not heal social anxiety. Since the problem is not hallucination.
The source of social anxiety is abuse, abusers, toxic ambient, toxic country, narcissist, narcissistic abuse. The cause of social anxiety is external - there is nothing wrong with survivors of abuse: socially anxious individuals-
Also, speaking in public is not social anxiety at all - this is called Performance anxiety.
Wrong advice is worse as deliberately intentional abuse since it keeps sufferers trapped in false explanations, false definitions and wrong conclusions.
---
People pleasing is trauma response. Officially this is called Fawning.
It is automatic, it cannot be reasoned out with logic. Ebbinghaus Forgetting Curve will destroy any information we intake anyway, useful or not.
People pleasing is sign of us being abused when growing up, it is not stifled down along with our helpful personalities that we ignored and rejected while trying to be perfect and "normal".
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Progressing where?
Maslow hierarchy of needs are telling us that when we satisfy our basic needs, we will eventually reach to self actualization - which is progress.
We cannot progress if we are not feeling safe in this world due to toxic ambient, toxic country, toxic people, abuse, manipulators, narcissists, mobbing, bullying, emotional vampires -
first we need to feel safe.
Trying to "progress" when we are being attacked, bullied and molested is silly -
that is turning away from the problem, ignoring the abuse and this is common cause of mental illness: ignoring the legitimate suffering.
Social anxiety is being trapped in job type situation where one cannot leave and in the same time there is bullying, mobbing, abuse, attack and aggression from all people around. That is social anxiety- being in abusive situation without tools or any ability to defend oneself. In such state, there is no room for neither confidence nor progress. The problem are toxic people.
This is the same way as Elon Musk tries to solve Ukraine war by Twitter polls and thinking that giving in to Russia will resolve war - by tearing apart parts of Ukraine to the abuser and aggressor. Nope, it will not work since evil will take this as sign to do whatever evil wants at any place.
Ignoring the abuse as part of social anxiety is toxic empathy and empathy gap.
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You simply never had social anxiety at all. You felt social anxiety symptoms - but it was not social anxiety itself. You might decide to label this uncomfortable social feelings as social anxiety in order to gain sympathy from other people, narcissistic pool of people to use as narcissists often do use people as objects and treat them like trash and something to discard when you are finished with.
Some people have higher IQ and they think a lot - so I would not lobotomize overthinking and imposing self pathology.
Mindset of being weak is sign of narcissism.
Narcissism is severe mental illness and it is insidious, people suffering from it will never admit to be ill, since they are convinced that they must be perfect, superior, without mistakes and without any vulnerabilities. The only preoccupation is to be strong and despise anyone who appears as "weak".
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(4.10.2022)
"comfort zone"
Think about it logically. IF concept of comfort zone really works - then third world countries would be hotbed of scientist, tycoons, progress and happiness and wealth like Scandinavia. Obviously comfort zone is not issue, toxic people with mental illness of psychopathy like you are the factor that is causing mental illness, disorder and chaos.
If "comfort zone" idea works - then prisons and slums would be seat of mathematicians, philosophers, transcendents, it would be happy and organized and progressive ambient.
"don’t seem anything to work on them"
This is due to freeze factor of trauma, trauma caused by sociopaths like you, without empathy and ability to see perspective from other people's perspective.
"but if it is I don’t care"
Because you are narcissist.
You are mentally ill person without empathy and you like any aggressive borderliner take Advisory role in Karpman Drama Triangle to put yourself in superior position since you have deep ingrained toxic shame inside you which your mentally ill brain prevents you to heal or expose, and you deal with this mental illness and psychopathy by abusing other people through pontification.
You are no different than serial killer, the same damage, the same chaos and you enjoy in other people's suffering.
---
"To help us relax"
This is all good and handy advice.
However - relaxing is not handy at all.
Imagine if you are abused, attacked - and instead of using anger as energy to retort to abusers - you might relax and try to be peacemaker and forget about issue at hand.
Now imagine if you are inside Milgram Experiment -
any relaxing of guilty feelings for hurting and harming other person - even when ordered by authority is criminal. It promotes evil and enables the abuse.
In short, with relax goal we are crap fitting into abuse and toxic ambient.
Panic is there as reaction, Charcot hysteria is there as a message that we need to stand up for ourselves and react to abusers, toxic people and criminals. Relaxing, ignoring and forgetting about it, labeling our fears as hallucination - will promote mentally ill people into power, such as Trump, Putin or police letting go Dahmer to kill his victims.
Staying silent to abuse will not make abuse vanish.
Being peacemaker in dysfunctional home will make us scapegoat and we will develop severe people pleasing issues and fawning to survive toxic ambient.
I would not stifle down our emotions.
We can be angry without explosions or self censorship.
We can speak up without attacking by using Ad Hominem arguments and being aggressive.
Learning how to retort to the source of our panic is better approach than relaxing, ignoring and pretending that there is no danger out there.
---
Narcissists trying to mimic emotions in order to gain sympathy from others and that everyone is focused on them, making other people a pool of narcissistic supply.
As if their life is so important and entitled, while other people are there to serve them, appease them and calm them down, like a baby with temper tantrum.
---
All handy tips to calm anxiety -
but why? Anxiety and panic is there to tell us something - that there is danger of some kind. If we ignore this, it will come back again.
If I label anxiety and panic as dangerous and something to devote energy, money and focus on fixing myself.
I would focus on the reason why panic occur - and this is not modern question. Charcot hysteria was studied 100 years ago, and Freud and Jung discovered subconsciousness as autonomous system inside our brain. Why not explore it? It is like unknown cave system in which we are transported when in anxiety and panic.
I would see anxiety as sci fi movie from 2016 called Arrival:
"Louise Banks, a linguistics expert, along with her team, must interpret the language of aliens who have come to Earth in a mysterious spaceship."
I see anxiety and panic as unknown mysterious alien trying to make personal contact with us - and it does not use logic nor regular speech - instead it uses emotions.
Anyone with basic school education knows by now that stifling down our emotions is not healthy.
If we calm ourselves down and relax and nitpick our unknown reactions - then we will crap fit into abuse, toxic ambient and toxic people - who are true cause of our anxiety and panic.
Any reaction to anxiety and panic will make it worse. To me, calming my social anxiety resulted in people pleasing and fawning, shutting up and it went progressive - to be mute when someone would be rude, extremely rude and accusing me of untrue allegations - I would relax and try to ignore it. Abuse, bullying and mobbing did not went away - it became worse and it spread like a cancer.
If we stifle down our emotions we will cause plethora of mental and physical ailments.
--
I do not understand why CBT offers no explanation when real abuse occurs? PTSD is one time event and it is usually related to military.
This error in diagnosis is due to DSM. DSM is Aristotelian error faux pax, logical fallacy - where there is no fuzzy logic. CBT relies on incomplete, deliberately wrong descriptions in order to make pharma mafia rich, created by narcissists like Trump. There is ICD.11 by WHO which recognized Complex PTSD and trauma from abuse in dysfunctional ambient - which neither CBT nor DSM recognizes, since it would affect narcissists behind CBT and DSM.
CBT is horrible therapy, it is therapy of errors and it is based on nazi brainwashing which USA imported after WW2 along with other nazi technology (used in NASA for example).
Instead of fascist CBT, which is contributing to abuse , chaos, disorder and psychological issues - there is Humanistic psychology which actually works.
CBT is focused on self pathology, self blame and self hate, invalidation of abuse and gaslighting and smear campaign - like any other psychological abuse from narcissist.
On the other hand, humanistic therapies understand that all humans have specific environment which cannot be described by DSM and abused person often has no knowledge to explain all issues which are the cause of problem. CBT is based on lobotomy and stifling down emotions - which is generating huge money profit for pharma mafia - since neurosis is not resolved at all. As in narcissistic abuse - the abuser is authority which is parasiting on kind and nice individuals, targets of abuse.
Anyone with grammar school education knows that ignoring, stifling down emotions leads to mental illness and caused plethora of physical illness, too. Yet CBT is based on stifling down emotions, ignoring them and replacing them with toxic positivity - in order for corporations to have lobotomized slaves and corrupt politicians having obeying and subservient lobotomized individuals.
CBT recognizes only flight freeze fight response - due to ideology to self blame abused person.
There is also fawn response - which is indicative to abuse being real and damaging factor. CBT ignores this - since resolving the abuse would mean people would resolve psychological issues, and pharma mafia would lose steady income of money.
---
Nobody can get rid of panic attacks.
That would be the same as to claim that we can get rid of bleeding when we are cut. Instead we need to become Sherlock Holmes or scientist and put problem in laboratory environment, lighten up the dark room of our panic and see the facts, objective reality and then make correct decisions to find solutions and resolutions long term - which may entail being fine with not finding resolution if solution is impossible.
Panic attack is Charcot hysteria - it stems from unconsciousness, it is autonomous part of our brain, discovered by Freud and explained by Jung. If we stifle it down, if we ignore it, if we reject it, if we pretend it is not issue - it will not go away. It will simply be resolved by us becoming either narcissists - being focused on our self pleasure by abusing other people in the process, or by extreme avoidance of everything. Both ways are not effective.
Also - any reaction to anxiety and panic is like skin allergy and us scratching it - the itching will only become worse, like urticaria issue.
Anyone with grammar school education knows in 21st century that stifling down emotions is not healthy - and it will cause mental illness and plethora of physical ailments. If we label our panic attack as hallucination and delusion - we will self blame, develop toxic shame, inferiority complex, our brain will realize that it cannot rely on ourselves and this will give birth to external referencing locus of control which means codependency issues and observing other people as gods and authority that provides us truth and guidance - we ignore our inner GPS in effect. Then we end up with conformism, group think, herd mentality - and in such mindset we are prime target for mentally ill people such as Trumps or Putins on global scale or being trapped in narcissistic abuse in our local ambient. Predators sniff out people without self worth, without intrinsic locus of control - and our label of defining our own emotions as "dangerous" and disgusting and something to get rid off will only make us being surrounded by toxic people who are parasiting on our invented mental illness of self pathology , self blame and self hatred.
Freud and Jung told us how to handle panic attacks - once we recognize it as Charcot hysteria. It is by learning what is the underlying trauma - and ICD11 recognized Complex Trauma as real issue.
So exercises and ideas like grounding and relaxing, breathing exercises - are actually tools of crap fitting into abuse. We are literally making ourselves sheep who are obeying mentally ill people around us and fawn over to them, like Russians to Putin.
Instead of ignoring and crap fitting into abuse - we can actually interpret panic attack as anger - where mislabeling our emotions is at the core of poor mental health education. Wrong advice as well as wrong label of emotions can cause a whole lot of damage in the long run. Wrong advice and mislabeling stems from toxic ambient and toxic people, narcissists who are focused on gaslighting and smear campaign where they control and manipulate their targets of abuse.
In narcissistic society we are being told to be kind and nice to toxic people. Also we are being brainwashed that anger is bad emotions that must be stifled down. Also we are being conditioned and programmed to equate retort to abuse as if there is only one way: through explosions, drama, wars and ad hominem. We can actually tell the truth, speak the objective facts without drama or explosions.
Anxiety and panic attack is like in 2016 sci fi movie where our Charcot hysteria in form of panic attack is actually contact with our subconsciousness - we simply need to learn the language what is trying to tell us:
"Louise Banks, a linguistics expert, along with her team, must interpret the language of aliens who have come to Earth in a mysterious spaceship."
---
When we are stuck at certain unproductive behaviour, that is called Charcot hysteria.
It is product of Complex Trauma, being exposed to narcissistic abuse, toxic ambient, relentless criticism 24/7. Long term exposure to narcissistic abuse causes brain injury - that is trauma itself. It installs toxic shame inside us, whereas toxic shame is the motor of inner critic.
No one told this since CBT is based on narcissism itself and DSM does not recognize CPTSD while WHO's ICD-11 does recognize trauma as crucial factor in any psychological issue. CBT is making profit for pharma mafia and CBT is based on nazi psychology that Americans stole after WWII, using it as brainwashing in marketing and politics.
So - no wonder nothing helps:
we live in toxic ambient, people and system that is suppose to helps us clear up to educate and base healthy ground is toxic itself and it is making money on our neurosis - the system itself does not want you to be educated about mental health nor that you resolve trauma and inner critic.
Start with cutting toxic people off from your life, immediately and without mercy. Stonewall, ignore, mute, relocate - cut them off. Just do that and see if it gets better.
It will.
We live in toxic narcissistic world filled with mentally ill people like Trump or Putin who are making us mentally unstable, filled with inner critic so that we are ease to manipulate and control. Cut them off.
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Urge to be prepared is part of trauma. It ends up with being hypervigilant, as we were taught in dysfunctional toxic ambient to be prepared for abuse.
It ends up with losing precious time, energy, money and focus on situations which probably will never happen.
It ends up with being controlled by people and outside situations - external reference locus of control where we put other people and outside as our god for whom we must serve and be obedient and subservient and depend on its validation, appraisal and approval. This is road to narcissism.
Why not being imperfect?
Why not admitting being vulnerable and not knowing something that we are willing to learn anyways?
Why not making errors and being fine with errors since we can learn from errors valuable lessons?
Why building narcissistic mask of superiority to impress people who would not pay attention to us for 3 seconds?
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Fighting anxiety is like urticaria, skin rash or allergy - the more you scratch it, the more it will itch.
Civil war with ourselves will never end up good.
If we feel anxiety - something is wrong and we need to discover what is bugging us - and in 99% it is toxic people, toxic ambient, abuse, bullying, mobbing, fake people, criminals masked as friends, aggressive borderliners - mentally ill people masked as help and presenting themselves as saviours.
Why fighting with our normal reactions to abnormal people, abnormal situations and abnormal events?
Cut toxic people off and let there be peace with ourselves.
---
His book changed and challenged my trauma programming and conditioning to be nice and good and kind.
However the book missed the crucial information about trauma, Complex Trauma, fawning and dysregulation.
The basic fact that with abuse we are programmed and conditioned to mess up definitions of what is being kind, nice, good and friendly.
We are programmed by mentally ill narcissist to believe that there are only two options in life conflicts:
1) to be monster, to show teeth, to be rude, aggressive
or
2) to be passive, shut up and self censor where we rationalize abuse through toxic empathy and enable the abuser to continue with abuse - similar to Russians obeying Putin or farm America kissing the butt of Trump and Republicans.
Well, there is third solution -
we actually can be honest, authentic, speak the truth, say what is objective reality, voice out the elephant in the room and speak the facts - without screaming, without yelling, without drama and without explosions. Sure it will be a little hard in the first, but with time we can speak our truth without accepting label of being arrogant, rude or evil for holding abusive people accountable for their bullying and mobbing and abuse.
I see inspiration in Zoroastrianism - to speak the truth, being authentic without being rude to others. Truth is the virus - truth will do all the "aggressive" job for us - violence, unkindness and drama are not necessary.
----
Everything in life is dualism - it has double binding.
This phenomena of dualism and double binding allows narcissists to propel themselves as authority and this works with people with low IQ and low education - allowing Trumps, Putins and Balkans to vote corrupt narcissistic evil trash as their authority without realizing that all poverty is caused by mafia that they vote.
In reality there is no ultimate truth (Münchhausen trilemma) - and this means that we focus on intrinsic values. So rather than making other people as our gods to be subservient to them in concept called "external referencing locus of control". With basic knowledge and willingness to learn, we can have normal level of common sense to rely on our own judgement and instinct, heart and mind.
With double binding explained - mindfulness has other side of coin.
It is called:
"The self-absorption paradox describes the contradictory association whereby higher levels of self-awareness are simultaneously associated with higher levels of psychological distress and with psychological well-being."
Although mindfulness will activate emotional dysregulation, anxiety, panic and fears as side effect, it is still necessary painful process of growing up.
And this is the secret of panic, anxiety, fears and confidence -
happy people , confident people - they have secret: they lobotomize themselves, they put limits on knowledge and input and they work in comfort zone of not allowing education, information, data and mindfulness inside. The danger of this happiness and comfort - is that we become easy target to become conformist, group-think, part of herd mentality - and toxic people will thus exploit and control us easily - as we see in Russia with Putin or conservatives in UK.
People with higher IQ, with higher empathy, HSPs - will be automatically more mindful - and unfortunately more prone to mental issues.
With this knowledge - we can learn to break anxiety, unhappiness, worry with our willingness to become idiot, to deliberately lower our thinking motor - and see if it helps in regulation process. I see abuse, Complex Trauma experience as being programmed to depend on other people to fix their anger, temper tantrums - and this programming is forcing us to overthink, be mindful of everything to please the abuser in codependency Karpman Drama Triangle - and we are conditioned to be stuck in worry loop - to solve someone else's anger and potential punishment by being mindful about everything and to be prepared for any possible catastrophe in life.
"No sane man can be happy, for to him life is real and he sees what a fearful thing it is. Only the mad can be happy, and not many of those."
The Mysterious Stranger (1916), Mark Twain
"Sanity and happiness are an impossible combination."
MARK TWAIN
"You belong to a singular race. Every man is suffering machine and a happiness machine combined. For every happiness turned out in the one department, the other stands ready to modify it with a sorrow or a pain, maybe a dozen."
THE MYSTERIOUS STRANGER,
by Mark Twain
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(5.10.2022)
What if "fear" is authentic?
What if we are in toxic ambient covered up as "normal" situation and our fear is natural alarm system warning us that we are in toxic environment?
If we live in Chernobyl - staying there will not make us strong and we won't built immunity to toxic radiation. The symptoms will warn us that we need to relocate.
All emotions have their purpose. Even uncomfortable emotions such as fear, anxiety, state of panic. If we stifle them down we will develop plethora of psychological issues and physical ailments such as cancer and auto-immune diseases.
Exposure to long term narcissistic abuses causes brain injury. Brain injury. Think about it. Constant nagging, complaining, smear campaign, negativity causes rapture in the brain of recipient. Fear will be there to warn us that we are in the presence of sick person and that we need to go away and cut contact immediately. If we shut down emotions, lean on positive toxicity and toxic empathy - we will self sabotage ourselves.
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Cutting contact with toxic people is top tier of self care.
Nitpicking ourselves is self blame, self hatred and self pathologizing - spiring up more of depression, toxic shame and mental illness.
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If it really works, you would know it works already by now.
Think about it logically - if internet gurus have secret powerful method for mental issues - this would already spread around the globe, everybody would be doing it and it would work already - for everyone by now.
If we have issues in our lives, we cannot let random internet narcissist yapping about mental issues - leave this to professional therapists.
----
"when you fear being judged and feel embarrassed when in social situations"
This statement covers up crucial information which is not observable on the surface.
We can divide fear of being judged and feeling embarrassed into two default main groups of people:
1) truly socially anxious ones - the ones who were abused, who are victims and survivors of psychological abuse, bullying, mobbing and narcissistic abuse and CPTSD is hovering above social anxiety like UFO mothership. This means - logical tips about practice anything will bring on toxic shame - since personality of people growing up in abuse is intertwined with learned safety mechanisms taught and programmed during growing up in abuse ambient.
Humanistic psychology helps here - accepting and validation, not nitpicking on panic symptoms.
2) mimicking social anxiety symptoms - this is done by narcissists who are abusing other people and create social anxiety in their targets. Narcissists will mimic social anxiety in order to gain sympathy and control and manipulate other people. Also, since they do not have any social anxiety at all - they will be very loud and they will become spokesmen of social anxiety - where CBT was based on such narcissists to compose fake and false therapy for social anxiety - which is based on social anxiety being hallucination, delusion which can be "cured" with exposure.
Narcissism is hallucination and delusion.
Social anxiety is normal after-effect of real abuse, bullying and mobbing by narcissists.
This means - any advice about nitpicking, shaming, trying to cover up, trying to become confident - will produce more social anxiety in already present social anxiety.
Person with social anxiety - panic symptoms that they report, apparent lack of confidence and self esteem - is not character flaw as CBT perceive it due to faulty research in 1990s - instead - panic and silence and self censorship and avoidance and fear in social situation - is trauma response.
It is totally normal reaction to abnormal people, abnormal situations, abnormal events.
We need to heal trauma, triggers and flashbacks - not the person's core identity.
Any "advice" how to nitpick someone's character and talking and attachment with other people will spiral up the toxic shame already present inside due to exposure to long term narcissistic abuse which caused social anxiety in the first place.
Trauma cannot be healed by wearing fake mask or making plastic surgery on our persona.
---
"when you fear being judged and feel embarrassed when in social situations"
This statement covers up crucial information which is not observable on the surface.
We can divide fear of being judged and feeling embarrassed into two default main groups of people:
1) truly socially anxious ones - the ones who were abused, who are victims and survivors of psychological abuse, bullying, mobbing and narcissistic abuse and CPTSD is hovering above social anxiety like UFO mothership. This means - logical tips about practice anything will bring on toxic shame - since personality of people growing up in abuse is intertwined with learned safety mechanisms taught and programmed during growing up in abuse ambient.
Humanistic psychology helps here - accepting and validation, not nitpicking on panic symptoms.
2) mimicking social anxiety symptoms - this is done by narcissists who are abusing other people and create social anxiety in their targets. Narcissists will mimic social anxiety in order to gain sympathy and control and manipulate other people. Also, since they do not have any social anxiety at all - they will be very loud and they will become spokesmen of social anxiety - where CBT was based on such narcissists to compose fake and false therapy for social anxiety - which is based on social anxiety being hallucination, delusion which can be "cured" with exposure.
Narcissism is hallucination and delusion.
Social anxiety is normal after-effect of real abuse, bullying and mobbing by narcissists.
This means - any advice about nitpicking, shaming, trying to cover up, trying to become confident - will produce more social anxiety in already present social anxiety.
Person with social anxiety - panic symptoms that they report, apparent lack of confidence and self esteem - is not character flaw as CBT perceive it due to faulty research in 1990s - instead - panic and silence and self censorship and avoidance and fear in social situation - is trauma response.
It is totally normal reaction to abnormal people, abnormal situations, abnormal events.
We need to heal trauma, triggers and flashbacks - not the person's core identity.
Any "advice" how to nitpick someone's character and talking and attachment with other people will spiral up the toxic shame already present inside due to exposure to long term narcissistic abuse which caused social anxiety in the first place.
Trauma cannot be healed by wearing fake mask or making plastic surgery on our persona.
"practising on not caring too much "
Sure, this is system called lobotomy.
The secret of happy and confident people is that they are dumb. They have low IQ and they have low emotional IQ, low empathy and doesn't educate themselves - they kept their brain occupied by food, orgy, drugs and drama as the only preoccupation in the life.
Their brain is not wired to think nor ponder more about the world - and they have no social anxiety at all - since they clipped the nuts of their brain and castrated their intellect.
We can temporally become careless and limit our thoughts - which is the basic description of CBT - but in real life this will not work.
First, we are all bombarded by making various decisions in life - all the time. This means, we will need brain to think the best solution - especially if we are normal and healthy and we do not want other people to be hurt by our wrong actions and decisions.
Second, life will always put us on test. As soon as we have perfected certain area in life - we will be presented with new unknown and mysterious situations to ponder about and find solutions.
We can decide to give up progress and pretend that we are not interested in finding new ideas and new solutions (aka using your brain) - but the life itself will propel us to think and to use our brain.
Self lobotomy will work only in emergency situations such as suicidal idealizations.
The urge to not care too much -
if you think about it deeply is not good advice. Because urge to be perfect, to not be bothered by pain and uncomfortable emotions - is actually being coward, and to fawn to toxic and dangerous people. This idea that we must be perfect and strong is superiority complex - where superiority complex is based on inferiority complex.
This means, if we put on narcissistic mask of not caring and being strong - we are actually trying to impress people whom we are afraid. Deep down we think we are weak, inept and that we need to depend on other people's approval to feel good about ourselves. Since we deep down do not believe we are capable, good and deeply deserving to exist - we will cover this toxic shame by pretending that we do not care about anything nor anyone. This is mental illness. This is why narcissism is such difficult illness to cure and tackle - since it camouflage itself like a virus.
Why we would not be weak?
Why we would not be allowed to make mistakes?
Why we would not be allowed to be embarrassed? If we have intrinsic locus of control - the only opinion which will matter will be our common sense, our ingrained ability to differentiate what is good and wrong - we won't depend on volatility of other people who appear around us at given time.
If you base your urge not to be embarrassed on other people's opinion - this is called external reference locus of control and this is product of internalized toxic shame. IT is deep seated belief that we are unworthy and inept and that other people are judges of our character and that we must depend on other people to define for us what is embarrassing, acceptable, norm, conformism, groupthink and herd mentality to fawn over to.
Your idea that we put energy, focus into not caring about what other people think - is paradoxically still reaction - it is still caring what other people think even though we try to camouflage it and trick our brain that we do not care. We do. We still do care, since we put survival mechanism in activation - it is the same as Trump building a wall against external threat and making fake image of making ourselves great again. That is narcissism, That is mental illness. From our point of view - it will appear as we are making ourselves confident - but in reality we are making ourselves extremely sensitive and depended on other people to make us feel good and safe in the world.
That is why CBT is not working and it is making social anxiety worse - it is based on narcissism, fascism, mental illness.
People are not born to be isolated. We need other people - interdependence is the main goal for humans. The trick is to recognize toxic people and cut them off -
not to avoid and cut off all people in the world.
"We all need each other. This type of interdependence is the greatest challenge to the maturity of individual and group functioning."
KURT LEWIN (1890-1947)
DK THE PSYCHOLOGY BOOK
This phenomena that higher IQ is connected with unhappiness is something that Twin discovered 100 years ago
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"we're not all the same"
I also had job with clients for almost 20 years - and I was left with severe people pleasing issues, being pushover and finally got fired when I stand up for myself.
So, no - avoidants will not have real connection on their job, being themselves - since our ability to detect toxic fake people will cause us collision between programmed conditioned beliefs about being good and nice - with the world which is mostly narcissistic.
We put on a mask and act - and then we have jobs with clients - but it is not us who are having jobs, it is our false character.
" I have developed stills to cope because I need to work to support myself"
yes-
these are not skills-
these are safety mechanisms. Survival mode.
It is working with amygdala hijackings. It is working in Windows 98 safe mode instead of working in regular software with fully operational software - instead we work only with basic skills. This can work for lifetime and we will be left sucked dry with plethora of mental and physical illness with working in survival mode.
"Thankfully, most customers are nice"
That is crucial part.
In the Balkans or any toxic shame culture country people are rude, intrusive, violent and aggressive.
IF we are in healthy environment, healthy ambient - our avoidance symptoms - which are nothing else but trauma response - will naturally calm down and we will have ability to live mostly without panic and constant threat and abuse.
Otherwise - we will develop fawning as reaction to extremely toxic narcissistic people who are true cause of social anxiety and avoidance.
"the more I stay at home and avoid people the more "Avoidant" I become so I have to push myself to leave the house "
" to prevent myself from regressing."
That is indicative that trauma is inside.
When we are living in survival mode,
when we are not focused on our goals and our needs and our higher interest in life, when we do not have even basic needs met due to trauma, panic and fears - we will still have trauma inside.
The problem is not avoidance at all.
If we follow CBT advice to label avoidance as something disgusting, wrong, weak, something to overcome and something to fight with - we will develop more of mental instability and we will have Civil war with our Self.
If we are in avoidance mode, if we tend to regress - this is not sign of personal flaw. This is not character flaw, as CBT will explain to us (or internet gurus).
This is sign that we are in toxic ambient, we have toxic people around us. it is all toxic-
and due to abuse, programming and conditioning - we label this abuse as normal. We rationalize abusers as helpers, especially covert narcissists and aggressive borderliners as help and service - while in reality we have no knowledge how to recognize red flags of toxic people, we have no knowledge how to retort, how to be authentic and true self - instead we self blame, we self hate and we try to nitpick our Self to become part of conformism, herd mentality and group think which will define what is normal for us.
CBT is therapy of nitpicking our symptoms and self pathologizing our normal reactions to abnormal people, abnormal situations and abnormal events.
On the other hand, humanistic psychology teaches us to accept ourselves as we are - and build up on this self validation which is antidote to toxic shame, trauma and abuse.
---
If you are ashamed, this is sign we are in toxic ambient, around toxic people, narcissists like Jordan Peterson, mentally ill people who are abusing others.
Carl Rogers is part of humanistic psychology, he is twisting his words and putting it in narcissistic explanation - to appear superior to others. Carl Rogers is telling us to accept ourselves as we are and validate our Self, with self love.
Jordan Peterson on the other hand is focused on covering up wound of abuse by pretending to be mask, Chad, mentally ill person, abuser and narcissist to rule over other people with abuse and tyranny.
---
Slippery slope.
If we decide to self pathologize and add up to already present internalized toxic shame inside us -
we can end up enabling abuse, normalize abuse and rationalize toxic person, someone with psychopathic tendencies which they kept covered for certain amount of time in order to gain rights to property and money.
Yep, Amber and Johnny Depp case.
If Johnny Depp decided to ignore Amber's abuse as toxic and sociopathic behaviour, he would end up now broke, without money, without movie career, he would lose court, the whole world would label him as Bill Cosby rapist and he would be remembered as abuser - which he is not.
There are toxic people out there, predators - and our feelings and emotions that something is wrong when someone is displaying borderline personality disorder (mood swings, constant complaining, anger outburst, incoherent behaviour and violence) are not wrong at all.
---
Our definitions of what is nice and what is evil are thwarted if we were abused, neglected during growing up, when our persona was forming.
In toxic ambient we received message that being nice meaning fawning over to abuser in order to calm them down and to regulate their erratic borderline behaviour (mood swings, anger outbursts, violence).
Trauma splitting is when we see word in black and white. If something feels uncomfortable - such as speaking the truth - even though objectively it is not wrong or evil - we will label it as evil, wrong and something shameful - since this is programmed in our brain in toxic ambient.
Also we are being programmed to believe that being nice must be with all people - even towards those people who are toxic and abusive. We can allow ourselves to be evil when in contact with such contact - since this is way how to put borders and cut contact with them. With our wrong definitions about what is normal, nice and good - we stay stuck in toxic relationships and toxic ambient.
With conditioning we are programmed to believe that we can handle conflict only in two default ways:
1) to be explosive, rude, evil
or
2) to be silent, pushover and fawning through self censorship.
As if there is no alternative. There is,
Speaking the truth, cutting contact with toxic people, having natural reactions to abusers and toxic people, speaking out the elephant in the room, saying out facts and being objective - may see as evil, wrong and arrogant to toxic people since it imposes boundaries on them which they break - and in reality this is not evil nor wrong at all.
With abuse we equate our unintentional errors with out character.
With abuse we equate being nice as something that toxic people deserve. They don't. In toxic ambient we are allowed to be non-kind and non-nice. In healthy environment it is totally normal to fawn and to people please and no one will take advantage of our kindness and being nice.
In toxic ambient our urge to be nice and fair and empathic lead to toxic empathy, toxic altruism which actually enables the abuse and rationalizes toxic people as something normal.
---
All people have bias, jumping to quick conclusions, prejudices, bigotry and oversimplifications, confirmation bias and availability heuristics - which are basically thinking errors and cognitive distortions. This is human condition - it reminds us that we cannot trust our thoughts all the time, that Descartes told us to doubt our own thoughts and to doubt other people's definitions and conclusions.
We are not gods - if we try to imitate god and to be perfect, we will develop narcissism - and we will never achieve perfections since we are mere human beings, full of mistakes, weakness and errors.
Therefore idea to label cognitive distortions as something to reject, remove, seek & destroy is road to perfectionism and narcissism and it will end up with mental illness as CBT is therapy of errors.
On the other hand Humanistic psychology instructs us to accept our Shadow, to validate our feelings and emotions and understand them as byproduct of our ambient which we cannot control and we should not control something that is outside of our control.
If we label cognitive distortions as something to be ashamed of or focus as something to remove - we will end up with internalized toxic shame, deep core sense that we are bad person, that we are inept to manage and deal with life - and in the end we will end up with external reference locus of control - where we rely on other people to explain us our reality and to guide us in life - which will attract toxic people and narcissists keeping us inside Karpman Drama Triangle of codependency.
And all this crap will come from CBT idea that we reject and feel disgust towards ourselves, our flaws - seeing errors as some basic flaw in character.
Survival mechanism have saved our lives when we were abused - it is not pathology.
Without education, without correct guidance - we will default to cognitive distortions. Problem are not cognitive distortions itself, as CBT is instructing us to lobotomize ourselves. The only problem are toxic people, narcissist and psychopaths around us who are true cause of cognitive distortions.
Cut toxic people off. Not our brain.
---
(6.10.2022)
We have to be careful about usage of the word assertive.
In CBT assertive means engaging into long conversations with difficult people hoping that they will understand us if we assert long enough. This does not work in real life and it is detrimental advice.
In reality covert narcissists and aggressive borderliners love long drama and conflict, this gives them resource of narcissistic supply, they lie, they gaslight, they simply love reactive abuse (when you lose your cool due to their stubbornness and then you appear as crazy mad), they live for conflict and confrontation and drama, they are not interested into finding any solution other than them being entitled and controlling. So being assertive as CBT explains will not work.
Saying no, cutting toxic people off as Gabor saying - it works.
---
I would add that this works in healthy ambient with healthy people, with mentally stable people.
However this will not work with aggressive borderliners, narcissists and all kinds of Dark Psychology -
where we will be given blunt lies, gaslighting, smear campaign, malicious intent and pure manipulation and control as their goal. Such mentally ill people (like Trump or Putin on global scale) will nitpick our natural mistakes and equate it with our character - so they will set the tone for us to be defensive, accusing us of unfair and untrue allegations. Their goal is not finding solutions, their goal is not harmony nor peace.
Their only goal is manipulation and exploitation -
and with such twisted mindset they will turn around our gentleness, our interest in them, and our empathy against us. Now this is called toxic empathy - where our empathy is made toxic by toxic people and we try hard to be nice, good, empathic to people who are evil and desire nothing but chaos, drama, explosions and destructions.
So the important part of Assertiveness which CBT does not cover (since CBT is based on narcissism itself) is that we need to be able to detect evil, toxic people first - and cut contact immediately if possible. If not, we need the last DBT advice- humour. Where we can play with their childish level - to be Jung's Trickster. That is only anti-dote to evil people that actually won't make us evil in the process as reaction to evil people.
---
"I am not taking too much space, you're just used in people playing small."
" I will be not less for you for you to feel better about yourself."
Amazing. I'll add this.
I have been working on my Retort list, since bully and mobbing experience I realized I have no idea how to deal with difficult people other then programmed self blame self hatred and toxic shame (equating my mistakes with my character flaw). So I started actually to write things I can think in correct manner other than automatic self blame and actual words that I can speak up - which I usually deal with silence and self-censorship when someone accuse me of untrue allegations or is plain rude.
Only a few months ago I realized that I can actually say to people "I disagree with you".
Up until then I was convinced that I am allowed only to react in two ways:
1) to be aggressive, with explosions, violent angry outbursts (which I never took)
or
2) be silent, self-censor, be passive, smile, be agreeable no matter how someone is evil, rude or mean - or for the sake of not rocking the boat.
I never learned that there is actually third way - that I am not inept and someone being angry does not equate their aggression with me being automatically wrong by default, as I learned in CPTSD.
---
I would also add that there are evil people out there who are not interested in finding solutions, nor harmony nor any resolution at all.
They are only interested in control and being entitled to be intrusive and cross boundaries and do anything to achieve this narcissistic supply: they lie, give false information which appear as truth, gaslight, smear campaign, they have malicious intent.
If we are not aware that such people exist, we will try to be fair, we will listen to them - to their lies which appear as truth, which we cannot prove wrong - and they will control us - by simply us being willing to listen to them. This is serious issue.
This means Dark triad individuals (narcissists, Machiavellians, psychopaths) actually take our empathy and willingness to listen and actually use it against ourselves, they rip off our body parts and beat us up with it.
They usually nitpick and criticize our natural and unintentional mistakes and present it as our personal flaw, character flaw - they live for these manipulations so they are very good in such control.
The truth is - in normal healthy environment we do not need to be assertive or be defensive at all - we simply communicate normally, with common goal of finding resolutions and correcting errors.
In toxic environment we are forced to seek how to correct ourselves in order to crap fit into abuse, without realizing we are in abusive situation.
So I would add additional information -
first is that we need to have money as back up. When we say no, when we stand up for ourselves, when we set boundaries - even in calm, empathic, listening others manner - we will get fired. Toxic people will back stab us - so we need to have money insurance for being assertive, as basic need in Maslow hierarchy of needs.
Second, we need to learn narcissistic abuse, how to recognize narcissists red flags - and cut contact with them whenever possible. They do not seek solutions, they are not interested in fair share of anything, they only want control and submission and to be subservient to them, they feel entitled to dominate and control others. So we need to be willing to cut ties and even relocate if the ambient is toxic.
Narcissists thrive due to people who try to be assertive with them, who are taking them seriously, who try to find peace and balance and solutions - while toxic people only want entitlement and control - and us staying with them is enabling their abuse. Anyone who stays with them is enabling evil to flourish - as we can see Russians supporting psychopath Putin, or narcissistic Trump having support in USA:
---
This works in healthy environment with healthy people who are not mentally ill, aggressive.
When we are dealing with mentally ill aggressive psychopathic people - this advice to be assertive by being nice and listening to them will be death to us.
Imagine if you are in a room with serial killer and you force yourself not to scream - you will go along with killer's plan - where you turn yourself into passive sheep ready for slaughter.
All emotions are valid - if we suppress our Shadow, we will create mental illness in ourselves, imbalance and we won't have good, quality life- since we will castrate parts of ourselves which are necessary in certain extraordinary situations.
When we are in normal healthy environment, we do not need assertive tips - we are simply ourselves - we talk in normal usual manner as we were talking and communicating since kindergarten.
When people are in presence of evil people, when there is abuse, mobbing, bullying - then victims/target of abuse seek how to protect themselves against psychopathic people.
And being logical with sociopath will not work at all.
In fact, this is how evil thrives in this world - the Trumps and Putins are abusing our need and urge to be nice and good and turn it against ourselves.
That is how they cross boundaries - they count on people staying silent and nice and comfy - because most people are instructed to suppress their Shadow.
We need Shadow in such situations.
I would not go along with CBT lobotomy and self pathology. It is as bad as being aggressive and violent.
---
Ok,
what we do when they do take advantage of us?
When they fire us when we say no them?
What then?
then we have finance problem, so being assertive also means having money to support yourself. Why this inconvenient fact is never ever mentioned in any "assertiveness" videos?
And what about violent and aggressive narcissists out there? Doesn't femicide statistic show how being assertive can be dangerous and deadly?
Or in Russia, if anyone is assertive with Putin can end up in 10 years in jail just for being assertive.
I would rather focus on these aggressive parts, on psychopathy - rather than self pathologizing ourselves or trying to learn how to rationalize and normalize abuse (by convincing ourselves that all people are nice and good and kind). I would not go along with crap fitting into abuse.
--
Dude, think about it more logically.
If narcissistic concept of comfort zone really works - then third world countries would be the most healthy, wealthy, organized countries. Or prisons would be hotbed of scientists, tycoons, philosophers and gurus. Or slum part of cities would be filled with Universities, libraries and education centres.
The trick is not in being comfortable or uncomfortable -
the detail is in healthy versus toxic.
Making yourself to self sabotage yourself will not make you strong, you will castrate yourself.
---
The best way is that you do not seek advice about your persona, your Self, your character in other people. Other people cannot build you up.
That is your responsibility.
If you let other people to be your guide, your GPS - you will develop concept called External referencing locus of control where you see other people as gods, as providers of ultimate truth while in the same time you dismiss and reject and destroy your inner wisdom and inner light.
Other people are clueless as you are. The ultimate truth does not exist.
Toxic people take advantage of this fact and they want to convince you that you are inept, fill you up with toxic shame - and then present themselves as leaders for your intimate life, your own personal issues. That is codependency, that is road to mental illness - and that is how toxic people control other people -
like we see in Putin's Russia or Trump in USA. This way Stalins take advantage and parasite over masses,
herd mentality and conformism is allowing evil to thrive.
You are your own person, you do not need other people to approve you or validate you - if you allow others to control you, you will develop mental illness and be their slave for all eternity, by your own choice.
Your opinion does matter. Your universe is valid and on par just as anybody else's. You do not need to become flying monkey to narcissists and be their servants who explain you what is real and good and acceptable in life.
--
Yep. The body released all sorts of chemicals which are making us addicted to feel guilty and it makes us addicted to release the guilt by giving up boundaries.
When we stay enmashed- those chemicals calm down and then we are rewarded for being subservient, obeying and to crap fit into abuse.
So our body is conditioned, programmed and hypnotized to feel guilty when we put boundaries.
---
Just say it without dancing around it,
There are toxic, mentally ill people like Trump or Putin on global scale who present themselves as Altruistic saviours to fool voters with low IQ, and there are also such psychopaths and sociopaths on local scale, like Jordan Peterson, narcissists, parasites, manipulators, controllers, abusers, toxic people who are gaslighting their victims in order to secure firm narcissistic supply.
Our job is not to make intellectual commentary or philosophical inventory - our job is to cut these viruses off and out of our lives. Immediately.
---
(7.10.2022)
The worst think about this issue is that when you try to seek answers, find solutions and enlighten dark fears what is going on in ambient time space of late 1990s and through 2000s, without you tube, you end up with CBT (which means 99% of self help books and official therapy) which actually continues the very same brainwashing - with CBT explaining that we are hallucinating issues, and that we are responsible, guilty and one to blame for feeling mysterious panic attacks and quickly spreading fears, deep toxic shame (feeling inept) and ongoing social anxiety. CBT explains it as delusion and bases "therapy" on self pathology and toxic shaming. CBT takes over the role of alcoholic parent and continues narcissistic abuse, nitpicking and criticizing your basic Self and Personality as something ugly, broken, different, weird, unacceptable and basically wrong by default.
Even Mayo clinic in 2022 defines panic attack as imaginary issue, hallucination:
"May 4, 2018 — A panic attack is a sudden episode of intense fear that triggers severe physical reactions when there is no real danger or apparent cause." (Panic attacks and panic disorder - Symptoms and causes, mayoclinic official web site)
---
This is great tip in intimate relationships, contacts.
However in real life, living in poor corrupt country with less chance of employment, being honest, speaking the truth and being authentic and disagreeable with unacceptable behaviour, action and decisions will cause us to be fired, without job.
So we need to have money to speak our opinion and not agree with abusers.
This "small" inconvenient unpopular truth is never ever mentioned in any videos about standing up for yourself and this inability to acknowledge real life is causing a lot of stress to people who are seeking answers in life filled with narcissistic abuse, corruption and toxic ambient.
People who are seeking advice how to stand up for themselves already know to cut toxic people off - this is why most HSP are avoidant and have social anxiety and exhibit introvert lifestyle choice, based on toxic people who are harvesting and parasiting on nice, quiet, kind and agreeable HSPs.
I would say that being aware of toxic people, toxic ambient is our fist primary concern -
which means making long time life style choices such as not having kids - in order for us to relocate after we accumulate enough money to escape toxic ambient. Not having money credit, mortgages, not having our own home - no matter how much we are ridiculed and mocked by abusive people who seek conformism and herd mentality and subservience and narcissistic dynamics of dominance. That part how to prosper in toxic ambient is never ever mentioned in standing up for yourself videos, books , therapies - since CBT or regular information does not recognize trauma nor abuse as hidden factor behind and unhealthy condition such as people pleasing and fawning.
It is much easier to resolve complex matter with dysfunctional messages where we self pathologize ourselves and put blame and guilt in ourselves.
The truth is that we live in narcissistic, sick , toxic world filled with predators, mentally ill aggressive narcissists and borderliners who are filling us up with toxic programming, conditioning and programming to hide, cover up our HSP traits since holding criminals accountable is not comfortable for toxic people who grabbed their managerial seats by violence, aggression and criminal activities.
HSP easily uncover narcissistic mask and see fake people -
we need to leave toxic ambient. Us staying along with abusers is enabling their criminal activities.
I would highlight toxic people as crucial factor to recognize and learn about, rather than ignoring it.
---
Fear stems from unconsciousness. Freud and Jung discovered it 100 years ago. It is sad that CBT totally obfuscated this fact of life and CBT instructs us to deal with fears and phobias with logic - which will not work and it will add up to more fears.
The root of fear we cannot reach by logic because brain will prevent it. Brain is built to keep us safe, not happy. Therefore, it will protect us from the root cause of fear - and we will never reach it with logic - instead we will develop more fears and things to be afraid of in order to protect ourselves.
True cause of any fears, phobia, panic is trauma.
CPTSD.
In our childhood - any person who as adults have issues with fears, panic, anxiety and phobia - are indicative we were raised in dysfunctional toxic ambient - which may not even be only parents that were toxic.
There is trauma - conditioning, programming which hypnotized us into unhealthy thinking patterns, where we learned to suppress our Shadow, to repress our child inside and replace it with robot thinking, in order to protect ourselves from punishment, pain, abuse in time of age when we were suppose to receive validation, love, protection and safety.
Constant and relentless criticism 24/7 in young age when our psyche was forming, when our Self was forming, when our Persona and personality ought to be chiseled - we spend in survival mode, growing up with amygdala hijacking, where our Cortex brain rarely got opportunity to grow into strong, normal and healthy adult mind. Instead we were traumatized and stuck in development - arrested development.
The anti-dote to abuse and trauma and internalized toxic shame which is the motor of fears, anxiety, panic, phobias and trauma - is to self validate, self accept and then cut contact with toxic people - since we were programmed to not have boundaries - we were hypnotized to pretend to be strong and be ashamed of our vulnerabilities, mistakes and flaws.
When we are perfectionist - we will be afraid of anything and everything in life.
Admitting mistakes, making mistakes is part of life. We were taught the opposite during abuse years when our psyche for forming - and now as adult we are stuck with fears, anxiety, phobia, trauma and panic.
Education about Complex Trauma is the only way out.
---
Seems more like crap fitting into abuse and unacceptable behaviour. We simply self-lobotomize ourselves into accepting someone's bullying, mobbing and then fawning over to them, people pleasing them and being pushover.
I do not see rejecting and stifling down our normal reaction to abnormal people, abnormal situations and abnormal events as healthy.
The solution is pretty much straightforward in this particular example - quit.
Money is not worth it. Trauma we experience by being inside abuse, inside Karpman Drama Triangle is not worth it.
We will die anyway - we won't take money with us - the only thing that goes along into next dimension are our experiences, memories and trauma if unhealed will haunt us for eternity - unless reincarnated again into new avatar to resolve previous trauma.
We are here on this Earth to deal with parasites, predators - Darwin discovered this more than 100 years ago- that we adapt to predators - not by fawning to them or lobotomizing ourselves - but by finding functional ways how to deal with predators or relocating. Anything else is enabling the abuse.
IF Russians cannot protest against Putin- the logical solution is to relocate and make it into life project.
Anyone who never relocated when Stalin was in the rule - made Russia toxic today - with the domino effect that their staying with abuser contributed to serial killer being in Presidential seat that may end up with nuclear holocaust.
In 1989, East Germans massively fled from communist tyrannical East Germany - to the point that STASI (STASI is KGB; a secret service like legalized state mafia killing people around) those monsters gave up.
Our job is to find solutions how to deal with abusers, not settling in with them by ignoring and stifling down our natural anger emotions.
Freud did indeed found out that talking about abuse and trauma helps to heal the symptoms - but it was not talking and exposing abuse that helped. What helped was realization that we grow Darwin evolution inside us - that we show our brain that we can handle, manage and deal with issues and parasites and abusers and bullies in healthy, functional, proper manner - without fawning to them, without self censorship, without doing business with them, without aggression and without drama.
I would not go along with therapy of calming down and self pathology and ignoring our emotions by stifling them down.
---
We can't control our thoughts if we have Complex Trauma; experience of abuse, being gaslighted, when people lie to us and provide us false information on purpose - we cannot control decisions based on someone's lies since the basic matrix is faulty, false and wrong. We are mislead to wrong thoughts, and wrong decisions since it is toxic ambient that influences our reality, conclusions and definitions in making delusion, wrong conclusions and false definitions.
Then our thoughts are pulled like on a string and we are not in control of our thoughts, we are being manipulated.
Communicating directly requires one crucial pre-requisite which is not being explained in videos about standing up for ourselves: having money. When we are honest, when we have ethical and moral standards - we will get fired and we will lose our jobs in toxic ambient. So we need to have money insurance and shelter before setting any kind of boundaries. That information is always hidden and unpopular - but it is fact of life and it needs to be acknowledged, taught about and voiced out.
---
I would see all these as red flags -
and the only solution is to cut contact with toxic people.
These people are stubborn, it is black scenario in Analogy of Long spoons allegory. They are narcissists, they live in fantasy world and they seek to dominate and abuse others. Any cooperation and interdependence is impossible with covert narcissists and altruistic narcissists (people who appear helpful of normal during honeymoon phase).
Let them have it their way, move, relocate and cut contact.
The solution to cancer is to cut off infected part.
---
I tried all that - and it doesn't work in long term, in real ife, or faced with some aggressive mentally ill person who is intrusive, actuall being in contact with someone who is embodiment of intrusive thought in physical reality.
Witnessing without judgement is really bad advice when we are in toxic ambient around toxic people - who are the true cause of intrusive thoughts. When we lullaby ourselves into abuse this is called crap fitting into abuse.
Intrusive thoughts stem from toxic people - the problem is not in our self. If we label intrusive thoughts as intrusive thoughts we will self pathologize ourselves, as CBT is instructing us - so that we spend money on pharma mafia and endless therapies which never work- since problem is not inside us. Problem stems from the external source -
and solution once we understand that problems is external - is to cut contact with toxic people, relocate and learn how to recognize red flags of toxic people in the future so our brain can rely on ourselves that we will take care our our body, sanity by cutting toxic people off. If we do not do that, the brain , the unconsciousness will produce intrusive thoughts as an alarm system - not as a way to torture ourselves as CBT explains it - since CBT is narcissistic therapy based on nazi technology of mass brainwashing ans fitting into fascism and crony capitalism, CBT ideology which was stolen by Americans after 1945.
Humanistic therapies on the other hand work - it is accepting ourselves and validating ourselves in full - not with crossed finger as CBT instructs us, since CBT is tool of manipulation and narcissism.
This means accepting our Self - with Shadow included - which means including in decision process our repressed parts of ourselves which abusers and CBT instruct us to cover up in shame - since when we are splitting our brain with trauma splitting advice which CBT and abusers do - we are much more easily to control, we became sheep and we are manipulated into believing what other people say - and we label our brain and self as weird, unacceptable, mad, weird, stupid, inept - if we feel intrusive thoughts for example.
---
Amazing lecture from Richard Grannon, as always. Grannon gives his all best knowledge about trauma.
It is sad that the questions in the end went in religious direction other than abuse and narcissism itself - I guess it is easier to handle pain that way - walking around it and pretending there is something else more urgent than abuse.
I see solution to evil in the world as what is obvious - we are in a laboratory, we are avatars here to learn lessons - which come with errors and evil. Also evil is here to learn how to adapt and avoid it without feeling automatic self blame. Also, being all good, without evil - we would not learn concept of defense and we would be exploited if our next dimension is different than this one -
we are simply in training centre and evil is not against us - it simply exists as balance in laboratory. Without evil - we would have no boundaries, there would be no form and there would be no action. Everything would be blank and motionless without evil, that is probably that place where we came from before we're were born.
We are not here to fawn to evil not to encourage it, nor to normalize nor to explain it. We are here to learn it, recognize it and learn how to deal with it in most proper, most healthy, most intelligent way - other than automatic fawning, freeze or experimental fight response.
Since we, empaths, survivors of abuse came from motionless place - it is our heritage - to voice out, explain, bring more and express that place we came from and where we will return when we die. Without our voice of such place - evil will flourish.
It is not to fight evil - since it is obviously dysfunctional and evil. It is about cutting contact with anything toxic so that toxic evil people are abandoned and sent to prison that way - to motionless space without us as warm , good, kind, nice, empathic host for them to parasite on.
I see Jung's Trickster also as solution to Trauma, abuse and CPTSD. To allow ourselves to be who we are naturally - dealing pain with humor:
"Pain cannot be kept intact, it needs to be "processed", converted into humor."
Annie Ernaux
Also regarding cult of personality - I see solution in Humanistic psychology - where we are accepted as we are, with our Shadow, errors and flaws and in the same time we are given tools and knowledge and education - and it is up to us to use those tools to focus on our goals needs and wants authentic ones, not dependent on conformism and groupthink and approval of others.
CBT does not allows this - CBT is focused on panic symptoms and on specific steps which creates cult following - we are made to believe we are incapable and inept and we must depend on external voice to guide us. Which is nonsense - since we are allowed to express ourselves and do our norms within common sense - without following someone like sheep.
Conformism can be dangerous as Milgram experiment showed.
---
(9.10.2022)
"There are many variables that go into the experience of intrusive thoughts."
What I see it is always trauma behind it.
We have simply suppressed it since we do live in narcissistic society based on quick pleasures and addictions to cover up real issues.
Otherwise if there is something else than trauma - 90% of human population would be having intrusive worry issues.
In 2002 there was proposed Trauma model - to explain any psychological issue as result of trauma but Pharma mafia and mental health corporations would lose their money if people actually get healed and regulated.
DSM does not recognize CPTSD.
WHO's ICD-11 recognizes Complex trauma.
---
(10.10.2022)
"Social anxiety usually coming from the fear of being in certain social situations"
Social anxiety stems from Complex Trauma, it is trauma being stuck inside the body. Social situations are triggers, along with flashbacks - but the core fear is trauma: mobbing, bullying, abuse. This is important to have in mind because of my next point.
"There is fear of not knowing what to say or how to interact with others also of being judged harshly by others and also feelings of being embarrassed or ashamed in front of others"
There is always fear of being attacked.
If you ignore this fact you will blame the victim of abuse for the abuse.
Feeling scared in similar situations that may potentially bring the repressed trauma is totally normal reaction. It is not something to stifle down or ignore of suppress even more -
if we repress our trauma - the trauma will stay stuck inside the body - and it will wreck chaos inside - come out as immune disease, allergy or god forbid cancer.
I would encourage EFT tapping as a way to stimulate trauma and shake it off, like dog shaking after being afraid. Which his natural way to release trauma. Tapping as a way to prepare myself to confront abusive people in safe way. Of course common sense tell us if Femicide or psychopath is potential result of confronting - that we do not confront criminally insane head on.
If you direct EFT in a way to explain social anxiety as hallucination - as CBT instructs us - as something that is nonsense, unknown, something that is not accepted by society, as something that we must reject and thus be afraid of - will increase anxiety and fears.
What we resist, will persist.
If we make focus on our symptoms - we will develop additional neurosis: self blame, self hate and self pathology. Even when you say that these panic feelings are ok - and objectively they are ok.
What I dislike with EFT, and mediation and breathing - is instruction that we need to reject and be afraid of our emotions, that we must stifle our emotions down and manically to remove them - and that we are the only cause for these symptoms.
When we focus on our panic symptoms - as CBT instructs us - we are actually enabling abuse and we are enabling toxic people to continue with abuse. This way mentally ill people like Trump become presidents and Putins lifelong dictators - because most people are instructed to focus on their natural panic symptoms - instead of being focused on external element which is true cause of trauma, panic, abuse and aggression.
Instead of stifling down our trauma, panic, anxiety - I would accept them and listen to them.
If I reject and ignore panic symptoms - I will allow abusers to continue with abuse. Evil flourish when good people are silent.
That is what CBT is doing and instructing socially anxious people to do - to shut up, to self censor and to ignore and suffer in silence - since abusers will keep on abusing.
Instead of tapping - I would work on self expression, work on normalizing making mistakes and being embarrassed when we do express ourselves. I would not go with idea to stifle anything down and pretend that we live in a rose garden when our house is on fire.
Intrinsically speaking, tapping, breathing, calming down are all ok and healthy - when we are in healthy environment and with healthy people.
People who have issues with anxiety, panic, trauma - are inside toxic environment, they are around toxic people -
so instead of ignoring this fact, as CBT instructs us falsely into more anxiety - I would go into instruction to cut toxic people off and relocate if possible. I would go into direction of learning to not self-censor myself and to express, to self express my opinion in spite of panic. Anything other than that, in toxic ambient is not functional, not healthy - by ignoring toxic people we will become people pleasers and pushovers - and that is what CBT is targeting : nation of sheep, herd mentality and conformism which enables criminals in politics and marketing to enslave us into silence and lobotomy.
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"I would argue that every single person to some extent has a form of social anxiety. Obviously the degree you struggle with that is going to vary depending on the person."
I made topic about this fact at main reddit forum for social anxiety - I called it "All people have social anxiety. All."
and consequently the topic was deleted and later on I was banned. A lot of people there protested that super confident people do not have social anxiety obviously since they are very loud and aggressive - my point is that such people have superiority complex and this is mask to appear threatening - and in fact such people have huge social anxiety which they stifled down and simply learned to act in fake manner. The moderator in ban letter explained me that I am causing people pain by such claims.
I have transcription of this banned topic on my blog.
I created my own reddit forum about social anxiety: SocialAnxiety_Ideas
"social anxiety is because your brain associates a negative emotion or feeling with social interaction. You feel as if you are inadequate to have these conversations because you know it was negative in the past, you are not aware, it is trauma"
Yep. Short and sweet.
Social anxiety is part of Complex Trauma (CPTSD). It is complex version of PTSD and it is not necessarily related to horrific experiences such as gore nor extreme violence. It is more related to innocuous small nitpicking and being exposed to relentless criticism in our formative years.
I would not focus on conversation with strangers as example. This will not handle true trauma - since we can always leave situation and we have more creative control in handling anxiety - so this way we will not touch the nerve system of social anxiety trauma wound.
Instead,
Use example of having a job where you are bullied and there is mobbing and psychological abuse, perhaps even physical - and you cannot leave because other people explain to you that you are over-sensitive and that this is normal and that you must be subservient and in the same time that you must be strong and macho - while all in the same time you know if you stand up to bullies (by screaming back to them cursing them, any kind of fight response - even simple retort without violence or rudeness) - that you will get fired, you will lose your source of income, you will not find another job - let's say you live in poor country/city/state - and you cannot relocate, you have no money savings - so you must endure the abuse. What then? That situation is social anxiety.
How do we cope the pressure here - where all your actions are castrated - and you cannot move, you cannot express yourself, you cannot defend yourself - but in the same time you must endure toxic people, abuse and toxic ambient. How to handle this?
That is why Exposure therapy does not work.
With social anxiety - problem is not us.
Problem is not our panic. Problem is not our reaction - problem is not anxiety.
That is why Social anxiety is called Social anxiety - problem is social. Not us. If the anxiety was problem, then it would be called Self-anxiety , it would be GAD. Problem are toxic people.
True problem is in external - in social settings.
If we learn to compliment people - we do not need to do this. Socially anxious people are empaths, HSPs they have natural tools to connect with people. Social skills are not problem at all.
Also, if we force ourselves with trauma unresolved inside us - we will attract toxic people - since narcissists sniff out people pleasers, kind and nice people who seek genuine and honest connection- We will attract manipulative and insincere liars like moth to a flame.
So CBT advice to expose and to make friends and to connect is advice to throw oil to the fire.
Socially anxious people are indicators that they are inside toxic ambient and that they are surrounded by toxic people.
Exposure will come naturally after the trauma is healed.
First step instead of exposure - is to actually be more socially anxious. To accept social anxiety. Social anxiety is protective mechanism.
IF we reject it and see it as something disgusting - we will develop toxic shame - and toxic shame will destroy our self worth.
Without self worth, without intrinsic locus of control - we do not have ability to connect or form any healthy social connection nor we have ability to know what we love - since we do not love ourselves. We repeat the trauma instead : to invalidate and hate ourselves -and with such mindset we will believe others are hating us, too - since we hate our panic and anxiety and label it as something disgusting and something to destroy and cure.
Problem as I said are toxic people - so instead of nitpicking ourselves and making unnecessary plastic surgeries - the correct path is to cut toxic people off. This means we will be alone, we will vibe alone until we meet the right crowd that is healthy and normal.
The next step is to learn about narcissistic abuse - since such abuse is the true cause of trauma-
so we need to learn how to recognize red flags and how to retort to toxic people in correct, proper manner - without explosions, without drama, without people pleasing and without fawning.
So we learn to self express. Self expression and voicing out is anti dote to hysteria, trauma.
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"It's definitely something you can overcome through patience and persistence"
IF you are Johnny Depp and you live with Amber - if you overcome natural reaction of panic against someone criminally insane like Amber - you will end up being labeled as rapist, you will lose your movie career, you will be outcast and blamed for something you did not do, you will be abused and you will lose your money, dignity - after death people will label you as being Bill Cosby, predator who is abusing women. That is what will happen when we try to self blame, self hate our social anxiety.
Lobotomy will not save us. Self pathologizing will not resolve the external abuse which is true cause of social anxiety.
In this case conformism to be "normal" is extremely damaging to socially anxious.
We are explained by "healthy" and "normal" people to be happy, cheerful, without worries - while in the same time our house is on fire. Other people cannot see other people's trauma, they lack empathy and most people are self absorbed - so they will tell socially anxious what to do from their ego-centric perspective: to have parties, to enjoy life, to smile, to fight, to fornicate or whatever people with lower IQ are doing in their free time.
Social anxiety is signal that we are in danger - and that we never learned to deal and manager dangerous people due to narcissistic abuse in our formative years.
Social anxiety is symptom - it is not cause of problem.
Problem are toxic people and toxic shame internalized inside us.
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"Public speaking"
is not social anxiety. This is Performance anxiety. Similar panic but different cause beneath.
CBT is doing us a lot of damage - CBT has wrong faulty research in 1990s and they give complete wrong information and standpoint about social anxiety. CBT interviewed narcissists and shy people in 1990s and they draw wrong conclusions and then based their research and "cure" on social anxiety being hallucination.
Social anxiety is part of Complex Trauma. Always. There is no other "explanation" like genetics or other CBT crap. IT is always trauma - toxic people in our formative years made us people pleasers and to fawn - and later on in adulthood we were bruised and further traumatized since we lack natural tools to protect ourselves.
CBT is not explaining this and CBT adds up to social anxiety by telling us that we must self lobotomize ourselves, that we must crap fit into abuse and toxic people by exposure and that we must self hate and self blame our natural panic symptoms to toxic people, fake people, dangerous people - which we recognize now quite easily due to trauma years.
It is not fear of unknown - that is why CBT adds up to trauma, CBT explains that is is unknown and that we do not investigate our fears- CBT instead instructs us to stifle down our emotions and feelings.
It is fear of toxic people, it is fear of abuse, mobbing, bullying - nothing else.
It is toxic people.
So we need to learn how to recognize narcissists and predators, and to self express.
CBT advice to expose - is like throwing oil to fire. Without education how to recognize and handle toxic people - we will be traumatized in exposure sessions. We will add up more social anxiety than already present.
Social anxiety is not fear of going to parties nor it is fear from talking as primary concern.
Social anxiety is having job where we experience abuse, bullying, mobbing and we cannot leave since we depend on money income. Being stuck in such toxic job with toxic people in toxic ambient - that is social anxiety. We cannot express ourselves - since we will get fired , and we need money. That is social anxiety. We cannot defend ourselves since we never been taught how to in formative years when we were neglected and exposed to adult hysteria as teaching model.
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Social anxiety is not being nervous or anxious in social situations. It is being traumatized. Big difference.
If you start to copy paste any slightest totally normal human emotion such as being naturally shy or introverted and label it as serious disorder - you will create mass hysteria and lie to people and spread false information.
Social anxiety does not prohibit us from living our best life.
Look at Michael Jackson - he was King of Pop and had excruciatingly huge social anxiety.
Socially anxious people can actually be very much outgoing and really financially successful in life.
You are mixing up your own shyness feelings which you falsely label as social anxiety.
It is not your fault. CBT and mental healthy industry is the culprit for the lack of insight in social anxiety due to political reasons - to keep people confused and obedient as sheep - and unresolved and unexplained neurosis are great steady source of income for Pharma mafia.
Social anxiety is alarm and protective mechanism against toxic people and toxic ambient. Toxic people are the ones who are prohibiting others to enjoy life. Not our emotions. If you instruct others to self pathologize and self blame and self hate - you will instruct them to develop toxic shame and internalize toxic shame. With toxic shame inside we will develop social anxiety, panic, trauma - which is additional social anxiety that comes on the top of the already present one. Basically you are instructing people to become hysterical on top of previous trauma and hysteria.
This is great example that conformism, group think and herd mentality is dangerous.
You lack information that narcissistic abuse and toxic people and inability how to handle them is true source of social anxiety - and you instruct confused people in need to self hate and stifle down and ignore emotions that need to be expressed and examined.
Path to hell is paved with good intentions.
"Breathing exercises"
Now imagine if Johnny Deep sought help for his social anxiety due to Amber's abuse -
now he would still be in toxic relationship with criminally insane people, he would lose his movie career and he would be broke, labeled as rapist by the whole world - while he was instructed to breath and stifle down natural reaction to abusive people.
"I do struggle with anxiety"
Social anxiety comes in various degrees. Obviously you have shy or some kind of slight anxiety. You definitely do not have social anxiety if you are not afraid of speaking about it. Even though it seems to you from your perspective that you are helping others - you do not. You are instructing people in toxic ambient to ignore toxic people and abuse. So please learn more about social anxiety.
"Expose - being around people, go to coffee with a friend"
People with social anxiety have no friends. They are unable to form firm connections. Being around people without learning how to deflect toxic people is like throwing oil to the fire. Horrible advice.
"Be more present be aware of negative thoughts, consumed with negative thoughts"
Lead to more negative thoughts. This phenomena is called:
'The self-absorption paradox describes the contradictory association whereby higher levels of self-awareness are simultaneously associated with higher levels of psychological distress and with psychological well-being.'
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Absolutely correct it is trauma stuck inside the body - complex trauma as culprit behind social anxiety.
However if we nitpick ourselves - this will prompt our brain that our feelings and emotions are wrong, that we are wrong by default and that we must never feel social anxiety feelings.
What happen when we are in contact with abusive person?
If we stifle down our natural reactions in form of panic and fear - we will end up people pleasing abuser, we will enable abuse and we will do nothing to stop bullies nor mobbing which is taking place.
Social anxiety is alarm system - we were abused - and now due to Darwin evolution - we have ability to detect fake and dangerous people much more easily - and this ability to detect hidden covert psychopaths with narcissistic mask of superiority comlpex will surface as social anxiety panic symptoms.
I would therefore educate myself more on narcissistic abuse, how to handle and manage toxic difficult people in healthy proper functional manner.
Social anxiety is being stuck in toxic job where we are abused by everyone and in the same time we cannot quit due to bills and mortgage and rent to pay - so we are forced to be in toxic ambient. That is social anxiety. If we decide to self lobotomize our natural reaction to unfair and toxic situation - we will enable abuse, we will add criminals to managerial seats, we will add up to evil in the world. Putins will come to be lifelong tyrannical leader - since we will castrate ourselves with calming ourselves and labeling our social anxiety as something to destroy of being embarrassed about, something to stifle down.
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As always, on target, love explanation of top down approach.
What I learned with cognitive distortions is that they do play a huge role in social anxiety. That is correct. They lead as astray. They misrepresent reality. They are like veil over our eyes distorting our definitions and explanations. However this is not endemic to socially anxious. All people have filter and most people are ego-centric, jump to quick conclusions which are wrong and not explored at all.
Problem is that at one hand we need to be aware that our brain is producing false information and false conclusions about others - and on another hand we need to have total self worth: ability to trust our brain and that we rely on our brain. Without total self worth we are castrated - we do not have energy, basic ability to move in life or do anything - without self worth we will naturally develop toxic shame: where we believe deep inside we are inept and we must rely on other people to explain us reality - which leads to social anxiety and basing our worth on other people, trauma bonding with them.
The quickest way to heal cognitive distortions (bias, prejudiced, quick conclusions, oversimplifications) is Descartes Evil Demon hypothesis which was the basis for modern philosophy. That is to doubt everyone and everything even our brain.
Yet in the same time to function in life - we have to take the risk of being wrong by taking any kind of action based on our conclusions. It is being willing to be wrong and to admit we are vulnerable and mistaken, we become less ego centric and accept other people's definitions and conclusions other than our rigid one.
I see trauma as the only problem here. Trauma is creating cognitive distortions. With relentless criticism while growing up - we never learned how to trust ourselves. "Normal" and healthy people, people without panic fears, people without visible social anxiety - they are secured in their thoughts - even when wrong. If we decide to nitpick our cognitive distortions we will create worry and we will focus on our panic, we will devote energy and time on trying to resolve our thoughts - which does not work in real life, it is not functional.
We are all forced to make decisions - often enough to make quick decisions.
This will create only more anxiety - since we will now worry to be perfect and not to make mistakes, and not to embarrass ourselves with false claims and we will be preoccupied by trying to think "normally" and without "distortions" - while all other people will not care about their distortions, they will not think twice about hurting anyone with their words based on distortions. They will simply do their goals.
Michael Jackson was extremely socially anxious. So social anxiety is not always equal to being unsuccessful in life, social anxiety is not always being avoidant to the point of not doing anything in life.
Social anxiety is trauma issue, it is Complex Trauma. It is Charcot hysteria stuck inside our body - and it is not our fault. It is not fault of our bias and cognitive distortions -
the only fault lies in toxic people and toxic ambient and it is not our fault to not getting psychological nutrients and information needed in our formative years when we were in toxic ambient filled with contestant relentless criticism 24/7 just for being ourselves-
I would focus on toxic people - I would externalize our social anxiety into social - which is why social anxiety is named social.
Problem is not inside us - problem is in social element - other people. Toxic abusive narcissistic people are causing trauma in their targets. They lie, they gaslight their target, manipulate and control them.
With growing up in neglect -we never learned how to retort and manage and defend ourselves from toxic abuse in functional proper and healthy manner - instead we self learned ourselves to develop social anxiety as protective mechanism.
Problem are toxic people.
We can learn how to cut them off, how to recognize them, by trusting our instincts and feelings inside - instead of stifling our anxiety down - we can learn how to listen and accept our social anxiety as helper, as messenger that help us protect ourselves in social situations.
There are covert narcissists, aggressive boderliners who are specialized into manipulation of easy targets: empaths.
Our social anxiety is simply ability to detect such hidden parasites and alarm for us to get rid of them or learning how to handle them in healthy manner - other than castrating ourselves through self pathologizing, self blame, self hate, self lobotomy.
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"feeling not good enough, feeling constantly judged by everyone, in every room I walked into, every laugh I hear, every stare, smirk, that is about me."
This is not social anxiety.
This is narcissism.
"always making it about me. That is how I would describe social anxiety"
"It is fear of judgement"
This is case book of narcissism. This is not social anxiety at all.
Social anxiety is being stuck in job with mobbing and abuse and when such person cannot defend oneself - or face being unemployed, without income - and thus homeless and exposed to more mobbing and abuse in the streets, being homeless. That is social anxiety.
It is not about self absorption nor entitlement.
It is about abuse and fearing abuse.
Narcissists primary concern is to get narcissistic supply: other people. Other people to approve you, that all people like you, that all people appraise you, that all people validate you. This need to seek approval and that other people perceive you as grandeur - that is all narcissism. Not social anxiety. The feelings you might feel when other people do not meet your entitlement - is social inhibitions fear which you label as social anxiety - since it is easier to present yourself to other people as victim - to gain more sympathy and forced love from other people. It is easier to present yourself to others as victim and mimic social anxiety rather than admitting that you are codependent and have codependent issues. Narcissist hate seeing vulnerable or mistaken or wrong in any way. IT is easier to mimic social anxiety and gain codependents inside Karpman Drama Triangle to forge dysfunctional relationships with others.
5:09 "Get out of your head, into your surroundings, observing what is happening around you. Focusing on them, listening what they are saying"
This is another important clue that you have narcissism and not social anxiety.
Socially anxious people are already zoomed into and onto other people, it is like with microscope. They are watching closely how other people are acting and saying, watching their tone of voice. This phenomena happens because they are truly socially anxious - they were abused in the past - and now they expect the same abuse from other people and they pre-emptively wait and observe others how others are acting.
Narcissists on the other hand are self absorbed - so yeah - it makes sense to you to explain your own narcissistic injury as "social anxiety" as to focus on other people - since narcissists never focus on other people. Narcissist never listen. Unless there is hidden goal of exploitation and harm to others, narcissists perceive other people as nuisance, objects that are moving in their way, something to conquer, destroy and enslave - control basically. Once normal people discover these toxic and mentally ill behaviour - they cut contact with you - and you feel narcissistic injury, you lose narcissistic supply (other people's obedience and worship) - and you label this panic feelings as social anxiety. And then you end up with advice to listen to others as solution.
Yeah - normal people are already doing that. Normal people have empathy and they do listen to others. Truly socially anxious people are empaths and they naturally feel what other people are feeling. They do not need to listen more. Truly social anxious ones they actually need to listen less and cut contact with toxic people - not engage in more of toxicity.
"Focused all my attention to what other people are saying"
Yep, empaths and all people except narcissists are already doing this. All other people other than narcissists already know this. This is actually the cause of true social anxiety - because normal and healthy people get trauma bonded with narcissists who are self absorbed, violent, rude and aggressive - and they end up listening to narcissists who are pathological liars, who invent their fantasy world and who use lies and manipulation to put themselves on the throne will all other people admire them in their grandiosity.
6:29 "Practice not only what I am going to say but how I am going to act"
Another huge trait of narcissist: fake mask of superiority.
You are honey full blooded narcissist. You have no social anxiety at all.
Narcissists like to appear grandiose and without vulnerabilities and without mistakes and without errors - so you want to make perfect grandiose image - so other would admire you and worship your mask of superiority.
Truly socially anxious people are afraid of making mistakes in hard conversations not because they are afraid of blunders - but because they are afraid of punishment, trauma and hysteria that they received by narcissists while being exposed to narcissistic abuse. By the same narcissists who want to be admired and worshiped in their grandiouse fake narcissistic mask - and when others see through manipulation and lies - you crack up.
Mask works only as Jung's mask - persona - this means being kind and nice, without curse words, without anger and aggression, without mood swings, being open and less egocentric, admitting your mistakes and blunders and flaws to others and self, as normal part of life. That is healthy mask. Narcissistic mask is when you try to make false impression and cover up all your natural flaws, errors and blunders and to make amazing impression in group of people - whom might be potential pool of your narcissistic supply - admirers and followers.
7:14 "I hype myself up before going to event"
Narcissism. Desire to be liked and admired from others, and feeling entitled that others must see you as talented and amazing or your worth is threatened.
Socially anxious people use method before event - to remind themselves that making mistakes is normal part of social life and to admit not knowing something. It is not about making impressions but being oneself, come as you are, with true colors, with flaws which some people will dislike - who cares about them anyway. That is how socially anxious people "hype up". Narcissists will pump up their ego and grandiosity to attract new potential victims into their drama circle.
8:15 "develop social skills"
Truly socially anxious people already have social skills. They have empathy, ability to see perspective from other people's shoes. That is the greatest social skill which 80% of population does not have. The only problem is unresolved unprocessed trauma - due to being exposed to narcissistic abuse and narcissists whos mind is distorted into grandiosity and seeking narcissistic supply.
9:09 "When you do mess up, it hurts, stings"
This is yet another proof you are narcissist. You are not afraid of other people and potential harm you done to them - you are only concerned through self absorption distorted mindset that your feelings are primary concern. Your primary concern are not other people at all - all you care is making yourself feeling worshiped by others - by not making mistakes.
Social anxiety is called social anxiety because of social element inside it.
What you are talking here is self anxiety - you see fears and panic you feel through lens of your narcissistic entitlement - not other people at all.
Even with this video - you are trying to instruct other people to fawn over to you, you act like victim and you want all people to treat you like victim, without talking honest and straight to you - so you invented your own rules how to heal "social anxiety" - without actually consulting with therapist nor online resources at all. You simply feel entitled and grandiose to be the centre of universe while all other people revolve around you.
Narcissism is covert and hidden mental illness. Narcissist will never ever become aware that they are narcissists even though the first words you spoke were : "always making it about me".
If you do not heal narcissism - you will hurt other people. Narcissism is not always over: cursing, violent attacks or aggression. A lot of narcissists are cover ones, like you- toxic altruism, passive aggression. In any case you will destroy other people lives if you do not seek mental health professional to heal your narcissism.
Exposure to long term narcissistic abuse can cause brain injury. Narcissism is serious mental illness and it causes damage to other people.
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When we push ourselves to smile to strangers - we people please, fawn and we are pushovers - and we crap fit into abuse and toxic ambient.
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Fighting intrusive thoughts is not working:
what we resist we will persist.
Relaxation, yoga - is actually crap fitting into abuse.
Goals - will not be visible to us due to internalized toxic shame - where social anxiety is not problem at all, but our toxic shame inside us and toxic people in our external toxic ambient around us.
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Why not being yourself, come as you are?
Why putting on a fake narcissistic mask?
If we self hate, self blame and reject parts of our self that we label as sick or disgusting - how do you hope that toxic shame will not spring up like mushrooms in Autumn?
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If our basic Maslow needs are not satisfied we will stutter in life, like with break turned on.
Behind social anxiety is trauma, Charcot Hysteria - we need to be able to learn how to deal and manage toxic abusive criminally insane people in healthy and proper manner - if we don't all our focus will be focused on defense and avoidance.
Exposure will not help - since we do not have tools how to handle bullies and mobbing nor bullying. Exposure without trauma resolves is like throwing oil into fire.
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Social phobia is archaic term, rendered useless in 1990s. Experts found out that social inhibitions do not wear off with exposure - as any phobia does.
Social anxiety is not the same as social anxiety disorder.
American DSM is based on crony corporations and thus making money for Pharma mafia - and that way DSM does not recognize Trauma as concept. WHO's ICD-11 does recognize Complex Trauma as concept in diagnosis.
If you decide to label your perceived issues based on DSM - it will make things worse - since you will make yourself believe that you are hallucinating issues - since DSM is based on making money on neurosis that never ends that has no resolution.
Social anxiety is trauma from toxic ambient, abuse and neglect around us. It is alarm system that we are in presence of untreated mentally ill people such as narcissists, someone with rigid mental system based on pathology and abusing others who are not conforming to tyranny of untreated mentally ill person.
Social anxiety is Charcot hysteria - as you show in video, person who stutters and cannot speak up. This happens due to spasms which are caused by being abused in childhood. Problem is not our natural reaction to abuse, psychopathy and neglect - problem are toxic people and our internalized toxic shame - deep core belief we are inept to manage and deal social situations. This happens due to conditioning where we were exposed to relentless criticism 24/7 in our formative years.
Social anxiety is protective mechanism, conditioned and programmed inside us. It is not sickness. Other people who abused us were sick.
7:00 "We need to be flexible"
We do not need to be anything. We simply need to learn that our trauma stems from us being abused. And that we never learned how to deal with abuse and defend ourselves against toxic people. We never received instruction how to be ourselves - instead we were abused and neglected and criticized in times when we were suppose to build up our persona, our self, our character.
Any instruction how we ought to be adds up to this social fears.
We are empaths, HSPs -we are kind and nice - we stifle down our anger. However without anger we cannot take any actions in life. We can actually learn how to self express ourselves, how to display our anger when someone is abusive to us in healthy, functional and proper manner - other than self blame, self hate, spasms, hysteria, avoidance or self pathologizing ourselves - lobotomy.
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Think about it logically.
IF comfort zone concept really works, then third world countries would flourish, they would be highly wealthy and organized countries without corruption, low literacy, without crime and drugs and there would be no domestic abuse or wars or terrorism there.
Prisons would be hotbeds of scientists, tycoons, philosophers, mathematicians, teachers.
Slum part of cities would be garden malls, clean, filled with happy people who are not abusing drugs or alcohol.
The trick is not in comfort zone -
it is in toxic people.
Toxic ambient, narcissists are causing chaos, disorder, problems and they seek conflict to abuse someone not to resolve anything. Toxic people cause social anxiety in other people and they cause trauma.
Problem is not with us nor "comfort zone" - problem is in toxic people.
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"I carried a deep sense of guilt with me"
This is called toxic shame.
Toxic shame is programming, conditioning, hypnosis.
That means - toxic shame programming cannot be dealt with logic. We were infected by toxic shame through our unconsciousness.
It came through the back door, we were not aware what is going on, we were inducted, introduced and initiated into toxic shame. Any nitpicking about toxic shame is like urticaria or allergy skin rash - with scratching it just gets more itchy. That is why narcissistic abuse is so insidious and pervasive, it is like cancer attacking the healthy body. It spreads in many ways, affecting everything.
Toxic shame is Charcot hysteria. IT was studied by Freud and Jung and today's DSM and CBT are designed for us to stay in hysteria - since this is huge money influx for Pharma mafia and corporate medical system, making money on our neurosis.
Toxic shame is trauma, it is Complex PTSD.
We heal trauma by understanding what happened to us, that we were conditioned into toxic shame an guilt and that we lack skills and tools how to self validate ourselves, how to love ourselves and how to take care of ourselves. We did not receive these lessons when we ought to receive them in our formative years. This made us collect and form toxic shame as being exposed to untreated mentally ill person in our vicinity - which even may not be our parents - we might live in toxic ambient altogether.
The healing comes when we realize that we are not broken. That we do not need to do absolutely anything about us - that there is absolutely no need to nitpick or use logic, waste our time, energy and money on plastic surgery in our mind - since we are not broken, we are not bad, we are not evil, there is nothing intrinsically wrong with us.
Toxic shame will make us believe that we need to perform certain rituals to calm down our shame, guilt and toxic people around us and their abusive reactions.
Any reaction to anxiety stimulates and creates more anxiety.
Jung said: what we resist, it will persist.
If we decide to nitpick our guilt and shame - we will signal our brain that there is something basically wrong with us. That something at the core is twisted and distorted - while in reality we are perfectly fine. We were abused, we were victims of abuse - there is absolutely nothing to fix with us. The toxic society, toxic external predators are the only problem and cause and source of any disorder, trauma. Not us.
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Problem starts when you find yourself in mid 1990s and when you find yourself with panic and unknown feelings of fear but in the same time you have no resource about Complex Trauma (Even though CPTSD was discovered in 1994) and the only explanation by official medical resources is that you have social anxiety (or social phobia as it was called until 1999) - and CBT instructs you to believe that your anxiety is hallucination, that all people are safe, that toxic people do not exist and that you must stifle down your natural reactions to abuse - and crap fit into abuse, corruption and dysfunction by fawning.
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(11.10.2022)
"I think CBT is good to teach people how to identify their own emotions, how to emotionally regulate"
CBT is form of lobotomy, it is nazi technology of brainwashing that Americans stole after 1945 - it is Ludovico Technique described in Clockwork Orange (1971).
It is process intended for criminally insane to calm down their psychopathy in mechanical way. All others who are using CBT are victims of mass brainwashing, caught in friendly fire - it is hypnosis of psychopaths to calm down, not intended for normal people.
All emotions are normal, if you are normal person without criminal tendencies.
No emotions need to be repressed nor suppressed.
CBT will lead to people pleasing and fawning and trauma for all people who are not criminally insane.
And what is the worst, even therapist who are using CBT are not following CBT since they know that CBT is destructive and intended for criminally insane, not for healthy population.
Mentors who are professing CBT are stubborn, they are aggressive and they lack mental clarity, so CBT does nothing for them, for they are still ego-centric. Mentors themselves do not follow CBT - they are using CBT as tool to control and manipulate others - and then "heal" and "cure" issues with Pharma mafia, making money on never-ending neurosis and issues which CBT cannot resolve.
CBT is mechanism created by narcissists for the narcissists.
CBT is therapy of error, and it ought to be banned.
Instead of CBT there is Humanistic therapies - and they actually work.
CBT does not teach regulation - it is tool for lobotomy and crap fitting into abuse, and becoming quiet passive sheep in conformism, groupthink and herd mentality - where crony corporations can do anything they want and mentally ill people like Trump and Putin can govern the sheep into chaos and disorder.
CBT is form of communism or fascism in psychology.
---
When we nitpick our neurosis - it is like urticaria, skin rash allergy - with scratching it only gets worse. You make things worse and it spreads.
Plot twist is that inner critic is litmus test - it is indication that we are in toxic ambient and that there are toxic people around us - who are infecting us with their mental illness.
If we start the path of discovering fears - we will make fears spread.
If we decide to self blame and self hate ourselves for inner critic, we will develop toxic shame - deep core belief that there is something flawed with us at fundamental level (at our thoughts) - and without self worth we will become people pleasers and we will develop codependency and trauma bonding and other people will control us, while we will develop external referencing locus of control - in short, our mental health will go to hell.
CBT is therapy of error, it is creating mental illness and mental imbalance - and then they explain you need to take pills to make Pharma mafia rich, parasiting on neurosis which they created by their faulty instructions how to handle mental health.
In short:
Cut toxic people off and see if your "ridiculous stories" go away by themselves.
And ban CBT - it is horrible therapy of destroying mental health.
Instead of CBT there are Humanistic therapies which actually work.
---
Being pushover is trauma response. It is automatic, it stems from unconsciousness.
It is hypnosis - you cannot snap someone out of coma with logic neither understanding. If anything it will make worse since pushover will now have toxic shame - deep core belief that there is some basic flaw.
Think about it more deeply - Femicide statistics show that women get killed (perhaps men too) when they say No to their partner.
So you need to be aware that many people are in abusive contact with criminally insane people who are making their target pushover.
Another issue is - that once we say No to narcissists - we will get fired. So untold piece of story is that you actually need to have money to say No.
And in the end - if a grown up person is unable to say no- step outside your egocentrism and just imagine what kind of trauma there had to be - that this person is now people pleaser, pushover and that automatic response is to fawn. Can you just imagine what brutal regime there was for that person in their formative years?
Being pushover is Charcot hysteria. Check out google images of this concept and you will see people in late 19 century in mental institution striking strange poses. That is what is happening in the minds of anyone with trauma. It is spasm - you cannot remove spasm from your body by talking to it and motivating it or explaining that spasm hurts and it is not functional. It is trapped inside the body.
You "cured" yourself with pushover issue since you never had pushover issue yourself. You simply was coward without money.
Now you have money and you learned to assert yourself with people you know they cannot harm you. That is secret of your "success" that you miss to explain in detail here.
If someone is pushover - that is sign that this person is in close contact with tyrannical person and that there is no financial escape from this trap, prison. That is why people become pushover - they are in toxic relationships, in toxic ambient.
Similar to Russians under Putin - or mentally ill people in USA supporting fascist Trump where people with low IQ are trapped in their mental illness making them pushover to criminally insane Trump.
---
"Are you saying that people who have succeeded with CBT for social anxiety do not truly have social anxiety?"
Yes.
They (the recovered ones" do not have social anxiety at all. They are actually covert narcissists and they mimic social anxiety symptoms because they are seeking narcissistic supply - other people.
CBT is giving them exactly what they need to hear and that is why they "recover":
1) CBT instructs them to self blame and thus curb their open narcissism and this gives them great advice how to get close to others and then they are free to continue with psychological abuse, manipulation, grooming and lies to web others into their narcissistic supply.
2) CBT instructs them to expose and engage in any kind of contact - and CBT explains that there are no toxic people out there, that all people are responsible for eventual abuse that narcissists give to others: mood swings, anger outbursts, now CBT justifies narcissistic abuse and bless it - since it makes them believe that if other people are feeling hurt - it is their choice to feel pain.
So narcissists now explain to their victims of abuse that they are simply over-sensitive and gaslight them with the help of CBT.
So CBT will explain and recover narcissists from narcissistic collapse - to become functional narcissists without excessive drama or violent explosions that might occur without therapy.
Social anxiety is simply cover-up for narcissists, as pathological liars it is not hard to mimic social anxiety to appear as victim to others and therapist in order to gain sympathy.
For truly socially anxious ones - victims of abuse, bullying and mobbing - CBT will instruct truly socially anxious ones to fawn and become people pleasers and to be pushover - to self blame, to stifle down natural reaction of abuse as hallucination, and thus enforce toxic shame already present inside - which socially anxious cannot recognize as Charcot hysteria, trauma stuck inside - since CBT does not recognize Complex PTSD nor trauma at all. Truly socially anxious ones do not have neither education nor availability heuristics to describe what is happening and take any limited explanation that CBT is offering to explain and define complex human emotions and conditions.
Narcissists have no issues with talking nor expressing - so narcissists who mimic social anxiety are actually spokesmen for social anxiety - even though they do not have it at all. It is like wolf becoming leader of sheep - instructing medical community to appease their manipulations, lies and control over other people.
That is why CBT is therapy of errors.
It does tremendous damage to everyone and heals nothing.
---
(12.10.2022)
All people have safety mechanisms and bias and logical fallacies - all people have filter. Even happy people in happy and healthy relationships.
If we decide to take the path of CBT by declaring the civil war with our head - we will develop toxic shame - internalized deep core belief that there is fundamentally wrong with our character.
We will experience cognitive distortions as negative and destructive if 1) we have unresolved trauma and or 2) we are in toxic ambient with toxic people around us - due to emotional contagion.
In healthy ambient with healthy people, when we are surrounded with love, validation and interdependence, psychological safety and psychological security - our bias, logical fallacies, cognitive distortions will be at minimum. There is no need to go into CBT direction of brainwashing, lobotomy and self-pathologizing.
CBT is therapy of deliberate and intentional errors, it was created by narcissists for the narcissist to create mental illness and narcissism and to make money for Pharma mafia by parasiting over human neurosis.
---
me: "Trick with evil people is in intrinsic locus of control"
You: "huh?"
Explanation:
When we are in the presence of evil people, unless we are evil ourselves, we will trauma bond with them.
This is because we are not evil.
We are nice, kind, open, friendly, we listen and we are tolerant.
All these good and normal and healthy traits is something that pathological liar will use and take advantage of.
Therefore, even though being kind, nice, open, tolerant, friendly are all super great traits for life and there is nothing intrinsically wrong with all these actions, decisions and beliefs- unfortunately - they have loop hole where narcissists sneak in back door and they hijack us.
How?
By manipulation - they mirror ourselves, they observe and shower us with attention and they broadcast back our values and everything we stand for: being kind, nice, open, friendly, good, nice, tolerant.
Then when we let our borders down (which means cut toxic people off) - they show their true face.
By then it is too late - we are already duped, we already wasted our time, money, focus and sanity on them.
So- what is anti.dote?
How not to be evil in evil and toxic world filled with pathological liars and psychoapths?
Well -
by developing intrinsic locus of control, and by keeping our high moral and ethical standards - but from the final sixth Kohlberg's Theory of Moral Development - which means we rely on our common sense and intuition to take actions when we sense something is evil. And this means being somewhat less good, someone less nice, someone less tolerant, someone less open:
Cut toxic people.
Yell at them.
Speak the truth
Being authentic
Self expression even when our voicing out the elephant in the room seem to "hurt" the toxic person.
The point is - holding criminals accountable and taking responsibility for their crimes.
---
It is great that you shine a light in a dark room. My comment here is to help you not wasting 20 years or more in gathering information about social anxiety, as I did, to light up the room, or Plato's cave hehe.
Social anxiety is the first symptoms in any trauma, disorder and anything unpleasant that happens to us - the first reaction will be to avoid people, to freeze. That is totally natural reaction to something abusive, painful and mysterious.
Some people imagine danger - they are hallucinating the danger.
This is why it is important to explore first what is the problem, what is bugging you. What is causing you problems and what kinds of problems?
Usually with social anxiety- we have issues with society. Other people scare us.
Well, not all people are scary - tighten it down -
we will be scared of abusive, loud, aggressive people.
If this is the case in your social anxiety - my suggestion is
1) research Complex Trauma
and
2) research Narcissistic abuse
Both topics are greatly covered on you tube, there are amazing channels which can help you make sense about what is going on.
---
(13.10.2022)
Comfort zone is non functional concept.
If comfort zone idea works, Third world countries would be seat of peace, democracy, functional judicial system and transportation and their citizens would be happy, wealthy and educated. Like Scandinavia. Yet - poor countries are filled with corruption and drug and mafia issues - living in discomfort creates violence, trauma and suicides -
the trick is not in comfort of discomfort.
The point is in love and doing things without love.
The point is in choosing democracy over Trump/Putin's fascism.
The point is in health, not narcissism.
Difference between normal and toxic.
---
I dunno. Abusing random strangers in the streets - taking away their free time to clean your own mental issues with them, brush your dirty hands in other people as if they are object.. and then discard them away like towel, just seems icky, narcissistic and wrong.
What is the point here?
To control and dominate other people?
To seek other people's approval and validation so they admire our grandiosity?
What if people decide to randomly stop other people in the street and nag and complain about their issues and problems in life? Is that healthy?
---
This is great
but misleading concept.
IT is not about comfort nor discomfort.
IT is about healthy versus toxic.
Sometimes healthy means doing things which are not comfortable.
If comfort zone concept works - think logically - then third world countries would be like Scandinavia - there would be no corruption nor poverty nor crime, all people would be happy and organized and interdependent, not selfish, rude or violent.
If comfort zone concept works - then slum part of cities would be hotbed of artists, scientists and tycoons - not criminals and drug mafia.
IF comfort zone concept works - then prisons would be producing educated, highly peaceful and productive citizens, not criminals and more violence.
----
(14.10.2022)
@TacticalBook953 One month later, and I think you actually might be right and correct.
In the past month I have made huge revelations about narcissism.
There are actually covert narcissists who mask as good and nice people - and actually these kind of manipulators are the most dangerous and the most damaging to the health of victims of their abuse - since they let them in their lives.
On the other hand, if someone is open and critical - chances are we will probably project our own trauma experiences and fears onto this person - without listening to him at all - all we hear will be our trauma and abuse experience.
When I listen to this guy more - he needs more chance to talk. I no longer see monster in this guy. It is better if someone is totally honest and if they express their shadow and flaws and things they need to work on and improve - than someone who is nice talking, appearing friendly and helpful, and we let them in our private space and then they do tremendous narcissistic abusive damage.
With someone who is open and honest - we keep them at bay - we do not let this person in immediately - and we might give them chance to see what is going on. And we can be direct honest with him - warn him when he crosses the line.
If he was acting and pretending - we would shut up and never confronted him since he appears as ally - as all manipulators and covert narcissists appear.
Something to think about more deeply.
---
I learned only few days ago about grooming and mirroring - these are concepts I heard but never understood what they really mean - I was convinced it means projecting.
It is manipulation and pathological liar on the other side - someone who appears as friend, good, nice to us and we trust them. They lie to us, they act, they are actors and we think their play is real life, true face since they show focused empathy and care and attention that we hunger for. It is not-
---
Similar with Social anxiety. I sought information about it - and CBT explains social anxiety as hallucination and that toxic people do not exist. That we can actually control abuse and abusive people through ABC model - where we change our explanations and definitions - and then magically we can change the pain and hurt when abusive person is abusive.
CBT never explained Complex Trauma as the hovering issue above Social anxiety and CBT mixes social anxiety (normal emotion of shame in social settings) along with social anxiety disorder (mild schizophrenia, paranoid delusional disorder where someone feels anxiety due to hallucinations) - they mix these and explain that we are inventing abuse and toxic people.
I cannot say how much damage this created - I was left with people pleasing and fawning - whereas Fawn is not explained in CBT at all. CBT tells that we need to Assert in order to resolve issues with difficult, stubborn people. But in reality, when we engage in long drama conversation with pathological liar and someone who is not willing to find any solution and someone who is living in fantasy world - being assertive with such person is like throwing oil into fire.
CBT uses labels and mislabels a lot, it is therapy of error and it ought to be banned.
--
DR Ramani made this week video about codependency and how it overlaps with narcissistic abuse.
Codependency she says is when we are aware, when we fully know that contact with abuser is abusive.
In narcissistic abuse, contact with narc is covert. We have no idea that they are abusive. Instead we self blame. That is not codependency - since we have no idea that the other person is abusive and dangerous. We appear codependent to others, especially when we finally uncover narcissistic abuse - but this is not codependency.
When we talk about it and when we are aware of abuse - we will naturally cut it off. Due to Complex Trauma we were programmed to be subservient and never retort to abusive people. This is not codependency.
Codependency would be that we stay with toxic people and enable them even after we wake up from our coma.
--
Codependency overlaps with narcissistic abuse.
IF we continue to self blame and label ourselves with wrong labels, we will be stuck in self pathologizing.
Codependents do not want to heal and they do not want to find resolution.
We want.
We were simply lied to and we were in contact with pathological liar, someone who appeared as good, nice, friend, service to us.
---
(15.10.2022)
"The goal of CBT based intervention is to assist those who experience irrational thoughts to the extreme that their relationships with others and themselves are significantly impacted. "
I tried CBT for 20 years - I ended up with fawning and people pleasing issues. Someone at the job would accuse me of things I did not do - and I would feel fear and panic - and I would remember ABC Model from CBT and then I would label these fears and panic as distortion - thus I would self blame and self hate myself - and I did nothing.
CBT's ABC Model that we label and define our uncomfortable emotions as something other than panic or fear of catastrophe in order to calm down our fears and panic. Self pathology and lobotomizing ourselves leads to castrating ourselves. We end up being someone's pawn and other people will control us.
When we are scared and confused and feel panic - we will become prime target to manipulators, controllers and toxic people. CBT explains us that we are wrong all the time (due to our cognitive distortions), that toxic people do not exist.
The only way to retort to other people is anger - healthy anger or cutting contact with toxic people - by recognizing that toxic people exist. The panic and fear we feel may be anger - we are simply not educated enough to recognize it, so CBT is therapy of error. It tries to describe complex human emotions and complex settings with oversimplification - which paradoxically is cognitive distortion itself.
Oversimplifications leads to distortions.
CBT instead creates all focus on our panic symptoms - and we end up castrated - since we cut off our natural reactions to abuse. We end up crap fitting into abuse.
CBT works in healthy and normal ambient. In toxic ambient and around toxic people CBT becomes tools for narcissists to abuse us. For example - CBT promotes assertiveness as tool for abuse. That we explain ourselves and that we engage in endless explanations with difficult people by pointing out our views. Well, toxic people love endless arguments and conflicts- they thrive on it. Toxic people do not want resolution. And toxic people are pathological liars and unreliable narrators - therefore any argument with them is useless and crazymaking. It does not work.
On the other hand, there is Humanistic psychology - which is based on accepting and validation.
CBT is focused on rejection and suppressing our shadow, and thus it is part of abuse, it continues with abuse - where abuse is constant invalidation.
Anyone who continues to support CBT is failing Milgram Experiment. Where the other person is crying in pain - and you simply raise the voltage - because someone in authority said it is a good thing.
Even wikipedia page tells us that CBT is not for trauma issues and there is a lot of criticism for CBT.
The question is is medical community more focused on making money and profit even though it may entail destroying someone's life in the process - or actually helping the people in need?
---
(17.10.2022)
"Excessive amount thinking about future bad would happen"
"what would people think of me" "withdraw further in shell"
That is all Complex Trauma.
There is nothing wrong with our thinking. We think our thinking is sick and ill. It is not.
We had trauma, we experienced bullying and now this trauma is stuck inside our body and springs up with triggers. All trauma. Trauma also springs up as toxic shame - we think our thinking is tainted and we focus on our thoughts and thinking - and this focus is problem. We believe our thinking will prevent the future pain and abuse that we experienced in our formative years where we learned this pattern of thinking - blaming our thoughts for external toxic people.
We do not exit our anxiety - we are stuck inside it because we are convinced our thoughts are sick- When we do not have self worth - we won't be able to function in this world since we have no basic line, we have no grounding to believe our thoughts, opinions, decisions.
When we do not believe in our ability to think straight and "normal" - we then develop toxic shame - deep core belief that we cannot deal with nothing, that we can't deal with any kind of situations.
Then we focus on other people - external referencing locus of control.
"Small steps to overcome that feeling that she is inadequate, unprepared or going to be judged"
These small steps are the problem.
This idea that we must have correct mind -
we already have correct mind. There is nothing to fix.
This belief is the problem -- that is trauma. We were traumatized and trauma make us nitpick and fix ourselves that we make ourselves believe that our thoughts are sick and we must overcome them.
When we do not trust our thoughts - we will develop toxic shame and more anxiety, we won't be able to trust ourselves, we will stay stuck in anxiety.
We tell our brain that we are unable to deal with difficult people and difficult situations and that we can prevent difficult people and difficult situations by changing our thoughts.
This belief is trauma - this belief is causing anxiety.
WE cannot control outside events which are totally outside of our control. Even moreso, we cannot control external by our thoughts. We cannot fix or modulate our thoughts and that somehow outside world will be changed magically. This is magical thinking. And CBT is joining in hysteria by explaining us that our cognitive distortions are scapegoat to fix, modulate - they aren't. All people have cognitive distortions, all people jump to quick conclusions.
"Did parents allow you to make mistakes"
Yep - constant criticism 24/7 in times of our formative years is the cause of trauma and belief that we can fix our thoughts and somehow change and appease bad external world.
Very often there is addiction in such toxic traumatic people who have conditioned into self blame such as their alcohol addiction.
"People do not know how to interact and hold attention"
People who develop social anxiety are empaths, HSPs, they have high moral and ethical standards- They know very well how to have social skills. It is fear and avoidance with toxic shame which makes us seem unskilled. We have ability to put ourselves in other people shoes - this social skill is something that 80 percent of people do not have at all. We are far superior is social skills than most people even though it does not show up due to trauma and toxic shame.
"Do small small steps"
Again - you are self pathologizing. That is anxiety, trauma, toxic shame.
It is very deep core belief that we are inept and that we must change and nitpick our thinking and behaviour in order to prevent catastrophe.
This is hypnosis, it is ingrained - it is Skinner's box conditioning. IT is very hard to break up, to realize what we are actually doing-
trying to fix our thoughts and behaviour in order to fit in and to conform to groupthink and imaginary standards which we believe when we magically achieve them - that nothing bad will ever happen.
Which is fantasy. Bad people and bad situations happen independently of our thoughts. Being perfectionist will not help us evade abuse. Being perfectionist is not healthy.
"You take more and more actions"
Exposure will not help - if we believe we must change, nitpick our thoughts and behaviour in order to prevent fears, panic, and bad things happening. We will focus on changing our thoughts - and not on our self expression, on our creativity, on our ideas, on taking initiative. Instead we will be self absorbed and try to change our thoughts so that other people are not mad at us and that bad things do not happen to us.
Bad things will happen no matter how much we expose or think in perfect manner and no matter how much perfectionist we are and perfect. IT will happen since it is outside of our control.
"Walk into the room and say to say hey I am Sarah"
But why?
Why we would force to make friends with someone who is pathological liar? If I sense something is wrong about someone - if there is apprehension - I would rather listen to my instinct which is backed up by previous abuse and bad experiences - rather than trying to conform to social standards, grouphink and herd mentality.
Paradox is when we accept our self as it is, with trauma and abuse stuck inside us - paradox is we won't feel scared any more to talk with anyone - since we will protect ourselves. We will cut contact with toxic people as soon as they start to groom us, mirror us and then abuse us after the honeymoon period is over. When I believe that my thoughts are sick and that I must conform to imaginary social standards - I will see social events as chore, something to fight and overcome and to overcompensate for my confidence. I will never feel peace, there will always be social anxiety.
This is because social anxiety is part of Complex Trauma - and it is Darwin evolution which enables us to develop thorns as reaction to abuse and bullying and mobbing in the past. We now have ability to detect fake people easily - and we misinterpret this ability as sickness and fantasy and we believe that we must never make mistake and be perfect and conform to herd mentality. That we are not allowed to be ourselves . with quirks perks and particularities. Being shy is not sickness. IT is not something to lobotomize and castrate in order to be party animal and loved and appraised by everyone.
The urge to seek appraisal and approval from other people is narcissism. It is sickness.
Having boundaries and trusting our instinct that someone is not good for us is healthy.
"it is important to overcome social anxiety"
Jung said what we resist, will persist.
This urge to overcome social anxiety is social anxiety and it will never go away as long as we have civil war inside our head.
We were traumatized, we have bad experiences in the past - and that is not sickness, trauma is not healed by self blame and trying to be strong and normal. Being normal, trying to be normal is sick. IT is making us sick.
"Confidence"
Urge to be confident is narcissism.
Narcissist want narcissistic supply - other people who will worship you and never criticize you. That is sickness.
"Stress" "Test, exam"
You never mention toxic people. You never mention abuse, pathological liars, manipulators. And that is cause of anxiety. Why?
Inability to process emotions and to stifle them down is creating mental illness.
"Talk to someone"
People with social anxiety usually do not have jobs, money and have fears of exposing - so they would seek help long time ago.
Also, CBT is main default therapy for social anxiety - and CBT is the worst possible therapy for social anxiety since it is based on narcissism.
Most therapist do not recognize or have experience with trauma - which is behind social anxiety.
DSM and CBT does not recognize Complex Trauma.
WHO's ICD-11 recognizes CPTSD. Enough said about therapy.
"Self actualization"
This Maslow high need happens only when we have satisfied our basic Maslow needs. If we do not have money, if we do not have shelter - how can we be self actualized? We can't. Also we cannot go to self actualization without satisfying basic needs - having healthy job, having money and having shelter. Social anxiety is also socio-economic issue. The self actualization will come spontaneously and automatically after we satisfy Malow hierarchy of needs one by one - we cannot cheat.
Cheating is narcissism - to self improve is narcissism. The ideas is to stifle down bad emotions and focus on addictions and feeling high all the time - which is not realistic nor healthy.
It is not healthy to suppress our emotions, even if they are bad.
"Your purpose is to grow"
Again, this is toxic thinking that is causing social anxiety - caused by trauma and energized by toxic shame. This belief that we must grow and that somehow bad things will happen is illusion. Bad things will happen even when we grow up and when we are confident. You are still trapped inside prison of anxiety and you think by sugar coating trauma - that somehow trauma will go away. IT won't. IT is about accepting ourselves as we are . without need to be perfectionist and trying to be narcissist - wearing fake mask of confidence to attract people to worship us.
"Make as many friends around you"
But why?
There are predators our there. There are parasites. It is not healthy to let everyone in. This is still social anxiety. You believe that there is something wrong with you as you are - so you must think perfectly, you must grow out of this basic toxic shame feeling of basic wrongness and then depend on other people to approve you and validate you. This is all toxic shame and trauma still being trapped inside our mind and body. It is conditioning and hypnosis and it is really deep rooted - hard to spot and understand.
"Once you realize you have a purpose, anxiety cannot stand. Cause you see anxiety is all about fear of worthlessness."
Yeah - so why are you obsessed so much about growing into perfection of self actualization? Think about it more deeply and more critically. You are driven by this fear of worthlessness to grow, not because the growth is natural. You are driven to accept all people around you - good and toxic due to this basic feel of worthlessness - which is toxic shame. You still have toxic shame inside you. You do not accept yourself as you are right now. You want to cover it up with being open to everyone, to seek their validation and to be perfectionist - with toxic shame urge and false belief that somehow if we have group of social people and our super perfect mind - that somehow nothing bad will ever happen in our life. It will. Bad things will happen no matter what we do. We cannot control outside events neither by our thoughts nor by socializing.
"Have clear sense of purpose"
That is your hypnosis. You - that is - we all are with social anxiety conditioned and hypnotized that we are worthy only if we have purpose. If we work - then we are valued. If we work without mistakes - then we are valued.
So what happens - even though we work without errors - since we invest mental energy in fixing all errors - we are still not satisfied - since we believe we are not perfect. We chase purpose and this urge to have purpose is causing mental illness and anxiety.
We are traumatized that we are not worthy as we are. That our actions - whatever we do - do not count and it is sheer luck that something went well and without mistakes. We are energized with toxic shame to chase purpose - and we believe that deep down we are bad people - even though we are not violent and even though we are hard working by default. It is simply not enough. We still have this core belief that we are not valid without having sense of purpose and being perfectionist.
Then we end up nitpicking our thoughts and behaviour - without accepting ourselves as we are.
IT is like Chinese finger trap - we think we will get rid of it by pulling hard enough.
The paradox is that once we realize we are ok just as we are - that we cannot evade negative things happening no matter how much hard we try to change ourselves - and that we already have resources and image that is perfect just as it is - paradox is that then we will take care of ourselves, we will cut toxic people off instead of inviting all people in, and we will actually improve and become perfect & confident - by not trying to be perfect nor confident at all.
"Anxiety has to be displaced ny greater sense of awareness"
Again - what we resist will persist.
Our urge to nitpick anxiety is creating more anxiety.
This happens because deep down we believe we are worthless and that we must have purpose. That our mind and body are not good enough as it is- and that we must build fake narcissistic mask of grandiosity in order to evade abuse, negative things from happening. Bad things will happen not matter what we do or don't do.
"I would ask them to think less. It is about overthinking"
Again - you are trying to nitpick thoughts. You think there is something sick in your thoughts and you want to change it in order to feel good, valid and to evade bad things from happening.
There is quote:
Sanity and happiness are an impossible combination.
MARK TWAIN, The Mysterious Stranger
If we have higher IQ than most of people - why we should not use our brain? Why we need to lobotomize ourselves - just to feel rush kick of euphoria? This will lead to addictions later on in life - where we try to feel good and happy all the time - which is impossible. Bad things will happen no matter how much drugged we are. If we have brain that is producing ideas - why castrating it? How can we move on and progress and self actualize - which you spend talking for 10 minutes - if we cannot allow ourselves to think?
Urge to nitpick our thoughts is mental illness, it is part of trauma and it is causing social anxiety.
"You should think how can I be that someone"
Again, you are nitpicking thoughts. You have idea that our thoughts are intrinsically bad.
Rumination stems from trauma - it is natural reaction to abuse in the past. It is called dysregulation.
IT is not sickness. It is not something that can be removed by our thoughts or not having thoughts. IT is trauma. It is Complex Trauma. There is nothing wrong with us , with our thoughts - it has been traumatized.
"How can I be the most whole version of myself such that I can be someone who can add value to my potential partner in the future"
You are vocalizing the social anxiety and sickness. You are convinced that this belief is normal and that thinking like this will make us to be normal and somehow prevent trauma and bad things from happening.
The truth is - we are already whole version of ourselves. And we do not need to add value to anything - we do not need to change our behaviour - we simply need to be ourselves and being whole version of ourselves will appear automatically without our nitpicking and meddling into our thinking patterns. We will add value from our behaviour without actually nitpicking our behaviour.
"My purpose is to really be the best version of myself"
This belief is trauma. We are already best version of ourselves. If we believe we must change - we will create anxiety and mental illness.
"Remove all my dysfunction to get inner healing"
Believing that we are dysfunctional will never get any healing. That belief is toxic shame internalized inside us- that we are dysfunctional.
If we are not criminals, if we are not murderers, if we have no ill will - there is no dysfunction. We are normal and healthy - there is nothing to fix or change.
"Things I never get as child"
This is not dysfunction in our mind. This is trauma. Trauma is not our fault. We did not cause trauma. We cannot change trauma from happening in the past - we cannot prevent trauma, we cannot control abusive people by power of our thinking. It was not our fault.
"I am going to be great person"
Realize I am already great person.
"I will naturally attract great person"
Again - you think you have power of mind, power of correct thinking that can somehow influence outer reality. This is anxiety. This is trauma stuck inside our body and this belief is causing our social anxiety. We have normal and healthy thoughts - and our thoughts are not connected from anything outside of ourselves. We might appear attractive when we accept ourselves as we are - but this thought pattern will not prevent toxic people from abusing us if they want to abuse us. We will naturally repel toxic people by being honest and authentic - but our thoughts are not creating nor influencing other people.
"But I'm doing my best to be a great person"
This is social anxiety, this is trauma. Instead - I am already my best, I do not have to do anything. I am great person. That thinking pattern is healthy.
"You don't need to be anxious about future because you made effort to build up"
Again, this is faulty thinking, we believe if we nitpick our thinking - that nothing bad will happen in our future. That if we micromanage our thoughts that somehow we will prevent bad things from happening - it won't. Micromanaging will destroy us and keep is in prison of anxiety and trauma.
"The more expectations we load on ourselves, the more anxiety we get"
Yeah -read that again.
this is what your beliefs are doing. You are convincing yourself that if we nitpick our thoughts that somehow we won't be anxious. We will.
"Your expectations are unrealistic"
Again - you are self pathologizing. You are nitpicking your thoughts.
Our expectations are trauma and toxic shame - it is reaction to abuse. It is not that our thoughts are ill and we cannot change our thinking into being perfect and without bad emotions.
"it is ok to let go of expectations"
Trauma is stuck inside our body. We cannot dislodge it by logic or orders.
Trauma is healed by self love, self acceptance, self validation, it is being bathed in love and security and safety. IF we nitpick our thinking that we must do something - we are not accepting ourselves - we are hating ourselves. We are instructing our brain that we are in civil war with ourselves and we declare war inside us. Without being aware that we are creating chaos . The same way Putin is convinced that he is doing a good thing by invading Ukraine - in his mind he perceives it as letting go of expectations.
HE has good intentions and he equates good intentions as good.
"And allow life to flow freely"
We won't allow life to flow freely if we are convinced that we have some kind of dangerous expectations, if we believe that we must grow in order to fix our future, if we believe that we must suppress our natural recognition of toxic people and fit into conformism. You spent 15 minutes of talking about how to nitpick our thoughts - and you think somehow we will be free and flow freely?
"Be present"
So how can we float freely - if we fill our mind with should and oughts?
Think about this more deeply. You are nitpicking your thoughts.
Now you have idea that being present is chore and purpose. IT is not-.
If we think our thoughts is something that needs upgrade - we will be stuck in anxiety.
"You just work with what you have in situation"
Nope. You believe that your thoughts are sick and that you must fix and modulate them. You do not work at all - you are nitpicking it and self pathologizing it.
"Dealing with"
What you resist- will persist. JUNG
"I want you to feel that you're comfortable with yourself and who you are"
Yet you are filled with order and nitpicking of our thoughts, where you intermix trauma and toxic shame with our thinking process.
How can you be comfortable with yourself if you basically believe that you must have perfect thoughts without errors, without negative emotions?
"Discover who you are"
That is hypnosis and anxiety- belief that we are not good as we are - and that magically we need to discover someone else- someone who does not make mistakes and someone who have no bad things happening magically by having some kind of magical thinking patterns that prevent outside bad events from happening.
---
Being ok with herself as she are.
She is shaking now. She did not shake before it, she will not shake in her hotel room.
It will be herself as she is.
With social anxiety we are conditioned due to trauma to believe that our thought pattern and behaviour is wrong - and that we must find magical way that is perfect in order to prevent abuse and negative things from happening.
Our thoughts are ok.
Shaking is ok - it is totally normal reaction to past abuse.
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"Please don't let social anxiety keep your from participating"
IT is complex trauma. This means it is Charcot hysteria - it is automatic, it has nothing to do with logic, it is trauma being stuck inside our body.
"Strategies to cope with social anxiety"
Are causing social anxiety.
Strategies which we believe will somehow magically remove our supposed sick thinking patterns. Our thoughts are normal, there is nothing to fix. Any strategy is adding up fuel already to the fire. Jung said: What you resist, will persist.
IT is like scratching urticaria or skin rash - it will make it worse. It is like Chinese finger trap - any action to remove it makes it more tighter and impossible to remove.
"Talk to her"
Socially anxious ones do not talk - the Charcot hysteria is too strong.
"Being a good listener"
Socially anxious ones are empaths and HSPs they are already good listeners. You are adding up to more of social anxiety.
You are judging socially anxious person that they are not good listener - while they have social skill which 80 percent of people do not have : empathy and ability to put themselves in other people shoes-
In fact, what social anxious need is to actually lower down listening skills and talk more and express more.
"Focus on conversation and be genuine in your responses"
Any advice to socially anxious is adding up to trauma. We are not sick, wea re not disabled. We had trauma.
Trauma is experiencing abuse, psychological abuse, being criticized 24*/7 while growing up when we were suppose to make mistakes. That is the problem - we learned that being genuine is dangerous and we must shut up and seek validation and approval from others and to nitpick and change our thoughts to fit in and conform to groupthink and herd mentality. Now you are enforcing this trauma response.
"Deep breathing"
Well, what if other person is toxic and pathological liar?
You are instructing someone with anxiety to change and nitpick one's behavior - that is only make anxiety worse.
There is absolutely nothing wrong if we are scared. Stifling down our natural responses to toxic people is not healthy - even grammar school kids know that suppressing emotions and ignoring bad emotions is not healthy.
"Positive self talk"
That is the problem itself. The urge and instruction from CBT that we must nitpick and change our thoughts so that somehow we will influence in bad event from not happening.
"To reduce your anxiety"
Any reaction to anxiety leads to more anxiety.
We need to accept our anxiety. Accept ourselves as we are - with fears and trauma. Anti dote to trauma is self love, self validation and self acceptance.
We are not murderers, we are not criminals, we do not have hidden agenda to cause harm or pain to other people - there is therefore nothing to reduce inside us, we are not sick. Our thinking is not sick. Issues we have is trauma - trauma is being stuck inside our body that is causing panic and discomfort when we are triggered to abusive elements from our formative years and later bullying events.
"Talk with someone that they trust"
is annoying - we will burden people who have no idea what is trauma. They will interpret it as us being over-sensitive and bothersome, and this will make everyone feel bad in the end. We can write out our feelings in a blog and make sense of our thinking - without bothering or annoying other people around us.
"Social anxiety might require help from professional"
DSM and CBT does not recognize Complex Trauma.
WHO's ICD-11 recognizes Complex trauma.
It is highly likely that therapist will have no idea what CPTSD is and what is dysregulation or what is narcissistic abuse.
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"the more doors will open up to you"
So.. we must be manipulative and controlling and exploit other people?
Urge to change our thoughts in order to influence external events is social anxiety - and it will cause more anxiety.
Why not being who we are? Why we must believe that we must be tycoons and force ourselves to be liked by all people in the world?
That is not healthy - that is narcissism.
There are predators out there who care about us, what we do and they want to exploit us.
If we want to put narcissistic mask and be charming and charismatic - that will cause us to feel anxiety.
"We are all inherently selfish"
Not all. Narcissists are self absorbed.
There are actually empaths and HSPs who are not so much selfish and in fact ought to become more selfish.
"Put focus on others"
Socially anxious people are already focused on others - due to trauma and abuse. They look at other people - that is why social anxiety is called social anxiety, it is social - it is not called self anxiety.
"Presentation"
This is narcissism. When we have idea to impress other people and get narcissistic supply: other peoples' admiration of our grandiosity.
"Developing social skills"
Socially anxious already have social skills - it is empathy which 80% of people do not have.
Believing that something is basically wrong with us will cause more anxiety and mental illness.
Urge to exploit others is parasiting over other people.
Other people are not object to use and discard when we find them "not useful". That is narcissism. Narcissism is mental illness and it can lead to criminal behaviour if not healed.
Urge to self improve is narcissism.
Socially anxious already see best in other people due to complex trauma. They already praise other people due to fawning, trauma response.
If we see other people as something to exploit and step over in our grandiose image and urge to dominate others - is sickness, that is mental illness.
---
Julie from comment section is correct,
Social anxiety is trauma it is part of Complex Trauma.
Discomfort from talking to people is not social anxiety.
Although if you label something normal and healthy and normal reaction to toxic people as sickness and illness - yes, you will develop social anxiety.
"First step in overcoming is to believe you are not as anti-social"
This is mental trap.
You are reacting to fears, you believe that thinking pattern is dangerous and sick - and you think that changing your thinking about thinking will somehow change you into better person and that bad things will not happen, something anti-social.
Actually this very step will lead to mental illness - worrying and trying to suppress bad emotions and trying to improve yourself by self pathologizing yourself which appears to you as help and good intention.
There is nothing wrong with our thoughts - if we are not violent, if we are not unkind, if we are not criminally insane, if we have no il will - there is nothing wrong with our bad emotions such as shyness or discomfort or fear.
IF we feel fear from people - that is complex trauma. It is trauma stuck inside us, it is not that our mind is sick or that our thinking is sick. IT is trauma: experience of abuse which was not our fault, we did not cause abuse with our thinking and we cannot prevent abuse happening with our thinking.
You are saying here that we can change bad things by nitpicking our thoughts.
This belief and urge to be good and healthy and normal will create mental illness and anxiety.
"I am not the most socially comfortable but I made improvements"
1) urge to self improve is narcissism.
2) urge to conform to groupthink and herd mentality is sickness, trying to be normal is abnormal.
Think about it more deeply -
1) what is wrong with being introverted and like being alone? Will the world end if we are not stupid, with low iq and then have no worry and enough time to party all the time?
2) What lies behind our urge to fit in and to be just like everyone? That other people will like us? That somehow we will prevent bad things from happening if we are socially outgoing? That we will be strong? That we will have social success if we chase Hollywood imaginary fantasy of being super confident?
Michael Jackson had severe social anxiety - and he was not only wealthy and successful - he also performed in front of millions of people. Exposure does not mean being healthy and exposure does not mean that we will have money floating on our head, and exposure does not mean that bad things will not happen.
Exposure and outgoing and being social comes naturally - after we stop civil war inside our head and being ok with who we are.
"You do not need to talk all the time"
You are putting other people in the focus. This is called external locus of control -where you see other people as all good and source of parasiting on, that other people are normal and we are somehow abnormal and we depend on other people to explain us what is normal and to seek their approval validation and appraisal.
Intrinsic locus of control is being fine of who we are.
"Start being confident, comes from growth, try to make progress"
Confidence is paradox. When you want to have confidence - you will never reach it. You will become narcissist who is having fake mask of superiority in order to impress other people and depend on other people appraisal and approval to know our worth through their admiration. That is sick, that is mental illness, narcissism.
Paradox is when you accept your shadow: being scared and not being confident - paradoxically we will become confident.
"new people"
Yep, you are very much concerned about other people and that is social anxiety.
You are shifting away from natural shyness which is normal and healthy into pathology - you are pathologizing youself and you believe that if you fix your thoughts that somehow bad events won't happen.
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Social phobia is archaic term, changed in late 1990s in DSM because they realized that it is not phobia - it does not go away with exposure as all phobias are cured.
Social anxiety is part of Complex Trauma - it is being exposed to narcissistic abuse, constant criticism 24/7 when our psyche was forming - and we learned that our thoughts and behaviours are the cause of all bad things that are happening.
Our thoughts are normal and correct - there is nothing wrong with our thinking if we do not wish to murder someone, if we have no ill will towards of there people, if we are not unkind or violent. There is nothing wrong with our thoughts . and there is nothing that we need to do to fix our thoughts.
If we believe there is some fundamental flaw in our thinking, self, persona, we will develop toxic shame and then we will develop false self and depend on other people to approve and validate us (external referencing locus of control).
The only thing that is wrong is trauma - which we did not cause, we did nothing for abuse to occur.
---
Social anxiety is part of Complex Trauma.
IT is not fault in our character it is not basic flaw in our thoughts or behaviour.
IF we are not murderers, if we are not killing anyone, if we have no ill will and have no evil agenda to hurt other people or cause any kind of damage - there is nothing wrong with ourselves , there is nothing wrong with our thinking, there is nothing wrong with our emotions, there is nothing wrong with our acts, decisions, perks, quirks, persona, personality, character. IT is all normal and healthy.
Advice to fit in to conformism and groupthink and herd mentality is sickness and leads to mental illness such as supporting mentally ill people like Putin or Trump.
The only issue we perceive as problem is trauma -
being exposed to criticism 24/7 when we were growing up.
Any urge to nitpick our thoughts will cause social anxiety.
Any belief that our thoughts are not correct will cause toxic shame and we will end up without self esteem, and we will depend on other people to define us for us - their actions and moods will affect us, we will trauma bond with other people- due to trauma. Not because we are mentally ill or that our thoughts are abnormal.
Social anxiety is alarm and message that we were abused, that untreated mentally ill person abused us in narcissistic abuse.
Darwin evolution will make us now being very sensitive to track abusive people - we will see fake people more easily than other people who were never abused. That is not sickness. There is nothing to fix. Trauma is healed by self validation, self acceptance and self love.
---
I learned that idea to fix my thoughts is causing social anxiety.
CBT explains that we have cognitive distortions are the cause of social anxiety and that if we only find some magical technique how to fix our erroneous thinking - that we will never be abused, and that bad things will never happen - if we only find perfect way how to think and behave.
That urge to find perfectionism which official medical therapy for social anxiety is professing is creating more anxiety and actual mental illness.
When we do not have good trust in our basic worth - we will never be able to do anything in life. We will depend on other people to explain and validate us. That is what CBT is doing.
So yeah - social anxiety is part of complex trauma (CPTSD). CPTSD is not recognized by DSM nor CBT - but Complex trauma is recognized by WHO's ICD-11.
What we define what is wrong with us is toxic shame, as said in video and trauma - being exposed to relentless criticism in our formative years when our psyche was suppose to grow into adult who trust own thoughts and behaviour as normal and healthy.
So CBT is adding up to toxic shame, any advice to "fix" our thoughts add up to toxic shame and trauma.
If we are not murderers, if we have no ill will, if we have no evil agenda to harm, abuse, take advantage of others or cause any kind of damage (being anti-social) - there is absolutely nothing wrong with our thoughts nor behaviour. CBT will explain that there is - that our cognitive distortions are abnormal - and thus our basic self is abnormal - this will cause anxiety and panic and add up to already present trauma.
All people have cognitive fallacies and bias - this is not endemic to socially anxious.
Paradox is when we accept ourselves as normal human being with errors and faults - then we will get rid of these cognitive distortions. If we believe that we have cognitive distortions as proof of some kind of flaws in our basic character - we will develop toxic shame, more anxiety and end up really mentally ill.
Without self worth we will stay stuck with toxic people. Because we do not love ourselves. We think we are basically flawed for having bad emotions such as panic and shyness.
"There is nothing wrong with you even if you are someone who struggles with severe social anxiety, you isolate, feel like you can't leave your home, tough situation to be in."
Yes, I would emphasize that this is safety issue as you said in video. That we feel safe with our own thoughts even if labeled as not acceptable since they are not part of conformism and herd mentality and groupthink.
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Performance anxiety is not social anxiety.
Meeting new people is not social anxiety, that is shyness.
"Pick your battles, pick options which minimize worse problems for you"
That is advice for social anxiety. We believe that we must find perfect thought and then all problems will vanish. We believe our own thoughts are bad, disgusting and abnormal - and that there is some secret, magical way in thinking, secret method and technique which will somehow magically influence bad people, bad moods in people, difficult people and bad events from materalizing.
That belief that our "common" thinking pattern is abnormal is social anxiety itself.
That belief that we simply need to find magical thinking process that is something weird, and wonderful and comfortable - that will somehow make bad people disappear and we will never feel any problem in our lives. This urge to stifle down our shadow, our bad emotions is mental illness, it leads to mental illness.
There is nothing wrong with our thoughts nor our behaviour. Unless violent, criminally insane or plainly rude to people - we are not crazy, we are not abnormal and there is absolutely nothing to fix, modulate or nitpick in our thinking nor our behaviour.
Anyway - all people are already picking battles and pick options which minimize problems - we all do it. this is nothing special than all people are already doing. But our urge to make our thoughts special is sickness, it stems from abuse and narcissistic abuse which caused social anxiety.
"reach certain level of knowledge and feel comfortable imparting that knowledge and know how to do it"
Yep - that is trauma - being exposed to someone untreated mentally ill person in our formative years who made us think if we only fake our mask, if we fake and if we change our mind and thinking and our behaviour - that somehow our own magical thinking will make world better and people will fawn over to us and bad things won't ever happen in our lives.
That trauma creates social anxiety - constant pursuit to find way how to pathologize our normal thinking and turn it into special way how to think in order to influence outside events and people, anything outside of our control.
"Everyone sees you doing"
Yes - when we label our thinking as abnormal, then we develop toxic shame, we have no basis in our self worth and what happens next is external referencing locus of control where we depend on other people to see us, we crave for their validation and explanation who we are, and since there are always toxic people who will be toxic no matter how we think and behave - they will criticize us. Then we will try to resolve their criticism by becoming narcissist - to be perfectionist and chase hamster wheel circle to please all people around us so that they could admire us.
There is absolutely nothing wrong with us. Trauma and effects of trauma are not our fault and panic and shyness and social inhibitions are not our basic flaw in our character - and no, changing our thinking or behaviour will not make us normal nor healthy - it will make us sick. This way trying to be normal, to conform to herd mentality and group think is sickness.
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"Do more that think- Exposure breaks this cycle"
Think about it logically. If exposure really works - then third world countries would be filled with organized happy individuals without crime or corruption. Prisons would be filled with happy peaceful individuals. Exposing to drugs in slum part of city would not bring more drugs and crime.
The exposure will not work if we are in toxic environment and among toxic people.
There is cartoon picture - i put it in my blog "Accepting social anxiety" where we see two dogs. The dog on the left is tall one and is covered in mud only at his paws, since this is long, big dog. On the right there is small dog who is covered in the mud up to his neck.
That is analogy to exposure and CBT idea of exposure. Exposure will work if you are born with silver spoon in your mouth, if you have shelter, if you have no abuse, if you are not surrounded with pathological liar - exposure will work brilliantly.
However most people suffering from social anxiety are trapped with toxic people inside toxic ambient - and exposure will end up with trauma responses such as fawning.
Instead of exposure - there is self expression. Which CBT does not understand since CBT does not recognize Complex trauma - which is the umbrella issue hovering above social anxiety.
"Talking to cashier in supermarket"
Social anxiety is not shyness.
Social anxiety is being trapped in toxic job like cashier where toxic people yell and scream at you, where your boss bullies and screams at you and doesn't allow you to go to bathroom, social anxiety is being trapped in toxic job with bullying and mobbing and you are not allowed to defend yourself - for the risk of losing job, income, shelter. That is social anxiety. It is not mere shy entitled narcissism that CBT describes of social anxiety to be.
"Someone who loves interacting with people, has no anxiety about it"
You are mixing up social anxiety with being poor and non functional in life. While this is true for some cases where abuse is severe, in reality many socially anxious ones are very successful in life and expose and are interacting with people.
Michael Jackson had severe social anxiety yet he performed in front of millions of people ,he travelled all around the world, talked to his fans, always smiling and being kind to everyone - no one would suspect that he had panic attacks and crippling social anxiety.
So please drop CBT right away. CBT is therapy of errors. CBT is misleading and it uses limited psychological jargon to describe complex human emotions - and thus it uses labels to brainwash people in to lies, herd mentality, groupthink and conformism only to make money for endless therapies which will never do anything unless making therapist rich.
"Built hierarchy what makes you least anxious"
will make fears worst. Now we will be aware acutely of fears we did not know before and we will feel abnormal for having those fears - which are nothing else but trauma-
Nitpicking our fears is telling our brain that our thoughts are abnormal and that we must be in hypervigilance all the time. Jung said what you resist will persist.
"Once you get to the top of hierarchy you mastered anything beneath it"
I do not understand this logic.
What will happen then - when we expose to all our fears and develop narcissistic fake mask of superiority?
Bad things will not happen?
Our magical thoughts and magical techniques how to suppress our shyness and shadow will magically influence difficult people?
Our thoughts will magically control other people and outside events?
There will never be any problems at all when we find fake mask of being super confident?
Bad things will still happen even if we lobotomize ourselves and pretend to be zombie without emotions and without natural reactions to toxic people.
Difficult people will still be pathological liars and pretend to be our friends with best advice sprinkled with abuse, controlling and criticizing us between honey moon period. Our thoughts will not prevent bad people from being bad.
And no, our fake mask of being strong and normal will not prevent from bad things happening either.
We cannot control outside events nor people with our magical special thinking.
The point is the idea to become artificial is OCD itself.
What is so wrong with being natural?
"Rewrite origin stories"
So.. we need to fake our past too?
We need to crap fit into abuse by making new history? How it is more logical to say abusive people are not toxic and that we need to feel sympathy for them? That is fawning, that is not rewriting anything. We are enabling abuse by fawning.
"Pretend everyone sees you that loves you"
Again, this is crap fitting into abuse.
There are predators out there.
IF we were abused - we will have Darwin evolution in recognizing fake people quickly than other people who were not abused.
You are keep telling that our basic thoughts are wrong and that we must change and nitpick our thoughts. That is creating mental illness inside us. That is social anxiety itself - that we believe that we are basically flawed in character and that we must seek and find special thinking. That is toxic shame. CBT is therapy of self pathologizing and toxically ashaming ourselves.
Why we should not validate ourselves?
What would happen if we accept our thoughts as normal - as being traumatized and having triggers and dysregulation - rather than believing that we are deeply flawed with abnormal thinking patterns.
"Dialoguing and challenging your inner critic"
Suppressing our shadow is horrible idea.
Civil war with our head is horrible idea.
CBT is therapy of errors and you are showcasing everything that is wrong with CBT.
Inner critic is trauma stuck inside us when we were criticized during our formative years when our psyche needed safe environment.
Labeling our thoughts as sick is bad idea.
"Self compassion, self acceptance"
You spend all your video explaining that our thoughts are abnormal - but now you say that we accept ourselves.
This is gaslighting, this is narcissistic abuse. This is conditioning - where we are criticized for being shy and in the same time we are sprinkled with validation just enough to seek more validation.
What happens when we are bullied and mobbed. What other people think of us do matter if it affects our job, security and money influx.
If we live in poor country, poor town - there will be not much jobs or shelters and we will depend on toxic people.
All people with social anxiety are in such situations - so ignoring or invalidating such situations is not helpful at all.
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That is shyness, not social anxiety.
Social anxiety is being trapped in abusive job with bullying and you cannot leave and they abuse you.
That is social anxiety.
Having option to leave is shyness or narcissism - you see other people as narcissistic supply - objects that must admire you and validate you - or they are trash.
---
CBT leads to more social anxiety since CBT is reflecting our trauma: that
1) our thoughts are sick and we need to change our behaviour which is sick
2) that once we find perfect magical thinking and perfectionist behaviour - that we will be safe
3) that once we are perfect - nothing bad will ever happen to us, and we will never ever be bothered by criticism nor judgement
---
Pharma mafia is making huge money on keeping us sick and believing that we just need to fix our "sick" thinking patterns.
Breaking news:
Unless we are murdering people - there is absolutely nothing wrong nor broken with us.
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Realize that explanations that our thinking process is wrong - is wrong.
There is nothing wrong with us. Unless criminally insane - our thoughts are normal. There is no magical thinking technique that will keep us safe from rude people.
issues which we perceive as social anxiety is Complex Trauma. CPTSD is not recognized in DSM or CBT because of Pharma mafia which is making money influx from keeping us trapped in prison - that we only need to find some magical technique of thinking in correct way, and behaving in some magical correct way - that nothing bad will ever happen to us.
Trauma is stuck inside our body and that is causing dysregulation and inner critic - abuse was not our fault. We cannot do anything in our mind or behaviour to prevent predators or criminals from committing their crimes.
We cannot influence other people with our thoughts - our correct healthy thinking will not prevent abuse.
We are already having correct and healthy thinking - if we are not criminally insane - there is nothing to fix inside us.
We are simply experiencing trauma being trapped inside us.
Trauma is healed by self acceptance, self validation and self love, by knowing deep down we are safe and loves, intrinsic locus of control - where we do not depend on other people to validate nor to define us.
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"Thanks ❤ I’m going to be a stripper now 😂 I have to get over it and make this money for law school!!"
Hahaha
this is how CBT exposure ends up-
by exposing ourselves to toxic ambient, criminals and drugs and mafia and narcissistic abuse.
CBT is doing more damage to our psychological well being than original trauma and abuse which caused social anxiety.
IT makes us think that we are basically flawed and that we must depend on other people to approve us.
CBT ought to be banned.
Goodness is chosen. When a man cannot choose, he ceases to be a man.
A Clockwork Orange (1971)
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Thinking that our thinking is sick and that we need to trick our brain is bad idea - and it will lead to more of anxiety and toxic shame already present inside us due to complex trauma (being bullied).
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"Social anxiety in social events"
is not social anxiety. That is shyness.
Social anxiety is being trapped in abusive job filled with bullying and mobbing which you cannot quit due to money, shelter and not being homeless.
"Calm breathing"
is advice for shyness.
It will not work for social anxiety.
Social anxiety is trauma, it is part of Complex Trauma.
These feelings in social situations are dysregulation, trauma being stuck inside our body. IT cannot go away by logic.
"Tension"
That is trauma stuck in our body
"Realistic thinking"
The belief that our thinking is not realistic is trauma -
our thinking is normal. There is nothing wrong with our thoughts.
IF we are not out murdering and torturing people - there is absolutely nothing pathological with our thoughts.
Idea to crap fit into conformism is mental illness, Milgram Experiment showed it.
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"steps to take"
Is part of social anxiety.
It is trauma - belief that we are basically flawed and our thinking is sick
and that we must find out some magical thinking process and magical behaviour - which will magically make us strong and that somehow magically bad things will never happen - once we find this magical thinking process - while believing that our current thinking is abnormal and unnaceptable.
If we are not murdering people and doing anti-social narcissistic abuse things - there is absolutely nothing wrong with our thoughts, mind nor behaviour. All issues we have is trauma - being exposed to narcissistic abuse and toxic people and toxic ambient. Abuse was not our fault. We did not cause abuse by our thinking - and we cannot make our thinking better or stronger to prevent any future abuse.
What we resist will persist.
Paradox is once we accept being shy and awkward - we will become confident since we will tell our brain we are ok and normal and we accept ourselves.
"listen to what they are saying"
Socially anxious people are empaths, HSPs - they are super listeners, there is nothing sick, there is no lack in skills. Having empathy is super social skill which 80% of people do not have.
The only problem is Complex Trauma - conditioning and programming stemming from narcissistic abuse which we did not cause in our formative years when our psyche was needed acceptance and validation - but received relentless criticism 24/7.
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Being lonely is not social anxiety.
Social anxiety is having toxic job filled with bullying and mobbing and you cannot leave nor you can defend yourself because you live in poor country or poor town without job offerings - so you are stuck in toxic ambient with toxic people. That is social anxiety. It is part of Complex Trauma.
Feeling shy, being lonely is not pathology. If you start to believe that you must find perfect way how to think in order not to be lonely, as if your perfect magical technique in thinking - will cause mental illness. We cannot influence outside world with our thinking. Our thinking will not prevent abuse - nor our thinking can control abusive people.
With trauma we think that our thinking process is sick and we try to find a way how to crap fit into abuse and to feel safe. Then this belief that our thinking is sick will actually cause toxic shame, deep core belief that we cannot trust ourselves.
Then we will develop toxic shame and social anxiety - we will depend on other people to define us and validate us.
Then we will attract toxic people, predators, who are manipulators and pathological liars. They will mirror our need not to be lonely and they will give us validation and love that we seek which we cannot find inside us. Then we will end up with toxic people parasiting on our good nature and good intentions.
Being scared to do something, being scared to talk is complex trauma. That is not pathology. That is not flaw in your mind.
And exposure will not help - since we invalidate our self.
Think about it logically if comfort zone concept works - then third world countries would be filled with happy citizens without crime or corruption, they would be highly organized without wars or violence. Prisons would be hotbed of scientists and mathematicians.
The true division is in healthy and what is toxic - it is not matter of comfort or discomfort.
Isolate , close in box is complex trauma. That is not social anxiety.
CPTSD is being in toxic ambient with toxic people and we trauma bond with toxic people since they appear as friends and service and help to us. That is how they manipulate and control us - when we cannot say no to them is strong indication that "good" people are actually toxic.
---
You had civil war and you decided to become fake mask.
There are predators out there who do care, they mirror and groom their victims into abuse.
If you are not criminally insane, if you do not murder out people and do anti-social damage - there is nothing wrong with being yourself , even if you are "quiet" or "beta".
Urge to built fake mask is narcissism.
It stems from belief that our thinking is sick and that we are fundamentally wrong for being "weak" or "beta".
From your perspective you think that you are arrogant and that you do not care about other people - but you actually are. You are afraid of being labeled as beta - so other people do control you - you just masked it with narcissistic mask.
Social anxiety is not only related to monsters and hinting animals in prehistoric times. Social anxiety is related to connecting with other people - which means sometimes being beta, servile, nice, good and kind to other people -especially those who are kind to you.
Labelling our normal thoughts and normal emotions as weak, sick, abnormal is bad idea. and it will lead to mental illness and criminal behaviour.
Because with time we will see that bad things will still happen.
People will still criticize us that we are beta and weak. People will still be difficult and abusive - even though we find some magical cure and some secret technique how to "conquer" and hide our anxiety and labelling them as weak and feminine or sick and abnormal.
In reality - there is nothing wrong with being human, with having mistakes and being weak sometimes. THat is all part of human experience.
Stifling down our emotions is bad idea. Being fake is bad idea. We cannot lie forever. Lie draws other lies and soon we are in sea of delusions which we created simply because we were scared of being honest, authentic and normal. We wanted to be superhuman - to be god. That is narcissism, That is mental illness.
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Our desire to "get rid of social anxiety" is social anxiety and trauma itself.
There is nothing wrong with our thoughts.
Unless criminally insane and out killing people - we are not abnormal and our thinking is not sick.
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Expecting that other people will fawn over to our anxiety is borderline and abusive and toxic. It is not avoidant at all.
Avoidants want to be with people and they do not put demands on other people how other people must behave.
Borderliners are doing that. Covert narcissists too - altruistic narcissist who mimic social anxiety to get narcissistic supply : other people.
Narcisism is insidious mental illness. Idea to control and abuse other people is anti-social and it is not part of avoidance.
Avoidants will fawn to others and ignore boundary crossings and criticism and comments which are not politically correct to us.
Schizoid do not show emotions.
You are covert narcissist, pretending to be avoidant. Avoidants fawn to others, avoidants desire close personal contact with anyone - which makes us prone to be in toxic contact with toxic people like you.
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You are correct - you started to speak how we get the urge to fix our "shyness" - and that is actual introduction to social anxiety.
That is how I become hooked to heal myself by seeking philosopher's stone and alchemy - how to become like others who appear without inhibitions.
In this way -
We create social anxiety by thinking that we are wrong, and that our thinking is wrong and that somehow we must find some magical correct way of thinking and behaving - that will somehow magically correct our life, that other people will not be rude to us and that somehow with this new thinking process that is superior and better than todays will somehow repel all bad things in life. IT won't.
This belief stems from trauma and toxic people who conditioned us to feel toxic shame . deep core belief we are abnormal for being shy or feeling panic - which we feel due to past abuse and trauma and toxic people.
Truth is no matter how super healthy we are, no matter how wealthy we are, no matter how much perfectionist we are - our thoughts will not stop bad things from happening, and our thoughts do not have ability to influence bad moods in other people from manifesting and no matter what we do to perfect ourselves, we will still be ashamed, mocked and attacked by toxic people.
The only problem here is in the external:
trauma (came from toxic people)
toxic shame (came from toxic people and internalized inside us)
toxic people.
That is the only problem if we find ourselves feeling social inhibitions, shyness, anxiety, panic.
Problem is not with us, there is nothing intrinsically wrong with us.
This is hypnosis, we are under hypnosis of trauma. It is conditioning, Skinner's box - google it. We are like Pavlovian dogs or circus animals - we are programmed to perform self blame and self hate and try to fix out thinking in order to appease toxic people and prevent their wrath.
It is modern version of throwing sacrifices into volcano to appease the gods.
We throw our self worth and our perks, quirks, particularities, individuality, persona, true self, our child parts, Jung shadow - we throw it away to appease toxic people in our toxic ambient -
and we end up trauma bonded with them, focusing our life in preventing bad people from being mad - by not embarrassing ourselves and not self expressing ourselves.
More about this in my reddit forum or blog - in my profile. I cannot put links here - you tube will ban it as spam.
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(18.10.2022)
Maslow needs hierarchy tells us that as soon as we have satisfied our basic needs - we will automatically upgrade ourselves. No push is necessary.
We cannot cheat this process nor fake it.
If we are in toxic ambient, if we are with someone who is pathological liar pretending to be good, if we don't have shelter nor security - nitpicking our thoughts to negate basic needs not being met is not healthy at all.
---
Yep. We are convinced due to abuse in past and while growing up that our thinking and behaviour is wrong and we develop toxic shame.
Then toxic people sniff our toxic shame - deep core belief that we are somehow basically wrong and that our thinking and behaviour is wrong - and they easily trigger us into believing them to be our saviours, our gods that we must obey and listen, since we believe we are wrong to the core.
We are not wrong.
Unless criminally insane with anti-social rampage - there is absolutely nothing wrong with our thoughts nor behaviour no matter how much we panicked and traumatized we are.
Trauma was not our fault, We did not cause trauma by our thinking nor behaviour - and we cannot prevent any abuse nor toxic people by discovering some secret mysterious thinking process and behaviour.
---
""you write down characteristics of how you want to be "
This is exactly what will cause more anxiety.
Due to toxic shame based on complex trauma experience - we believe that something is basically wrong with our character because we feel trauma and dysregulation due to past abuse and bullying. Then we are convinced that we must "fix" ourselves, that we must nitpick our thoughts (micromanage them) and that we must find some secret technique how to behave in correct manner - in order to avoid bad people, bad moods and bad events.
Well - there is nothing wrong with us. Our belief that we are wrong is causing social anxiety. This belief is wrong. What is wrong is external from us:
1) toxic people - they abuse others and cause trauma and social anxiety in others.
2) toxic shame - we internalize their messages of hypnosis and pathological lying and it springs up as inner critic
3) trauma - toxic ambient, being inside Karpman Drama Triangle.
These are all external things which abusers made us believe that we are somehow basically wrong.
They hypnotized us into believing that we have mental illness - so that they can do whatever they want when they control and manipulate us.
CBT joins into hysteria. Instead of explaining that we are being duped by toxic people, CBT explains that there are no toxic people. Instead of explaining that our thoughts are normal - CBT instructs us via ABC Model that we nitpick and micromanage our thoughts in order to find some secret mystical way of thinking which will somehow prevent bad people from attacking us, and somehow this CBT correct thinking will prevent from bad things happening to us. It won't. Bad people are not controlled by our thoughts nor our behaviour. If someone is criminally insane - they will do anything they want if police, state and prison services allows them to be free and among people.
If we are not criminally insane, if we are not anti-social with rampage mania - there is absolutely nothing wrong with our thoughts nor our behaviour - there is nothing to list, pick, micromanage or change.
We are all different, we are not groupthink, we are not sheep, we are not herd mentality and we conformism is mental illness. We are free to have our own quirks, perks, particularities, individuality, persona, self, Jung's shadow, if we are not out killing people or scheming a plan how to control or manipulate people and have hidden agenda how to harm others - we are perfectly normal. There is nothing to fix,
Our fears, panic are part of Complex Trauma. We were abused, bullied, we were in mobbing situation - having panic and distrust toward fake people is perfectly normal reaction to abnormal people, abnormal situations and abnormal events that we have experienced.
" practice acting as that version of yourself"
That is narcissism.
We can be ourselves. Confidence is paradox - that we accept ourselves not being confident - paradoxically we will become confident. Super confidence does not exist - it is Hollywood invention to sell movies and marketing ploy to make producers , writers rich. We are okay even if we do not feel fine. Thinking that our emotions are proof of our character is toxic shame, that is emotional reasoning.
Trying to be confident is called over-compensation and it is part of inferiority complex.
Anti-dote to trauma, inferiority complex, toxic shame is to accept ourselves as we are. Humanistic psychology. To validate ourselves and to stick by our own mind and behaviour - which is perfectly normal and there is absolutely nothing wrong with it.
As soon as we invent that we are faulty (due to conditioning, trauma and abuse) - toxic people will sniff it out and make us believe that we must spend time, money and focus on their crazymaking idea that somehow we can find just about perfect way of thinking and behaving which will prevent bad people from materializing. That is road to mild schizophrenia.
Our thoughts cannot control other people evil minds.
People who are abusive are mentally ill - they live in a fantasy world - and they have ideas based on disorder, sickness and delusions. We cannot control that with our thoughts, or our behaviour. These people need medical help. Not us.
---
Any nitpicking and micromanaging our thoughts and behaviour will end up with developing social anxiety and hypervigilance.
Google "micromanaging" - it is extremely toxic idea to do.
Routine will end up with developing OCD.
Maslow needs tells us that until we satisfy our basic needs - all others needs will wait. We cannot push this process.
IF we are in toxic ambient, if pathological liars are around us, if we have toxic job or don't have money income, if we are not safe in shelter - there is absolutely no way that we can be able to "control" our inner critic.
We are literally in crap, swimming in crap - inner critic is normal byproduct of being in difficult situation and urge to nitpick and self pathologize ourselves will add up to more stress and mental illness.
If we have inner critic - is it not sign that something is basically wrong with our mind. Instead, it is a sign that there is someone toxic in our midsts who appears as healthy and normal and friend or service or help. There are a lot of pathological liars, narcissists, toxic people who are covert - when they are around us it will show up as inner critic,,
Because trauma and toxic people will manipulate us and criticize us.
The idea that our mind is broken and that we must find some secret way of thinking and behaviour is trauma, and conditioning from toxic people - this idea will destroy our self worth and we will try to build fake narcissistic mask and chase idea that our thinking can somehow prevent bad people and bad events from materializing.
Our thoughts cannot influence evil and mentally ill people. IF they decided to hurt us - no matter what we think or behave - they will hurt us. Our thinking will not stop it.
If we had all the money in the world, if we had this special philosophical stone mysterious way of magical thinking that is perfect - evil things will still happen. Bad people will still exist - independently of our perfect thinking. Perfectionism is reaction to abuse and trauma - when we were conditioned to believe that we must be perfect and appease bad people from being punished and hurt by them.
Why would be so wrong to be ourselves as we are?
With our panic, fears, weaknesses, errors and all flaws?
Unless we are criminally insane with anti-social rampage doing damage to other people - there is absolutely nothing wrong with our thinking - and there is nothing to fix at all.
---
I try to explain this on my reddit forum - social anxiety is part of Complex Trauma - and I got banned from main social anxiety reddit forum, and received tons of negative comments from covert narcissist who mimic social anxiety to get narcissistic supply: other people. Then I made my own forum and I self express there my ideas about social anxiety being part of CPTSD.
CBT is unfortunately monopolizing social anxiety as hallucination, where DSM also does not recognizes Complex Trauma, so it cannot connect obvious two dots. Then CBT acts like covert narcissist who is gaslighting victims of abuse and bullying that toxic people do not exist and that trauma is delusion. And that we can crap fit into anything by using ABC Model (brainwashing really).
With CBT methods I ended up with fawning - since I would label abuse as my hallucination and delusion, that all people are good and that pathological liars do not exist, as CBT instructs us to believe. CBT answer in dealing with "difficult" people is to engage in Karpman Drama Triangle, endless arguments and conflicts with narcs who love drama and fights and our disclosure (which they ab-use later on) which CBT describes as having Assertiveness technique.
WHO's ICD-11 recognizes Complex Trauma.
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It never occurred to you that these people may be painfully shy and find intrusive idiot as traumatic?
Never occurred to you that someone might been assaulted in the streets by some welcoming stranger and have trauma from it?
How do you know that something horrible not happened to them 5 or 10 minutes or days ago and they want to be along?
You never know what is happening in other people's minds.
If you feel that your feelings and emotions give you entitlement to intrude and bother other people - you are psychopath. There is something horrible wrong with your psyche, you are sadist, abnormal. If you have no ability to see that you might bother other people - it means either you are retard adult baby stuck in adult body that never overcame egocentrism which most normal people overcome by the age of 12 - or you are psychopath.
People are not object for you to pick and bother. You are simply not entitled to bother other people to heal your neurosis on them. Be adult and seek therapy for that - not abusing random strangers.
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(19.10.2022)
"does that mean we should suffer through things"
No, it doesn't.
But inventing fake mask, pretending to be someone else is sick idea that leads to mental illness. Primarily to narcissism.
"we just accept the way of the world"
So your solution is to invent fantasy world and feel entitled that world fawns over to us, while we are masters of our egocentric universe? How reasonable, healthy, normal and sane is that?
"grow as it chooses it to be?"
Maslow says that we will grow automatically into self-actualization AFTER we finished satisfying basic needs.
IF we do not have basis - home, shelter, finances - it is terrible idea to puff up and pretend to be confident just for the sake of impressing idiots who depend on mask.
If you have issues - it is far better to talk it over with expert, with someone professional rather than reading Jordan Peterson mentally ill advice how to become mentally ill.
Or more probably reading intro of his book and then spend the rest of the day jerking off to porns or sniffing cocaine or drinking alcohol.
---
@wavy " I truly doubt I'm a narcissist"
This is something that every narcissists will say.
Narcissism is insidious sickness and narcissists feel that they are god given, without mistakes and that they must not admit any mistake.
Also all narcissist stem from abuse and gaslighting - that is why narcissism is generational curse. All narcissists think of themselves as victims and their tools how to fight for their dignity is creating manipulation, control and abuse which they do not perceive that they are creating. To them, from their point of view they are victims, gods and superior to others.
In this way, Putin is believing that he is Jesus Christ and that he is helping the world to get rid of nazi abusers and nazi gaslighting. We all know he is delusional but to him , that is true reality- he is simply victim of abuse and he is fighting against abuse - by abusing others.
Putin from his point of view has a lot of empathy and he is doing this for love and empathy.
In reality - empathy is not tool.
Empathy is not something you say that you have it and use it as excuse or explanation.
Empathy is not focused, empathy is not tool, empathy is not something you use up to make you feel good about yourself and to justify your actions.
That is not empathy - that is manipulation and control of others.
You are classical example of narcissist, aggressive borderliner. You have small percentage of empathy which you use as tool and that separates you from full blown narcissist.
Narcissism and bordeline is sickness - it is sickness because it is a way to control, manipulate and abuse other people - you feel entitled you are allowed to control abuse and manipulate other people because "you were abused and because you have empathy". So now - anything is allowed for you to do.
Nope.
You have no excuse to treat other people like trash. No amount of abuse nor no amount of grooming and honeymoon phases which you believe is empathy is enough.
If your fear of being perceived wrongly is not based on being punished by abusers - it is narcissism.
If behind your fear is your own well being and your entitlement - that is narcissism.
Narcissists will never admit mistakes and being vulnerable - they will always present themselves as victims.
True victims of abuse always self blame and have incredible hard time to process gaslighting and back in their head they think it was always their fault - that they caused abuse and gaslighting by their own thinking or behaviour.
That is why if you do not have this kind of self blame guilt - you are narcissist.
You simply mimic being victim to gain other people in order to control them and manipulate them.
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"asking for raise, expressing what you want"
That is not confrontation.
I think you mix up confrontation.
You also mix up healthy and toxic ambient, healthy and toxic people - and muddle it altogether,
If someone is pathological liar, if someone uses psychopathy such as coercive control - any contact with such person will end up in chaos probably in criminal scene.
If we have healthy ambient and healthy people around us - confrontation is not needed since we are free to self express and ask for what we need without being afraid of being backstabbed as result.
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Sad that your explanation stopped at Fear of confrontation. This leads many people to self pathologizing and self blame, which makes psychiatry seen in a very bad light.
Abuse is the cause of this fear, toxic people, toxic ambient.
"Assertive means honest"
Ok,
what happens when we are honest to someone who is pathological liar and someone who is collecting all our honest data - for later usage?
What happens when the other person likes drama and endless arguments and does not want any resolution?
Then we are trapped inside Karpman Drama Triangle.
If there is toxic person on the other side, someone who likes chaos which is never resolved - being assertive is giving them meat to chew on. There are emotional vampires who love endless unresolved conflict - this gives them energy, since they are toxic.
I would go into direction of cutting contact with such person.
Now the next problem is - what to do when the other person does not want resolution. that in the same time likes all honest data from us to use later on, and we cannot cut contact with them - due to any reason (finances, shelter , third party).
Then your solution in form of assertiveness will not work at all - in fact it will be used against us. We will lose energy, time, money on explaining them something that they are determined not to understand in the first place.
I would go in the direction of self expression, retort and having case like in a court - holding criminals accountable for their crimes - by showing case evidence, objective facts - rather than us being "honest" and "assertive" - the focus is on their lies, gaslighting, control, manipulation -
and also building up money to cut contact and relocate away from them, cutting contact.
---
"Figure out how to cope with fear"
I tried that. It left me with developing toxic shame - since I believed that feeling fear is sick, that is is unmanly and that I am twisted and wrong for feeling fear.
In reality - fear is normal human emotion. To suppress it we will develop mental illness, neurosis.
"Mechanisms to cope with fear"
Yep. I was convinced that there is some magical mechanism, some magical technique which will cure me only if I seek well enough and deep enough that I will find some answer which will magically make me strong and that somehow evil things and evil people will never happen.
That is not realistic. Evil people will always be there. We cannot materialize evil people with our thoughts. Nor we can materialize the vanishing of evil people with our thoughts or mechanisms or behaviour. But abusers would like us to believe that there is a way that we can appease the gods by throwing sacrificial lamb to the volcano.
When we reject our fears, when we reject parts of our persona and throw it into shadow - we destroy self worth. Without self worth we are cripples - we will then be full of fears and other people criticism and we will depend on other people how to deal and manage life. We will develop severe social anxiety in the process of trying to fix our fears.
"Fear make us alert to danger. React to danger and make appropriate decision."
Yes, it is Darwin evolution - and we adapt to predators to survive.
"Describe it"
That is bad advice - because we will tell our brain that there is danger - and brain will gladly join into hysteria. Now brain will start to identify what is fear for us.
This happens because brain is build to protect us. Brain will therfore be on high alert to recognize new fears. Brain is not built to make us happy. Brain will not make discern whether discovering fears can go overboard. It will go overboard and this is opening of Pandora's box. Brain will not stop at fourth or fifth fear. Very soon it will be 5000th or 10000th fear and keep on discovering new ones. That is why CBT is therapy of errors and it is making more damage than good.
"Is it real threat, worst thing to happen"
Again, brain will make up catastrophe - especially if we were abused in our past, with Complex Trauma.
Brain will now be trained to see in anything in life what is the worst thing - soon it will develop hypervigilance - because we are here thanks to Darwin. Our whole body is wired to find and seek predators and dangers. Brain is not here to decide - ok now I am finished, and I will no longer seek danger. This is chain reaction - this advice is Chernobyl russian scientist who decided to modulate nuclear reactor and test what will happen if they jerk it off a little. It will end with catastrophe without end.
"Ask myself what can I do to protect myself from this threat"
Again-
you are training your brain to seek danger and brain will end up in pureOCD - hypervigilance.
Brain does not cannot discern what is outside of our control.
Good intentions are path to Hell. We think we can nitpick our brain - but brain has its own rules. Inventing fears and ordering it to entity of brain to seek fears, brain which was actually build on 6 millions of years of detecting threats - is really horrible idea.
"Coping mechanisms
Withdrawal, confrontation, half avoidance/half confrontation"
There is 4 actually.
Flight - freeze - fight - fawn.
These are not something you modulate or fix, there is no better or worse response. There is no magical hidden treasure in one response and bad and evil in others mechanisms
"Choosing mechanism we have to do something about it. Choose to confront it or avoid it or half"
You cannot choose it, this is lizard brain activated.
Again, there is no better or worse coping mechanism, trauma response.
Problem is being in toxic ambient which triggers our response.
Fear of horses is phobia.
That is why it is called phobia. That is why it has different name from fear.
Fear is not the same as phobia. Phobia and fears are not psychologically the same issue.
Phobias are healed with exposure.
"Listen our fears"
Accept them, accept fears.
---
On target!
Urge to fix our fears is actually creating mental imbalance. If we are not criminally insane, if we are not out murdering people, if we have no hidden agenda to harm and cause damage to anyone or anything, if we are not anti-social - there is nothing wrong with us.
I see PureOCD (my own issue of worrying and being stuck in worry) as part of Complex Trauma. Where trauma is being exposed to toxic ambient, toxic people who are nitpicking and blaming and criticizing me 24/7 - which now is internalized inner critic and externalized as outer critics which I do not cut contact with due to people pleasing issues.
All issues are connected to belief that since I have fears that I am not good person. That something is basically wrong with me since I have trauma, inner critic, catastrophizing. This belief that my thoughts are sick is wrong itself. There is nothing wrong with me - basically there is no sickness. The worry stems from the external cause - toxic people who implanted worries, doubt, anxiety inside.
When I believe that something is bad with me, with my thoughts - self worth will be destroyed first. Without self worth, we lose intrinsic locus of control - and we will end up with toxic shame and see other people as superior since they appear without fears. Then I am locked into victim role, inferiority complex - all because I have basic belief that my thoughts are sick, abnormal and unacceptable because I have pureOCD issues.
I then believe that I can modulate, and fix my thoughts in some way - and that this way when I find perfect way of thinking - that somehow evil things will not happen. I will not be criticized any more, just when I find the right way to feel, think and behave. It won't. No matter how much we are perfect at thinking and behaving - evil things will happen - evil people, bad events are outside of our control. We cannot control it by fixing our thoughts and appeasing the gods by finding sacrifice to throw into volcano - our self worth.
I see this basic belief that we can rely on our thoughts, beliefs, decisions along with mistakes and flaws - that there is nothing wrong with them - no matter what other people may label as "different" "odd", with our perks, quirks, individuality - we are not hurting anyone. It is all trauma being stuck inside our body - external abuse which we did not cause by our behavior nor our "wrong" thoughts. I believe in sick toxic ambient we are programmed to label our basic self as abnormal and this is causing suffering.
Nikola Tesla had his OCD quirks - and he did not mind. He still self expressed his talent, he was not silent about it although people mocked him even in America. Balkans are shame culture country - where West is not. If Nikola Tesla stayed at Balkans he would be mocked and ridiculed into silence -and we would never discover AC/DC, radio nor wi-fi for another 300 years.
I see self expression as our locus of control - rather than believing into hypnosis and conditioning by society that we are weird and unacceptable and sick for having fears in our thoughts.
---
"This shows low confidence: People who don't know how to sit confidently"
This belief that we must fit into some kind of standard how to be "confident" is not healthy and it ill create more non-confidence, more of insecurity, more of mental illness.
Idea to stifle our emotions down in order to appear good and accepted in the eyes of strangers is social anxiety.
It stems from idea that our thoughts and behaviour are sick and wrong and that we must find secret magical thinking and behaving in order to be happy, confident and that nothing evil will happen when we discover this magical mechanism.
Truth is that evil will still happen - even when we do find high confidence.
People will still be rude. Bad things will still happen. We cannot escape bad things and we cannot materialize good people by our thoughts nor by our behaviour.
That is road to mild schizophrenia - belief that our thoughts can materialize reality and other people and their moods.
Another is social stigmatization and social shame.
Belief that if I feel fears and non-confident, if I feel insecure - that I will lose in life, that life will pass me by because I feel fears.
Then I will decide to fix it.
This is path to neurosis and mental illness. Because if we do not have basic trust in our thoughts and our body and our behaviour - we will develop deep toxic shame and we will destroy self worth.
Confidence is paradox - if we try to have it - we will never be confident.
If we accept ourselves without confidence - we will be confident since nothing is connected with approval and validation of us - except of our self.
Michael Jackson had extreme social anxiety, shame and insecurity issues - due to trauma and abuse - and yet he was rich and performed all around the world and he is VIP famous person who anyone in the world knows.
So social hypnosis, social shame that we equate low confidence with sickness - is bad idea and it leads to self pathology and it is base on lie that we cannot succeed in life if we do not fix ourselves.
We will develop mental illness when we reject ourselves.
If I have trauma stuck inside my body - if there was bullying, mobbing and abuse - it is totally natural after-effect to develop social anxiety as effect to toxic people and toxic ambient.
There are predators and pathological liars out there - and abuse happens when we trust all people.
This way - being confident and without fears - we will actually attract toxic people - and trust anyone.
We need side of ourselves that is not attractive to just about anyone.
Seeking approval and validation of others is mental illness - it is external referencing locus of control and trauma bonding.
Confidence can be part of mental illness and end up us being dead after toxic people are done with us.
---
Yes - and what happens next is - that we will discover what will happen when we actually do speak up and ask for our wants and needs.
We will discover that we are in toxic ambient - and that our toxic shame is reflection and soaking up toxic ambient and toxic people around us.
We will discover that people will yell and be rude to us - and that our needs will not be important. We will be gaslighted and we will notice that there is coercive control - and that good and nice people can be toxic too - once we start to express our opinion.
Toxic shame is result of hypnosis and conditioning - being in narcissistic abuse - filled with pathological liars, coercive control, smear campaign, grooming and honeymoon periods - where we are being told that our thinking and behaviour is sick, wrong and unacceptable. Even though we did nothing wrong except having moral and ethical standards.
---
I am starting to realize - that we accept ourselves as we are.
With all flaws and perks and quirks.
Bad evil people will exploit us no matter what we do. Our task is to recognize covert ones - and cut contact with over and covert ones.
We cannot spend our lives seeking magical way of thinking and behaving in toxic ambient and spending time, money and focus on self improving fixing ourselves and trying to fit in into abuse and thus enable it.
If we are not out murdering people, if we have no ill will, if we are not anti-social - there is nothing pathological with ourselves, nothing wrong with our thinking and nothing to modulate or fix with our behaviour. We are ok just the way as we are.
IF someone doesn't like it - they can hike away.
The idea that we please and appease all people is not good, it will not work.
Evil will happen no matter how much perfect or non-perfect we are. Bad things will happen no matter how we think. IF we believe we are basically wrong - we will castrate ourselves, that we cannot rely on our mind and our thoughts - we will depend on other people to approve and validate us.
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"Do u think it helps people understand the condition in the right way?"
You are making crucial question.
That when we do not understand something - we naturally seek definitions and explanations. That step is extremely dangerous. We can end up with toxic people explaining us reality - and then we set up our own world in accordance with their explanations.
This is how politics are working, this is how marketing hypnotizes us to buy their products.
And all the time we are like sheep - we have no idea that we are farmed to be milked by toxic people who impose their definitions.
In the same way, CBT explains social anxiety that is is hallucination and then imposed toxic shame - that cognitive distortions are explanations for delusions.
In reality, all people have bias and logical fallacies - it is not endemic for anxiety.
Then since - we are now inundated with false information and toxic shame - CBT resolves explanation that we are too lazy, that we are victims seeking victimhood and that the only solution are to be slave to Pharma mafia and endless therapies which does not help.
Foucault talked about this abuse of knowledge and education - when we are confused we will attract plethora of toxic people to control and manipulate us to make us into zombies, sheep. Fascism is based on this evil or North Korea.
---
(20.10.2022)
Guilt is control. Someone toxic is controlling us with guilt.
Self blame is feeling toxic shame which is internalized and then I will feel guilty about anything - and I will invite toxic people to control me and blame me since I blame myself for not being good, competent, perfect. I have no inner defenses to retort - for example to say I disagree with you when someone accuses me of some mistake or flaw.
I agree that guilt is placeholder. It is hypnosis, it is programming, it is conditioning, it is Skinner's box.
To us, when we have empathy, when we are not anti-social, when we are normal and healthy - we will try not to make mistakes. We will try not to hurt anyone and not to cause any damage to anyone.
This way toxic people will seek our high moral and ethical standards and turn them against us. They will nitpick our mistakes, flaws and ignorance as being criminal and hurting them , them being victim.
In healthy settings we will admit mistakes and we will not be afraid of punishment when mistake happens - so there will not be need to cover it up or deny it. Narcissist hate honesty, truth and vulnerability because that is their chosen way how to deal with abuse and shame - they will never admit mistakes due to mask that makes them appear superior. They abuse others, seek mistakes in others and then abuse them and put them down to feel superior over others.
All others will muddle mistakes due to fear of punishment and abuse.
I see in toxic ambient we will not be able to dismantle guilt.
In toxic ambient - we come with wounded traumatized self - believing we are inept by default - due to relentless criticism in our formative years - so we will set our surroundings to be toxic - we will seek others to guide us and set ourselves up as victims, since we are conditioned to believe we are inept and wrong by default.
Once in toxic ambient - no matter what we do - it will be toxic. It will stress us out. In fact, the more healthier response - such as dismantling guilt - the more stress there will be -- we will lose immunity first. It is like warrior's face before and after the war - it looks older, much older and stress is visible on what once was baby face, before the war. (google this image: "face of warrior before and after war").
That is why self help and psychiatry can be detrimental. When there is core issue of trauma - any "help" and any "advice" makes things worse. With soothing our natural emotions - which surface as lack of emotions, as you said beautifully and laser shar correctly in the video- "Guilt is absence of something else." -- we will actually enable ourselves to stay in toxic ambient. We will become enabler of abuse. We won't do anything to cut toxic people off, we won't plane exit strategy. Instead we will crap fit into abuse.
I would say that if we have issues with guilt, with shame - that we turn externally and check out our surroundings, people around us, settings and ambient where we are. There are shame-based countries and guilt-based countries. Shame based countries are dangerous - since toxic shame is when society equates someone's mistake with their character. Also abusers in toxic shame countries will be in rescuer mode seeking people with high moral and ethical standards (basically someone who is sane and normal) and turn torrent of guilt and shame on them. IF we are not aware what is happening in such setting - we will end up with self blame and relentless guilt.
We will be easily hypnotized and controlled by abusers and covert narcissists - when we feel guilt and guilty all the time.
There is this quote from movie Daniel (1983) that talks about that:
"So you ask, what is the motivation for a man to do what he did? Well, one motivation is to believe, or to have been persuaded to believe, in his own guilt. And to live in mortal fear of the consequences. Another is to believe, or to have been persuaded to believe, in the guilt of his friends and to live in mortal fear of the consequences."
---
(21.10.2022)
@민군주 " You want a world where any steps to improve one's own or others mental wellbeing or simply checking in on peoples general wellness/identity is considered taboo"
George Sanayana said:
"Never build your emotional life on the weaknesses of others".
There is locus of control.
If you base your decisions, thoughts and sense of who you are on others - you are having external referencing locus of control. That leads to conformism and codependency and narcissism and mental illness.
The healthy locus of control is intrinsic locus of control - where you base your worth of your own common sense, not someone else's approval nor validation.
"live the daily "how are you? I'm fine and you? Oh I'm fine" ingenuine conversations through clenched teeth?"
The question is why you have clenched teeth in the first place?
If you are normal, mentally sane person - your teeth would not be clenched. If you have body spasms - that is Charcot hysteria. There is something inside that is traumatized -
idea to heal your unresolved abuse from past through abusing other people - if generational trauma - you pass your mental illness on other people around you.
Stop it! Seek help for your mental issues - do not abuse others.
"they would make that abundantly clear though such answers and general body language"
How can you know what is happening in someone's life?
What if someone was abused all life and conditioned to not show any emotions and to fawn to any outside request?
You cannot control other people. You are not god and you do not know what is going on in lives and heads of other people.
And no, you are not entitled to be intrusive and ask them that.
"We owe nothing to strangers and the fact that they are willingly giving these people their time of day is only fair to see how they would use it"
I disagree.
" they are just there to ask a couple heartfelt questions and it allows us a peek into others minds and makes people like me feel a little less alone in this world"
You are rationalizing the abuse.
Any abuser will choose your normalization to keep abuse ongoing.
People are not objects. You are not entitled to decide what people want.
You are not powerful being to be tyrannical dictator who would decide what other people think or must think.
---
That is because social anxiety and performance anxiety is not the same.
Michael Jackson had severe social anxiety.
Yet - he performed in front of millions of people without any problem. He had live concerts, he made movies, TV specials which were live so it was not possible to fake his confidence.
Having social anxiety does not mean we are invalid, that there stupid nor that we are weak or that there is something fundamentally wrong with our character or trait that is sick.
Social anxiety is trauma - we were in abusive situation with mentally ill people who were psychopaths.
---
I dunno.
Any miracle hacks, any self-help techniques anything any kind of reaction to ocd, anxiety - will make it worse.
Jung said - what we resist, persist.
It is like urticaria, allergy skin rash - the more we scratch it, the worse it gets.
Micromanaging is horrible idea - it leads to mental instability - which is the reason why psychiatry can be detrimental to our mental health paradoxically.
All anxiety stems from abuse, complex trauma - we were abused by mentally ill people who were psychopaths - and this is now trauma stuck inside our body - which flows into our awareness by OCD and anxiety issues. It stems from deep core belief that we are faulty and that this toxic shame which we believe we caused - can be removed and rejected if we only micromanage and nitpick ourselves into health. Without realizing - we keep toxic shame alive by belief that we must seek just about perfect hack and some magical method or technique.
In reality - no matter how much we are perfect, no matter how much calm we are - our thoughts, our behaviour cannot influence evil people, our thoughts cannot prevent evil from materializing - if we keep on believing that it can, we will develop anxiety and perhaps mild schizophrenia.
Evil people need to be in prison -
and we are not state , we are not police nor medical personnel who hunts them.
What we can do - is to accept ourselves and validate our trauma reactions as normal reaction, survival mechanism - that helped us to survive, it was normal reaction to abnormal people, abnormal situations, abnormal event.
Any idea that there is something wrong inside us that is causing evil - will keep us trapped in ocd and anxiety.
---
Yeah - I see anxiety as experience of abuse - which was not our fault.
Many resources about anxiety set us up into wrong direction - that we need to fix something inside us, that something inside us broken - which makes things worse and created totally new anxieties.
We cannot correct anything inside us to prevent evil and evil things from happening.
If we are kind, nice, empathic, without urge to harm, without hidden agenda to cause damage to anyone - there is nothing inside us that needs fixing or overcoming or destroying.
What trauma needs is our total acceptation of ourselves as we are - with all faults and errors inside that we perceive as faults and errors, we need total self validation, self love and understanding - that when we are not able to defend ourselves from toxic people - that we will feel anxiety and develop safety mechanisms such as OCD.
Without feeling safe inside our own being - we won't , we will never ever feel safe in outside world and we will then try to protect ourselves with ocd.
---
(22.10.2022)
I did not react at all.
I have been told to accept myself since 1997. I haven't. I couldn't..
Nobody explained me concepts that I had to learn in my own experience, through experiences what Charcot hysteria means.
I did not know that spasm in my legs happening at specific spot in specific settings are Charcot hysteria - I was convinced that it was from working out.
I did not know that inner critic is replay of constant criticism in my formative years - I had to learn Complex Trauma which is suppressed by DSM and CBT, while recognized by WHO's ICD-11.
I did not know what is self esteem - I was convinced it was associated with exposure and action as it is explained. Nobody told me that there was a difference between self worth and self esteem - I learned it after education what is locus of control.
We have education - but we do not connect the dots - since the educators themselves do not know the root cause of any illness.
Any nitpicking, any excessive monitoring, any micromanaging will add up to already present anxieties. This constant drive to self improve is narcissism. We cannot improve if our basic Maslow needs are not met. Self improvement will happen automatically as soon as we have finances, shelter, security, when we feel basically safe in the world.
When we think there is something inside us that needs fixing - we are contributing to mental imbalance and we are destroying our self worth. IF we are not out there killing people, if we are not violent, if we are not sociopaths, psychos, if there is not anti-social element inside our head and our actions - if we have no ill will and have no hidden agenda to harm anyone - there is nothing wrong with us. The belief that there is something to fix is hypnosis, it is trauma and toxic people exploit it, keeping us hooked into addiction to self help - so that we spend money, time and focus on narcissists who seek admiration from others.
---
Holland hated bicycling in 1970s- todays infrastructure is the result of huge, mass and consistent protests from bike riders.
Without massive and consistent people's participation bicycle culture network would not exist.
America has amazing structure - if we see Eastern Europe as comparison: narrow roads, no places to park, no place to walk safely since small road - that is even small as if would be bicycle path - the official small narrow road in corrupt Eastern Europe is used not only for cars, but for any kind of wheel chairs - invalids or babies, buses, hikers, tractors, big working machines of all sorts - they are all crammed into 5 meter road - whereas in America it is 10 meters width.
And someone with driving phobia in such toxic place would never guess that phobia stems from corrupt system created by corrupt psychopaths - in comparison, if someone smart in the government like in USA - could plan and built wide roads - there would be less anxiety in driving - since you would not spend micromanaging focus on every millimeter of driving direction. Instead someone not so smart in corrupt Eastern Europe would only see road as nuisance or how to keep money in pockets due to corruption. While you end up with life-long anxieties when using small mini roads in Eastern Europe, thinking this is the only way to be.
Without transport there is no life.
It is like clogged arteries in our body - blood gets clogged up of there is no space for any kind of transportation.
I love this:
"People who will usually offend are in positions of weakness themselves.
When you say that's interesting, you're saying I have something to learn about it, that is position of power."
---
Jordan Peterson and CBT made wrong conclusions that anxious, shy, inhibited people are self absorbed -
since without empathy psychopaths in medical health industry do not see other people as humans, but only as objects.
Due to narcissism people like Jordan Peterson make all sorts of wrong conclusions about other people.
In this way - to CBT it will appear and they will hypnotize others to believe that anxious people are self involved and focused on themselves.
Then they will say "advice" that anxious people must focus on other people - to interact with them. CBT believes that in doing so, anxiety will magically go away since we are no longer , as they believe, focused on our panic symptoms.
In reality -
anxious people are already zoomed onto other people. Due to abuse, mobbing and bullying they look at other people for potential violent aggression - as it happened before.
So anxious people are already zoomed into other people due to trauma, it is like with microscopic zoom, too much.
And in fact, it would help to zoom out.
To replace external reference locus of control with intrinsic locus of control
Since CBT and Jordan Peterson are mentally ill narcissists in place of managerial seats where they control information - they are already zoomed into themselves - they give advice that is appropriate for narcissists as them - to acknowledge other people.
Empathy are already respecting other people and are totally aware of other people's presence, their needs, their wants, their thinking.
---
In April Marshall made video about accepting ourselves. Once again, the same as with Fawning concept - I needed quite some time to process this information and what it really means. Toxic shame being calcified deep inside, it is not easy to get rid of chunks of toxic shame inside blocking the flow of worth.
I read and heard this information about accepting many times before, and Marshall explained it beautifully and in detail 6 months ago - and still it did not get to me inside;
In "Anatomy of Codependency #2" the message was:
"We devalue ourselves when we have emotions and reactions to things that don't line up with this idealized sets of expectations for ourselves"
I needed time that puzzles fall into their place.
Also it is like onion layer - it takes levels and steps to get to the core.
I think with trauma we are under hypnosis due to abuse, neglect - so even when we are told the most correct and right information what would help us - the information is not getting through. We are blind to the truth. Like transparent veil over our eyes distorting our reality.
I believe anyone suffering with social anxiety, ocd issues, worries - is connected to this message of this video - that we basically believe something is wrong with us, deep down, that is unacceptable - our fears, our reactions - that they are not normal - and this toxic shame keeps us hooked and addicted to seeking value outside of us. Which of course can never happen - we cannot feel valued by some external validation, it will never happen, it is impossible. Through shaming and criticism in our formative years - we never get that basic message that deep down we are alright, there is nothing to fix.
Intrinsic locus of control- we can logically understand it, but with toxic shame we keep our fingers crossed and believe that trauma stuck inside our body is making us defective, unmanly and not correct - and that we must fix it. Trauma cannot be fixed - we are not broken inside us, our deep down value is untouched by trauma.
If we are not out killing people, if we have empathy, if we have no ill will and no hidden agenda to harm and hurt anyone or anything - there is absolutely nothing inside us that is crooked, wrong nor broken.
Instead of worrying how to correct or fix our fears - it is about accepting fears as dysregulation - nothing that I can do but wait and sit through, while in the same time going for self-expression - rather than self-censorship - in any way.
---
Yeah, regarding social anxiety- it is label actually. Lots of people are victims of narcissistic abuse and there is no common explanation what we feel in DSM after we have been through it - because DSM does not recognizes trauma (WHO's ICD-11 recognizes Complex Trauma), so
some see it as social anxiety,
some as OCD,
some do not see it as problem inside.
Whatever it is - it is traumatic and it leaves us with trauma.
2 months later regarding this video - you given me a chance to add more text hehe
First,
the problem with cutting toxic people off is that sometimes we cannot leave - due to finances, shelter, help/service/information, third party - and we are forced to commune with covert narcissists in some way - usually at the job or family.
This is big problem - when we do understand the damage that exposure to narcissistic abuse does to our brain.
I learned that we need certain skills and techniques how to handle someone who is controlling and manipulative.
Whatever we do - will be double binding. IF we ignore them - they will interpret our silence as green light for more abuse. If we confront - they will suck our energy, sanity and happiness dry away from us. In fact - the more healthier response - the worst effect for us. It is like cancer or allergy attacking our immune system, making us weak and weaker simply by being in toxic ambient.
The incredible solution is to dumb down, become childish with them since they are child trapped in adult man's body - and sacrifice our high moral and ethical standards and being adult.
It is about accepting repressed child parts of ourselves which we sacrificed when we were bullied into silence and shame, and we locked out our Jung's Trickster away - and without child inside us, we cannot deal with spoiled brats.
Second,
We got to realize that the reason why we are in situation where we are - is because of invalidation and neglect which set us up to have no idea how to accept ourselves.
When we have chronic, deep toxic shame where we reject ourselves (usually for conditioned belief we are not manly enough, or worthy enough ) - without self worth we will have immobility, stuck issues - I call it Charcot Hysteria - and we will be prone to attract narcissists since they will sniff out that we do not care for ourselves much. They are predators - they have ability to sniff toxic shame in other people since they have toxic shame themselves.
So as much as we have to fight cancer in the external - we need to fight internalized toxic shame inside us by breaking off hypnosis of deep toxic shame -
and that can be done by total self acceptance, self love, self validation and giving our brain proof that we will stand up for ourselves, that we will do whatever we can to cut toxic people off as soon as we are financially ready and that we won't stand up for abuse, bullying or mobbing for some wrong ideals of being man enough or to prove our strength or endurance to someone else.
It is about accepting Jung's Shadow inside us.
---
(23.10.2022)
Cut my losses - yep - it is about realizing that evil people will take advantage of us, that is what makes them toxic.
IT is like legalized theft which is yet not regulated by laws or system and we are left on our own to handle barbaric tribes ransacking randomly people.
We have no support from the system - since the matrix allows narcissists to become presidents of countries and managerial boards in medical industry. There is no official law test for psychopathy and narcissism to stop them from reaching any position of power.
Criminals must undertake test to work in kindergartens, while there is no such thing for driving license or working with people for narcissists and psychopaths.
With today's medicine we can brain scan and discover who is psychopath and narcissist - technology exists, yet they roam freely, like serial killers on the loose. Similar to the movie The Purge (2913), "where all criminal activity is legalised."
I see it that we allow natural responses - that may entail Jung's Dark shadow, repressed parts of our personalities which we as adults labeled as childish and hide away.
We can't be adult with someone who is acting like a child. We need to communicate with them on child level - since they do not want to understand adult language, they refuse to grow up and take responsibility.
I see integrating our child repressed parts of ourselves that we labelled as evil to come on surface- and that we throw certain responses which may not be quite adult ones here and there at the risk of seen as unreasonable or aggressive. If someone is unreasonable - we have the same right to retort to them.
It is about self-expression.
With trauma stuck inside us - we self-censor ourselves. We have high moral and ethical standards and we castrate our responses to life - where we live in unjust world - we try to play fair and limit our responses.
I also see solution in Jung's Trickster - where enabling our child parts and repressed Shadow parts to be fully active.
Abusers will often say when confronted with their wrongdoings that they have kidded, that they did not mean it and that we are too sensitive. So what stops us from kidding as well and stop being so serious?
I also find incredible support in information about narcissistic abuse , bullying and mobbing - there is great free support here on you tube - DrRamani, Lisa Romano, Crappy Childhood Fairy, Marshal Butcher, Patrick.
Complex Trauma is different from PTSD. PTSD is one time event - while complex trauma is being exposed to long term nitpicking and criticizing all the time. Long term exposure to narcissistic abuse can cause brain damage - google it.
When we are confronted with abusive people we will get dysregulated. When we understand Complex Trauma - we know that Dysregulation will happen due to triggers, flashbacks and trauma stuck inside our body. If we do not know trauma information - we will tend to self blame, self hate and self pathologize ourselves for not being manly and strong enough. With such self hatred, abusive people will exploit it and criticize us even more - keeping us stuck in cycle of dysregulation - and we will interpret dysregulation as personal flaw. We will try to find perfect solution to problems and we will seek resolution.
When we understand Dysregulation, we can let it go - we don't need to seek any resolution. We did not cause abuse, we cannot control abusive people with our thinking patterns - so no matter how perfect we might get - abusive people and evil will still happen.
When we understand Polyvagal Theory - we can wait our Dysregulation to pass on its own, and it will. We do not need to nitpick it or seek solutions at all - we simply need to wait - without meditation, without calming techniques, without thinking or worrying.
---
(24.10.2022)
"You can fight post-rumination with CBT"
What we fight - we will make worse.
Jung said - what we resist will persist.
Anxiety and pureOCD worry is like urticaria or skin rash - the more you scratch it - the worse it will get. If you let it be and anoint it with love and protection and health, validation, respect - it will soothe down.
If you label it as crap - you will equate being one since it is in your head.
"You go to social event, then you evaluate yourself. Then you ruminate"
That is due to trauma. We were traumatized.
OF course we will have post-symptoms if we were criticized all the time when our psyche was forming. Trauma is normal reaction to abnormal people, abnormal events and abnormal situations.
IF we choose to label our reaction to trauma as sickness and something that is weird and unacceptable - we will develop deep toxic shame, self hatred and self blame - and this means more rumination and brooding.
If we have power to overthink -- this means we are clever, we have higher IQ than other folks - being smart is not sickness. Self pathologizing is not good route. CBT is therapy of errors, causing self pathologizing, self blame and self hate and more anxiety- which will CBT then label as our "Laziness" and unwillingness to comply to narcissistic abuse (invalidation of our trauma), and that it can be cured only by pharma mafia medications.
"You come to the conclusions you are the most awkward person in the world and cycle continues"
We will come to conclusions that deep down we are broken because we ruminate - as CBT instructs us and initiates us into toxic shame. CBT is focused on the symptoms and thus joins into hysteria.
Humanistic therapies focus on our goals and accepting ourselves as we are.
We do not need to be like other people.
---
" I think I really offended someone. "
Complex trauma.
Social anxiety is small part of tentacles stemming from umbrella issue of trauma.
We were raised in toxic ambient filled with criticism and invalidation in our formative years.
Then we self hate and reject our mistakes and we try to be good, nice and perfect. Then we will feel trauma (worry about how other perceive us) and label this as sickness - as CBT instructs us to self pathologize ourselves.
We think we are causing the abuse and if only we can change our thinking - evil things will stop.
CBT instructs us via ABC Model to seek our thoughts and find the wrong thinking patterns - with the hope that when we become perfect without "thinking errors" that all evil in the world will stop and evil people will not bug us.
This way, CBT is instructing us to develop mild form of schizophrenia where we believe that our thoughts are dirty and that we must clean ourselves enough so that our thoughts will manifest reality and control evil people in positive manner.
The reality is that we were traumatized -these fears are part of trauma and criticism - real or potential ones are triggers for us and flashbacks which throw us into constant dysregulation, amygdala hijacking and survival mode - we work in lizard brain instead of our cortex brain.
We get dysregulated because we were conditioned in our childhood to invalidate our feelings and emotions, that we crap fit into abuse.
Now we are in hypnosis that our thinking and behaviour is causing evil things - due to conditioning and trauma - this happens due to hypnosis, due to abuse - it is not our fault. We are running the program we received from untreated mentally ill people around us in our formative years.
CBT joins into abuse and make us believe that we need to find errors in our thinking and change them in order to control other people by the power of our new thoughts. That is path to mental illness. This is why psychiatry can be damaging to our health and stability, regulation.
In reality - there is nothing wrong with us. All people have thinking errors - this is called cognitive bias and logical fallacies and availability heuristics.
No matter how we think we will experience evil and bad people and things - these are outside of our control.
If we are not our murdering people, if we are not evil, if we have no hidden agenda to harm anything or anyone - we are not sick, we are not broken and there is nothing to fix inside our mind.
The issues we have are external: trauma and toxic shame which was implanted into our thinking by abusers and psychopaths. Toxic shame is hallucination - it is not part of our personality neither our characteristics nor our trait.
---
There are no answers.
IF answers exist - all people would know them by now and all people would carry them, execute them - and nobody would have anxiety issues.
Anxiety is not sickness.
There is nothing to cure.
IT is the same as if you hate your bleeding when someone cuts you. Your blood and reaction to cut is not sickness - the person who cut you is sick.
---
" Your videos made me realize that even though I usually am someone who wouldn't, I've like hermited or because socially anxious due to thoughts on people probably not wanting me around or fear of rejection"
So you basically say that labeling people is great solution?
How exactly can CBT label complex human emotions, complex situations which they face? How is that even possible?
Labeling something or someone is negating their humanity and it is putting person inside a box - where it is easier to judge, control and manipulate it.
And why we need labels?
Why we need someone in authority to explain and define us?
That way we give our autonomy and our power away to mysterious and insidious group - conformism, groupthink and herd mentality.
We can always educate and gather as much information from all sorts of sources - however labeling is always a bad idea - it is part of external referencing locus of control. When we believe other people are gods, we will develop toxic shame, we will reject ourselves - which means more self doubt - and other people will control our mood.
----
They don't have social anxiety at all.
They label their shyness and covert narcissism as social anxiety in order to gather sympathy from others and gain narcissistic supply: other people.
Social anxiety is being trapped in toxic job with bullying, mobbing and abuse without means of escape. That is social anxiety.
Going to parties is not.
---
Yeah, "normal" people who have silver spoon in their mouth or somehow evaded the bullying and mobbing - will give us unsolicited advice that we are too sensitive and need to man up and be strong - which leads to mental illness.
Society lead us astray:
1) by claiming our legitime reactions to abuse are invalid and sickness
2) by instructing us to seek magical cure and start thinking straight in order to evade evil and bad things /people from happening - which leads to mild schizophrenia: where we believe our thoughts can control other people and external events.
In reality - we can cut toxic people off and we do not need to seek resolution at all.
Josh Goldberg || יהושוע, TWITTER:
Emotional intelligence is understanding that there is no closure with a narcissist.
Dr. Glenn Patrick Doyle, TWITTER:
Trauma survivors aren't vulnerable to addiction or eating disorders because we're weak-willed-- it's because when feelings & memories are this painful, we'll do almost ANYTHING to avoid them.
Avoidance is often the only strategy we see to remain even SOMEWHAT functional.
Dr. Glenn Patrick Doyle, TWITTER:
Trauma's gonna try to tell you that sense of shame or worthlessness is about reality, your actual value as a human.
Trauma doesn't want you realizing that shame or worthlessness is really a SYMPTOM of trauma itself-- or that those feelings lessen & resolve as we recover.
---
I basically believe that society (mainly CBT and self help industry) wants us to instruct us that we are broken if we were traumatized, and that our character equals our trauma and abuse experience.
That if we feel ocd fears and CPTSD (complex trauma is different from PTSD) that we have fault in our character and that there is something basically wrong with us -
which we must cure by proving our manhood and honor by facing our fears.
This way, CBT sets us up to be focused on our panic symptoms -
and not on healing our trauma, triggers, flashbacks, dysregulation.
Trauma can be healed by self -expression - where we focus on our actions that align with our goals in life.
When we self express instead of self censor ourselves - we will face our panic symptoms without actually being preoccupied with panic symptoms. That is totally different approach than CBT.
It comes down to accept our quirks, perks, particularities, individuality, as our own - that there is nothing wrong with not being part of conformism, groupthink and herd mentality.
IF we are not out murdering people, if we have no evil agenda to cause harm to anything or anyone - if we are not anti-social - there is nothing wrong with us, there is nothing to fix inside us, our character is not flawed.
Trauma is injury caused by external event and external people - we did not cause our trauma with our thinking nor our behaviour.
Mistakes are natural part of life and they happen as we learn - mistakes are not part of our character nor our personality.
IF we go with CBT idea that we must make civil war with our panic symptoms - we will invalidate ourselves, we will create deep toxic shame and this means more anxiety.
Anxiety tells us that we were in danger - and our brain is built to protect us. Brain is not built to make us happy. Brain is the result of 6 millions of years of protection - it is Darwin evolution experience in detecting danger and predators.
So of course we will feel uncomfortable after some abnormal event and after experience with toxic people. There is nothing intrinsically wrong with us.
CBT lies to us - and makes us self pathologize totally normal reactions to toxic events and toxic people.
---
Social anxiety is being stuck in toxic job filled with bullying and mobbing and abuse without means of escape.
That is social anxiety. Being exposed to bullying, abuse and mobbing without exit.
Shyness, porn and awkward conversations, going to pubs with cocaine addicts are not social anxiety. That it more narcissistic spectrum where you are centre of the egocentric universe and other people are inanimate objects around you which you randomly label as something to parasite on as narcissistic supply - use up as means to hunt or if that is not possible - then you mock/reject/discard other people as trash.
When narcissists cannot parasite on target or these objects reject narcissists due to abuse - you as narcissist will feel symptoms which google will confirm you that it is social anxiety, which sounds better explanation than psychopathy or sociopathy.
Socially anxious people are not aggressive at all then they do not flash out as you admitted - since people with real social anxiety have empathy. Empathy is not province in France. That is why social anxiety is called social + anxiety. There is fear from people - there is no aggression to people. And no, fear from people is not due to weakness - it is due to ability to know how other people feel, very foreign concept to narcissists.
Nice people are clue that you seek narcissistic supply. Nice people do not exist. If someone is fawning to you - it means that people are scared of you.
Exposure helped you because you never had social anxiety at all. You see people as something to parasite and get take advantage as you admitted: to survive, to hunt together, pack animal. You seek conformism, herd mentality and grouthink where you are alpha tyrannic leader and other people worship and admire you as narcissist - where from your perspective you see your admirers as "nice" people.
Social anxiety is not sickness.
Overcoming social anxiety is not becoming cruel person without feelings and emotions as you explain it as de-sensitization.
Narcissists cannot handle their wounds and basic core belief that they are not good enough - and then they will label any perceived "weakness" as something to overcome and get rid of - and then abuse other people without feeling guilty.
---
Social anxiety is not the same as social anxiety disorder.
Being considerate to others people is not something to cure. If we do not think about our actions and consequences - we will become mentally ill person like Trump, someone narcissistic, psychopath.
Also is we label normal fears as something abnormal - we will develop mental illness.
Fear of unknown is totally normal fear, it is normal part that keeps us protected from toxic people, toxic ambient. If we do not have fear of unknown we would jump into danger without thinking.
Fear of going to WC in shopping mall is trauma, that is not pathology. It is result of being in toxic ambient when we were growing up, with people who are untreated mentally ill - someone who cannot regulate themselves and they criticized us in our formative years. This is not sickness in us. Trauma is result of external abuse - we did not cause it with our thoughts nor our behaviour.
Feeling nervous, cannot speak is that trauma, that is Charcot hysteria. Charcot discovered this spasm 100 years ago, this is well researched phenomena. If we label this hysteria as sickness we will add up to more hysteria and we will actually get mentally ill by not validating our normal reactions to abuse and toxic people.
Abuse is stemming from untreated mentally ill people: narcissists, psychopaths. They are the cause of any anxiety, they are predators. We cannot control evil people by seeking something that is "wrong" inside us.
If we are not our murdering people, if we are not evil, if we have no ill will, if we have no hidden evil agenda to cause harm to anything or anyone - there is nothing wrong with us. There is no sickness inside, there is nothing broken to overcome.
Issues as fear of being judged are trauma. This is reaction to abusive people who are mentally ill- They are mentally ill, not us.
They need to change and face consequences of their abuse -
we cannot change evil people by the power of our correct thinking. We cannot change someone evil by seeking magical cure inside us - since there is nothing wrong with us.
Labeling ourselves to "not be confident enough" will be self prophecy - label of self pathology itself will hypnotize us into low self esteem.
Self criticism and self rejection are trauma - it is conditioning, deep hypnosis that stems from untreated mentally ill people around us in our past and present. We never cut contact with toxic people and we decided to self blame ourselves.
"Control your breath"
Jung said what we resist will persist.
IF we are inside toxic ambient and around toxic people - if we decide to calm down on force - we will crap fit into abuse. We will enable abusers and normalize their abuse and conform into it.
Trauma will cause us to dysregulate and to have triggers and flashbacks - these are all trauma issue - not fault with our character.
Any civil war and attempt to control our natural reactions to toxic people will cause more anxiety. It is like urticaria or skin rash: the more you scratch it, the worse it will get.
"Work on your social skills"
People suffering from social anxiety are empathy and HSP . they already have greatest social skill: empathy. Ability to put themselves in other people shoes- which actually is causing social anxiety. If anything, lowering our high moral and ethical standards, lowering our social skills will help a lot. Self pathologizing ourselves and abusing ourselves to crap fit into conformism, herd mentality and groupthink is bad idea and it leads to mental illness and crime where we condone and enable abusers and criminals to commit criminal acts.
80% of people do not have ability to empathize - so we already have superior communication skills: listening and understanding other people's emotions.
"Lose your focus on something" "Regain your focus"
Any healthy reaction inside toxic ambient and around toxic people will have worse effect than dumb one.
Focusing on self pathology and correcting something we believe is deep fault with us - without realizing that there is external factor - will result in chronic worry, hypervigilance and more anxiety - since you will believe that there is some core fault inside your character - internalized toxic shame.
--
Social anxiety is not confidence around people - that is mere symptoms.
Public speaking is not social anxiety. Public speaking is different issue, called Performance anxiety.
Social anxiety is being stuck in toxic job with mobbing, bullying and abuse without exit strategy.
You are correct that if we believe that our anxiety is part of our character, personal flaw - we will actually create anxiety and mental illness.
IF we are not out murdering people, if we have no ill will, if we have no evil agenda to cause any kind of hurt or damage - there is nothing wrong with us.
Trauma we feel is external issue - caused by untreated mentally ill people around us.
When we are criticized in our formative years, we will feel hurt when we feel disrespected because abuse made us think that we must equate our errors with our character.
Social anxiety is experience of abuse, bullying and mobbing - it is Complex Trauma. IT is not fault in our character, instead it is experience of abuse and being in toxic ambient, around toxic people.
This is very closely linked to narcissism - since narcissist deeply have toxic shame - which they cure by abusing other people.
If we decide to focus on our confidence and machine to have conversation as our primary concern - we will develop narcissism.
With narcissism we are afraid to admit our mistakes and expose our vulnerabilities. We will try to create armor, mask, fake mask of superiority - and feel threatened when someone exposed our mistakes and secrets.
You are correct-
we need to shit our mindset that we do not equate our fears, trauma with our character. This means to allow and accept trauma and anxiety and fears - it is nothing to conquer or prove our manhood or honor. Instead of being focused on overcoming our fears - that we focus on self expression as primary concern - and along with activities which align with our wishes - we will face fears and panic. Facing fears and panic will not be primary concern, as CBT instructs us falsely.
Jung said that we accept our shadow (fears, panic, trauma) in order to be whole.
Root cause of social anxiety is exposure to toxic people and toxic ambient. We did not caused it with our "evil" thoughts or incorrect behaviour. If we believe as CBT instructs us that we are causing abuse with our thoughts or behaviour and that we need to be in civil war to correct ourselves and find perfectionism - we will never be at peace. Jung said: What we resist will persist.
No matter how perfect we are, no matter what we think in correct manner - evil things will happen no matter what. Our thoughts and behaviour cannot control other people.
---
"that's exactly what she explained only the terms used were simpler for a common man like me to understand "
Nope.
You do not see tree for a woods.
She is instructing you to self blame, to feel guilty for feeling fears. And she is telling us that we have basic flaw in our character which we must erridicate.
IF we are not murderers or gossipers of harmers - we are not sick, there is nothing to hurt.
She is telling us that deep fears and anxiety that we feel (complex Trauma) is our fault - and that we must cure it.
Trauma is not our fault.
We did not cause any abuse neither by our thinking nor by our behaviour.
In toxic ambient we will be hypnotized to believe that there is some fault with us and that we must conform to toxic society filled with groupthink and herd mentality and conformism - where higher sensitivity is seen as weakness and something to cure.
Having empathy is not sickness.
Reaction to abuse is not sickness,
There is nothing to cure,
The problem is in external : abusive people, criminally insane.
---
He is actually correct.
CBT will instruct us that our reaction to abuse (Complex trauma) is sickness.
It is not - it is reaction to mentally ill people who are narcissists and who will never seek professional help.
Then we end up with anxiety for being abused and CBT will make us believe that we are sick ones. That we need to cure fears inside us - normal reactions to criminally insane people, bullies and psychopaths like Trump or Putin.
There is nothing wrong with us if we feel anxiety and fears because we were bullied. that is totally normal reaction to abnormal people, abnormal events, abnormal situations.
The thing he is not correct about is that people do not care.
Covert narcissists care. Psychopaths care. They are predators and they watch target, in order to harm and hurt and exploit the target.
They will present themselves as friends, help or service and we will believe they are good because they appear as nice to us.
---
It is a lie that we believe that our thinking will prevent evil people. That if we correct our fears - that evil will not happen anymore.
There is nothing wrong with us -
if we are not murderers, we are not damaged, we are not faulty, we are not sick.
---
Toxic people care.
Bullies care.
Psychopaths care.
They all look their target, soak up information, present themselves as help or service - and then abuse starts.
---
Any reaction to anxiety makes anxiety worse.
IT is like urticaria or skin rash - by scratching you make it worse.
IF we breath in toxic ambient around toxic people we will crap fit into abuse and normalize abuse and enable narcissistic abuse.
Normal reaction to abnormal people is best way. Being scared and panicked in toxic ambient and around toxic people is totally normal reaction.
If we evaluate our thinking this is called micromanaging - google effects of micromanaging - it is devastating to our mental health. We speak to our brain that we are invalid and unable to handle and manage life, thus producing toxic shame which lead us to external referencing locus of control when other people are seen as good and then their moods control us: this then turns into cycle of social anxiety.
---
"but the precautionary measures must be taken by us to protect ourselves"
That is called micromanaging - google effects of micromanaging on our mental health. IT is not good.
"Good luck with correcting the world instead of protecting your ownself."
You will not protect yourself if you think that your own thoughts will prevent evil people or evil things from happening. That is mild schizofrenia.
We cannot control other people, we cannot stop evil people nor evil events by the power of our thoughts nor our thinking..
No matter how perfect your thinking is, no matter what protection you invent - evil things will happen nevertheless, bad people will still exist and your thinking will not prevent them. Belief that you can control other people is called Fallacy of control.
Since you will not actually google any new information here it is:
"The Fallacy of Control is where you assume an inaccurate amount of control in a situation or in life. You either believe you can control everything or believe you can control nothing. When you believe you control everything, you are assuming responsibility for both the pain and happiness of everyone around you."
Since you are not interested into education, you are not helping yourself at all.
Any protective mechanism is called Safety mechanism - that was discovered by Freud and his daughter 100 years ago.
You lack a lot of information in psychology and you rely on your fear and anxiety to guide you out of the Plato's cave.
Good luck with that.
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Interacting with people is not social anxiety. That is shyness and or narcissism.
Social anxiety is being stuck in toxic job with bullying, mobbing and abuse without ability to escape.
Anything else is narcissism - which narcissists mimic social anxiety in order to appear victims to attract more people as narcissistic supply.
Michael Jackson had severe social anxiety -yet he had no problem to interact at concerts, with TV media crew, appearing live at events and interacting there in public. Social anxiety is part of Complex trauma.
Believing that social anxiety is sickness to cure and overcome is narcissism.
Narcissism is insidious mental illness which is hard to discover. Narcissists like to mimic other issues to cover up basic toxic shame - belief that feeling fear is sickness and something to overcome, something to mock and ashame in others too.
You keep talking how other people are there as objects without soul - something to conquer and exploit - that is indicative you never had social anxiety at all, you are narcissist.
Idea to build muscle is narcissism - you are preoccupied with self improvement. That is trait of narcissist. You have deep toxic shame about something fearful inside you which you perceive as weakness. That is narcissism. That is not social anxiety.
The desire for self development stems from "narcissistic" desires, a tendency to self-aggrandizement and superiority over others.
Sigmund Freud
The idea that you must be in civil war with yourself to conquer parts of yourself which you see as weak and un-permissible - that is narcissism, that is not social anxiety.
You see cashier as object to use up, wipe your dirty hands on and then discard - that is narcissism, that is not social anxiety.
Comfort zone is also idea and concept which narcissist use.
Think about it logically - if comfort zone really works then third world countries would not be corruption hole filled with crime mafia and violence. If comfort zone works then prisons and slum parts of cities would not be filled with crime and drug addicts.
It would be place of prosperity and wealth.
"You are man now, king , pimp, magnet" - that are words are indicative of narcissist and narcissism. You want to be superior, someone grandiose where other people admire you.
When narcissist expose and do "progression" as you label it, and when nothing happens in real life - you will discover abuse, manipulation and control as the next step to handle other people which you see as object. Since deep down narcissist feel and think about themselves as objects. But you cover this inferiority complex up by superiority complex.
.---
You started in good direction.
The belief that our thoughts are wrong - is wrong approach, it will lead to self pathology and toxic shame.
People with social anxiety are not in group of people.
People with social anxiety are already focused on other people. This is due to trauma which is the cause of social anxiety.
It is being microscopically zoomed into other people in order to see how they act in order to prevent potential bad mood from others.
You mix up shyness with social anxiety.
For information I copy past this text to educate people what is social anxiety:
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Social anxiety is not the same as social anxiety disorder.
CBT is therapy of errors, it is based on self pathology, self blame and self hatred, narcissism basically - where we are instructed to believe that we are flawed for feeling effects of abuse and that we must find magical cure how to think in correct manner - so that evil things will magically not happen.
Exposure does not help with trauma inside us. Exposure to toxic people will not make anything better. Being in Chernobyl will not make us healthy, toxic ambient is toxic and our behaviour or thinking cannot materialize good things or make evil things to vanish. That belief that our thinking can influence external world is mild schizophrenia.
"Nobody cares except for you"
Narcissists care, predators care, bullies care. They seek ways how to manipulate, control and abuse their targets.
"Meditation"
Any reaction to anxiety creates more anxiety.
"Porn"
is not connected to social anxiety. We cannot control evil people by not masturbating. This belief leads to mental illness.
"I overcame social anxiety by approaching girls"
You never had social anxiety at all. You had shyness or narcissism.
Social anxiety is being stuck at toxic job with mobbing, bullying and abuse without means to escape. Anything other than that is narcissism. Narcissists mimic social anxiety to gain narcissistic supply: other people.
Predators and abusive people care how to groom others by honeymoon periods and playing victim.
Idea to overcome any trauma issue with self blame and self pathology (by feeling regret) is horrible advice, usually used by narcissists and covert abusive people.
---
Social anxiety is not the same as social anxiety disorder.
Being bullied traumatized, is not sickness. It is normal reaction to abnormal people, abnormal events and abnormal situations.
Idea that our valid trauma reactions to abuse is abnormal and something to cure will cause more anxiety and mental illness.
If we are not out murdering people - there is nothing wrong with us. There is nothing to cure or reject or discard.
---
Social anxiety is not the same as social anxiety disorder.
If we are not our murdering people - we are not sick. There is nothing to cure.
Instruction that our panic symptoms are illness will lead to mental illness and more anxiety. We did not cause the abuse by our thoughts nor behaviour. Neither we can influence or control evil people and evil things from happening by seeking magical mysterious perfectionist thinking pattern. Our thoughts cannot control other people. To believe that with our thinking we can control external is form of mild schizophrenia - so please stop with self pathologizing IMMEDIATELY.
You are creating more psychological damage and creating mental illness in others by labeling their trauma as sickness and personality flaw.
---
"Feeling like Defective"
That was narcissism.
You never had social anxiety.
That is why it is called social + anxiety.
You had self anxiety.
You said that you stopped focusing on yourself - because you are narcissist.
Socially anxious people are empaths, are highly focused on other people.
---
Because social anxiety is feeling defective due to abuse - there is narcissist on the other side - someone like you who is focused on egocentrism, you do not care what other people think - so with time you will start to manipulate and abuse other people and create social anxiety in other people.
You never had social anxiety.
You are narcissists, narcissism is insidious mental illness.
You decided to label issues as social anxiety since this way you can play victim and attract more narcissistic supply: other people, where you see other people as objects to use and discard when you are finished.
With superiority complex you won't notice how other people feel nor you care - since you do have mental issue inside - lack of empathy.
Social anxiety is product of abuse.
Narcissists are also product of abuse - but you consciously decide to never admit weaknesses, errors and you want to built fake mask of superiority, like your narc parents who abused you.
---
Social anxiety is part of Complex trauma.
This means - it is trauma stuck inside our body.
It is not sickness - we did not cause abuse. We did not invent abuse. And we did nothing to make abuse happening in any way.
This means - we cannot changer inside us to prevent evil from happening. There is nothing to cure inside.
If we believe that we are defective due to abuse and reaction to abuse- we will create mental illness.
Trauma that we experience (being unconfident, panic symptoms, flashbacks) are dysregulation. If we nitpick it - we will make anxiety worse.
Any reaction to anxiety is like urticaria or skin rash - by scratching it you make it worse (poison ivy).
Trauma needs to be healed by our brain feeling safe in this world. This can only be achieved by self acceptance, self validation, self love - that we are ok with our panic, fears and anxiety - we see it as external wound - it is not basic fault in our character that must be eridicated.
If we decide to fix ourselves - while in reality nothing is broken - we will create serious psychological damage inside us, we will create more anxiety and neurosis and we will live in hypervigilance.
We do not do anything- we simply shift to self-expression. Fear and trauma make us immobile and to self censor.
Our brain needs to be in sauna of love, covered with safety and security.
Once we self love - we will cut contact with toxic people and drop off toxic habits - since we will start to take care for ourselves rather than self pathologizing, self blaming and self hating.
Toxic shame is ruining our life - toxic shame is product of toxic people and toxic ambient - not our fault in our character.
Any idea to micromanaging leads to more anxiety.
---
" faking it until i made it"
Why not being yourself?
Why not show our fears?
Why hide it?
We are not out murdering people, we are not pathological liars, we are not having evil agenda to cause damage to anyone - why feel guilty for something we did not do? And to pretend to be something we are not?
---
"Your first thought is about yourself"
Nope.
People with true social anxiety are scared of people- and they follow other people's tone of voice and actions. That is why it is called social+anxiety. It is fear from people. It is not called self anxiety.
"Put focus on others"
People with true social anxiety are already focused on others.
They are already fawning to others and make others feel good and fix their moods and die trying.
"Nobody is really fousing on you"
Pathological liars are extremely focused on other people and seek easy targets: people who are desperate to talk.
Narcissists, too. Emotional vampires too. Abusers, too. Psychopaths, too. Machiavellians, too. Aggressive mentally ill people, too. Criminally insane too.
This stage of focusing on the target is called Grooming.
It seems to me that you are Rescuer inside Karpman Drama Triangle.
You have serious narcissistic issues of feeling defective - so you resolve it by giving unsolicited advice that does not work at all in real life, and make the target feeling like victim.
Please quit it.
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"Figure out what thoughts trigger your anxiety"
"Make a list of situations which make you anxious"
"Introduce yourself to situations"
"Breathing"
"Focus and connect on people"
These do not work in real life.
Any nitpicking is making allergy worse. Making list makes us aware of more fears.
If we are in toxic ambient - we cannot heal and make abuse better by exposing to toxic people.
Please do deep research in Rescuer inside Karpman Drama Triangle.
Seems to me you have some more serious mental issues than our social anxiety issues that you escape by giving unsolicited advice to easy targets to abuse and pathologize. Thank you.
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You are not out murdering people, there is nothing wrong with you. Introversion is not sickness.
Be yourself. Trying to find thinking pattern or behaviour which is not "awkward" will make you awkward. That is paradox.
IF you are not anti-social (criminally insane), there is nothing wrong with you.
Think who defines what is normal and accepted? Where these definitions are coming from?
Conformism, groupthink and herd mentality.
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Social anxiety is part of Complex trauma.
There are pathological liars who do care. Abusers also care. They look ways how to exploit and abuse manipulate and control their targets. Aggressive mentally ill people do this. Emotional vampires too. Aggressive borderliners too. Psychopaths too. Predators too. Sociopaths too.
If we decide that our thinking is defective and that we must find some miracle thinking pattern - we will develop mental illness.
If we decide to stifle down our emotions - we will develop mental illness.
If we feel unease and discomfort in social situations - this means we were abused and bullied. This anxiety did not come out of space.
Idea to use self blame (life is too short) will lead to toxic shame.
Why not accepting ourselves? Why not accepting anxiety as aftermath of trauma which we did not cause?
Why take the road of self pathologizing and self hatred?
---
"Instead, focus on something that we can control. "
This leads to micromanaging. Google the evil effects of micromanaging.
Ask yourself - why would you want to control anything?
It is because of abuse and belief that we will be punished if we are not perfect.
So abuse, bullying and mobbing is part of social anxiety.
there is trauma stuck inside our body -
and our belief that we are faulty in character that there is something bad inside our thinking and behaving - will make us more anxious and neurotic.
Trauma cannot be healed by finding perfect way of thinking.
Trauma is healed by self accepting, self validation and self love, by not hiding our mistakes nor errors and accepting our vulnerabilities as normal part of life.
---
Social anxiety is not shyness.
Social anxiety is being stuck in toxic job with mobbing, bullying, abuse without means of escape. Anything else is narcissism.
Social anxiety is part of Complex Trauma.
Belief that we are defective if we feel panic and fears is sickness and that we can fix it by finding correct way of thinking leads to neurosis and mental illness.
The idea that if and when we feel panic and fears is unmanly and therefore something to hide, discard and reject leads to mental illness. Because we reject our basic self - our honest authentic self and we try to replace it with replica, narcissistic mask. That leads to abusing other people with time - since mask, being fake will make us awkward and being fake is not functional. Being fake leads to lies and drama and secrets and control and manipulation and abuse.
If we are not out murdering people - there is nothing wrong with our anxiety, fears and trauma, there is nothing to cure, overcome, fix.
We cannot control evil people or evil situations by the power of our thinking. IF we believe we can control and materialize people and their moods with discovering our correct, clean thinking - is mild form of schizophrenia.
Trauma is dysregulation - it keeps us stuck in immobility and self censorship. This is not character flaw. This is not equated to our core being. Errors are not the same as our character.
To believe that we can magically change our thinking into magical thinking that is super confident - we will develop mental illness.
Super confidence does not exist - that is Hollywood invention to sell movies.
Socially anxious people already have superior social skills: empathy and ability to put themselves in other people's shoes. 80% of people due to egocentrism do not have this ability and they need to learn social skills since they lack empathy.
Social anxiety is after-effect of abuse and abusive people who are narcissists - who lack empathy and who are focused on super confidence - superiority complex.
Trauma is healed by showing our brain we are safe, that we are in safety and that we will take care of ourselves by pulling ourselves away from toxic people and toxic ambient and toxic habits.
You keep talking about wanting to be interesting person and to offer something. That is narcissism. Narcissism is deep core belief of being defective and that narcissists must use other people as objects and discard when finished. Narcissism is severe mental illness since it leads to criminal acts, abuse, manipulation and control , possibly to murder. Once you realize that any methods and any technique does not actually work in real world -- you will resort to abuse control and manipulation - since you are afraid of admitting your errors, mistakes, flaws and you see them as unmanly, something to reject and destroy. Self hatred leads to toxic shame and mental illness.
Self improvement is narcissism, Freud discovered this.
Maslow needs tell us if we have not satisfied our basic needs (shelter, finances, safety) we won't be able to cheat our mind and make ourselves feel self esteem. If we are inside toxic ambient - we won't make ourselves feel healthy or happy if we are surrounded by aggressive mentally ill people.
When we satisfy our basic needs - we will automatically improve in life. It will happen on its own.
If we basically believe that there is something horrible wrong with us deep down - we will always stump and never be able to walk or run in life. Narcissism is deep feeling of defectiveness which you choose to cover up with narcissistic mask of superiority to attract other people to admire you in build up narcissistic grandiosity, since you are unable to admire yourself with all covered flaws and errors.
Social anxiety is not sickness. There is no solution , since social anxiety is not issue, it is not problem.
Trauma is the only issue - and trauma cannot be healed by narcissism. Trauma was created by narcissism, someone who was abusing others to feel confident to cover up their own perceived flaws.
Bad things will happen no matter how perfectionist we are.
Bad people will materialize no matter how perfectionist we are.
We cannot control other people by the power of our thinking patterns. We cannot stop evil people from abusing others by the power of our thinking, no matter how much we practice. The urge to practice is sickness and it stems from narcissism and trauma.
What would be so inherently wrong to be ourselves?
What would evil happen if we do show our insecurities and fears?
What catastrophe would happen if we admit that we have errors and do not know something?
Why we would need to cover up our natural reactions and fears with acting superior and narcissistic?
If we are fake, we will attract fake people in our lives. That is not healthy.
---
(25.10.2022)
If we resort to violence, we prolong abuse and become abusers ourselves-
All abusers have been abused themselves.
They are passing generational curse to another generation.
The cycle must stop.
It is up to us to be adult and not spread abuse any more.
---
Panic attack can harm us - it disrupts immune system and it can trigger lupus or similar diseases.
Panic is emotional dysregulation. It is part of Complex Trauma. In childhood we never received validation and acceptance - instead we received constant criticism 24/7 and we were told that being authentic is wrong, we were punished for our emotional responses to various stimuli.
Panic attack is Charcot Hysteria - and it was studied 100 years ago. Freud and Jung discovered that it stems from autonomous part of our brain called unconsciousness. It is not hallucination.
We were abused and bullied in the past - and now we have ability to detect fake people more easily than people who were born with silver spoon in their mouth and who have all basic Maslow needs met.
If we accept explanation that panic attack is result of hallucination and that toxic people do not exist -
we will end up with fawning and people pleasing, being pushover
and we will end up in toxic ambient and among toxic people - we won't cut the contact with toxic people since CBT will instruct us that toxic people do not exist and that we are hallucinating their abuse and bullying and mobbing,
People who experience panic and anxiety have high moral and ethical standards - so lowering them helps.
If we accept CBT idea that our core character is sick and wrong due to natural experience of panic, which stem from detecting toxic people and toxic ambient - we will develop deep toxic shame. This way psychiatry can be dangerous to our mental health.
We cannot prevent evil people nor evil events by modulating or trying to fix our thinking patterns of trauma.
Trauma is not part of our character.
CPTSD is not recognized by DSM nor by CBT.
Complex trauma is suppressed and ignored by CBT since it does not contribute to money profit to Pharma mafia.
WHO's ICD--11 recognizes Complex Trauma as real issue.
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"Nobody has died from panic attack"
This information is not correct.
Panic is emotional dysregulation and it attacks our immune system. Panic can trigger lupus and similar diseases which can lead to complications leading to death.
"You never lose control"
IF we are bullied, abused, if we are in situation of mobbing - attacked verbally or physically - this is all literal definition of losing our control
"Avoiding make panic attack comes more often"
Think about it logically. IF this was true then nobody would have panic attacks at all.
Panic attack is Charcot Hysteria. You are using psychobabble by Pharma mafia which actually does nothing and does not help at all. It only makes money to medical industry parasiting over our neurosis.
---
We can't.
Panic is Charcot Hysteria.
Freud studied this 100 years ago and he discovered that it stems from autonomous part of our brain called unconsciousness.
Official medical community in USA is suppressing this information since if we get well - pharma mafia and quacks would not make profit from our neurosis,.
So we are farm of chickens being groomed for corporations wolves, giving us wrong information about our issues on purpose.
IT is Complex Trauma.
CPTSD is recognized by WHO's ICD.11
While Complex PTSD is banned by DSM and CBT in order for narcissists to make money on us,, by abusing us and keeping abuse ongoing.
When we learn about Complex Trauma - we learn that dysregulation (panic) happens due to triggers and flashbacks and it is trauma stuck inside our body.
We need to heal trauma inside us.
Trauma is healed by self validation, self acceptance, self love and cutting toxic people off - crooks and thieves like CBT.
---
Anxiety and panic are natural response to toxic people who are abusive.
If we stop our natural reactions - we will become people pleasers and pushovers. Idea to calm down is advice to crap fit into abuse.
Instead of fawning - I would go into direction of learning about narcissistic abuse, bullying, mobbing - so that we get informed how to retort to abusive psychopaths without sacrificing our soul to them.
---
@Lizzie Dizzie Yep.
When all our trials fail - we are left with Jung's Trickster as tool how to handle difficult situations and difficult people.
The reason why your cousin is successful in her manipulation is because she breaks the rules -
while you follow the unwritten rules and you try to be reasonable and adult person.
The cousin has no moral or ethical standards - and such people succeed in life - while the rest of us are left behind.
We castrate our child personalities and stifle them down and reject them, and then we are unable to understand full grown people who are stuck in childish behaviour.
We need child - unreasonable parts inside us to understand shadow in other people.
Trickster is allowing yourself to lower your own standards a bit -
and that you show by your own behaviour what is wrong.
Be unreasonable yourself.
Start play acting like your cousin - and see what will happen.
Act like her and make it into play.
Make fun of it, like Br'er Rabbit character.
All the time you try to be adult while she is behaving like a spoiled brat.
There is mis-match in communication. She does not understand the language of adult, she knows only acting like a spoiled child.
Talk in her language.
In the long run, any interaction with toxic people is unhealthy and toxic.
If I were in your situation, I would look ways how to cut contact permanently - even at the cost of relocation. Or at least minimize contact as much as possible.
You said that she acts as one person with you, and she acts differently with others. That is not good sign.
I do not understand why is she materialistic and steals from you - is she poor?
If she doesn't have you - is there possibility that she ends up homeless?
If someone is prone to steal and is obsessed with material things - it is indicative of some fear of poverty and pending doom of poverty- I would check this issues with her.
Being trickster helps us to understand other people and why they act the way they do - we stoop down to their level, and it is deeper form of empathy.
Perhaps - you are to harsh on her and she simply has no education or mental health to express her own trauma. Maybe there is some unknown issue which you are not able to see - so you see only the one side of her life - while something horrible is happening behind the scenes. Something that your mothers feels - so that might be the reason why your mother fawns to her, as you said. Is there history of mental illness in the family? Does she has some terminal disease which no one knows?
There might be some unknown shocking reason why she behaves like this.
In the end,
We cannot control other people. We cannot make them understand - that is what makes them difficult and toxic. They do not care about other people and they have no empathy, they have no ability to put themselves into other people's shoes.
If all our trials have failed - I see cutting contact, door slam as the only option.
You do not need to talk to that cousin.
You do not need to eat with her, spend free time, anything.
When we are facing abuse and toxic people -
in the end it is important that we do not become toxic ourselves. This lesson is very hard to learn since it is very tempting to become toxic, how to fight a monster without becoming one?
When we die - we will not take anything material with us - only our memories and our moral and ethical standards - how we treated other people.
If we make our abusers into prime concern - they will govern our thinking and our decisions. We will grow rancour inside us, grudge that is buried deep inside us - which will rut and make us ill.
I would work in understanding that other people who are toxic - have right to choose to be toxic.
Our task is to document the toxicity and their accountability.
What are their sins and how they affect our life?
What damage they cause and evaluate how deep their criminal acts are.
As I see from what you wrote - that cousin simply feels like part of the family and she feels entitled to take stuff from you.
Who's stuff are these?
You said that she loots the closet? Well who's stuff she takes?
You said that your cousin:
"shamelessly asks from us our precious belongings "
So - she does not actually take - she asks if she can take.
You can simply say No - for stuff that belongs to you.
It seems to me as if you are afraid to say No for some reason?
Because she is vulnerable narcissist and she makes drama if she is rejected?
I would be blunt honest with such people.
I tried to fawn to aggressive borderliners - they are also vulnerable narcissist, play act a victim all the time while they are rude and aggressive when they feel attacked.
I would not shut up to her,
and as I said, I would not make any deeper contact or any kind of interaction if possible.
---
(26.10.2022)
"Me feeling like I'm defective was narcissism"
Yep, the core issue of every narcissist is feeling deep toxic shame and then cover it up and pretend that is does not exist, like you are trying now.
If you were not narcissist, you would be aware that fears stem from fear of abuse and being punished. But narcissist have superiority complex and they never admit to be weak or to have any kind of errors.
"I am an empath"
All covert narcissists label themselves as empath and then use empathy as weapon and tool of manipulation and abuse. That is why narcissism is severe and insidious mental illness - you are not aware you have it.
Normal person would stop and think maybe I am, maybe I need to examine myself. All empaths would go through this process. But narcissists -no. They will use empathy as shield that they are allowed to do anything they want.
"That's why started to focus less on other people helped me feel less anxious."
It helped you because you are narcissist. It helps you to be selfish because you are narcissist.
Normal people are on par. There is balance between my needs and other people's needs. There is no need to focus nor to align.
"Did I come off as "attacking" in my video? Why attack me and make assumptions about me?"
Narcissism is not attack.
It is truth.
If you speak your truth - why would you attack and censor me for speaking my truth?
You are unable to think this way - because you are narcissist.
You see any truth as personal attack.
Think about it logically -
I do not know you. Why would I attack you?
Each Monday I scan social anxiety videos and your video randomly popped up - and I wrote my views.
Socially anxious people usually self censor and shut up when they see something is wrong and off.
So the better question is - why are you destroying my attempts to conquer my social anxiety?
You put yourself as the centre of the universe - you are egocentric and have serious issues with narcissism.
I would explore it in your place.
Narcissism leads to abuse and criminal activity later in life.
Once you find out that the world will not fawn over to you - no matter what magical techniques and tools you discover - you will eventually become aggressive and criminal, abusive. Seek help now when you are still young.
People with social anxiety are scared of being punished and abused -
there is no issue about themselves or how they dress or how they chatty or confident they are. The only focus is abuse and aggression as primary concern.
You mix up criticism from other people as social anxiety where your primary concern is confidence and to look smashing to others - and that is narcissism. You see other people as objects which must fawn over to you and admire you since you see yourself as grandiose and that is your primary preoccupation. You do not have social anxiety.
You have fear of not finding narcissistic supply: other people to admire and praise you.
---
I get every word.
Anyone stuck with difficult family relatives resonate with your issues.
You cannot cut these people off - they are inside the family.
Unfortunately - you are not left with much options here.
I would go into direction to confront with her crimes. You need to learn about narcissistic abuse as much as you can, so that you educate yourself what it is and what is abnormal when they start acting abnormal - so that you can speak it out. Narcissists do not take accountability for their manipulation and abuse.
We are not born with skills how to handle these predators. We need to adapt: educate ourselves and change our reactions to them - it is Darwin evolution - like rose developing thorns to protect oneself.
This part is crucial:
"She's got a natural expression coming out of her to make you look like the villian. You said "NO"........ You are villian! "
Yep-
we will be projected as bad guys when we voice out the elephant in the room.
She wants you to shut up - because your words have power - it triggers them, you uncover their fake mask and expose them as evil - and they will react aggressively when you do this.
That is why cutting contact with such people is the best option - with time they will become violent and criminal.
You will need to find perfect way how to retort to them without explosions and drama. You will need to cut contact with them without destroying the healthy parts of your family.
We are all learning how to do this. I believe we can find adaptable way how to handle narcissists without losing our cool and without being focused on them.
Keep searching and experimenting!
---
Good point.
Often enough we do not see what we are afraid of really.
In reality - I believe anyone who was traumatized, bullied - will be afraid of punishment.
But the problem is that we are not aware of if at all - and we label then our fear as weakness and default error in our core character - and then this will keep us stuck in toxic shame. That feeling fear is equal to being defective.
Another complex issue is toxic people and toxic ambient and toxic environment.
Where are are also not aware that the other person is criminally insane narcissists who cannot handle any conversation since they will find any word as insult.
IF we are not aware that the other person is mentally ill and aggressive - we will take self blame for making someone "mad" - and consequently we will start to be afraid of both confrontation and conversation - without being aware that there is nothing with us and that we are allowed to speak up and share our opinion.
---
Abuse exists. Toxic people exists.
Fear from punishment and potential harm from abuse and toxic people exists.
If we label such fears as hallucination we will develop toxic shame - and we might expose to toxic people and stay stuck with toxic people and abuse because we will make ourselves believe that fear does not exist. That is what abusive people would like us to believe - that we self blame ourselves for abuse and toxicity of other people.
The next thing happens - Putin is president of Russia and he cannot be stopped - since instead of fear everyone is hypnotized with sense of honor and nationalism.
Fear is nothing to be suppressed of ignored or mocked as not existing.
Fear is indicator we are around toxic people and abuse and that we need to do something about it in healthy manner.
---
Just remember there is nothing wrong with you, Narcissists will make you feel toxic shame, self blame and guilt - so that they can carry on with their abuse and control and manipulation.
---
The point is that your primary concern is "feeling confident". And as if you feeling non-confident is horrible thing, something to cover up and repress.
That is called "Emotional reasoning" where you equate your emotions with your character.
You feel good - you think you are good.
You feel bad - you think you are bad person.
In reality - our core true self is always ok - it is always us - it has no labels or conditions or threats how it suppose to be.
That urge to appear confident all the time is recipe for narcissism. It is not healthy.
It does not work in real life.
When something bad happens to you - you will equate it with you being awful person.
When we handle difficult situations in life - it is normal to not feel confident. IT is normal to feel bad sometimes- when things around us are bad.
IF you decide to suppress ugly emotions and expose only happy ones - you will become extremely narcissistic. IT is not healthy to be confident all the time and to deal with anything in life by trying to impose fake image of confidence.
When you try to be confident - paradox is - you will never be confident.
You will try to over-compensate it.
On the other hand - if you accept that fact where you are not confident - paradoxically you will become truly confident.
Why instead - you are not yourself? Why not being authentic? And speak truth - even when it is not confident and superior and correct?
--
"Someone unkind have underline reason."
This does not excuse their criminal activities, abuse, coercion. Being abusive is choice - there is no underline issue that makes them hypnotized and not being able to use their logical brain - it is always conscious choice to be unkind. There is no excuse for criminals being criminal.
"Cry for help"
That is recipe for Karpman Drama Triangle and being codependent - where we feel urge that we must fix other people and heal them in order to keep them calm down. This soon will (d)evolve into abuse and control and manipulation where we will fawn to difficult people and enable their abuse to continue.
"Stay calm"
When dealing with difficult people our lizard brain will be activated. This process is automatic - and we need to wait dysregulation to pass. The idea to calm down will make us more agitated and keep us longer in dysregulation.
---
" Taking some deep breaths r using the 5,4,3,2,1 technique and others have been proven to calm you down in the face of a challenging situation"
Our fear is not stemming from logical.
It cannot be "beaten" with the logic.
Any nitpicking is creating more trauma and more drama as Peter Levine said.
Also, as Jung said - any attempt to suppress our emotions will create neurosis. All our emotions have purpose and if we stifle them down - we are castrating ourselves from natural reaction and then we crap fit into abuse and actually enabling the abuse.
---
Pathological liars, coercive control - can be masked as "normal" "non-criminal" behaviour - and no matter the charm and fake niceness and acting like victim - is still criminal behaviour since it has hidden agenda against the target.
Not all abusers are overt.
Putin is represented as innocent victim and he portrays Ukraine as nazi country. He lies and pretends to be victim to the Russians. He appears as a saviour and good person with good intentions.
All serial killers appear as victims, wounded and in need - they exploit our urge to help others and be good and our equating being nice with character trait. If we are not aware that evil can hide itself behind mask of goodness, we will be victims of their abuse.
---
"actionable practical models of the mind "
Yep,
that is common mistake since we live in sick corporate matrix where money is associated with apparent health and presumed safety.
In reality - Michael Jackson has severe social anxiety. He had money, he travelled around the world, he was constantly on tv and in the media - his anxiety did not stopped him from "action".
We equate immobility with character trait - and then we try to cure our, what we believe, is illness inside us.
In reality, immobility, fear and panic and anxiety is trauma - it is not our character trait.
Unfortunately with CBT we are instructed to equate our emotions with our worth.
That is recipe for toxic shame. And mental illness. We will be forever trapped into hypnosis that there is basically wrong with us - and that if we only find some magical way of thinking pattern, that only if we find some kind of constant action - that evil will not happen, that evil people will not materialize and that we will be "strong" to handle life and problems.
In reality - evil is not connected with us.
We cannot stop evil from happening by the power of our thoughts. To believe that our thoughts materialize problems and cause evil in other people - is mild form of schizophrenia.
This way conformism, herd mentality, groupthink and corporate mindset of making money to be happy is making us sick - and it also polluted our planet - and produces aggressive, mentally ill people like Putin or Trump.
Hierarchy of Maslow needs tells us when we satisfy our basic needs - we will naturally take action in all other areas and dimension- But this happens only when we have shelter, finances, and basic security in people around us in healthy environment.
When we do not understand Maslow needs - we think we can somehow cheat life and become action Chad superiority out of nothing, by faking it. That is road to narcissism and mental illness - because in real life - as problems and evil occurs in real life - we will notice that no matter what kind of thinking pattern we discovered and no matter what actions we take - evil will stil happen.
Then, since nothing else will work - narcissists start to abuse others, control and manipulate them - and abuse makes full circle.
I would see that we start by Humanistic psychology - that we accept and validate ourselves and love ourselves as we are - with all our flaws, mistakes, errors and fears and panic and trauma.
Trauma cannot be healed by logic, nor it will go away by being Chad.
Trauma is healed when we basically feel secure in our own body and our own mind, where we see our fears and weaknesses as trauma from being abused - it is not our character trait - and thus we can accept ourselves and be patient with ourselves while we cut off toxic people and cut toxic habits - by creating basic Maslow needs to be met.
With social anxiety we are stuck with trauma and belief that the world is unsafe and that our brain cannot rely on us if we decide to ignore toxic people by taking actions and seeking some magical cure how to think straight and behave "normally".
IF we are not out murdering people, if we are not anti-social, if we are not serial killers and if we have no ill will towards other people - there is nothing wrong with us. There is nothing to fix, cure or hide away nor to suppress or repress by feeling toxic shame for having trauma.
"We have this idea that what is normal is also healthy and natural. In this culture the norm is neither healthy nor it is natural. In fact, a norm is making us sick."
YT Gabor Matè
Tom Bilyeu
---
(27.10.2022)
Crooked therapist will lead you on and on.. so that you become addicted to their crap. They are literally programmed by their mentors to keep patients hooked to drain as much money as possible.
They do this by not giving full information, by using CBT- which was invented to keep people addicted to endless therapies,- and by using double binding - which means any action in life can be labeled as sick. Check out channel called Theramine Trees - he talks about his experience where the mentor told him how to drain money from patients by using double binding.
That is why anti-psychiatry was invented in 1960s. Psychiatry can be detrimental to our mental health, the same as was the abuse which caused our mental issues.
Real therapist will do it for free if you have trouble with income - and many people who have issues do not operate with full capacity, keeping them trapped without proper education and information.
Check out Twitter. There are great therapists there (Pera), giving support 24/7 for free. You will notice that some evil therapist are attacking them - because they work for free. It is interesting to watch in how vile, disgusting and evil Trump world we live in..
CBT therapists will tell you that CBT works - but in reality CBT only works for abusers and psychopaths, since CBT is narcissistic tool created by narcissists and used by narcissists to create new narcissists:
"Many psychopaths describe the traditional treatment programmes as finishing schools where they hone their skills. Where they find out that there are lots of techniques they had not thought about before."
Robert D. Hare
---
The thing I was struggling with was fawning - I came to the point where I would automatically think of myself as guilty one and that other people are more capable and competent to anything in life - while I was inept due to social anxiety and plethora of fears stemming from such anxiety such as driving phobia. So I believed that other people are better and I must listen to them.
This made me into perfect target for narcissists and parasites and predators - perfect zombie NPC Wojak to abuse and take advantage of.
It helped me to learn about Complex Trauma - since I realized that fawning is trauma response - it is not character trait as many videos about people pleasing, CBT and books about self esteem are explaining.
Fawning is programming, hypnosis, conditioning - and I wrote about this on Twitter day before yesterday - and many people were shocked by this information, they also did not know it.
We are stuck with trauma, as Lisa said - and this makes us prime target to exploit by narcissists - since we do not have firm solid self trust inside us. Instead there is toxic shame which makes us to focus on other people to survive, we don't trust ourselves that we are capable to manage and handle life.
In reality - all people have issues of competency and narcissists learned to act confidently - to attract people like me, who are traumatized into fawning freeze reactions - so that we became free slaves to them.
Narcissism ought to become federal crime, they are criminals.
---
(28.10.2022)
My experience with CBT Exposure is that I ended up being people pleaser and pushover and I turned automatic response into fawning.
I would be accused of something I did not do - I would feel high anxiety - I would label this anxiety as hallucination (not the product of being around toxic person) and I would self blame and self pathologize my natural reactions to bullies, mobbing and abuse as my fault for not being perfect - and I would shut up and self censor my responses - since CBT instructed me to believe that
1) toxic people do not exist, that all people are good
2) that exposing is the only cure - and if I expose that this means I am healthy and all problems are cured with exposure.
Of course, exposing did not cure anything, it only made things worse.
Our safety mechanisms are protection against predators, bullies, abusers - which we do not have due to abuse in childhood. We were neglected and we received wrong information about self validation and self love and taking care of ourselves. CBT made this worse, since CBT equates our trauma, emotions and stimuli with our character, our basic trait - telling us and instructing us, hypnotizing us to believe that we are not normal if we feel scared.
That is a lie.
Our emotions are not our character. Equating our emotions trauma and anxiety with our character is called Emotional Reasoning - and CBT instructs us to have emotional reasoning. CBT will instruct us to be "Strong" and "Courageous" as if we are not already strong and courageous for having this trauma stuck inside our bodies and being malnourished without acceptance and validation. We never received the message that our emotions are valid - instead we received relentless criticism 24/7 and labels that we are not good enough, all the time.
With Exposure - our life will not get better. Trauma is still stuck inside us. Trauma is not our character, neither our trait, nor our flaw. Trauma is experience of abuse which we did not cause neither with our thinking nor with our behaviour.
Trauma is healed by self validation, self acceptance, self love and self expression - where we show up in the world as we are - not as conformist, not as groupthink nor as herd mentality.
CBT and corporations and psychopaths masked as help will lie to us that is we are scared that we will not succeed in life.
That is a lie.
Michael Jackson had severe social anxiety - and he had successful life, travelling around the world, he was in media all the time, his name will be remembered in the future.
Salvador Dali also had severe social anxiety and he also had different sexual lifestyle in the age of fascism and false morality - and this did not prevent him from being world famous painter.
Cher also had severe social anxiety - and she was very successful entertainer and singer from 1960s onwards - her entire life. Anxiety did not prevent her from being successful.
If we listen to CBT and devote our primary focus on panic symptoms - that is what we will get. We will label ourselves as defective and invalid and we will be preoccupied with "exposure" and not with self-expression.
Instead of CBT which ought to be banned - there is Humanistic psychology/therapies which actually helps.
---
I learned about PureOCD in 2015 - it was huge revelation to me back then - since I discovered that the only issue with social anxiety are actually intrusive thoughts. There was advice about PureOCD is that we expose and then shift our thinking into something more positive. This advice worked well for a couple of months until I experiences mobbing and abuse and bullying at work.
Back then I did not know why suddenly PureOCD advice is no longer working. I was stuck in thinking and ruminating what other person said, and what I ought to retort back, and what kind of person I am - am I suppose to be peaceful guy and let it go - or is my mission to teach other people about their rude behaviour - and I did not know how to handle difficult people. Information available at self help books, videos and therapy was confusing and not helpful at all.
Until 2021.
When I read general health book which included psychology section - I learned that obsessive intrusive thoughts are PTSD.
There are flashbacks and triggers with cause dysregulation, amygdala hijacking.
Now this finally made sense.
In 2009 I read one UK book about social anxiety - and the author said in that book the same thing as you said - that there is brain lock, as if in shifting gears - our brain gets locked and flood of hormones and stress keep rushing in - since there is no natural way to close the shifting doors - so we get dysregulated.
Well -
it seems that all this information was wrong.
Very soon after I read about PTSD I discovered that there is Complex PTSD.
And that CPTSD information is banned by DSM and CBT. While in the same time it is acknowledged and described in WHO's ICD-11.
After this information - I learned about it more and more
and I learned helpful concepts about psychology - which I actually am still learning and I am placing it in my YT playlist called Psychology.
Polyvagal theory is one of the concept which is not recognized by Pharma mafia CBT - which is making money on our neurosis and misleading us with false and wrong information to make money on our fears.
Polyvagal theory states that when we get triggered and with flashbacks - we will get dysregulated and our trauma responses will be activated.
This means - our fears are not our character, it is not our trait, it is not sign that we are weak or unmanly of failures, as CBT instructs us to believe. Or that there is some basic flaw in our brain. There is injury in our brain - long term exposure to narcissistic abuse causes brain injury - which are triggers and flashbacks.
With CPTSD information (and there are amazing resources on YT such as CrappyChildhood Fairy or Lisa Romano or Marshall Butcher) I learned that the abuse in our childhood caused anxiety issues.
Anxiety therefore is natural reaction to toxic people and toxic ambient - it is not something to label as personal flaw. It is not something that we need to fight. Anxiety is simply reaction to trauma. As if we were hit and injured - and our wounds are our anxiety. We cannot be mad or disgusted at our wounds - we did not cause them, they are not our character nor our trait.
Trauma is healed by self care. Our brain will not feel safe if we do not show our brain that we will take care of ourselves - such as cutting contact with toxic people as soon as we recognize them. We do not cut contact with toxic people because we are good, nice people - as you said - we are afraid of appearing too angry or aggressive - even though we are far from being evil. That is result of abuse. Our natural traits and reactions were labeled as wrong and evil by toxic people around us in our formative years.
This happens because we are not aware that there are predators and parasites and toxic people around us. Instead we label ourselves as evil for reacting to evil people - for which we are explained that toxic people do not exist.
And then we force ourselves to not take care of ourselves. We will self blame and self hate ourselves and self sensor ourselves.
That is all complex trauma. This is not our basic trait - it is result of growing up in environment where we were not validated - instead we were put down and criticized relentlessly 24/7 in times when our psyche was forming and when it was suppose to learn to feel safe and loved in the world and that we needed to learn to self rely on our self worth.
When we believe we are invalid - we will develop toxic shame and we will destroy our self worth.
Without self worth - we won't be able to function in this world. We will depend on other people to define our worth - and this is why perfectionism springs up. We depend on other people to define what is valid and good. That is also called trauma bonding and Stockholm Syndrome - and this is basically social anxiety. Social anxiety is part of CPTSD.
Exposure will not help us - since CBT will tell us that we will be good and healthy if we expose. This is equating our character with external events. That is not healthy. Intrinsic locus of control is healthy. External referencing locus of control is unhealthy.
We won't get rid of evil by believing that if we are strong and courageous if we face our "fears" anxieties and OCD.
If we are made to believe that our fears anxiety and OCD is something to overcome and expose - we will create mental illness.
Because we will equate our basic character as faulty and wrong - while in reality our fears, anxiety and OCD is trauma - it is external, it does not belong to us. There is nothing to overcome inside us. Our fears are triggers from past abuse. Trauma is also external event - that we did not cause by our behaviour nor our thinking pattern. So Exposure will not correct our thinking nor behaviour. We will not make evil people nor evil events to vanish if we are obsessed with seeking perfect ways to expose or to think or behave. Our thinking or actions are not causing evil people to be evil. Evil people are evil because they are psychopaths - and we are not able to control other people. CBT instructs us to believe that we can manage and control other people by our thinking and behaving. That is instruction to develop mild form of schizophrenia.
That is why CBT is damaging to our psyche - it sets us up to wrong direction, it makes and creates new anxieties and mental disorder.
Trauma is healed by self acceptance and self validation. There is nothing to fix inside us. Our thinking does not need to conform to other people. We can be pioneers and different than herd mentality.
IF we are not out murdering people, if we are not serial killers, if we do not have hidden agenda to cause harm to other people - there is absolutely nothing wrong with us, there is nothing to change or modulate or show or display to someone that we are man enough, strong or courageous enough to be accepted in society.
---
If you believe your negative and intrusive thoughts stem from you - you will develop toxic shame. You will believe that you have basic flaw in your character - this is road to toxic shame and destruction of self worth. Without self worth we cannot function in this life - when we can rely on our brain and decisions and stand by with our mistakes and be willing to be wrong and make mistakes - which is prerequisite to anything in life when we need to take some action.
Meditation is ok - but what happens when something bad and evil happen , and you cannot calm down with mediatation.
Then meditation will become prime focus, obsession and you will equate your character with this "cure" for anxiety. You will become addicted to things which "calm" you down. That will end up with addictions and whole plethora of safety mechanisms and addictions.
Negative and intrusive thoughts are connected to external factor - not our brain or character trait.
True cause are toxic people. Psychopaths, abusers, bullies, emotional vampires, parasites.
These predators do not always come in overt package.
More often they cover up their true evil with mask of appearing as friendly , nice and good.
Due to trauma, we split life into - what appears nice - gets automatic grant to our deep core being - to our money, focus and attention. This way virus can infect us - and we have no idea we have external disease inside us.
When this happens - our attempt to meditate and get rid of negative thoughts is really bad idea.
With calming down we crap fit into abuse. We allow virus inside us to exist - and our natural reactions to evil in form of negative and intrusive feelings - we attempt to destroy - since due to trauma splitting we equate something uncomfortable as evil.
This way psychopaths function undetected in life.
We need to realize all our emotions are valid - and they are not supposed to be repressed.
Even grammar school kids know this fact without trainings in psychology.
---
You are actually onto something. But mixing up religion with psychology is really a bad idea.
You are correct -
Intrusive thoughts are caused by toxic people - they do not belong to us. It is alarm and sign we are in toxic ambient and in the presence of evil, someone psychopathic, yeah - probably obsessed by satan.
However we cannot include religious explanations in psychology - since psychology itself cannot describe the human mind due to complexity.
Even psychology then creates damage since it tries to describe complex concepts via rigid and poor psychological descriptions, as CBT does.
I would go into Humanistic therapies direction of self acceptance and self validation -
but I would keep religion in its own sector, where it naturally belongs.
---
(30.10.2022)
Social anxiety is part of Complex Trauma. It is the result of trauma, mobbing, bullying, abuse.
Social anxiety is not ego trip, it is not about confidence. If you suppress, deny or don't have abuse as the cause of social anxiety - there is narcissism behind it.
My goal and my point is to make these two facts absolutely clear - since most social anxiety information is muddled with explanations that you profess.
I do not have any personal grudge against you - I am commenting your views and arguments and I present my views about them.
I am not trying to change your mind, nor force you to believe into anything.
I believe in freedom of thinking and freedom to choose.
I do believe it is fair that truth is spoken - so anyone can make rational decisions with all sides taken into consideration, not only one egocentric angle.
---
(31.10.2022)
If you call girls bitches, you do not have social anxiety. You have narcissism and feel narcissistic injury - which you label as social anxiety, since you find mimicking shyness attracts you more victims.
---
"And if you don't have looks on your side, you need to have the skills/talent to compensate"
This is called overcompensation of inferiority complex, and it is very unhealthy decision.
---
"Your outlook on life is determined by your experiences."
Ok.
So what is next.
This statement does not tell anything new, neither does it help about social anxiety. In fact it may make social anxiety worse.
"If you have overwhelmingly negative experiences, you're bound to have a negative outlook on life."
We all have negative experiences which are always mysterious, unexpected, overflowing and we are never prepared for them.
What is next?
How we go on with life when everything is negative.
We need to learn psychology and philosophy to know what is next.
---
"Treatable condition"
If you label it as "condition", you will hypnotize abused, traumatized people with already present toxic shame and guilt, as if other people are "cured" and without condition and that our character is basically flawed and sick. Horrible approach.
Social anxiety is part of Complex Trauma. Someone struggling with social anxiety was in toxic ambient during formative years when the psyche was developing. Instead of validation and safety the psyche received invalidation, constant criticism, perfectionism, neglect and abuse. This is not character flaw. This is trauma of psyche which went through narcissistic abuse for extended period of time in early years when psyche was forming. There is injury, not "condition" with core being.
Equating our emotions and emotional state with "condition" in character is called Emotional reasoning and it leads to mental illness, toxic shame and that false and dangerous hypnotic conditioning message from society is at the core of social anxiety.
If any condition there is - it is external condition: abuse, trauma and toxic shame - which is internalized toxic shame from external source: bully, abuser, untreated mentally ill person in our close midst.
---
Social anxiety is part of Complex Trauma.
Social anxiety is not sickness, there is nothing to fix. Social anxiety is not bad - without it we would be aggressive mentally ill person like Trump of Putin. Social anxiety allows us to stop our incoherent actions of anger and reduce it in non-action or being careful how we speak to each other, preventing narcissistic abuse to spread.
People are not trash. We cannot treat other people as garbage. Social anxiety allows us to be kind and nice to other people. That is not sickness , there is nothing to fix there.
IF we have issue which prevents us doing something in social situations - that is trauma. There was bullying, mobbing, abuse by untreated mentally ill person who have no social anxiety - so such mentally ill person abused socially anxious people into trauma.
"Awkward people"
What label is that?
Can you explain what is Awkward person? Are you a God that is ultimate judge about what is awkward?
Should we rely on your explanations and definitions what is awkward and what is not? Why don't you proclaim yourself as Emperor of Universe and give us your explanations about anything in life, so we can align our lives according to your views.
"Social anxiety is something you turned yourself into"
Horrible definition. You are equating emotions with character. That is social anxiety itself. You are equating emotions with character, with self worth. That is road to mental illness and toxic shame and narcissism.
All emotions are valid- if you decide to label certain uncomfortable emotions as disgusting and something to reject - you will develop mental illness. Even grammar school kids without any psychological education knows that suppressing your emotions is not healthy.
"You are socially awkward because you spend your life isolating yourself"
You are talking nonsense. Please stop it, you are spreading false and detrimental information.
Michal Jackson had severe social anxiety. And his life was filled with live concerts around the world, he was in media all the time, he stared in movies, his videos are on tv all the time, he was very rich and had family - so no, he was not isolated all the time at all.
Cher also had severe social anxiety -and she had hit TV show in 70s and also famous singer worldwide.
Salvador Dali had severe social anxiety - yet everybody knows him, he travelled around the world, was very productive, even made movie with Hitchcock and Disney.
"staying inside comfort bubble"
You are not so smart.
Think about it more logically. If comfort is the cause of social anxiety - how come third world countries are filled with chaos, violence, aggression and social unrest - with very much socially outgoing criminals who are living in poor countries. Prisons are far from being comfortable and we do not see prisons as the hotbed of organization, progress and development - in fact slum part of cities are filled with hard drugs and crime. You are spreading false information.
"Never bring balls to practice and become better"
First, anyone who was traumatized have balls to face life after severe abuse in environment where escape was not possible,
Secondly, urge to become better is narcissism. You are mentally ill, you have narcissism. You are no different than serial killers and abusers, Stalin and Hitler who "overcome" their abuse by ignoring it and trying to appear with superiority complex and false narcissistic mask of superiority.
In reality - Maslow needs tell us that we cannot become better if we have not satisfied our primary needs - Maslow hierarchy of needs. Basic needs are shelter, finances and safety.
If you decide to label your abuse as sickness and built fake persona on crap - you will develop severe mental illness, narcissism.
After year or two when you realize that you narcissistic attempt to nitpick your psyche by becoming fake supermen is not working, as any narcissist - you will start to abuse other people, becoming more violent and lean on criminal activities to sustain your superiority idea of entitlement. And this all stems for not having balls to face your trauma, since you consciously choose to pretend to be something else. That is being coward. You are nothing but pathetic coward hiding behind fake image of superiority.
Instead of giving "advice" of social anxiety to easy victims of your abuse,
learn about Rescuer inside Karpman Drama Triangle. You are trying to feel good by abusing others, patronizing others and pontificating others. You still have social anxiety inside you, and you "fix" it by narcissism, mental illness.
"Do these things"
You are giving advice to trauma abuse sufferers to hide trauma and abuse and replace it with toxic shame.
Please seek help. You are mentally ill. Stop spreading abnormality to healthy people. You need professional help.
Narcissism is severe mental illness. You will end up killing people if you do not seek help.
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"Anxiety is just imagination in the wrong direction. Meditation is easily the most valuable thing to help with anxiety"
BS.
Any attempt to fix trauma will make it worse. Like skin rash or urticaria - the more you scratch it, the worse it gets.
Trauma is healed by self validation, self love and acceptance.
Anxiety is not imagination. Anxiety stems from unconsciousness, it was studied 100 years ago by Freud and Jung.
Please learn more about social anxiety, since you are creating mental illness in yourself by self pathologizing yourself.
Just imagine if you are in abusive situation- and you feel natural social anxiety in the presence of abnormal abusive person. Do you actually think that mediation will help you? Or that it will help that you label anxiety as hallucination, as if abuse do not exist?
Brain exist for 6 millions of years. Darwin evolution made it to be focused on the danger and detecting predators and covert narcissists who appear as "friend" or "help". Do you actually think that you will somehow nitpick and modulate brain so that brain becomes your pleasure machine which serves you to feel good and happy all the time?
Can you see how unreasonable and dangerous would that be?
You would be eaten alive by sick mentally deprived dangerous people around you. Because you would seek fun and peace and mediation with sick abusive monsters whos only purpose in life is to kill you for their fun.
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Self improvement is narcissism, a severe mental illness.
We will self improve automatically as soon as we satisfy Maslow hierarchy of needs - no need to cheat and to pretend to be fake narcissistic superman overcompensating inferiority complex.
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Social anxiety is not sickness.
Not talking to someone is trauma, CPTSD. Social anxiety is reaction to abuse, bullying, mobbing - it is not character flaw, it is automatic reaction.
Social anxiety allows us to have empathy and to put ourselves in other people shoes.
Fear of judgement is called Fawning in trauma response. This is trauma - this is not character trait, something to fix. Trauma is injury, this is not personality trait.
The reasons we are socially anxious stems from fear of abuse.
Narcissists who mimic social anxiety are focused on rejection and confidence. True social anxiety stems from trauma and abuse.
Darwin evolution tells us that our brain is developed in 6 millions years to detect predators. That is primary focus of brain. The fear of judgement and rejection is not primary focus. Fear of not being confident stems from artificial mentally ill narcissistic brain which is focused on control other people and abusing other people into control and manipulation.
If we decide to equate our emotions with our character trait - we will develop mental imbalance. This is called Emotional reasoning.
All emotions have purpose and it is bad idea to label certain uncomfortable emotions as dangerous, stupid or disgusting.
Even grammar school kids without psychological education know that suppressing emotions leads to mental illness.
There is nothing wrong with our core being. If we start to decide that there is something wrong with us due to our emotions, we will develop deep toxic shame - and mental illness with time.
The idea that we nitpick and modulate our emotions leads to Micromanaging. Micromanage ends up with hypervigilance and anxiety - with social anxiety/trauma we already are doing it.
Trauma is healed with self validation, self love and acceptance. With trauma we do not feel safe in this world, due to abuse we fear other people. We need to feel basic safety in world and among people - and we can only do this by accepting our core self, our self worth. Then we will take care of ourselves which means detecting toxic people and abusers and covert narcissists who appear as "friend" and "help" offering us their explanations, definitions that we must accept in order not to be rejected by them.
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Confidence is paradox.
If you want to have it - you will overcompensate and never achieve it.
If you accept that you do not have it, paradoxically you will become confident -
since other people will not be able to hurt you when you accept all your flaws.
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Why you feel you must have leader to change anything?
Why would you not trust yourself and stop being codependent on Karpman Drama Triangle to explain you yourself and your life?
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Social anxiety is used by narcissist to influence and abuse other people.
Narcissist mimic social anxiety to appear as victim to others in order to control and manipulate the masses - narcissists have strong urge to tell other people how they should live, what is wrong with them and narcissist present themselves as cult leaders - this stems from deep social anxiety, toxic shame and unresolved trauma which they have no courage to face. Instead they decided to appear superior and put on fake mask of superiority -and then gather feelings from other people's admiration and appraisal to feel good about themselves.
Narcissists need narcissistic supply - other people.
True socially anxious person is anxious due to abuse from such narcissists.
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Load of false and detrimental information.
Social anxiety is not awkwardness, likability nor rejection. Social anxiety is part of Complex Trauma, it stems from experiencing abuse, trauma, toxic people. It is protection mechanism for traumatized children growing up in toxic environment with covert narcissistic issues like yourself.
Why would we make friend with everyone?
There are abusive people out there, predators and covert narcissists as you - who are presenting themselves as Rescuer in Karpman Drama Triangle, but in reality are pathetic cowards unable to resolve their own personal issues so they pretend to be Jesus Christ and meddle into other people's lives offering them advice which does not work in real life.
Any strategy to anxiety leads to more anxiety. It is like urticaria, allergy skin rash - the more you scratch it, the worse it gets.
Social anxiety is trauma, it stems from toxic shame being around condescending, patronizing covert narcissistic monsters like yourself - who gave us false and detrimental messages about our self worth in our formative years.
If we add more toxic shame by self pathologizing ourselves - we will feel more anxiety.
Micromanaging is not healthy. It leads to hypervigilance and anxiety.
Social anxiety is not sickness, nor it is condition of having or not having friends.
Not having friends stem from trauma and toxic shame. It stems from abuse where we were abused by other people.
Problem is in the external - not in our thoughts or character.
Your "advice" adds up to anxiety and toxic shame - because you assume we have some basic fault in our character which is sick and which we must nitpick and micromanage into "normality". This is recipe for narcissism and mental illness and more anxiety.
Social anxiety is not lack of social skills. Socially anxious people already have empathy and are HSP - which 80% of people are not. Having empathy is superior social skill which most people do not possess.
Socially anxious people are traumatized. Trauma is not perception - it is external injury caused by abusive people like you - covert narcissists who present themselves as "help" and "good" with "good intentions".
Please just stop, you are adding more toxic shame and anxiety to traumatized people.
Instead focus on your own narcissism and mental illness, you have severe ego issues far from normal.
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There is nothing to overcome. Trauma which is cause of social anxiety is healed by self validation, self acceptance and self love.
Emotions are not related to social anxiety.
Social anxiety is deep core toxic shame - due to abuse, bullying and mobbing experience - where we learned that our emotions and our character are the same, emotional reasoning.
The anxiety we feel, fears - are trauma response. This is not our character trait.
This means - there is nothing to control-
we heal trauma by knowing what is dysregulation.
Being nervous, leading up to event - this is emotional dysregulation. This is not our core self, this is not our character trait.
There is nothing to fix about this fear and nervousness.
Anxiety tells us that we were abused.
The message of our social anxiety is that there are covert narcissists out there - there are untreated mentally ill people out there - which we do not recognize as toxic. Instead we accept them and we heal our loneliness by exposing to these people, making contact with them.
Our anxiety are telling us that our brain wants us to keep us safe.
Brain and anxiety try to tell us that avoidance is ok - and not talking to people is ok - if we have no knowledge about narcissistic abuse. We need to learn about covert abuse, cover narcissism.
Brain exists for 6 millions years - and it is built on detecting predators. Darwin discovered this phenomena with evolution theory.
Brain is not built to make us happy or to make us to have fun. Primary concern of brain to protect us.
It has been doing this for millions of years. We cannot nitpick or micromanage our brain into "normality" and conformism and group think and herd mentality and invented Hollywood marketing idea of confidence.
What we need is to learn how to retort to people and speak less and avoid people in general if we do not know them.
Our brain wants us to learn about recognizing toxic people. Brain wants us to cut toxic people off.
That is why we have social anxiety. It is self protection and adaptation to abuse and predators.
Idea that we must be people pleasers and fawn to others will make us anxious.
There are a lot of abusers our there, predators, manipulators, untreated mentally ill people out there - anxiety warns us to learn about them and how to survive and adapt to toxic environment if we are unable to escape from toxic ambient.
Idea what is awkward in social situations is tool for narcissistic abuse. This is tool to create toxic shame inside us.
With shame and guilt - we become zombie, and other people can control us easily.
Instead of fearing other people - once we learn that toxic people exist - we can focus on self expression and being ourselves.
Michael Jackson, Cher, Salvador Dali - they all claimed to have severe social anxiety - yet they were doing what they like, they are famous and wealthy and everyone knows their name. Social anxiety is not sickness, it is not character trait, it is not character flaw.
IF we are not out murdering people, if we are not having hidden agenda to harm anyone, if we are not anti-social - there is nothing wrong with us.
Trauma is external issue - it stems from external factors: toxic people, manipulation, abuse, toxic shaming.
Trauma is healed by trusting ourselves and relying on our own identity - who we are deep inside, intrinsic locus of control.
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Social phobia is archaic term, it was replaced in 1990s when "experts" realized that this is not phobia.
Phobias are cured with repeated exposure - while social anxiety lingers on due to rumination and hypervigilance.
Social anxiety is part of Complex Trauma.
It stems from being abused, there was bullying, abuse, mobbing.
Trauma is healed by self validation, self acceptance, self love and self expression.
Social anxiety panic symptoms are dysregulation. Emotional dysregulation happens due to triggers and flashbacks, often similar or connected to original abuse - screaming, yelling, temper tantrums, criticism, judgement, negative evaluation.
Dysregulation cannot be removed - this is reaction. This is trauma being stuck inside our body like energy, like electric discharge which cannot be discharged so it is inside us like in a battery - and gets sparky with abusive people who trigger us.
If we decide to equate our fear with our character flaw - we will create neurosis and mental illness and more anxiety.
Social anxiety disorder is not domino effect- social anxiety disorder is part of paranoid delusional disorder - where you hallucinate abuse. This information is muddled by CBT and DSM since mental industry makes huge money profit on human neurosis. Pharma mafia.
This information is muddled deliberately by Pharma mafia:
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Phobias are cured by repeated exposure to fear object.
I see fear of spiders as something normal.
There are toxic spiders in India, it is normal to be afraid of something that can kill you.
You might expose yourself to safe spiders - but keep on mind that is it normal to have fear from toxic spiders.
The only way to beat phobia is exposure. There is no other way.
Dogs the same thing - there are dangerous dogs out there. It is good to have fear from dogs and that you avoid them.
Do not spend much thinking about it, you have no sickness inside you. There is nothing wrong with your phobias to spend a minute or second thinking about it.
Social anxiety is not phobia. We cannot "get rid" of fear from people - since there are abusive people out there. IT is normal to cut contact with predators and mentally ill people who present themselves as friend.
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Social anxiety is not character flaw. Social anxiety is not sickness. There is nothing to cure.
Social anxiety allows us to treat other people nicely and with kindness.
Social anxiety pain, fear and panic stems from trauma, Complex PTSD.
This means we experiences abuse, mobbing, bullying. Abuse was not our fault. We did not cause abuse by our thinking pattern nor by our behaviour. Evil people abuse because they are mentally ill and we cannot fix evil people by correcting our thoughts or our behaviour.
If we equate our trauma anxiety, fears and panic as our basic flaw in our character, something to cure, overcome, destroy and suppress - we will develop mental illness and toxic shame. We need to accept ourselves as we are to heal trauma.
Rejecting our self is trauma and repetition of abuse.
That is social anxiety.
Feelings of rejection, not having sex, feelings of inhibition that are focused on confidence and self entitlement and inability to control and manipulate other people - is narcissism. This is not social anxiety. It seems as social anxiety, but it is not social anxiety at all.
That is narcissistic injury which springs up when narcissist does not receive admiration and appraisal from other people which they feel entitled to receive due to entitlement and idea of self grandiosity.
For narcissists - other people are narcissistic supply and they will feel social inhibition fears when this supply is not available.
Then they will label it as social anxiety to entice sympathy in others and thus manipulate other people, their targets into abuse, manipulation and control. That is not social anxiety. That is narcissism. Narcissism is severe mental illness -
because narcissists will very soon discover that narcissistic supply cannot make them feel good nor whole - since self is false and based on mask. Since nothing will make them feel good about themselves - they will soon broaden their attempt to control and manipulate other people with violence and criminal acts, represented as good intentions and explained as social anxiety.
Social anxiety for empaths and HSPs - people who are not covert narcissists - means to accept oneself as they are. There is no shying away from our panic symptoms - which are automatic due to trauma. There is therefore nothing to fix inside us. Fear is not competition as narcissists see it - something to improve, conquer and seek admiration from others.
Fear is automatic response to experience of abuse, bullying and mobbing.
Socially anxious true empaths and HSPs need to learn about narcissistic abuse which was the cause of trauma.
This means learning red flags how to recognize psychopaths, sociopaths, narcissists. Then cut toxic people and avoid predators as much as possible, relocate if necessary.
We will self improve automatically once we take care of our basic Maslow needs, there is Maslow needs hierarchy -
of course we will feel fears and panic if we do not have finances, shelter and basic security in people around us that they won't harm of backstab us - as we were in the past.
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If we label our social anxiety as character flaw and problem - we will create more anxiety and panic.
If we have urge to get rid of anxiety - we will create narcissism and mental illness in return.
Social anxiety is not sickness. Social anxiety is not character trait. Social anxiety stems from Complex trauma.
Need and urge to be like others, being preoccupied with other people is narcissism. Where other people are narcissistic supply.
If we equate our emotions and trauma with our character trait - we will develop deep toxic shame, and mental illness. That is called Emotional reasoning.
People who were traumatized will self blame and develop toxic shame. This is where personalization stems from. This is reaction to toxic people, untreated mentally ill people who abused us, where we were exposed to relentless criticism 24/7, constant nagging. Now as result of this hypnosis and conditioning, we have inner critic.
Problem here is not our thinking pattern nor our behaviour. It is trauma. Trauma is external injury, trapped inside our body.
IF we believe that we must micromanage our thinking - we will develop hypervigilance.
It is normal to be afraid of unknown not because this is our character trait - but because brain is 6 millions years old, it was built on detecting predators and adapting to toxic ambient for 6 millions of years. Brain is not built to make us happy or confident, primary concern to brain function is to keep us safe. Darwin discovered this 100 years ago.
Socially anxious people already have far superior skills than other people - empathy which 80% of people do not possess.
If you tell someone who has high moral and ethical norms to develop something - you are adding up to toxic shame already present. Few seconds ago you said that socially anxious people have to accept and identify, recognize there is nothing wrong - and then you say that skills are flawed and non existent. Wrong approach.
I copy paste this section of information because it is purposely muddled by medical community in USA.
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Social anxiety is part of Complex Trauma. It stems from situations where we were bullied and abused, traumatized.
Then we equated our fears, panic and anxiety with our character. We believed that our thoughts and behaviour somehow caused this bullying and abuse. It didn't. We did not cause evil people , we did not provoke them by nothing. They are evil.
Our anxiety tries to tell us that we need to learn that there are evil people out there and many of them are covert - hidden and appear as friend and help to us.
If there is control, manipulation, temper tantrums, mocking - this is abuse, that is not help, that is not friendly.
The more we become aware that some people are toxic and ought to be avoided and cut off from our life - our anxiety will lessen.
Socially anxious people already to look at other people - they look at others to seek clues of potential danger and abuse due to previous abusive experience.
Therefore there is nothing to cure, overcome or fix. Trauma inside us is healed by self validation, self acceptance and self love and self expression. Fears and panic we feel is not tool to fight and prove someone that we are man enough or strong. That is abuse, belief that we must be good enough in someone else's eyes is narcissism and it stems from being exposed to narcissistic abuse.
Feelings of panic and fear are not our character trait, there is no fault in our character. That is called dysregulation - and it is totally normal reaction to abuse, being exposed to toxic people, psychopaths and sociopaths, emotional vampires, predators.
We can only wait for the storm to pass - there is no need for micromanaging and nitpicking our thinking or behaviour to crap fit into abuse and conformism.
We do not need to be friends with everyone. It is ok to have boundaries, especially when we have ability to detect fake people due to social anxiety and trauma, previous exposure to toxic people who causes us to now feel social anxiety.
It is important not to equate our anxiety with our basic trait.
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You are allowing Chad to make you believe you have sickness and that you must obey and follow his Chad cult following.
He is doing this because he is narcissist - he does not care about you. He wants your admiration and appraisal because he is narcissist. You are having Stockholm syndrome where you allow other people to control and manipulate you.
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What happens when people are not nice - but in fact they are predators, pathological liars and manipulators - but you cannot see it since they are pathological liars.
What then?
Is if normal and healthy to base your self worth and your outlooks on life based on other people and their explanations?
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"Social anxiety disorder, also called social phobia, is a long-term and overwhelming fear of social situations. "
Social anxiety is not the same as social anxiety disorder.
Also, social anxiety is fear of criticism and negative evaluation - not social situations itself.
Social anxiety stems from Complex Trauma. It stems from abuse, bullying and mobbing.
Fear at party, talking to authority, presentation - are not social anxiety.
Social anxiety is being stuck in toxic job with mobbing and abuse and bullying and you cannot leave such situation of duty. That is social anxiety. Shyness feelings at party is not - because socially anxious person will not go to parties. They will fawn to authority. While Presentation is not social anxiety - that is called Presentation anxiety.
"Boring, self focused" - social anxiety is called social + anxiety - it is not called self anxiety.
This happens because CBT does not recognize and cannot differentiate narcissism from social anxiety, it fused it together and believe covert narcissists when they are giving false information to therapist since they are pathological liars.
Safety seeking behaviour - if we focus our attention - we will cause more anxiety. This is why CBT is detrimental. It is focused and zoomed into normal panic reaction to abuse. This way CBT is self pathologizing abused and traumatized individuals and creating more anxiety and leads people into mental illness. This way psychiatry can be detrimental to our mental health.
"People are not observant, they do not notice" "When they notice, they like it"
This statement is false.
There are predators, covert narcissists, aggressive borderliners who notice and exploit it later on during narcissistic abuse, controlling and manipulation.
Social anxiety stems from abuse - so it is easier to notice and recognize fake people like covert narcissists.
That is a good thing. This is not sickness. Ability to detect hidden predators is normal human behaviour. There is no sickness here.
"Neutral thinking habits"
This is advice to Micromanage - micromanaging is detrimental and leads to hypervigilance and anxiety. Horrible advice.
Our thinking cannot influence other people to not be evil. Our thinking neutral will not cause evil people to stop being evil.
This way CBT is instructing us to develop mild form of schizophrenia and narcissism - where we are instructed to stifle our emotions and build fake persona as with goal to control external events with our thoughts and behaviour.
CBT and DSM does not recognize CPTSD (which is different from PTSD) - because it is easier to control and manipulate masses into spending money on useless therapies. WHO's ICD-11 recognizes Complex Trauma as real issue.
CBT gives us useless advice about exposure and experiments, but CBT does not offer any advice how to deal with true cause of social anxiety: predators, covert narcissists, bullies, abusers, aggressive mentally ill people, emotional vampires, parasites, pathological liars. CBT will instruct us to have assertiveness - but engaging into endless conversation with evil people does not help - it makes narcissists stronger when we do not cut contact from them, narcissists feed on drama and free information to use later on against the target.
Negative image stems from CBT explanation that emotions are the same as character trait.
This ways CBT creates mental illness.
Our emotions are not the same as core being. This equating our emotions with our character trait is called Emotional reasoning.
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I almost activated Spanish inquisition and attack you for not knowing about social anxiety. 18 minutes seemed too long to listen,
I am glad I did - you know social anxiety alright. It is correct what you are talking,
I would like impose myself and I would to add a few words here and there:
"judgement over being anxious"
Yep.
I call this equating our panic, fears with our character trait. That is Emotional Reasoning.
People judge this because society labels fears as un-masculine and sissy - and this way any fear is seen automatically as character flaw which must be hidden and mocked and suppressed.
This way society hypnotizes us into mental illness. Because we will experience fears all the time in social situations - and any time it springs up - the socially anxious person will be conditioned to believe there is some basic core fault with their mind and behaviour. That is toxic shame. With toxic shame we do not have self worth - and without self worth we will not have ability to function in life - we won't have confidence and self esteem. Because any fear will be reminder - that we are crap being. This happens due to toxic ambient and toxic environment.
"Fight flight"
There is also Fawn response - and many people who are instructed to "expose" will go into social situations with goal to make friends and to "conquer" social anxiety in order not to be "defective" or "sissy" - and the next thing that happens with toxic shame inside us - is that we will fawn to other people. We will see other people as gods, especially if they apparently do not have social anxiety. This way we will develop Stockholm Syndrome - and this is whole another level of social anxiety - where other people mood and opinion will control and manipulate us into silence, obeyance and self censorship. This will make us perfect target for abuse, narcissists and parasites. They will take advantage of us and we will be their pushover and people pleaser. This happens because we want to be like others, groupthink and conformism, being afraid of being "sissy" and "unmanly".
"pick your battles"
I see it like this-
social anxiety stems from abuse and bullying. This means our brain wants us to learn about narcissistic abuse - how to recognize covert abusers who appear as friends and help to us. And cut contact with such toxic people.
Problem starts with inability to escape toxic people and we are forced to have contact with them (job, service, shelter, third party). Then we need to learn how to handle difficult people- With social anxiety we do not know how to retort to toxic people.
"Regulation"
Dysregulation means trauma is stuck inside our body.
IT cannot be handled. It is like tropical storm. We cannot attack it - we need to wait it out to pass. If we try to nitpick it, it is similar to allergy skin rash or urticaria - our scratching will make it worse and it will spread.
Again - with toxic shame inside us due to abuse and toxic people hypnosis - we will equate our dysregulation with being "sick" "sissy" "defective" "weak" and this as you call if judgement, this labeling will add up to already present anxiety.
"have a buddy"
I would go first in trauma healing. We heal trauma with having buddy with our self worth. Intrinsic locus of control. So that we learn we are safe inside us, and that we stand by our emotions and not reject them or label them as sissy or defective or weak or unmanly.
"Heal wound"
This can only happen with self acceptance, self validation, self love and self expression.
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"how do I let go? I'm sick of being socially anxious, for me I'm not awkward and I appear sociable (from what people tell me). But in reality I get so tired and anxious inside when I have to talk to people"
Do not equate fear with proof of some kind of basic flaw in your character.
Fear in social anxiety is trauma, CPTSD. IT is not something you do wrong. Trauma is conditioning, reflex, automatic, hypnosis, you are not aware that you are guided by trauma. Self pathologizing yourself for not having control over trauma makes it into social anxiety issues.
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I dunno.
If we are unable to react to predators, abusers, mentally ill aggressive people, bullies, emotional vampires, pathological liars, psychopaths, sociopaths, criminally insane - we would fawn to them and crap fit into abuse.
If Johnny Depp stifled his social anxiety he would stay with abuser Amber and he would end up labeled as abuser without money income. Anxiety allowed him to cut toxic contact with mentally ill aggressive borderliner.
If we do not have anxiety when we seek job we would come to interview smelling bad, with bad hygiene, looking like trash - since we would not care what other people think. Not much healthy idea.
Even grammar school kids know without psychological education that suppressing and rejecting emotions leads to mental illness.
I do not know if it is good idea to nitpick our brain - which exists for 6 millions if years and it is trained to detect predators - that we nitpick our brain into fun machine,
brain is not created to make us happy. Its primary function is to keep us safe.
If we indulge into cocaine orgy and put our genitalia in primary focus - we will become mentally ill idiots like Tories or Trump.
We need certain level of anxiety. Anxiety is not sickness, neither it is proof of some kind of flaw in our character.
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This video describes narcissism (desire to be superior bulletproof), not social anxiety (Trauma from people who believe they are bulletproof).
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Socially anxious people already listen.
Due to fear of abuse which caused social anxiety in the first place.
That is why social anxiety is called social+anxiety.
It is social. It is not called self anxiety.
Narcissists are self focused and then they find advice to listen others as good, since narcissists mimic social anxiety to gain narcissistic supply - other people.
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(1.11.2022)
Your thinking pattern nor your behaviour will not and cannot influence external life. Your thoughts cannot materialize nor vanish evil people in
or out of existence.
If you believe that your anxiety emotions panic is the same as your core self - you will develop deep toxic shame. Then you will depend on other people to feel good about yourself.
Also, you will make yourself believe that somehow you can control and manipulate other people by your thoughts and behaviour. In reality you will parasite over abused people. You will develop narcissistic disorder with grandiose belief in self to cover up toxic shame and abuse.
And belief that you can manipulate others with your thinking will develop severe mental illness - schizofrenia.
Why would it be so hard to accept yourself as you are?
Why you accept someone else's labels, that your abuse experience, fears, panic are sign you are sissy or nancy boy?
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Social anxiety is being aware of predators - yet not being aware that there are covert predators, ones who appear as help, service and somehow help us along with some issue we struggle with.
Recognizing red flags , cutting contact with toxic people and learning how o retort in healthy manner when we are unable to relocate is great relief for social anxiety.
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I am not sure that it neither wise nor healthy to prevent natural reaction to toxic person, toxic ambient and thus crap fit into abuse.
I doubt it is ok to say to yourself you are safe with criminally insane character from Blue Velvet (1986)?
If we decide to believe that our thoughts can materialize or vanish good/evil people - is road to mild type of schizophrenia.
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People give power to others due to toxic shame and trauma, conditioning.
With hypnosis during long term narcissistic abuse - there is gaslighting and inability to see that there were labels, lies, stigma, manipulation from toxic people around us.
With toxic shame, manipulation, toxic people - we cannot change our focus. This happens because we are nice and good people who trust everyone - while in the same time there are predators and corrupt people, we live in unjust world with criminally insane people who are presenting themselves as help, friend, romantic interest, colleague.
All people are already focused on the positive - everything anyone does is the goal with positive intent.
Good intentions are not always road to heaven, more often good intentions are path to hell.
This happens because of predators, manipulators and toxic people around us who present themselves as good and nice and help and we trust them.
If we nitpick and label our conscious as sick and something that needs correction - we will develop toxic shame.
Only psychopaths are in competition with others. Empaths and highly sensitive people are focused on others in order to escape punishment and violence from aggressive maniacs and or to help others.
Maslow needs tell us if we cannot satisfy our basic needs - finances, shelter, safety - it is futile to focus on how to be happy and with self esteem - we will never feel good if we do not have basic needs met.
If we deny and ignore problem which is causing panic and anxiety - anything we do other than facing toxic people and handling difficult people who are true cause of our anxiety - is crap fitting into abuse.
---
I learned my panic issues were associated with covert abusers and my inability to realize covert psychopaths exist.
Panic is reaction to something scary - and CBT instructs us to believe that toxic people do not exist and that our fears are hallucination.
I followed this advice for 20 years - and I ended up with fawning, people pleasing and being pushover to handle panic and anxiety when I was being accused of things I did not do, when I was yelled at for making natural and unintentional mistakes or when I was scorned for not being perfectionist in which psychopaths see themselves to be entitled to get whatever they think they are entitled to received from others.
I labeled this panic anxiety issue as Social anxiety -as I was instructed by media that my symptoms are social anxiety.
Then CBT as default therapy leads socially anxious into wrong path, as I said.
You are correct - if we fine-tune our questions - we will get "better" results. The correct ones.
This way, only a year ago I actually discovered that social anxiety is part of Complex Trauma (CPTSD) - and then all information suddenly fell into place.
My fear of being in toxic job with mobbing and bullying - was explained through Complex PTSD (which is not PTSD) - that this happens due to trauma and neglect in early years when our psyche was forming, when we were exposed to relentless criticism 24/7 and conditioned into belief that world is scary, full of psychopaths which I must obey and fawn to.
The more I learned about trauma (where DSM and CBT banned information about trauma - since it would end endless therapies and Pharma mafia income resource) I learned that WHO's ICD-11 recognized complex trauma as real issue.
I learned that panic stems from Charcot hysteria- it was studied in detail by Freud and Jung, and this information is hidden by medical community.
We live in deceptive, cruel, manipulative world - giving us half information and keeping us below awareness that covert abusers exists. The matrix is set up that way. So no wonder we feel panic that something is wrong. IT is. These are no irrational fears. Irrational fears do not exist - they did not come out of thin air. There is trigger and cause for any fear.
---
If we label our thought as panic - we will develop deep toxic shame.
With toxic shame we will distrust ourselves that we can manage life- Then we will see other people as gods, we will develop codependency.
Unless we have mild schizophrenia or our IQ is really low, panic is not our invention. Panic does not comes up from thin air.
We need to become Sherlock Holmes or scientist in the laboratory and seek clues what is true cause of panic.
Our brain is 6 millions years old - it was build on surviving predators. So it is not much hard to see what is causing panic.
If food is causing panic, all people would already notice this.
True cause of panic are predators, psychopaths, sociopaths, abusers, narcissists, emotional vampires, toxic people, difficult people, aggressive borderliners. Who are mostly covert, covered up - they appear as friends, help - so we cannot recognize that panic is caused by them. Then we blame ourselves.
We believe we are the cause. We scapegoat anything associated with us.
Most often - we will blame our thoughts and behaviour as pathology and something that is dangerous. Men will label their fears as sissy and nancy boy - proof of not being man enough.
This belief that something inside us is pathology is called self-pathology - and this decision will cause more panic and more anxiety.
We cannot fix other people , we cannot materialize or make vanish certain people or people's moods, someone evil and bad things from happening. If we make ourselves believe that we can control external with our thoughts - we will develop mental illness, mild form of schizophrenia.
Without strong self worth, without intrinsic locus of control -we cannot function in this world.
--
"Anxiety is a real thing. People keep saying it’s not real."
Medical community is filled up with covert psychopaths. CBT will claim that anxiety is hallucination, irrational - that is has no cause, that it is our invention.
Like Trump but with higher IQ - still very much criminally insane and dangerous to community.
Pharma mafia is making huge money income based on human neurosis. IT hides information about true cause of anxiety and panic: trauma. And they muddle it with self pathology approach, self blame and self hate.
DSM and CBT bans trauma information, but WHO's ICD-11 recognizes Complex Trauma as real thing.
---
"rude and unsympathetic of him"
Why you skip and not label it as it really is - toxic and psychopathic.
---
Most people with anxiety and panic issues really try to hide it. They are aware that it is annoying to other people and they are mostly empaths and HSPs. They do not want to bother others with their fears and will do anything to appear "strong".
On the other hand , there are psychopaths - mostly aggressive borderliners - who are using up their unresolved trauma as a tool to control and manipulate other people, unfortunately. That is why aggressive borderliners are next to narcissists.
If someone is repeating the same unhealthy pattern and not doing anything about anxiety - it is a sign that this person is dangerous, toxic, manipulative. Like Amber. This is how abuse is born - narcissists will become abusers themselves and spread it to next generation.
Anything we do to calm anxiety - it will become addiction.
Anxiety is trauma, it is Charcot hysteria. It is sign there was attack and abuse in the past - and this trauma is unresolved.
We are talking here about healing Complex Trauma.
Panic is mere dysregulation.
Anything we nitpick with anxiety and intrusive thoughts - will make it worse. Jung said - what you resist will persist.
Anxiety and panic stems from us not being aware that covert abusers exists - our brain tries to tell us that "safe" people we trust are toxic and dangerous, they wear fake mask and exploit us and take advantage of us. Our job is to become Sherlock Holmes or scientist in laboratory and see what is happening around us- seek clues red flags of abusers and narcissists.
---
Anti psychiatry was studied in 1960s before it was suppressed by corporations and fascism - DSM and CBT.
DSM and CBT cannot explain human condition yet they are currently authority in explaining complex human conditions through limited and rigid psychology labels.
What I wrote about predators is not mere You tube comment that I made up in my mind 5 seconds ago.
IT is the most simplest explanation of 20 years of studying human behaviour, panic, panic attacks and anxiety.
If I had a title of Professor or Academic, or of this information that I wrote here for free was valued in millions of dollars - for example wealthy people and VIP would pay it - then you would have different viewpoint and you would think about it more deeply. There is actual bias describing this phenomena - that we do not value nor respect nor take seriously the data given to us for free. Which is sad.
I am not trying to make you believe into anything, I am not even trying to change your mind.
The only goal here is to offer deeper more clear information that it is offered in this day of age.
What we do with that data - is our choice.
---
"remind myself that no one died because of my mistake. It helps me be a little bit gentler with myself."
We were never the problem,
it was toxic people. Covert narcissists. They present themselves as friends or help but abuse us actually.
We empaths and HSPs have high moral and ethical standards. That is why we are "not gentle" to ourselves. With trauma we never learned how to self validate nor how to develop self worth, self love, self expression.
This way, we developed toxic empathy, toxic shame - and this trauma is stuck inside our body, it resurrects with criticism.
This is critical point.
Toxic people sniff us out.
They know we care - so what manipulators and pathological liars will do - is that they will trigger our urge not to make mistake. They will nitpick our urge that we do not harm other people. And they will mock our lack of knowledge - even though we are much more smarter and far intelligent then bullies and abusers.
How they do this?
They simply criticize our mistakes - and present them as catastrophe. They do not care if we do it for the first time and when mistakes are natural and normal part of any activity.
They mask this abuse, bullying and mobbing by guilt tripping us - and we are never even aware that we are being hijacked, mobbed, bullied by them. Instead - we are made to believe into guilt - and then we self blame.
Then we believe that we are not gentle to ourselves, as you explained it.
We live in sick, manipulative, Trump, criminally insane world with mentally ill aggressive sick people - guilt tripping honest and authentic and true people like us -
since we are not evil - we do not have any reference point to recognize evil in other people - especially if they wear a mask of nice, kind, pleasant person - similar to narcissistic character Sigourney Weaver played in Working Girl (1988).
As Dennett said - we are all zombies.
Psychopaths are pulling our strings of empathy and play us around like toys for their agenda.
We need to wake up and realize that self blame, guilt, shame we feel - stems from predators, abusers, manipulators, toxic people - masked behind good and nice people who "help" us with their control and mocking and bullying.
CBT does not help in this process of waking up. CBT is example of such predators and narcissists. CBT will explain our thinking, our intelligence as nuisance, as problem. As a personality trait which is flawed, and dumb, something to destroy and suppress.
---
(2.11.2022)
I would just like to make it clear:
"And I guess these are the fears that are hidden deep down, traumas, etc. These are made for therapies indeed!"
CBT and DSM banned information about trauma.
Complex Trauma is not recognized by CBT nor DSM - so anyone seeking information about panic, anxiety will not receive correct information by default medical industry.
This happens because Pharma mafia is making huge money profit by keeping people in the dark, with deliberate obfuscated information.
There is you tube channel called Theramine Trees - and the author talks about his experience in therapy industry - where double binding is exploited to keep anyone seeking help as longer as possible in therapy - where therapy is focused on self blame and self pathologizing - since main focus is on panic symptoms, the root cause of fears is not being explored.
Analogy would be cutting weed without rooting them out - it will simply grow again, making people hooked and depended and addicted to endless therapy without permanent resolution.
CBT and DSM will instruct us through therapy of error to equate our fears with our character trait. For example, CBT will explain that we need to "expose" in order to be strong and courageous.
This is example of hypnosis and example of creating mental illness in other people.
Our fears are automatic responses to trauma - they are not connected to our personality, persona, core self. If we equate our emotions to our character, our thinking to our worth - we will develop emotional reasoning, and it can lead to mild form of schizophrenia.
WHO's ICD-11 recognizes Complex Trauma as real issue, since it is not governed by crony USA corporations and pharma mafia.
We live in sick, deceptive, manipulative society - and at the roots of our fears, anxiety and panic is knowing that we are not safe, while in the same time manipulative helpers such as DSM and CBT are not helping us at all - they join into hysteria and keep on making us sick - so that they make money on human neurosis.
---
What makes it more complicated is that we seek solutions and resolutions, while many people will never acknowledge that they have problem nor will they seek help. So we can heal - in world full of people who are deliberately cruel and aggressive and enjoy being in their disorder. Our task is not only to heal and stay healthy - but also to keep off from toxic people who are not willing to take responsibility for their decisions, any accountability. That makes is a lot complicated - because we need to watch for red flags how to recognize such people.
That makes it complicated -
because if we focus on other people - we will become preoccupied with them - especially if we cannot cut contact with someone who is aggressive and does not seek help to regulate their emotions. Then we are forced to become their nanny, fixing their problems - codependency - where we are their police, judicial system and therapist by force - since we are inside their drama due to finances, shelter or third party - we cannot cut contact with such people.
That makes it complicated - other people, external factor I call it. Not us.
----
(3.11.2022)
It never occurred to you that something is preventing you from learning psychology skills and philosophy?
Egocentrism?
Narcissism?
Pathology?
Disorder?
You believe you will make grandiose life if you follow the herd mentality, conformism and groupthink.
How do you expect me to explain something you are not willing to learn - since basically you are not interested at all in skills and talents,
the only thing you are interested in appraisal, and approval from others, money and fame. You want to force your success- that is what I am talking here.
You cannot cheat the process.
IF you have not satisfied basic needs - which includes self worth, you will be chasing fantasy idea of superiority. That is unhealthy.
---
(4.11.2022)
If we react to intrusive thoughts it is like urticaria, skin allergy - the rash will get worse.
Even Jung said What you resist, persist.
When we focus on our thinking pattern - and label it as sickness and something that other people do not have - we self pathologize ourselves, this destroys our self worth and installs toxic shame.
Responsibility for preventing others is codependency issue, stems from trauma, where we were conditioned through criticism to take care of dysregulated adults around us. This is hypnosis - this is not something that is sick, it is reaction to untreated mentally ill people around us. If we make this personal, we will equate our emotions with our personality character. That is called Emotional reasoning.
Feelings if guilt stems from toxic people and toxic environment. If we label this as our fault for guilt - we will develop toxic shame. With toxic shame inside us, we will give up ability to trust our decisions - and we will see other people as superior and gods to us, leaving us with people pleasing issues.
Ebbinghaus Forgetting Curve will render our techniques and mechanisms useless with time.
Therefore nitpicking our thinking patterns leads to nowhere.
Mental imbalance is not a car, it is not machine that we can replace with store purchased parts. If we are not evil, if we are not killing people, if we have no evil agenda - there is nothing pathological inside us that requires lobotomy or micromanaging CBT approach.
Micromanaging - which CBT profess is path to hypervigilance and more of intrusive thoughts.
Intrusive thoughts are not personality trait, it is not personal flaw in our character as CBT represent it.
If we have cognitive distortions - this is sign we were in trauma toxic environment, and we probably attract toxic people now.
Noticing, replacing thoughts is micromanaging. In real life it will not work, it will not help - it will make intrusive thoughts stronger - since we signal our brain that we are sick and abnormal in comparison with dumb people without education.
Exposure is awful approach because we will still be in toxic environment and do nothing about it. Instead of recognizing toxic people and cutting contact with them, we will self blame and self hate our reaction to toxic people and end up with crap fitting into abuse and self pathologizing ourselves.
With CBT our primary focus will be to nitpick our panic symptoms.
We won't be focused on our self worth, our goals in life and doing things we truly want and like. With CBT we will see other people as gods, and we will try to appease others, ending up with external locus of control.
Our brain is not broken.
CBT will make us believe that we are crazy for having natural reactions to abnormal people, abnormal events and abnormal situations.
---
"I find Pure O latches onto anything and everything too."
Pure O latches on aggression, trauma, narcissistic abuse experience - since trauma is the cause of dysregulation.
---
"our minds initially perceive a threat/thought/concept/anything as catastrophic/unacceptable, and so we have an irresistible urge to solve or neutralise it. "
That is true,
However
what happens when we are with someone who is pathological liar?
When someone is gaslighting us - so we do not have clear definitions that this person is criminally insane.
What then?
Should we self pathologize our feelings of discomfort around such person?
Would that be healthy?
Why we do not get any answer how to handle toxic people who are manipulating us and controlling us?
Why we must always take self blame and self hate first - and never actually consider that perhaps the problem is in the external factor?
If Johnny Depp labeled his discomfort with Amber as "OCD" and "amygdala trigger" as hallucination - he would be broke now, without money, he would be labeled by the whole world as serial rapist as Bill Cosby or Weinstein, his career would be over and all world would hate him - while he is innocent - and in this scenario of following CBT advice - he would be severely damaged by Amber, someone who is criminally insane. What then?
How would ignoring and self blame ever work?
If we do not trust our instinct - we will become zombies and easily controlled by others.
And that is the purpose of CBT - to make sheep to manhandle by crooked corporations and mentally ill criminals like Trumps in managerial seats.
It is time to realize all our discomfort stems from narcissistic abuse and toxic people around us.
IF we are not murdering people, if we are not evil, if we are not causing pain to others - our worries, intrusive thoughts stem from being abused and inside mentally ill environment, highly toxic to our mental health.
---
"definitely helpful as someone who is diagnosed with OCD."
Nope.
She does not mentions trauma, CPTSD - so it is invalid.
IT is half-information, if mislead us into self blame and self pathology - and it does not offer any help how to handle difficult and toxic people who are causing our anxiety and intrusive thoughts - instead it directs us to expose ourselves to criminally insane mentally ill aggressive predators and bullies.
CBT ought to be banned, CBT is therapy of errors.
--
Accept it,
realize blushing is not killing anyone, it is not predatory, it is not narcissistic tool of abuse, there is no hidden agenda to harm anyone - so there is no pathology inside it.
---
It is really bad idea to attach familiar sounding psychiatry labels to own phenomena, thinking patterns, thinking styles.
---
You actually make a good point here.
Therapist with CBT are usually not explaining anything in detail - they are focused on self blame while they generalize symptoms and never explain what is true problem. Anything is problem to CBT. CBR labels Overgeneralization as cognitive distortion and in the same time uses Overgeneralization to anything.
---
"Meditation, Yoga and daily exercise, less screen time, more healthy diet"
These are all great..if we live in Disney land and if we have billions of dollars and not single care in the world.
People who are experiencing intrusive thoughts issues are dysregulated - there is trauma, there are toxic people, toxic environment which is producing these toxic products in our receiver mechanism - emotions and thoughts. We are not the problem, there is nothing to fix inside us, we are reacting to abnormal people and abnormal situations and abnormal events.
IF we decide to relax and meditate - we will crap fit into abuse.
---
"Maybe we have labeled ourself so much we fit the definition of them. "
Yep!
" with "ocd"you are a people pleaser and want people to stay around "
Oh yes.
People who "get over" ocd actually "discovered" that if they treat other people like crap, that their anxiety is vanished. That is how trauma keeps on going and how trauma and ocd and anxiety is passed onto next generation: through narcissistic abuse.
Simple approach is to externalize anxiety and blame other people -
usually good and nice people who are keeping ocd under wrap and try not to hurt others by keeping quiet and by being people pleaser. Abusers do not touch those who are honest, who say no and who keep abusers accountable.
With these information - we can make key to get out of cave:
1) we need to externalize our anxiety. It really is not our fault - it was trauma related and abusers caused us to worry and ruminate in order to appease them.
2) anxiety will soothe once we learn how to recognize narcissists, how to deal with difficult people, how to retort to toxic people in healthy manner without abusing anyone.
Anxiety wants us to become adults, that we stand firmly on our two feet without hurting anyone in the process. That we clean ourselves up - thus OCD has cleaning element. Anxiety, trauma, OCD - it is all message for us, but it is not straightforward since it does not stem from logic - it stems from Charcot hysteria, our unconsciousness.
Cleaning ourselves means knowing that we are not broken, we are not abusers, we are not evil, we are not wrong, we are not idiots, there is nothing shameful about us - there is dirt that is on us from the external source: toxic people - it is like virus and we need to build defense mechanism - so that we are no longer infected. Covert narcissists are the worse here - the ones who appear as help to us, service - but are extremely judgmental and controlling and abusive to us.
Truly anxious people are nice people, with high ethical and moral standards - and we were conditioned to be ashamed of this holy part inside us. This shame makes us feel dirty and we are stuck with toxic people who are also hating their true self inside them, too. Toxic people are abusers, we are not.
We have upper hand here.
Our urge to be good and nice is the way out - it is our voice, decision maker, common sense - that we need to rely on - instead on toxic people who appear as help to us, such as CBT.
---
(5.11.2022)
""Not everything needs to be a diagnosis sometimes you just had a shifty upbringing"
Yes!!
" My therapist recently told me if your ever anxious and feel nauseous that's a sign you are taking action and your changing behaviors."
Yeah,
I went deeper and I realized that our healthy reaction is causing this nauseous and anxious feeling - so being healthy in toxic ambient is paradoxically unhealthy.
That is why our mind invents safety mechanisms, survival techniques - they are reaction to toxic people, toxic events, toxic situations. They are the correct response to unbearable circumstances - which are totally outside of our control.
We cannot evil people control, we cannot control their abuse, we cannot make them stop. Healthy response is to retort to them and engage in conflict. However these evil people are feeding on endless conflict - so our healthy reaction would make it worse - since we are not problem at all. Toxic people are the only problem.
Instead of working on solution they gather all information from us which we present them while we try to find solutions for problems which they create in the first place.
So healthy response will make us sick.
To make it more complex:
1) we will generalize abuse experience and then respond in triggers to people who are safe - but who appear as toxic to us.
2) we will develop resentment and grudge and anger - which are normal reaction to toxic people. Without this anger and rancour - toxic people would eat us alive. Yet in the same time rancour is eating us alive from the inside.
The problem is evil, toxicity, toxic people and toxic ambient - we cannot manage it - anything we do will be doomed to failure and sickness and degradation.
If we respond to evil people in the calmest, nicest way - their mental illness will be triggered, their narcissistic injury will be bruised - these evil people will hold grudge against us for the rest of their life- they are capable of back stabbing us, create damage behind our backs.
We need to realize our ocd, anxiety is reaction to this unspeakable evil- our emotions of panic and fear are not our character trait as CBT explains it to us.
The best solution is to have love and compassion and door slam toxic people off and away from our lives forever.
If we are unable to cut contact - we need to minimize exposure to toxic elements as much as possible - which in long term is still toxic,
we will need to plan relocation -
and the most importantly - we need to connect with others, we need to speak what happened - so that others can learn, and we need to keep focus on our self worth and self expression. Not as CBT tells us that we focus on our panic symptoms and battle them through "exposure" and being "strong" and "courageous". That is useless - since we are already exposed to too much toxicity, we are already strong and courageous for being inside toxic ambient in the first place.
I did not know about this. I struggled with social anxiety since 1989. Until 2021 nobody explained me that toxic people are issue, complex trauma.
Until this year - nobody explained me that I need to cut toxic people off.
I would follow CBT advice, I would follow positive and chirpy attitude of being friends with everyone. Nope - toxic people are toxic and they create mental imbalance in their targets, since they parasite on other people's mental health and emotions, that is how they handle their dysregulation and trauma. They do not want therapy - and if they are interested in psychology - that is because they want to learn how to manipulate and groom their victims by pretending to be victim themselves.
I would say that all people with anxiety and ocd issues do not know that their symptoms stem from toxic people around them, since the matrix is set up that way that toxic people parasite over our goodness and kindness and openness and friendliness and forgiving and loving and being nice person.
---
"How do we know if what we desire is being desired from our indomitable worth or our "shame-value-identity""
This question itself is shame itself.
First of all - what would happen if our value is shame based?
We would make mistake.
And we all know -
Mistakes are part of life.
It is ok to make mistakes. We learn through mistakes. The urge not to commit mistake stems from shame. So paradox is that not trying to be shame value identity is shame itself.
If you are not evil person, if you are not anti-social, if you are not causing harm to others, if you are nice and kind person - there is no equation in your value with your actions and decisions. That is what Marshall is talking here.
This is hard concept to grasp -
we will tend to equate our value with our mistakes, blunders. I believe this is at the root of any psychological issue - since society will program us to equate our value with our doings even when our doing is based on purity and love and empathy.
Then any mistake we do- our own high ethical and moral standards will define as wrong and shaming and guilty.
This is yin-yang - we cannot be "good" all the time. Mistakes, blunders are part of life. When we try to repress and suppress our shadow and mistakes and blunders - we will not become worthy. That does not seem logical to us, our logic is not built like that - we naturally and intrinsically believe that being good and nice is the only way of life.
I believe this is the proof that there is pre-life and after-life due to this belief which is deep inside us. We came from the place, from some kind of unknown dimension where there is only information. There is no good or bad. That is why we are here on Earth - that we learn the dynamics between right and wrong. Good and bad.
From where we came from, and where we will go after we die - there is only good.
That is why we insist on being good and fixing people and finding solutions.
I trust abusers and psychopaths and all those who lack empathy stem from the place where there is only bad, where there is no information at all, Hell probably - and that is where they will go after they die. For them only purpose in life is to have sex, collect money and kill anyone who stands in their way of achieving orgasm and pleasure. Since that is only thing that they mind is able to respond - they have no other information, never had it. Perhaps the Earth for them is the chance to learn that there is more in life than consuming passion. But that is their issue to learn and sort.
Our issue as empath is to learn evil - since we do not know it. We know logically that evil exist. Everyone knows about Hitler - but since we have no such evil inside us, we are unable to learn how evil can harm healthy organisms. That is our lesson - that we learn to know that virus exist and that we learn how to defend against virus without becoming evil ourselves.
From this perspective - there is no shame-value-identity inside us. There is only trauma and abuse from the external element which is causing disorder and chaos.
Our lesson is to learn this - that we realize that we have no basis for toxic shame inside us. There is no ground for it. That shame identity we believe we have or have had - is hallucination.
Our lesson is to learn who we are - if we are not evil people, if we are not serial killers, if we are not psychopaths, if we have no evil agenda - there is no place for shame identity inside us. Toxic shame that we feel is hologram, it is made up, it is hypnosis - it is idea, concept someone evil conditioned to believe about ourselves.
This is hard philosophical concept to grasp. And it is at the root of any Cluster A and Cluster C issues we are struggling with.
Due to our high moral and ethical standards - and place from which we stem originally - it is very hard for us after conditioning and evil on this planet - that we allow ourselves to be ourselves.
Basically we are hypnotized - all our fears, anxiety, issues, toxic shame - stem from deep hypnosis and conditioning.
We are like character in Total Recall - we were brainwashed about our self worth value - and it is onion layer of toxic shame and explanations and definitions which we believed to be truth - which are actually lie.
Paradoxically we are here to learn how to be evil without being evil. To be abnormal without being abnormal.
To learn narcissism without becoming narcissist. With shame - we try to suppress evil, abnormality and narcissism - and paradoxically in the process of being good we create evil inside us, abnormality and narcissism.
For example,
I realized that my social anxiety stems from not knowing that covert narcissist exists. All the time I was convinced that overt abusers are problem - their abuse, rudeness, aggression. Yet - they are easy to handle: you cut contact with them. The true problem are covert narcissists - people who appear as friends to us , and we let them in, we share our private information with them - and they keep hurting and harming us and we are totally blind from where the hurt is coming from.
I discovered that I cannot discover what is the problem if I am not aware of yin-yang dynamics.
This means - that our own beliefs are problem, as much as abusive people are.
When we are not aware of this battle between good and evil - we will develop self blame and shame.
When we learn about predators and evil - we will learn that psychopaths are focused on conquering, battles and destroying others.
The best way to destroy someone without being overtly evil - is to install toxic shame inside others.
That somehow you believe in yourself as shame based - and that you spend time fixing yourself and to fight shame identity.
That is what this video is about - it is extremely complex and deep - it has access to our deep wounds from which all our life decisions stem from.
" Is the feeling of incongruency a reliable sign to distinguish between both?"
To answer this question - we need to realize that there is basically nothing wrong with us.
If there is dysregulation - that is trauma stuck inside our body, it is abuse and toxic people: all external factor - that is not connected to our core worth.
Someone evil or hapless (un-educated) made us conditioned to believe that we are shameful for making mistakes and exploring and self expressing ourselves. This way evil has open hands to exploit us and pollute the planet - by keeping us stuck in worry loop of seeking "cure" for something that is not broken inside us at all.
---
" I feel like I have acknowledged it, but nothing seems to be shifting"
Due to hypnosis, Skinner box conditioning. It is veil over our eyes distorting our reality, we look to life through filter ,as if through transparent gauze, obscuring the clarity in our vision.
It is similar to being inside the dream and you become aware that you are dreaming, but you cannot wake up. That is why it seems you cannot shift it. You cannot wake up. Probably none of us can. We are like in onion layer of filters.
I would try this:
realize that if you are not antisocial, if you are not psychopath, if you are not out there murdering people - if you absolutely have no hidden covert agenda inside you which propels you to harm others - that there is nothing wrong with you.
The issues you feel as shameful - stem from trauma, abuse and toxic people - who are making us asleep, in coma, so that we do not handle real life events and real life issues - we are preoccupied with fixing something imaginary inside us that evil people told us is wrong by default and defective.
With toxic shame we believe that our actions, decisions are wrong and we depend on other people to label us so that we know who we are. We are at the mercy of volatile definitions by others, others that we attract because they are the ones who are probably hating themselves as we hate also our self.
---
", you obsess over false flaws so they don't feel overshadowed by you. "
Yep!
This is important detail to highlight: false flaws.
I would only add - that we all have true flaws.
We are human beings. We will make mistakes. We will do blunder , sometimes big one.
That is natural. IF we start to believe we have no flaws at all - we will go into another unhealthy extreme.
If we believe that our goal is to be good without any flaws - we will go into that unhealthy extreme.
Our own high moral and ethical standards will make us sick and infested with toxic shame - and we won't be able to notice it, since we are doing what we believe is good intention.
I would keep balance by keeping in mind - that when we are not psychopaths, when we have empathy and when there is no hidden evil force inside us that delights in harming other people - that our mistakes , flaws and ignorance is not defective. IT is human. That there is nothing to be ashamed about.
If we make ourselves believe that we are gods, without flaws - we will start to abuse other people.
We will become Crusaders - like Putin. He believes in his mind that he is flawless and that his mission in life is to battle the evil. By being flawless he is evil and he is creating evil, disorder and chaos and he excuses his crimes as battle against the supposed evil which he perceives as nazi in Ukraine.
Any abuser will have explanations for their criminal activities and will blame their victims - sometimes done so systematically that they will fool the court.
Paradox is when we are fine with being flawed - we will correct our flaws more easily and become ideal good person without becoming evil in the process.
---
I see anxiety as in sci fi movie from 2016 - it is mysterious entity that lives besides us and appears scary but in reality it tries to make contact with us:
"Louise Banks, a linguistics expert, along with her team, must interpret the language of aliens who have come to Earth in a mysterious spaceship."
Arrival (2016)
CBT explains us that anxiety is sickness and personality flaw, something to repress, reject and ignore.
I see anxiety as Darwin evolution - our brain is built over 6 millions of years - brain's primary function is to detect predators and that we adapt to predators in order to survive.
When we do not have education as kids, adaptation technique is fawning and cognitive distortions.
As adults we can learn about narcissistic abuse, learn red flags, learn how to retort to criminally insane, learn how to cut contact safely and when to do so, learn what is covert narcissism (altruistic narcissism) - which we do not detect - and this inability to detect and inability to learn adaptive response to predators is message from our anxiety to us.
CBT advice to drug our emotions and to be ashamed of our emotions and to conquer them and run civil war inside our head is detrimental advice, full of errors and it leads to mental instability:
---
"you sound dumb lol 😂 how do you expect people to meet each other and become friends"
Why would I want to become people pleaser and pushover?
We cannot please all people.
There are predators out there.
There are pathological liars out there.
It is not wise to invite everyone into our private sphere.
I really hope you will not learn this lesson the hard way, but it seems to me you are already conditioned into being abused and codependent and depend on appraisal and approval of other people.
Hint:
google locus of control : internal and external one.
You have video about it in my psychology playlist.
And please to not label other people, you are revealing more about yourself and you are being rude.
---
(6.11.2022)
This is why I see Humanistic therapies/Humanistic psychology as correct path.
Humanistic psychology places our self expression and our goals in the main focus -
where we want to go.
What makes us happy.
What feels right to us -
instead of being focused on panic symptoms as primary concern which CBT profess. If we are preoccupied with negative and equate fears as personality flaw - we will be stuck in worry loop and destroy our self worth and install toxic shame and grudge.
Humanistic psychology tells us - to accept our self and our emotions as they are and see what happens, what ideas springs up when we are no longer wrapped in toxic shame, self blame and self hatred-
---
This is why I see Humanistic psychology/Humanistic therapies as the correct path.
It is what Marshall is talking about in this video - that we legitimize our emotions, fears and situation, that we remove toxic shame and build self worth - by self validation, self acceptance, and see naturally what will happen when there is no self hatred, self blame, toxic shame inside us. We will see more clearly and new ideas will come up, we'll take care of ourselves and remove toxic people and toxic habits which are removable and start to make plans for the future, in which we are no longer fawning to difficult people.
---
(7.11.2022)
"people are perceived wrong by their caregivers and then reclaiming their identity is narcism? you are shaming victims here! not good."
Every narcissist is victim of abuse. Just as traumatized empaths.
Narcissism and traumatized empath are on the same channel but on polar opposite extreme.
If your identity is to shame people, if you are preoccupied in attacking people without thinking about it, you are not empath. You are evil person, like any narcissist.
Narcissism comes in shades of gray. Some are overt, some are covert narcissists - they play victim and shame others through passive aggressive stance.
Narcissists want to control and manipulate other people, they see world as battleplane where you must dominate or you perceive of being dominated.
Perhaps that will explain many struggles you are having but cannot resolve.
People are not trash. You cannot accuse other people of something just because your emotions feel like it. That is being borderline.
Borderliners are half-baked narcissists.
---
Because you perceive world as battle, where you are in constant struggle and where you must face your fears to prove your core worth.
Instead of admitting faults and vulnerabilities - you see basic humanity as weak, being sissy, defunct, inept. That is toxic shame.
Toxic shame is when you deep down you hate yourself, due to abuse in formative years and toxic ambient - and you cover this default toxic shame with "facing" fears.
You are now trapped in proving worth to other people and you depend on other people to approve you and tell you that you are strong and merciless and superior.
With time, this will become worse and can lead to criminal activities - which you will justify and normalize as being a "man" or "providing" for or whatever.
Normal and healthy people jump into fears when they are calm with who they are. They know that their fears do not define their character.
---
goodvibes
I would add that anxiety we feel is when we react to toxic people, toxic environment and toxic situations/ events.
Anxiety tries to tell us that there are covert narcissists out there, covert abusers who appear as friend or help to us - but due to past abuse, bullying experience we now only focus on overt abusers (someone who is openly aggressive) - and in the same time we downplay or ignore toxic people who get inside our private space.
Toxic people influence us in bad ways, there is emotional contagion.
That is why Exposure will not help.
With exposure we will tend to become people pleaser and pushover and fawn to people.
Fawning is trauma response, it is conditioning, because social anxiety is part of Complex Trauma.
We were conditioned in our formative years to self blame and equate fears and panic in response to bullies and aggressive people as personal character flaw - that fear must be ignored - and we end up shutting up, with freeze response, we get stuck. We do not protest to unfair treatment and we will feel high anxiety and panic if we respond to toxic unreasonable people.
That is social anxiety - feel of dread as if being stuck in toxic job with mobbing and bullying and in the same time not being able to quit since we need income for survival - and let's say we live in poor corrupt country where there is no free jobs so we are stuck at that highly toxic job with constant violence and aggression and putdowns. That kind of trapped feeling of dread is social anxiety.
That is why Exposure will not work.
Problem is not in spot light. Problem is in trauma.
Trauma is stuck inside us.
There are toxic people out there - predators - who are true cause of our trauma and social anxiety- and these abusers and psychopaths are looking at us, they are highly focused on our errors and they nitpick our natural errors and flaws.
Social anxiety is message that tries to tell us that such predators are problem - that we need to learn about it, learn how to deal difficult people and to cut contact with toxic people wherever this is possible.
With CBT and similar false messages - we are indoctrinated to believe that toxic people do not exist, that our fears are hallucinations and that we must expose to toxic environment by changing our thoughts - as if our thoughts are sick.
This message is detrimental because it produces toxic shame: deep core belief we are inept and wrong by default.
We cannot influence or change other people by the power of our thinking pattern. Evil things will still happen no matter how much we are perfect and good. CBT tells us through ABC model that we can change abuse by changing our thinking - that we choose different definitions for abuse and abusers. This is highly detrimental and dangerous instruction since it can cause mild schizophrenia and we will crap fit into abuse. Our thoughts cannot influence mood of other people, their agenda and their evil inside them. Our thinking pattern is not problem, it is not sick. Problem we have is trauma being stuck inside us. It is like being in constant cold, without warmth and love.
That is why Humanistic psychology works for social anxiety - it is that we self validate, legitimize our fears instead of pathologizing them, self love and accept ourselves. CBT on the other hand is focused on panic symptoms and this leads to micromanaging. When we micromanage we create toxic loop of hypervigilance and OCD and intrusive worry cycle.
When we build self worth inside us - when we realize that our fears are not core character flaw - we will take care of ourselves and be more vigilant in social situations.
That is why social anxiety is called social - it is not called self- anxiety. Problem is in the social. Problems started and it stems in external element: social, society.
The more we learn about narcissistic abuse - the more we will externalize our anxiety and place it in external element - to learn how to handle difficult people who are triggering our trauma and social anxiety.
---
Social anxiety stems from Complex trauma. Being exposed to neglect, emotional neglect, constant criticism 24/7 while we were growing up.
Now we think that fears and panic and uncomfortable feelings we feel is character flaw. Something to conquer, hide, reject and be embarrassed about.
That is why we fear criticism and fear judgement from others.
Problem is when we are conditioned to fear criticism and judgement - we will attract such toxic people who are aggressive and criticize others in order for them to feel good, since they also have toxic shame inside them.
We need to realize that our fears are not character flaw and these are called triggers and flashbacks.
We need to heal trauma, not our personality core being.
---
Social anxiety at parties is not social anxiety.
That is plain old shyness and toxic shame issues.
Social anxiety means you don't have friends due to social anxiety. That is why it is called social+anxiety. IT is not called self anxiety.
Social anxiety is part of Complex Trauma (CPTSD, and Complex PTSD is not PTSD).
Social anxiety means there is trauma stuck inside and these uncomfortable stuck panic emotions are wrecking havoc inside. This means socially anxious people will be stuck in limbo between having "friends" and not having anyone.
Socially anxious person will not dress anything - even as mask due to fear of judgement and criticism and negative evaluation.
Shy person will fear hats, sunglasses, masquerade of any kind - truly socially anxious person will try to be bland in order not to provoke any kind of criticism.
By definition - social anxiety is fear of criticism and potential negative evaluation. since these occur in social situations - it means that social anxiety will affect everything in life.
When we ignore the trauma stuck inside, and when we follow CBT advice about exposure and fighting with our panic symptoms - we will end up with fawning and people pleasing issues and we will be stuck in micromanaging, worry loops and intrusive thoughts - since we do not tackle true cause inside us: trauma.
Social anxiety is like being stuck in toxic job with bullying, mobbing and abuse - constant screaming and yelling from abusers - and in the same time you cannot defend yourself since you depend on income to survive. If you find another job - abuse continues, same toxic environment. That is social anxiety. It is like eternal cold.
With this you can go to parties - you can make "friendships", you can "expose" - but deep core trauma is still inside.
What we need is tackle trauma - deep core toxic shame and pervasive feeling of being totally absolutely unsafe in this life. Toxic shame is deep core belief that we are inept, weird and unacceptable while other people are gods and whatever they say do think is norm and something to obey and worship.
Our self worth is exported into other people - that is social anxiety.
Shyness is feeling anxiety, inhibitions but when you are at party with mask on - your anxiety vanishes.
With social anxiety it is still there. Anxiety is there before, during and after event - in rumination worries.
That is due to trauma - we were conditioned to be perfect and to fix other people and to depend on other people for worth and explanations what is good, normal and accepted in life. This is much deeper issue than mere shyness.
---
"these videos are extremely accurate "
However - this video doesn't help with issues of criticism and negative evaluation. That part is ignored - and then we get message that our feelings are weird and something to hide and pretend it does not exist.
Not helpful much. In fact, it is detrimental since the truth is pushed away.
---
"People who claim to have anxiety just say so for attention"
What you describe in this troll comment is covert narcissism.
Yes, toxic people pretend to have social anxiety - because it looks good on their resume. They attract truly socially anxious people to parasite on them.
Covert narcissists this way can hide their psychopathy and find excuses for their abuse.
This is what aggressive borderliners are doing - they use empathy in localized way to gain attention from others.
This way narcissists and borderliners are doing huge damage to truly socially anxious.
Mostly because truly socially anxious will also not be aware that covert narcissists exist -
and this dark psychology helps abusers and predators a lot to abuse other people -
since now socially anxious people will self blame and won't be aware that toxic people are the cause of anxiety.
---
"as someone who does struggle with that mentality, yeah. He’s right. Nobody cares."
Toxic people care.
Covert abusers, manipulators, pathological liars.
They give you wrong information. They bait you - and you spend time to resolving problems they invented. Especially those who present themselves as help, service or friend so you are not aware you are being trolled.
"Just talk."
What happens when you get fired from job from just talking and you live in corrupt and poor country and can't get another job to pay your rent. What then?
What happens when other person is psychopath and will either openly harm you or they hold grudge, plan and then backstab you when you have no idea what is happening. What then?
What happens when you talk and other person makes a scene and drama and create damage - and then blame you for provoking them. What then?
What happens when your talk is triggering mentally ill people who present themselves as Chad - and they turn your talk into drama. What then?
What happens when you are bullied and when your natural errors and mistakes are presented as catastrophe and lies masked as truth to others and you cannot defend yourself from false accusations. What then?
What happens when you just talk and engage in endless arguments with someone pathological who is not interested in finding solutions and your talking just end up as revealing them your private information which they will use later on as attack. What then?
If life was so easy as toxic people present it, there would be no anxiety.
If we see world as battle and something to conquer, we will become abusers and ourselves and mentally ill.
----
What happens when the other person is criminally insane. Will tough love be healthy option then?
If you need to perform tough love, why don't you ask yourself - why are you in contact with someone who is toxic in the first place?
---
You can speak whatever is on your mind when you have money and security.
Without basic safety speaking the truth will harm you.
---
"Eventually I discovered that even most confident social individuals generally felt anxious when talking to others."
When I wrote this fact as subject in social anxiety forum at reddit - it got deleted and many people there protested it that I am incorrect.
"The key difference is that they didn't see as weird or not normal. They saw it just being part of socializing. And something that eventually would leave after spending some time in conversation. "
This is key difference in shyness and social anxiety.
Shyness and social anxiety are different -
social anxiety will not go away with exposure. Shyness will.
This is because social anxiety is part of Complex Trauma. IT is being in toxic environment while growing up, in neglect, emotional neglect and constant criticism 24/7 while growing up. This condition us to fear criticism and negative evaluation - and exposure does not make it vanish.
In fact, it makes it worse. This exposure will end up with people pleasing and fawning and being pushover. Social anxiety or better term - trauma - will still be there.
This is because social anxiety is being aware of toxic people.
Problem is not inside - problem is not with core personality , as you explain it, that is correct.
Social anxiety is normal - it is normal and good that we feel certain degree of anxiety before going to job interview or on a date - without it we would smell bad, we would not pay attention to hygiene or how we dressed, we would not obsess how other perceive us and potentially evaluate us and criticize our appearance, our views and our opinions.
Social anxiety is problem only in toxic environment and among toxic people.
It is alarm that someone is toxic - and that it is best to cut contact with toxic person - that is why social anxiety is avoidance issue and tries to isolate us from society -
because due to trauma we learned that problem is in our core being, that our fears are pathology - and then we self blame and self hate - and in the same time we see other people are good nice and as gods that we must obey and fawn to.
Shyness will vanish with exposure - because shy people do not have trauma inside.
Socially anxious people do, there is trauma stuck inside the body, it is like energy, electricity that cannot be flushed out, it cannot be released - and it is stuck and gets triggered by toxic people.
If we see social anxiety as something wrong - and something to conquer, something to reject, hide or ignore - we will make it worse. Jung said what you resist, persist. IT is like skin allergy urticaria - the more you scratch it , the more it spreads and it starts to itch more and more.
However if you anoint it with healing oil, it sooths,,
That is why with social anxiety - instead of exposure - what helps heal trauma is self acceptance, self validation, self love, self expression.
Then we will built self worth inside us and we won't depend on other people to define what is good normal and acceptable. We will use our common sense instead.
With toxic shame inside us, we depend on other people to lead us and manage our life, since we believe we are inept.
---
With social anxiety it is always toxic people on the other side.
Then tough love will not work, it will not be functional since mentally ill people live in fantasy world , made up world of their own, and they do not want others to be on par with them in this dominate war world full of hatred and mental illness.
---
Social anxiety is Complex trauma. It is not something that is sick - there is nothing to overcome.
Trauma stems from toxic people - so the main focus is in handling, recognizing toxic people. Not our character trait.
If we decide that social anxiety is personality flaw, we will develop toxic shame and our primary focus will be battle with this entity of rancour, fear and panic.
We stay in our room rather then feeding due to toxic people - in our formative years we were criticized and neglected and we were conditioned to self hate our needs and put other people in our primary focus.
Social anxiety is not evolutionary maladaptation. It is Darwin evolution - our brain is built to detect predators, this is primary goal of brain, it is doing this for 6 millions years. If you negate this and if you decide to ignore and pathologize your feelings of fears and dread as "old system" - you will self sabotage yourself.
"If we are socially ostracized from a group we can easily go and find another one"
What if you can't find? What if your needs are inside toxic ambient? What then?
What if you live in toxic shame culture country and you are manipulated and controlled by nitpicking your mistakes and flaws? What then? You will not feel safe. You will feel trauma and trauma will not go away, you will be in constant state of trauma - because people around you are mentally ill - they are narcissists and see world as battle place where they need to win over others and parasite over easy targets.
IF you decide to ignore the existence of predators and toxic people - you will put yourself in spot where you are easy target: someone who is agreeable and nice to everyone. What you do not see is that pathological liars exist. That coercive control exists. That your trauma is being exploited as if you are puppet on the string - and toxic people will pull strings of your fears and panic and thus control you.
"You have to say to yourself this is not efficient, this is not rational,"
You can't.
These panic feelings are Charcot hysteria. This has been studied by Freud and Jung and they made huge discovery that there is unknown mysterious autonomous entity inside us - called unconsciousness. IT works on its own. You cannot logically speak to it, since it is alien, it does not talk our logical language.
And that is good.
Because it will guide is into right direction - even when our logic might seem correct.
We live in Trump world, filled with liars and Machiavellians with hidden agenda. Not all people are like us, not all people are empaths. Some people like to kill others just for fun. Some would do it for small amount of money. Some enjoy being sadistic - we cannot comprehend this because we are not pathological monsters. Our subconsciousness will try to alarm and alert us that we pay attention to covert abusers out there.
Exposure will not help - if we are not aware of toxic people. We need certain amount of anxiety and fears. Without it we would become psychopaths and we would not take care of our body - since we would not have empathy to other people nor ourselves. Exposure will lead to people pleasing and fawning and being pushover -
since anxiety entails anger inside us - but since we were conditioned into being good and nice - we are not aware of this anger.
Then we will push anger into rancour and be stuck with grudge.
"Blank slate, our person is formed where we grown up"
That is why it is not wise to lean onto labels and restrictive limited vocabulary to describe complex human emotions and human state of being. With wrong labels we can stigmatize ourselves and end up with hypnosis of toxic shame.
"To other people you are crazy exotic"
This is the problem. You are still having trauma - inside you. You put other people into primary focus.
This is called External reference locus of control. Instead of intrinsic locus of control of self worth and drawing conclusions and worth from within - you are obsessed about other people, how other people perceive you - good or bad - it is important for you how other people perceive you. That leads to Stockholm Syndrome - where you see other people as gods, someone who defined you, where you lean onto conformism and groupthink and herd mentality.
What would be so wrong if your are seen as whatever they want to believe? Why would it matter what they think about you?
What would really happen if they think badly of you? Something negative or irrational?
This grasping on other people's opinion stem from toxic shame - deep down we hate ourselves. We were traumatized while growing up that certain aspects of our persona are ugly, stupid, unacceptable, wrong - and then we lean on other people to define us and we depend on their perception.
Interesting points about introversion and extraversion - but I would lean onto Descartes doubt - that we take any explanation with some dosage of skepticism.
What I mean in this case is concept of HSP.
Where our feelings and emotions are stimuli to external. IF society labels it as sickness or put it in some kind of box of explanation - we will tend to self prophesize ourselves and then conform to these labels.
Confidence is paradox. IF you think you must be confident and that confidence is healthy and not being confident is sickness - you will overcompensate and you will never be confident. On the other hand - if you accept that you are not confident, that you have flaws and errors - paradoxically you will become confident - since now nobody can use anything against your confidence - you won't care what they say anymore.
---
" the stopping of doing “normal” functions due to anxiety rings true."
Yep, your comment here reminded me what I missed out in my main comment.
With social anxiety, CBT will explain to us that social anxiety is sickness because it makes us hallucinate danger and we stay stuck and we do not perform "normal" functions in life anymore.
Problem with this definition is that our brain - which is build on keeping us safe- where feeling good is not primary concern for our brain - will define that we are abnormal. Brain will detect danger in our thinking, in our personality because brain will see that we are inept to handle and mange life - since we have certain social inhibitions which block us from "normal" functions in life.
So as Paul Watzlawick said - Insight causes blindness.
The information that we block normal functions in life - will be transformed into deep core toxic shame inside us.
With toxic shame we will destroy our self worth - we will no longer lean on our common sense - and we will develop External referencing locus of control - trauma bonding - where we see other people as correct, normal and good - and we see other people as gods which provide us with "normal" functions that we feel we cannot perform since they are causing pain and fear and panic.
In reality - this inability to perform "normal" functions stem from Charcot Hysteria. It is trauma. Yet CBT and society will tend to lead us into wrong conclusions and labels - CBT will join into hysteria and explain that inability to perform "normal" functions is due to cognitive distortions.
In reality all people have cognitive distortions. It is called confirmation bias and availability heuristics, jumping to quick conclusions and logical fallacies - paradoxically due to overcoming their own inability to perform "normal" functions.
In reality all people have issues to perform "normal" functions. Abusers and narcissists and borderliners will resolve this issue with overcompensation and abuse and control and manipulation of others. The quickest way to resolve fear panic, helplessness is to scream, hurt and harm other people - usually good, nice, kind, empathic people are excellent target - since we will stay calm, we will self blame ourselves when someone is angry, we will take the blame in ourselves, we will shut up and self censor ourselves. We will believe that our own inability to perform "normal" functions make us less human being than others and that we do not deserve to defend ourselves since we are faulty to the core. What we do not see is that people who appear confident and who appear to perform "normal" functions - do this because they are abusers and psychopaths.
The easiest way to control someone and manipulate someone is through shame and guilt.
What best way to do this - is to ashame someone for their inability to perform "normal" functions.
We got to become aware what is happening. We have inability to perform "normal" functions due to abuse in our formative years. We were criticized constantly, we were fixers of other people's emotions, we were punished when we self expressed ourselves and our needs. We were conditioned into shame and fear and panic just for existing and being ourselves.
With time we were conditioned, mainly through CBT - that our fears and panic are deep core personality defect. Which means more toxic shame on top of the existent one.
Also, inability to perform "normal" functions stem from our empathy. We do not want to harm others. We do not want to cause inconvenience to them. We do not want them to suffer or cause any kind of pain by our demands - because we were traumatized and conditioned to be parent to our abusers in times when we were hapless children who needed parent themselves.
I would focus on what stops us from performing "normal" functions without self pathologizing ourselves. This means to become scientist and Sherlock Holmes - to look at clues and be rational and be objective. We were in toxic ambient so now we do not realize, we have no ability to discover toxic people. Automatically we will blame ourselves and take the lies of abusers onto us. That is why anxiety springs up - it is message for us that we learn how to recognize toxic people, cut toxic with them if possible.
For example, if we are in hotel and we are afraid of eating in public - this social inhibition will spring from trauma experience where we were ashamed how we looked, how we talked, how we wanted something, how we needed something. It is trauma behind it. IT is not personality trait flaw, we are not having defect persona character. Trauma is caused by external element - abuse was not our fault, we did not caused it by our behaviour or thinking patterns.
Which lead to central point that I missed in my main comment:
When we seek objective facts - which abusers and predators hate - we will come to conclusion that we are not evil. That we have certain rights. And predators and toxic people will be focused on our action and opinions and that is why criticism and negative evolution hurt us so much. We think we are evil and they exposed this evil - so we must shut up, avoid life and be immobile - as punishment for being "evil".
But are we evil?
IF we are not monsters, if we are not out murdering people - if we have no hidden evil agenda - we are not evil.
IF we are not anti-social, we are not evil.
Toxic people, covert narcissists, abusers, predators - are conditioned to shame others to feel bad - this way traumatized people will fawn to them - and then predators will have more of everything - since we will fawn away from life.
If we feel social anxiety - it is not sickness, it is not something to destroy. Social anxiety is alarm system, it alerts us that toxic shame is inside us - caused by toxic people around us. That deep down we have virus belief that we are evil - and that we must be punished by hiding and avoiding. This toxic shame belief is hallucination -
we are not evil. We do not deserve bad treatment, lies, aggression and unfair treatment.
I would see social anxiety is litmus test - if it springs up - I would look around me and see what is toxic - and find ways how to cut it off or even relocate. I would learn about narcissistic abuse and learn how to retort to toxic people in healthy, proper and functional manner without explosions, without drama and without avoidance.
With trauma we believe we are evil and not worthy. So I would test this belief of being evil and what are my rights.
If I cannot fulfill my rights - then this is sign we are in toxic environment. Cutting toxic people and relocating is the only reasonable solution here.
---
But what is truth?
Truth does not exist.
Toxic people will try to impose their truth in order to hypnotize others into subservience.
Psychopaths see the world as battle scene, where you must dominate over others and win all self-invented wars.
---
Social anxiety is part of Complex Trauma - Complex PTSD is not the same as PTSD.
Social anxiety and trauma is being abused by psychopaths. Social anxiety, trauma is caused by psychopaths. It stems from psychopaths abusing normal and healthy people - in childhood.
Psychopaths see the world as battle place where you must win self invented wars. That is why social anxiety feels like being in battle place as woman said in this video.
Society attacks early, when the individual is helpless.
B. F. SKINNER
Brain exists for 6 millions of years - it is build on detecting predators and learning how to adapt to predators. Trauma and social anxiety will not fall out of heaven - abuse will be the trigger.
If there is brain dysfunction - then issues would not be limited to social situations. That is why social anxiety is called social+anxiety. IT is social. It is not called self anxiety. Fears and panic springs up as trigger and flashbacks to social situations involving criticism and negative evaluation.
CBT as main default therapy for social anxiety does incredible damage to socially anxious. CBT joins into Charcot hysteria and does not help at all - it makes hysteria worse - through self pathologizing, self blame and self hatred.
---
If we decide to engage in civil war with our head, we will make it worse. Jung said what you resist, persist.
Social anxiety comes from trauma, from being exposed to psychopaths and mentally ill sociopaths, abusers, such as narcissists.
There are 4F responses, fight flight are only two F responses.
Social anxiety is trauma, it is Charcot Hysteria - which means we cannot logically persuade us into not feeling anxiety.
Idea to test notions and prove wrong is called micromanaging - it leads to more worry, more hypervigilance and more toxic shame - since we convince ourselves that our thoughts are sick, something to cover up and reject and ignore. While panic stems from experience of being abused.
Trying to speak in store, with strangers, desensitized leads to fawning and crap fitting into abuse.
---
You cannot control other people. If you do - you are abuser, manipulator, psychopath. Soon enough you will expand your control to criminal activities and murder. That is why psychopathy is wrong and why psychopaths hide behind social anxiety. It looks good on your resume and you can attract victims by play pretending to be victim yourself.
---
"Fear of social situations"
That is social anxiety disorder. General fear of all social situations. Like you feel afraid when in room with safest, kindest person in the world that you know for 100% won't harm you - like Oprah or Mandela.
Social anxiety is fear of criticism and negative evaluations in social situations.
Unfortunately this distinction between "Social anxiety disorder" and "Social anxiety" if obfuscated by medical industry - because pharma mafia is making huge money on human neurosis.
"Burst the bubble"
I call it break the ice.
If you are not aware of the cause of social anxiety - bubble will not be broken.
Cause of social anxiety is abuse, trauma, being exposed to mentally ill person, psychopath - in our formative years.
"Hate conversation"
This is not social anxiety. Social anxiety is being stuck in toxic job with mobbing and abuse and bullying and you cannot defend yourself for income. That is social anxiety. You can speak - but toxic people yell at you, they put you down, they nitpick and make drama and hysteria about your mistakes flaws and errors. That is social anxiety.
Socially anxious people are empaths - they don't lack social skills. Empathy is social skill itself, that 80% of people do not posses.
If you negate or ignore this fact, you add new layer of toxic shame onto already present deep core toxic shame in socially anxious.
Trauma and abuse destroys our self worth - and without self worth we do not know what we want, we do not know what to talk about. We turn to external reference locus of control - and we trauma bond with other people. We see other people as gods and we fawn to them and we depend on other people to lead conversation and talk about - all due to toxic shame, deep core belief we are inept, stupid and unworthy. Toxic shame is motor that keeps social anxiety ongoing - and you haven't mention it at all.
Instead you instruct how to talk - and this adds up new layer of toxic shame already present inside.
Fears and panic are not sign of faulty character. They are trauma stuck inside us. Complex Trauma is not our fault, we did not cause abuse by our thinking patterns.
Bad things and evil people will happen no matter how much we are perfect in conversation. We cannot wish toxic people away.
Any advice how we suppose to talk - will lead to social anxiety paradoxically. Trying to get rid of anxiety - you will create more anxiety. It is like Jung: What we resist, persist. IT is like urticaria, allergy skin rash - if you scratch it - it will itch more and more.
This is called Micromanaging - if you google it, this is negative approach where we nitpick our actions and thoughts and behaviour and we end up with worry, intrusive thoughts and hypervigilance.
The point is that we are authentic and without script. Think about it logically - if you come across as if you are trying, if you make social situations into project - you will built up hysteria and fear and panic.
We can be authentic if we accept ourselves as we are. IF we validate our perks and quirks and particularities , without trying anything than what feels natural to us.
The social anxiety is caused by psychopaths. This means - social anxiety panic symptoms will spring up with triggers and flashbacks, anything similar to original abuse. Then trying to be like this or that will add up to panic, micromanaging will tell our brain that we are inept to handle difficult people and we will end up with trauma responses: usually being stuck, freeze or fawn and people please toxic people.
That is why social anxiety is here - it tries to tell us that normal healthy social contact is not problem at all. Problem are toxic people - we need to learn concept and definitions about narcissistic abuse and how to handle covert abuse.
Basically we will be scared of being ourselves and we will try to crap fit into abuse. We will think that we are overcoming and battling social anxiety - while in fact toxic people will control and manipulate us, exploiting our fears and panic against ourselves.
If you place primary focus on how to influence people - you are putting other people in your locus of control- You depend on other people to approve you, to appraise you, and when they don't you will feel depressed. When they are angry you will become codependent and try to fix them and their emotions. This way psychopaths will control and manipulate you through coercive control and grooming.
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Social anxiety is not fear of parties. That is shyness.
Social anxiety is not preoccupation with conversation. That is shyness.
Socially anxious people do not go to parties at all - mostly because there are no friends.
Social anxiety is preoccupation with criticism and negative evaluation in conversation. This means safe topics will not provoke panic. Shy people will feel panic and inhibitions and fears will pass with exposure.
Social anxiety is being stuck in toxic job with mobbing and bullying and abuse without you being able to defend yourself since your would lose your income - and you live in poor country without jobs available or the next job is the same situation with abuse. That is social anxiety. It is part of Complex trauma.
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Social anxiety is not phobia.
It was renamed in 1990s because "experts" discovered that social anxiety lingers on even after exposure.
That is because social anxiety is part of Complex Trauma (CPTSD - which is not PTSD).
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Social anxiety is not fear from events.
That is why it is called social+anxiety. It is not called event-anxiety. Performance anxiety is different issue than social anxiety.
Social anxiety stems from trauma and being abused and given wrong information which totally negates or ignores source of anxiety: trauma, toxic shame and abuse, being exposed to neglect and ignoring true source of abuse: narcissistic abuse and psychopaths.
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Social anxiety is not bad. It helps us to look good and that we do not smell bad. It helps us to put other people into focus, instead of being egocentric and autistic or narcissistic.
Emotional processing - problem is that we are not psychologist, we do not know what emotions we have.
Also - micromanaging is bad advice - it leads to hypervigilance.
Twitch is Charcot Hysteria. Fog is Charcot Hysteria, it is dysregulation - it all stem from Complex Trauma (CPTSD - which is not PTSD).
Dysregulation is not sickness, it is normal reaction to abnormal people, abnormal situations, abnormal events. Social anxiety stems from abuse, being exposed to someone mentally ill, psychopath, narcissist. Someone who criticized us relentlessly 24/7.
Exposure will not help. Because we have trauma issues inside us. This means - with exposure we will fawn, there will be trauma responses to triggers and flashbacks.
Feel and not push away emotion - even though you accept it - you still try to destroy it. You are putting emotions, fears in primary focus. Paradoxically you push emotions away - and Jung said what you resist, persist. It is like allergy skin rash Urticaria - the more you scratch it, the more it will itch.
Social anxiety is fear of negative evaluations and criticism. Think about this more logically - when we are accused of something, when psychopaths are nitpicking our mistakes and errors and flaws - we won't have time to meditate nor to process emotions.
If we are inside toxic environment - we cannot vanish evil people and bad events by power of our thinking patterns. To believe that we can manage outside events via our emotions - it will lead to mild schizofrenia.
Bad things will happen no matter how we think and no matter how perfect we are, no matter how calm we are - evil people will still be evil.
Social anxiety stems from evil people and evil actions. This means, evil people and evil actions will trigger our social anxiety.
And that is good - without anxiety we would stay with evil. We would normalize and rationalize evil people - we would not cut contact with them.
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CBT is narcissistic tool created by narcissists for creating functional narcissists.
Where narcissists learn how to be obsessed with themselves and still be functional. Many narcissists mimic anxiety to present themselves as victims and to gain narcissistic supply in the process: other people.
CBT is therapy of errors, it is form of lobotomy - where we become philosophical zombies, without our perks, quirks and particularities -and instead we become herd mentality groupthink conformist.
CBT is Ludovico Technique from Clockwork orange.
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When we put our fears in primary focus - we are obsessed with panic and panic and anxiety and fears will lead our lives.
It will be the primary focus in our life.
That is not healthy. We miss out what we truly want. Instead - we end up like in hamster wheel - trying to conquer fears to prove us to me man enough or strong enough.
That is why Humanistic psychology is better option to heal anxiety issues.
We put ourselves in driver's seat and self expression and our goals - what we want and need - instead of reacting to trauma.
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If we respond to our anxiety with fawning - it is trauma response. IT will end up as codependency, where we will end up fixing other people's moods, their emotions and their problems. It will end up as us being people pleasers and pushovers and toxic people will exploit us - and we will crap fit into their abuse.
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Biggest mistake is Exposure itself.
This way we put our fears in charge. We make our inhibitions to guide us - instead of self expression and be guided by our common sense, based on our persona, particularities and our goals.
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Social anxiety is not sickness. It is alarm system that we are around someone who is dangerous.
Not all people are murderers. Some toxic people are psychopaths, predatory, they use pathological lying, coercive control, manipulation to control their targets. IF we are not aware that such toxic people exist - we will be their prey.
Predators, toxic people use psychological dark methods to manipulate and control other people. When we feel social anxiety, it is sign someone is toxic around us. We need to open our eyes and see who is around us. Most likely someone is triggering our anxiety. IT can be toxic ambient - not only one person.
We are unable to do something - like call for service or information - the feelings of social anxiety are Complex Trauma, CPTSD (not the same as PTSD). That is trauma of experience of bullying and abuse we suffered in our formative years. Again - this trauma is caused by toxic people, psychopaths. Narcissists nitpick our flaws, mistakes, errors and put us down for having those. This way we try to cover up our toxic shame, deep core belief we are inept. Narcissists themselves have toxic shame - but they handle their anxiety by being abusive to others.
If we decide to label our fears as character flaw - we will add up to toxic shame already present inside ourselves. We will end up believing that if we discover some magical way of thinking or behaving that all problems in life will vanish, that evil people will disappear. They won't.
Society will also tell us that our inhibitions are proof that we are abnormal - adding more to toxic shame.
IT is trauma, fears and panic we have are trauma, it is called Charcot Hysteria - it is trauma stuck inside us. This is not character flaw, there is nothing wrong with our psyche, there is nothing wrong with our core being. We are being traumatized - someone mentally ill abused us - and now we are in state of trauma, in state of shock. That is not our fault , we did not cause this abuse nor trauma - and we cannot "heal" it - there is nothing to heal inside us. Trauma is entity stuck inside our body, it is like virus - it is foreign element. External element are toxic people - difficult people - and we need to cut them off- Stop contact with them wherever possible. It also means changing jobs is it is toxic. It means relocation if ambient where we live is toxic. IT also means learning how to retort to toxic people in healthy, proper functional manner - when someone is rude. Without drama, without hysteria, without avoidance.
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On topic,
from my experience and knowledge - anything outside of our control is Charcot Hysteria. Trauma stuck inside our body. We will repeat it until we stop and listen to is and learn from it and know what it wants to tell us. I learned that our defense mechanisms are ok. They seem like weird and handicap - but without them we would become ill. Healthy response in toxic ambient leads to sickness. It is because we waste our energy to predators and parasites.
I definitely see acceptance of our automatic impulses as correct path.
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The point I am making is that we collect all the data - but that we do not depend on other people to draw conclusions.
If we depend on other people explanations (including my own) we are limiting our own capabilities - and that is part of social anxiety.
That we do not rely on our common sense.
What I discovered with social anxiety is that this issue is obfuscated by medical industry. At first I believed this is error, however I doubt that I am smarter than American psychiatric society. What I discovered is that DSM and CBT does not recognize trauma as legal concept. DSM and CBT does not recognize Complex Trauma or CPTSD (which is different from PTSD). And that is the cause of false and erroneous information about social anxiety found online and in self help books.
I believe this is due to Pharma mafia who is making money on human neurosis.
Freud and Jung discovered trauma and unconsciousness 100 years ago - they studied it - but contemporary medial industry is hiding their discoveries in psychology. This is the same situation as with Nikola Tesla and his free energy discovery and current oil industry - making pollution and profit for corporations.
We live in deceptive cruel world and our anxiety tries to tell us that there are a lot of covert abusers out there, presenting themselves as friend of help - and we end up blaming ourselves for feeling fears while others are making money on our fears and keeping us afraid.
WHO's ICD-11 recognizes CompleX trauma as true condition - and social anxiety is part of Complex trauma.
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Push ourselves where? To depend on other people admiration and appraisal? To seek their worship and bask in our superiority and grandiosity?
Maslow hierarchy of needs tells us if we do not satisfy our basic needs such as money, shelter and security - we won't progress further away. Any exposure to toxic people will hurt and harm us.
Once we have money, safety and shelter - we will progress naturally - without any push.
Think about it logically.
If comfort zone concept really works - then third world countries would be like Scandinavia - instead of corruption there would be high organization. Instead of poverty there would be industry and industrious workforce. Instead of crime there would be efficient police and judicial system.
Or prisons would be hotbed of scientist and tycoons.
OR slum part of cities would not be ran by mafia and drugs - it would be filled with libraries, universities, clean flower parks and bicycle paths.
Instead of comfort zone concept - there is concept to differentiate between what is healthy and toxic - and choosing accordingly.
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Holding people accountable for their crimes has high precedence over errors and misjudgments.
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"I think the biggest mistake in life (social anxiety or not) is living in your comfort zone"
Think about it logically. IF "comfort zone" concept really works then third world countries would be wealthy and organized like Scandinavia - they would not bask in crime and corruption and poverty.
Prisons would be hotbed of scientist, mathematicians and librarians, not psychopaths.
Slum part of the cities would be safe places without crime and mafia.
The difference is in choosing what is healthy and what is toxic.
Also,
Michael Jackson had severe social anxiety - yet he was wealthy, he is world known pop star, everybody knows his name and his songs, he travelled around the world and had concerts in front of millions of people.
Cher also.
Salvador Dali was socially anxious and he talked honestly about his sexual preferences before sexual revolution in 1960s.
To them social anxiety was present all through their lives and their social anxiety did not make them to conquer it - they lived their lives authentically without being obsessed to conquer their fears and invent "comfort zones" to beat.
If they were preoccupied with fighting fears and having civil war in their head, they would never achieve anything in life - since primary focus would be their fears - and not their goals and what they wanted from life.
Jung said What we resist, will persist.
Having fears and panic and inability to move is Charcot hysteria -it is trauma stuck inside our body. This is not character flaw. This is not something to be "cured" or exorcised by performing task to prove ourselves and others that we are man enough and strong enough or courageous enough.
If we equate our fears with our character trait - we will develop mild form of schizophrenia and toxic shame, since we will believe that we can influence evil things by our thinking pattern. Evil things will happen no matter how strong or courageous we are.
With toxic shame we will destroy our self worth - and without self worth we will develop external reference locus of control, or trauma bonding - where we will depend on other people to feel valued and accepted. Which means - more social anxiety.
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(8.11.2022)
There is Complex PTSD ( c-PTSD) - it is different from PTSD.
Unfortunately DSM and CBT does not recognize neither trauma nor CPTSD as concept. On the other hand, WHO's ICD-11 recognizes Complex PTSD.
Complex PTSD is set of symptoms as reaction to trauma over long period of time.
PTSD is usually related to wars and one traumatic experience.
Some symptoms are:
Vivid Flashbacks. ...
Nightmares. ...
Self-Isolation. ...
Depression. ...
Substance Abuse. ...
Emotional Avoidance. ...
Feeling on Edge, or Hyperarousal. ...
Memory Loss.
Information about CPTSD helped me to sort social anxiety as concept and a lot of self blame and self hatred issues, and work more in direction of taking care of myself. There is Polyvagal Theory closely linked to trauma - and it explains that when socially anxious go through panic and fears and anxiety - that this is called dysregulation. It is not personal flaw, it is not character defunction. Like that rude lady, we also tend to equate our feelings and emotions with our character and then we end up with a lot of self blame and self hatred and we tend to fix things inside us which are not broken at all - which makes things worse since we are caught in worry loop and waste time and energy on fixing something that is not broken.
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I have social anxiety issues and rude people like that "lady" are trigger to me. I tried to sort those people out since they trigger my social anxiety issues - and
what I learned may help you, too.
With social anxiety I feel threatened by someone rude because I automatically feel guilty and wrong (due to complex PTSD), so I do not stand up for myself. I shut up, freeze and go into dysregulation (rumination and perhaps physical symptoms like being attacked - heart beat and anxiety attacks).
Well, what I learned is that it is best to not react if the person is unknown. Like someone you do not know and will never meet again.
But in this case - this person is your neighbor.
This will happen again and again - you live there and you have right to be there.
So - you have right to walk there, you are not stranger. I would shout back to her "I live here" and perhaps "I will call cops on you" and walk away without listening to her complaints or potential questions.
Thing is - if she really called the cops - you did nothing wrong. This grass walking part is not behind fence. You did not broke into someone's garden. This would not hold the court. This is not crime.
With self blame, self hatred - we tend not to take care of ourselves. And unfortunately with toxic society, we will attract such rude people. Rude people feel good when they abuse others, it makes them feel safe, powerful.
The only way is to react to them directly - to alarm and alert them back when they accuse us of something unfair or wrong.
We do not defend ourselves because we carry so much imposed guilt and shame inside us and we believe that these emotions we have are our character flaw. As if we are wrong just for existing and we are citizens of lower class that must be quiet and obedient to their masters. This needs to change.
We are human beings, we have equal rights to exist and be on this planet as any other person.
When we have issues with self worth, unfortunately such toxic people will sniff it out and they will attack us. They know from the past that nice and kind people will shut up and freeze. That is why they shout at random people. Most people will not react to them and this feeds their abuse.
Usually rude people are hating themselves, too - but they found way to deal with their toxic shame issues by attacking others and seeing others as trash.
That is why it is important to retort to such people - without drama, without wars, without explosions - but just stating objective facts - and walking away without making any deeper contact with them.
We need to be objective and stay in objective reality - what is really happening. Walking around our apartment is not crime. The reality would be - if she really called the cops, they would charge her for making false alarm calls.
Normal people do not shout at others for passing by. Something is not right inside her mind - and we should not keep quiet - because it will happen next time. If we freeze and fawn to abusers and rude people, we will signal our brain that we are not worthy, we will end up with more of self blame and self hatred for staying quiet to injustice and unfair treatment by others.
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I noticed that my inner critic is connected with imaginary other people, rude people from the past who criticized me or were rude to me.
Now their comments replay in my mind on repeat as a warning, alarm and anxiety - with the message that I correct errors and flaws and feel bad about anything wrong, and incorrect - or what seems to me as wrong or incorrect.
So inner critic is not inner.
It is external - it stems from external factor.
This is crucial to understand - because if we label it as "inner" we will develop self hatred and urge to fix ourselves - that we monitor our thoughts and that we force ourselves to think positively and ignore negative thoughts. But that is not correct path - it will lead to toxic shame, since I will start to believe that I am defunct and inept for having anxious feelings. It is like trying to fix something inside me - while in reality there is nothing wrong with me.
Errors, mistakes, flaws - are all natural, they happen randomly in life, we learn through mistakes, especially if we do them for the first time or rarely.
Guilt and shame are excellent tool to control and manipulate the target. So people who criticized us - are manipulators.
Again - it is external factor that is crucial here.
I see inner critic as product of being exposed to untreated mentally ill psychopaths, sociopaths, narcissists, abusers, emotional vampires -
we were exposed in childhood to criticism 24/7 and this destroyed our self worth - as you explained in the video at 5:55
What I learned this process of criticism in childhood is called neglect and invalidation - and it will cause Complex Trauma (CPTSD).
Complex PTSD, (which is not the same PTSD) - will cause us to develop social anxiety and we will destroy our self worth with this trauma stuck in our mind. Without self worth inside us, we will develop External reference locus of control - which means - we will see other people as gods, we will seek appraisal and approval from other people and their validation.
So I see solution to inner critic issue by healing CPTSD and Humanistic psychology tells us that we self validate ourselves, develop self love (as you said in video at 8:50) and self acceptance. When we legitimize our feelings and emotions - we will naturally take care of ourselves - and we will retort to critical people, warn and alarm them, we will cut contact with toxic people if possible, and we will naturally validate our life experience - which means being gentle to ourselves when we are not perfect.
Glasser talked about communication habits which are positive and destructive and his list give us direction what we need to focus on
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(9.11.2022)
In short - social anxiety is caused by external element - psychopathy, narcissism and Machiavellianism.
Therefore - learning about psychopathy and narcissistic abuse will help us a lot to understand social anxiety and how to protect ourselves in toxic society.
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"“I don't know how to build that within myself so I need it from outside of me.” And that's where narcissistic supply comes into. Picking the fights is Acknowledge me, Give me attention. Me being better than you."
I noticed in social anxiety, many covert narcissist mimic social anxiety - they play victim and they are focused on other people to use as narcissistic supply - and use "social anxiety" diagnosis to fulfill this purpose. They are preoccupied with confidence and being superior, courageous and being strong.
This is highly detrimental to truly socially anxious persons who are seeking help - and these covert narcissists are keep giving false information - since they are very talkative and actually become spokesmen for social anxiety.
Truly socially anxious people are victims of narcissists, abuse, mobbing and bullying - and once again, their aggressor attack them again - when socially anxious people will seek help for social anxiety issues. CBT joins into hysteria - and based social anxiety findings in 1995 to form social anxiety "solutions" - which are actually based for healing narcissism, not actual social anxiety.
CBT will instruct socially anxious to believe that their trauma does not exist, that toxic people does not exist and that their feelings and thoughts are cognitive distortions, delusion and hallucinations.
I am sad that this deception is ongoing and medical community does not see blunder and mistake in treatment and understanding social anxiety!
I trust narcissists do much more damage than we can see. They probably do the same damage with mimicking and infiltrating in various positions and play pretending to be something else - and they use their ability to fight, create drama and yell to control the target.
IT is like cancer or virus in society.
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That is why CBT is not working. Instead of explaining us why is this rumination happening, CBT joins into hysteria and keeps us in worry loop - by creating lists of fears and giving us some kind of magical tools and recipes how to act "confidently" in social situations.
All these ruminations are dysregulation.
We were abused by mentally ill people in our past, we were bullied - these worries we have are trauma being triggered inside us.
We are not problem - trauma stuck inside is the problem.
This means - nitpicking won't help.
Instead of making trauma bigger - we need to accept our social anxiety and focus on our self expression and our self worth.
This means - we need to accept our panic as good normal thing - it is not sickness. It is ability to see fake dangerous abusive people. We react to fake people - they trigger our fears because we sense that they are fake and we cannot relax with them.
So - solution is not labeling our reactions as distortions or delusions - solution is to learn about psychopaths and how to handle them in proper manner.
We are not born with this knowledge. We were not equipped to handle pathological liars and their coercive control. That is why our trauma is triggered by certain people and certain situations - we have no knowledge nor education how to self protect ourselves other than learned reaction to abuse which we experienced in our formative years.
CBT is not teaching us this because CBT is making money on our neurosis and trauma, like parasite.
"By absorbing the media’s messages people accepted society’s rules and values as their own; they realized that to step beyond them would seem neurotic. The possibility of rebellion has effectively been quashed"
Herbert Marcuse (1898-1979)
DK The Sociology Book
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This is informative but it does not help with the guilt.
Guilt stems from abuse, conditioning - that our needs, wants were met with punishment, mocking and abuse in the past. That is why we feel guilt now. Problem is not in our body. Panic is trauma stuck inside us. So being aware of panic is not help much. Panic and guilt is still there. Stories we tell ourselves - if we are aware of them, this won't help much. Guilt and panic and stories are still there.
Our needs are not our own - when we have guilt, this is a sign we have toxic shame - conditioning. Again, being aware of toxic shame won't help about guilt. panic, stories. Events that shape us - are triggers and rude people.
Once again - being aware of it won't help.
What helps is Humanistic psyhology - that we built self worth, self acceptance and validate our feelings, past events, legitimize our reactions to abnormal people who scared us and conditioned us into guilt.
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Guilt influences our conscious mind, too.
We get intrusive worry punishment ideas when we want to do something - and then we don't do anything in order to avoid this punishment we believe will happen.
This is how social anxiety is built. This is Complex Trauma (CPTSD - which is different from PTSD).
We need to learn that guilt we feel - although it is inside us - that is stems from the external: abusive people, manipulative people, mentally ill people, there was bullying, mobbing, abuse that shaped our thinking into avoiding punishment.
When we feel guilt - we are easy to control and manipulate and toxic people will sniff this out.
People who feel guilt have high moral and ethical standards - so our urge to be good and nice and normal is doing a lot of damage in our life, and we are not aware of it at all.
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People who have issues with assertiveness went through abuse, bullying and mobbing experiences which created toxic shame and trauma inside. These two blocks cannot be healed by "understanding", "journaling", where "consistency maintenance of putting ourselves out there" will end with being people pleaser and pushover.
The crucial information is not mentioned in this video:
- being perfect, being super confident - will not stop evil people from being evil, neither it will stop bad things from happening.
- being clear and assertive and communicating ourselves and being communicative - will not help at all with sociopaths who love muddling conversations (through gaslighting) and who feed by pathological lies, and not wanting to find solutions at all.
Then in toxic environment, with toxic people - our desire to be assertive will become weapon against ourselves.
IF we say no - people will attack and punish us. You never mention in the video that pre-requirement in being assertive is having a lots of money to support ourselves when we lose our job. You never mention Maslow needs hierarchy which states that before self esteem we need to satisfy basic needs: money, shelter, security and safety.
We cannot be assertive if we don't have home - we will depend on toxic people to give us money. When there is no money, we will beg toxic people for jobs. You do not speak about this socio-economic issues at all.
You to not mention that if there is any need to be assertive - that this is a clear sign that there is toxic person on the other side - who is behaving unreasonably, selfishly and that they abuse and exploit us.
Toxic people do not play by the rules. Toxic people - who are the cause of someone not being assertive in the first place - are pathological liars, they commit criminal offenses, prone to criminal activities as any psychopaths - where our assertiveness cannot fight against someone who is committed in creating problems and maintaining problem and lies as their survival depends on it.
Therefore - if we are not aware of toxic people - we will self blame ourselves, we will create hatred for feeling fears and panic around toxic people, we won't feel assertive - and your video gives false and detrimental message - that fears and panic and immobility and inability to be assertive stems from us being broken, that it is a matter of choice of having enough money to pay our home, shelter and safety. This belief that we are guilty ones will produce more shame and more guilt - and more of non-assertiveness. Without clear information about toxic people - and superficial views about assertiveness - lead to self-pathology.
That is why self help and internet gurus are dangerous to people - there is no clear information about true problem : toxic people - and instead there is a lot of covert shaming and guilt tripping someone into neurosis - that we must be chirpy, strong and courageous, as if toxic environment is our own personal responsibility. As if we can control toxic people and as if we can manipulate and control evil people by finding some magical way of communicating - and then all problem will magically vanish.
They won't.
In reality - when we are assertive - what is not mentioned in this video and similar self help resources about assertiveness - is that whenever we are assertive - we will be attacked, we will lose our jobs, people will punish us and they will back stab us, they will have coercive control tactics, they will hold smear campaign against us being honest and authentic.
Assertiveness is marketing ploy.
It does not exist.
IF we are honest, if we are authentic, if we speak out elephant in the room - if we cut contact with toxic people - that is all "assertiveness" we need. Confidence as presented in Hollywood movies which marketing agencies try to sell us as some magical skills that we need to learn - does not exist in real life. In real life only psychopaths and sociopaths wear fake mask of superiority and super confidence in order to lure, gaslight and manipulate, control and exploit their targets.
Confidence is paradox. IF we desire it, if we try to learn if by paying to learn some mysterious magical skills - we will never attain confidence, instead we will overcompensate and create false narcissistic mask. On the other hand - if we accept ourselves as we are with out flaws and perks and particularities - we will become confident - since no one can make us believe we are wrong for our mistakes and flaws or ignorance. "Assertiveness" comes down nothing to speaking the truth and being honest.
Maslow needs tell us as soon as we create safety within ourselves, with validation and legalization of ourselves as we are, with flaws and mistakes - we will build our needs upwards, including self esteem. Upgrading and self improvement will come naturally, automatically as we progress and take care of ourselves.
Trying to cheat Maslow needs by pretending to be confident by learning some mystical unknown mysterious confidence skills - lead to narcissism and mental illness. That is because - bad things will happen no matter how perfect we appear. If we have urge to dominate and see the world as battle stage - with narcissistic mindset of superiority we will soon resort to criminal activities to maintain "confidence".
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(11.11.2022)
"My work with clients entails learning the specifics about their life, their experiences, their interpretations, their beliefs/perceptions, their values and the impacts of all of that on who they are today."
This is the colossal problem with CBT.
Exactly this.
CBT does not know about "Unreliable narrator" concept.
Then you take at face value whatever someone speaks.
Well, human condition is way too complex for limited and rigid psychiatry CBT DSM vocabulary.
First of all - many people are not aware of what the problem is.
Many people will be embarrassed to admit they have issues which most people are able to perform - such as using phone or public restroom or writing in the public or anything that most people do without any shame or guilt.
Then there are psychopaths and narcissists who are playing victim, covert narcissists who are using psychiatry and psychology to learn more about techniques how to abuse other people.
Many psychopaths and narcissists pretend and mimic social anxiety since it provides them playground how to attract easy targets: traumatized people who are afraid of conflict and drama - which aggressive borderliners will parasite on.
Psychology ought to be ahead of person in need for help. Psychology ought to predict and lead anyone wallowing in shame and guilt by providing clear tools and direction of self love and self acceptance and validation.
To label emotions of shame and guilt as something to hide, cure, destroy is nothing else but ableism - where fascist mindset tries to copy-paste behaviour which is supposed to be "normal".
Instead of CBT I would see Humanistic therapies as the correct approach.
CBT and DSM ought to be banned or changed radically - in its current state it is nothing else but a form of narcissistic abuse.
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I've been struggling with social anxiety since 1989. Only in 2015 (!) I discovered that "intrusive thoughts" are the culprit, called PureOCD.
I would like to highlight the years passed by - that nobody explained to me that intrusive thoughts are culprit. This means, regular therapy as CBT will not help us understand what is happening under the hood.
And then - only last year I discovered that intrusive thoughts stem from another hidden concept called Complex Trauma.
CBT, exposure does not help.
CBT is focused on our panic symptoms and CBT explains our thoughts as cognitive distortion.
This is extremely damaging approach in psychology - since it adds up to already present toxic shame inside us. Toxic shame destroys our self worth. Without self worth we do not have grounding, we are not basing our values on our intrinsic values - and instead toxic shame will shift onto other people as our guide. This is extremely dangerous - since this way other people can control and manipulate us. Toxic people and predators will sniff this out and take advantage of us.
That is why Exposure does not help at all - exposure will simply turn us into people pleasers and fawning and being pushover.
Intrusive thoughts and Complex Trauma and anxiety stems from external factor. We are not broken. There is nothing broken inside us.
Trauma is wound, caused by external - abuse - which is not our fault. We did not cause the abuse. We did not govern evil people to invalidate us. Evil people, abusers, narcissists, psychopaths have conscious decision to treat other people like trash and abuse them and exploit them.
If we follow CBT - we will self blame and self pathologize ourselves.
Think about if for a minute - if we are not out murdering people, if we are not psychopaths, if we have no ill will to cause harm to anyone, if we are not like character from 1971's movie Willard with army of rats using as tool to kill people - we are ok, there is nothing wrong with us. There is nothing to cure.
Suppressing our emotions is not healthy. Trauma is normal reaction to abnormal people, abnormal events, abnormal situations.
Humanistic psychology helps - humanistic therapies are focused on our self worth, validation, legitimization of our intrusive thoughts.
All people have intrusive thoughts - the difference is that other people shift their focus far more easily onto next task because they were not traumatized.
Intrusive thoughts are part of Dysregulation - this means we cannot handle amygdala hijacking. Without Amygdala we would not have empathy - so process of reacting to stress and triggers and flashbacks is normal, that is how brain is suppose to work.
What we can do is regulate - and emotional regulation means being at peace with our self, it is about accepting that we were abused and that we react to abuse and trauma - which is not sickness or anything to be embarrassed about or label as insane.
Suppressing parts of ourselves which we do not like or feel painful is Jung's shadow - and suppressing our states is extremely unhealthy.
CBT knows all this - but pharma mafia is making huge money income on human neurosis - so crony capitalism and crony corporations are keeping us sick - they direct us to hamster wheel of worrying about worry and make money in the process.
Intrusive thoughts are part of Charcot Hysteria- this was studied 100 years ago and Freud and Jung came with discovery of unconsciousness, which is autonomous part of our brain - where intrusive thoughts are stemming from.
CBT knows this but still keep it under cover since it is far easier to keep population believe in being sick - as endless source of money influx for narcissists in medical industry.
We can see logically when we are aware of trauma and CPTSD (which is different from PTSD) - that our intrusive thoughts are signals and alarm from our subconsciousness. It tries to tell us that we keep ourselves safe and to recognize Trumps of this world, covert narcissists, covert abusers and swindlers and manipulators and psychopaths like corrupt medical industry which is making money on our trauma.
The more we learn about narcissistic abuse, predators, Machiavellians, how to handle difficult people, how to recognize psychopaths on time, red flags, so we can cut them off - the more we will be calmer and no longer dysregulated. The problem was never inside our core personality trait as CBT is hypnotizing us to believe.
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(13.11.2022)
A lot of narcissists are mimicking social anxiety since this gives them opportunity to parasite on our good nature and kindness.
Since we are programmed to be nice and obedient, to self blame automatically - we never actually question those who claim they are socially anxious yet in the same time they have power to be intrusive, talkative and aggressive. They are not socially anxious. What they claim to be social anxiety is their narcissistic injury. Their goal in life is to manipulate and control easy targets: socially anxious.
This way narcissists become spokesmen for socially anxious. That is why CBT got wrong impression in their 1990s research about social anxiety and consequently based its "cure" program on narcissistic predators imposing impersonating and mimicking socially anxious individuals -
and now such narcissists explain to us that social anxiety is related to conquer, destroying our kindness, being rude to others and being intrusive just for the sake of being loved and appraised by the masses.
Narcissists caused our social anxiety trauma in the first place - and now they twist and skew social anxiety - so that we are kept trapped inside trauma and obedience and constant guilt and shame.
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(14.11.2022)
"After 2 years of ACT, I can let most of my thoughts pass judgment free"
" It's liberating to know that you don't have to judge your thoughts"
This is great - but this is a sign you never had social anxiety at all. You had self-anxiety which you labeled as social anxiety due to CBT which is overgeneralizing and doing damage to people with psychological issues with mis-diagnosing.
Social anxiety means you are being triggered by other people- due to Complex trauma and experiences of neglect and being exposed to constant criticism when our brain was forming in our early years.
This means - we are being conditioned to think in rigid pattern of pleasing other people and fixing their mood. This means we live in survival mode, hypervigilance and there is amygdala hijacking.
When cortex brain is offline - we cannot think about judgements or not judging.
Instead truly socially anxious people need to let go. It is about letting go.
Letting go of being scared of punishment. That is why ACT approach will not work for truly socially anxious - due to conditioning and hypnosis - abused targets are programmed to fix other people moods and demands and see them as gods.
Removing judgements will mean that truly socially anxious people will become people pleasers and pushovers with CBT.
When criticism and negative evaluation happens from someone who is pathological liar and psychopath - socially anxious person with CBT ACT techniques will label red flags of abuse as hallucination - and this will make socially anxious people doubt their self worth, develop toxic shame and end up with crap fitting into abuse. That is why CBT is extremely dangerous for anyone with social anxiety.
Plus:
Detrimental approach in CBT through ACT is called micromanaging. Google it - this is very toxic and unhealthy approach.
---
" I HATE touching dirty dishes."
Yep, you never had social anxiety at all.
People with social anxiety will not be helped with approach that helped you with OCD.
OCD and anxiety have only one thing in common - that is that brain labels something as extremely unacceptable and ruminates about it and finds ways how to cure it by performing rituals.
I would see why there is urge to develop OCD in the first place. I would say it has the same origin as social anxiety: trauma and being in close contact with someone who was untreated mentally ill - who projected and implanted toxic ideas in our head about how life works.
I would also explore this area of de-sensitization:
what happens when you do not care any more about something dirty and you get sick because it was dirty.
Will OCD crawl back in our thinking pattern due to negative experience?
Is keeping our ambient tidy and healthy a bad thing? At what point keeping clean start to be illness - I think it is in a way how we perceive the safety in the world. This is why I think OCD is connected with trauma and toxic people who were around us when our psyche for forming.
Emotional abuse will leave scars - even though it is invisible to the eye.
That is why CBT and ACT are horrible and detrimental techniques - they are surface level, low IQ approach to complex matter and they do not tackle the real problem.
---
I am not sure you understand what is Social anxiety.
You are talking more about Autism here and people who were not brought up in kindergarten or being away from people for long time.
Social anxiety is fear of criticism and negative evaluation - short and sweet definition of social anxiety.
More deeper explanation of social anxiety is being trapped in toxic job with mobbing, abuse and bullying, screaming and attacking by temper tantrums and you cannot defend yourself neither you can leave nor you can quit - you are basically stuck in such toxic ambient, that is social anxiety. Going to parties and being worried about confidence is not primary concern in social anxiety - it is fear of basic safety, it is Complex Trauma (which is not the same as PTSD).
With this in mind, let's see your presentation from the prism of social anxiety;
“Reading the room is you are aware of social situation, social dynamics, what is going on, gist of situation, socially aware”
Socially anxious person will be highly aware of social situations. Hence social+anxiety. It is called social, it is related to society. It is not called self-anxiety. Society is the cause of anxiety. So this label suggest there is high awareness of the room, people, society and any social situation. Ok?
“Someone who has social adeptness, someone who is social person reads the room automatically without thinking about it”
That is the definition of socially anxious person. When someone has been abused - this person will highly be aware of emotions of other people in order to seek danger and punishment.
“they can understand emotional resonance, tone of voice, non verbal”
The same as previous comment - there is high awareness of anything non verbal - reading other people. Un-easiness in social situation stems from abuse, bullying - it does not stem from being unaware of social situations.
“people who are not this way this is a skill you can work on”
People with social anxiety are empaths, they have ability to see other people from multiple point of views and angles, put themselves in other people shoes - this is high social skill which 80 percent of people do not have at all.
“be perceptive, without jumping into conversation without context, read room before that, see if it is appropriate moment to say that joke, maybe mood is not funny in that situation, read the room, be perceptive, pay attention what is going on”
People with social anxiety will not talk at all - because they have social anxiety, they will not joke, they will not try to withdraw any attention to themselves and potential punishment, criticism or negative evaluation.
“refrain from talking, listen, assess the situation – be perceptive, actively listening, don't share your jokes, your speech”
People with social anxiety listen a lot, they assess the situation all the time, they do not share any joke and they do not make speech. They ought in fact. Socially anxious person need to make mistake, to face the punishment, to break the ice, to be normal and flexible and spontaneous - as oppose to fear what will happen if they say joke or speech in inappropriate moment. Facing the anxiety means not being preoccupied with other people, not seeing other people as gods, removing trauma bonding and external referencing locus of control.
“Active listening”
Socially anxious people listen a lot since they were silenced due to abuse and bullying in the past. Dunning Krueger will not be issue for socially anxious - blurting stupid or unnecessary comments at random fashion - and they should. There should be no fear of making mistakes in order to feel socially "confident".
Unfortunately social anxiety is obfuscated by medical industry on purpose - so that pharma mafia and endless CBT treatments make neurotics hooked and addicted to narcissistic abuse, which caused social anxiety in the first place.
This is why I copy paste this portion of social anxiety explanation in almost any comment where I see that presented does not know what is social anxiety, and it is not your fault. We live in Trump society which is abusive, pathological liar society, with Machiavellianism - and that is the cause of social anxiety in the first place. Text is:
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"really makes easier to accept and learn"
Nope,
she says in her presentation totally opposite. She is claiming that we should micromanage our thoughts and decisions and have stop signs whenever we want to talk freely. A lot of rigid toxic mindset approach with self censorship - that is road to social anxiety.
Social anxiety demands from us to make fool out of ourselves to face what will happen when we do say the wrong thing at the wrong time.
Putting unnecessary restrictions and placing other people as gods that we must worship and base our own value to their labels, intrusive remarks and criticism is trauma and abusing ourselves.
---
"Give effective compliment"
Leads to people pleasing, being pushover and fawning and codependency. This will attract plethora of pathological liars, predators, toxic people into our life. Bad advice.
"Have hard time initiating, starting conversation"
This is due to trauma which caused social anxiety. Social anxiety is not issue of confidence as primary concern. Social anxiety was caused by bullying and abuse - so trauma is trigger - any criticism and negative evaluation will trigger social anxiety.
You do not speak what happens when someone is rude and intrusive. Instead you focus on being narcissistic and putting fake narcissistic mask and pretending to be someone else.
"because of that barrier they avoid"
They avoid due to abuse, trauma, predators and toxic people who are controlling and manipulating easy targets: someone who gives compliments.
"Compliment what they wear"
Will be cringe and intrusive. Horrible advice.
Why would be put other people on our pedestal anyway? With toxic shame which is the motor of social anxiety -there is already trauma bonding and codependency and external referencing locus of control (seeing other people as gods to worship, or seeing other people as narcissistic supply for narcissists who are mimicking social anxiety to attract new victims).
"Ask open ended question"
Ok, what happens when someone is rude, when someone is intrusive and nitpicking our honest and normal mistakes and flaws??
Why we never get this advice from corrupt medical community which does not understand social anxiety at all?
"Knowing what other person has in common"
Trauma bonding advice. If someone is cringe, red flags, if our intuition tells us to avoid someone - I would listen to my gut feeling.
Ambers will appear as charming and nice and victims - they will lure kind, nice, friendly, healthy people to abuse.
"Reflect back"
Again, what happens when there is criticism? You never cover what happens when someone is difficult but appears as friend.
What happens when someone is pathological liar and we listen to them? Is that healthy to believe them and force it?
What happens when someone is manipulative - wouldn't it be good and healthy to learn red flags how to recognize covert narcissists, abusers, aggressive bordeliners?
"Skill get you out of your head"
This will end with crap fitting into abuse.
"Attend to other people"
Why? Other people are not our gods, they cannot lead us - we cannot get our value from other people.
"Worrying right thing to say, while other want to care about them"
This is over-generalizing, it is cognitive distortion. Not all people are healthy and kind - some pretend to be. Some people are extremely manipulative and controlling and they abuse other people by put downs, criticism and nagging masked as love and care.
Please stop, just stop. You are making social anxiety worse and create extreme damage to people who went through abuse and bullying. Your advice is to attend and appease toxic people.
This advice "Listen, understand, be with person" will work wonders for narcissists who are mimicking social anxiety though.
You are giving excellent tips to abusers and predators how to attract new targets into their narcissistic supply and new deeper ways how to manipulate and control other people.
Social anxiety is analogy to being trapped in a toxic job with temper tantrums, abuse, screaming, yelling, bullying, mobbing and you cannot run away, you cannot quit - you are ordered not to move and to take put downs and abuse. That is social anxiety.
Being scared what to say is secondary concern in social anxiety.
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" What I thought was social anxiety turned out to be autism"
You are making here crucial comment.
Corrupt medical industry is mis-diagnosing and lumping various unrelated issues into social anxiety so that pharma mafia and endless treatments make them rich.
---
People with social anxiety are already present, they already have superior social skills (empathy, putting themselves in other people shoes) and they are highly focused on other person - noticing non verbal cues -
all due to Complex Trauma and abuse experiences.
Social anxiety by definition is fear of criticism and negative evaluation. Social anxiety is not a mere fear of going to parties and making small chats.
Also, some people hate small talk.
IF we come with attitude to be friendly and nice to everyone - we will attract toxic people and we will crap fit into abuse.
---
If we approach to social anxiety as something to "beat" - it will be worse. Jung said : "What you resist, persist"
Also if we avoid to experience what is really happening, if we decide to suppress emotions and ignore it and pretend it is something to reject - this will lead to mental illness.
Social anxiety stems from complex trauma experience, bullying and mobbing. Imagine if you are in relationship with someone abusive like Amber - if you decide to tap, you will crap fit into abuse. Instead of tapping - there is focus and plan how to deal with someone who is triggering our anxiety.
That is why social anxiety is called social + anxiety. It is social - it is not called self anxiety. Our fears and panic is not issue -we are not afraid of ourselves - someone else is triggering anxiety.
Confidence and being preoccupied with confidence - is not necessary. If our basic Maslow needs are not met, we will never be confident and it is futile to play pretend to be "normal". When we are not safe, when we have no money, when there is no shelter - we live in survival mode. So of course there is no confidence is we are in war mode.
Fears are stemming from external factor. Triggers are not memories, beliefs, fantasies - this is why social anxiety is called social - the triggers stem from social, society.
Belief we are not good enough stem from untreated mentally ill person who abused us and criticized us when we were forming our psyche in childhood. This idea of negative belief is implanted by external factor - it is not our idea, it is not our choice to feel bad.
Facing fears would be letting go. Social anxiety stems from Skinner box conditioning - someone's criticism and negative evaluation which causes us to try to fix our thinking pattern - and thus kept us in worry cycle mode to nitpick our skills, moods, thinking - and this is self blame, this is self pathologizing. If we are not out murdering people - there is nothing wrong with us. The problems stays and stems from the social - society - toxic people around us. We do not cut contact with them, we stay in contact with toxic people because we were programmed to self blame and normalize abuse and bullying as something to be strong.
Letting go means facing someone's punishment: someone being aggressive if we do not comply to their orders, criticism, complaints.
Social anxiety by definition is fear of criticism and negative evaluation. Social anxiety is not experiencing fears out of blue, out of nowhere. We do not get socially scared by our mind - there is trauma stuck inside caused as wound by external factor.
It is not healthy to be comfortable with toxic abusive people - so seeking goal to be confident is recipe for people pleasing, fawning, being codependent and fawning.
---
" fear of people being angry with you"
You are targeting the social anxiety here. This is what most "gurus" do not understand - that the cause of social anxiety is trauma, being exposed to untreated mentally ill person when we were growing up and when our psyche was forming.
Instead CBT and internet gurus will present social anxiety as issue with confidence.
It is like we can cheat Maslow needs and jump into self-esteem level by ignoring our basic needs: feeling safe, having shelter and having financial security.
This is why socially anxious videos such as this one - they do not understand social anxiety at all. They are mixing up shyness with social anxiety.
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"Realistically how long can one expect this to take and do you have to do it everyday for the rest of your life?"
Excellent comment.
That is why "beating" social anxiety does not work. We will simply create OCD issues - any reaction to anxiety leads to compulsions and obsessions - more anxiety.
Social anxiety is nothing to beat. If we decide to ignore and reject alarm system which is triggered by toxic people - we will crap fit into abuse and end up with Micromanaging.
Micromanaging is detrimental - google it. It leads to hypervigilance and more anxiety.
Corrupt medical industry and internet gurus are interested in our trauma from the point that we stay stuck in trauma so that they can make money on our neurosis for all our life. IT is not in their interest that we heal and get over it - since this will face them with social anxiety of searching for another job.
---
Any idea to nitpick our thoughts lead to social anxiety, trauma, toxic shame and mental illness.
IF we are not out murdering people - there is nothing wrong with our thoughts. If we decide to hate our thinking, we will develop self hatred, self blame and self pathology.
If we see ourselves as error - we will see other people as gods, and we will develop codependency and more anxiety. We will never rely on our brain to guide is in life - we will decide to see it as broken, as damaged, something embarrassing and wrong.
The issues we have such as panic, fears, lack of confidence, negative thoughts - all stem from Complex PTSD (Which is different from PTSD). Trauma is behind is, Charcot hysteria - it is external wound caused by external factor: predators, manipulators, criminals, abusers, bullies, untreated mentally ill psychopaths, sociopaths. IT is not our fault to react in fear to mentally ill people.
Without social anxiety we would not have ability to detect pathological liars, manipulators, controllers, covert narcissists who appear as friends or help to us.
They will criticize and blame us so that we develop guilt and shame, and they will make us believe that we must fix ourselves and be strong and prove our worth by being perfect and obeying to their relentless criticism
In reality - anything can be criticized. Any action can be labeled as wrong and flawed. This is what predators are using to control easy targets like use: people with high moral and ethical standards. They pull out our empathy and beat us up with it.
---
"DSM - provide mental health diagnosis."
There is ICD-11 by WHO which is including Complex Trauma - which is banned by CBT and DSM.
Also, complex human condition cannot be explained by rigid and limited DSM vocabulary.
"possible scrutiny to others"
This can also include narcissistic disorder - where other people's admiration is cause of scrutiny.
Right in the start there is unclear explanation what is social anxiety by corrupt medical community.
The more clearer explanation would be fear of criticism and negative evaluation.
This means that there is some toxic person who is intrusive - another major clue which CBT ignores.
"Out of proportion to situation, it is not rational response when having conversation when there is no actual threat"
This is Social anxiety disorder.
This is where CBT DSM and medical industry is getting it wrong. It glues Sorites paradox into unclear explanations.
Also
what happens when there is actual threat?
Why DSM and CBT never focus on abuse and abuser and someone being intrusive - someone who covers this abuse into pathological lies and cover abuse - so on the surface this abuse is not "actual Threat"?
What then?
Why socially anxious people are not given information what is happening when the actual threat is covered up and presented as "normal" and minimized as non abuse?
2:54
"One criteria that separates social anxiety disorder from high-functioning social anxiety is that fear anxiety or avoidance causes clinically significant distress or impairment in social, occupational or other important functioning"
Yet - in any case there is no explanation at all how to deal with mobbing, abuse, bullying, covert abuse. Instead there is a lot of instruction how to self blame, self hate and self pathologize one's fears.
"not showing it, not talking about it - high function anxiety, you do well"
I would say this is social anxiety.
I like that you noticed that there is a difference between social anxiety and social anxiety disorder. This is muddled in all official social anxiety resources.
You are missing out narcissistic abusers who are mimicking social anxiety. They are pathological liars and they play pretend to be victim to attract easy targets: empaths to fulfill their narcissistic supply and explain social anxiety in wrong ways.
You are missing out trauma being cause of social anxiety. Trauma being caused by narcissists and predators.
Without this two - you focus on panic symptoms - and not true cause of panic: external factor: pathological liars, abusers and coercive control masked as "normal" behavior.
Rumination may not be negative. Over thinking may be sign of high IQ and narcissists exposing ability to use brain in order to solve abuser's gaslighting and their fantasy of threat which they infect other people with by criticism and nitpicking.
Not liking Small talk is not necessary pathology - some people do not like low IQ idiocy.
Social anxiety is having internalized toxic shame and thus having external reference locus of control- this means social anxiety need to be dealt by believing in own abilities to face life and manage problems without being codependent on other people explanations and their orders and remarks.
If we decide to follow CBT advice to monitor what we avoid - this is called micromanaging - self absorption paradox will lead to more fears:
"The self-absorption paradox describes the contradictory association whereby higher levels of self-awareness are simultaneously associated with higher levels of psychological distress and with psychological well-being. Wikipedia"
Shift your mindset idea -
nope.
Any nitpicking our thinking patterns signal our brain that we are inept and that we cannot lean on our thinking. This will develop toxic shame and more anxiety.
Negative thoughts we have about ourselves is not our own. This is implanted trauma by external factor: predator, abuser in our formative years we were exposed to relentless criticism when our psyche was forming. Now we believe we must please abusers, fix their moods and that our thinking is causing bad things and evil people -that if we avoid their punishment by being perfect - we will avoid their punishment, anger and attack.
Bad things will happen no matter how much perfect we think.
If we are not out murdering people - there is nothing pathological with our thinking. Negative thoughts are trauma being stuck inside our body - it is energy/entity not being processed.
Any fixing and micromanaging lead to nowhere - it only adds up to anxiety already present.
We need to legitimize our negative thoughts as normal reaction to abnormal people, it is product of living in survival mode, it is part of amygdala hijacking where our cortex brain is offline and function only from lizard brain of fears and seeking danger.
"We tend to exaggerate"
I would still trust our intuition.
IT is better to be alone than in bad company, toxic ambient. If someone is rude - they are rude, we are not imagining it.
There are people who notice acne and flaws in order they feel good about themselves. With social anxiety - previous experience with abuse - we can pick those toxic people more easily.
There are toxic people who are focused a lot on other people to criticize them.
I see that we need to be aware that anything in action can be labeled as mistake and criticized - toxic people will exploit this labels to control other people.
"Comfort zone"
Think about this concept logically.
If comfort zone works then third world countries would be rich, safe and organized like Scandinavia without corruption and mafia. Prisons would be hotbed producers of artists, tycoons and philosophers. Slum part of cities would be without drugs and filled with parks and flowers. The difference is in what is healthy and what is toxic.
Exposing ourselves to abuse and toxic people will not make us strong. Urge to be strong and to get rid of anxiety is Ableism - so CBT is committing serious psychological damage to people in need.
"Deactivating, bring down anxiety levels"
Think about it more deeply. What if you are with someone like Amber or serial killer. Anxiety is normal reaction to dangerous people.
Without it we would crap fit into abuse and toxic people and toxic ambient.
"Skills you can learn"
Socially anxious people are empaths thus they have far superior social skills which 80% of people do not possess: ability to put themselves into other people's shoes.
"Focus on your strengths"
I would rather focus on letting go - letting go of avoiding potential criticism and their punishment for our retort.
Social anxiety is being stuck in toxic job with mobbing and bullying and screaming and in the same time you cannot defend yourself nor you can quit this job. That is social anxiety - being traumatized all the time without means of escape.
Humanistic psychology works for social anxiety. CBT is crap, it is extremally dangerous to anyone and CBT will work only for narcissists - since they will learn techniques how to abuse others. Abusers will simply tell their victims that they are hallucinating their abuse.
---
You never covered what happens when there is actual abuse?
When someone is rude and manipulative and use lies like Trump.
What happens when someone is aggressive and evade our space like Putin. Idea that we can fix our thinking in order to control evil people and bad things from happening actually lead to mild schizophrenia.
What happens when we are inside Jane Elliott's Blue Eyes, Brown Eyes experiment and there are people who put us down in covert way and hypnotize us into feeling worthless and toxically ashamed?
I copy past this text in my weekly comments about social anxiety, it is great that you noticed that there is a difference between social anxiety and social anxiety disorder - 95 percent of people are not aware of this deliberately muddled concepts:
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"experiment, test if people are really judging you"
1) what happens when we cannot experiment -due to any reason
2) what happens when people are really judging us.
What then?
How to deal with someone who is judgmental, critical and we have no money or shelter to run away or quit job, Then what? Experiment is over - what happens then?
Crutch is survival tool. Without it we need better crutch. Anything in life is crutch.
Seems to me like you are mixing social anxiety with shyness.
---
What happens when we are really embarrassed? What happens when someone is critical and label any our action as mistake and error all the time 24/7?
Why we never get answer how to deal and handle toxic people, predators and abusers. Instead we are presented with self blame, self hatred and self pathologizing.
---
Michael Jackson had severe social anxiety - yet he had concerts across the world, is famous VIP, wealthy, super successful. Also Cher - the same story.
Social anxiety does not mean being weak, stupid or loser.
Social anxiety is part of Complex Trauma. It is warning alarm that we feel when someone is abusive.
Think about is logically - if you have no ability to detect toxic people - you would end up with predators like Amber.
If we decide to self pathologize our normal reactions to abnormal people we will develop toxic shame.
Brain is 6 million years old and it is built on detecting predators. Brain is not built to make us happy or confident - so you cannot nitpick and over-smart this brain to be super confident person. Super confidence is myth, it does not exist. Super confidence is invention by Hollywood to sell movies.
Salvador Dali had social anxiety yet he was very open about it - he talked about his sexual alternative lifestyle well before sexual revolution and in fascist homeland where anything different from norm was scrutinized - yet he was very famous and everybody knows about him.
If you decide to self pathologize your emotions and feelings which are different than norm - that is road to toxic shame, herd mentality, conformism and groupthink, mental illness really.
Work on, fixing - this is all micromanaging - google it, this is highly toxic habit leads to perfectionism and more anxiety.
We cannot prevent bad things from happening by being perfect and super confident - bad things will still happen, problems will still happen.
Exposure does not help if we believe deep down that we are worthy if other people label us as acceptable and that our worth depends on other people - this leads to narcissism.
Issues you see as "sickness" is trauma, it is called Complex Trauma. That is not sickness, being abused was not choice and abuse cannot be controlled by fixing our thinking.
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(15.11.2022)
"thoughts and feelings that arise during social situations."
Me too.
You miss information about trauma.
These thoughts and feelings are dysregulation, part of amygdala hijacking. Like Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde - it is Charcot hysteria, Freud's unconsciousness coming to surface.
This means - panic/fears/anxiety - is not character flaw. IT is not something you can change, modulate, fix. It is something that needs to be accepted , not labeled and suppressed or rejected.
We wait out dysregulation.
When we learn about complex trauma we can learn more about our natural feelings which society will label as sickness due to Ableism.
That is self pathologizing - that we label our thoughts and feelings in social anxiety as personal persona personality flaw. IT isn't.
IT is trauma, reaction to abuse.
Check out Polyvagal theory iconographic.
Social anxiety is part of Complex Trauma. IT is not personality defect.
--
Social anxiety is part of Complex Trauma.
Triggers - flashbacks we have which CBT labels as "cognitive distortion" are part of Complex PTSD (which is not the same as PTSD).
The more we built self worth and trust in our emotions and reactions to life, the more we will feel secure and safe in the world - that we rely on our own common sense instead of other people (external referencing locus of control is bad).
---
Panic attack may occur when we are in true real dangerous situation.
Why effects of mobbing are never explained?
When we are in toxic ambient, someone's rude behaviour can trigger our immunity system into havoc.
Auto-immune disorders and such can be triggered by stress and aggressive people.
Long term exposure to narcissistic abuse can cause brain injury.
Also: "According to research, high scores on Atlas' Sensitivity to Criticism scale were often associated with higher levels of depression, pessimism, and neuroticism. Those who are sensitive to criticism may be more likely to fear negative evaluations and have lower self-esteem."
This issue with toxic people and their effect on health of other people in their vicinity is never explained by CBT.
Instead, CBT blames and pathologizes the target of abuse as if the target is "over-sensitive" or that they may even imagining the abuse.
This way CBT is part of narcissistic abuse, gaslighting and joins into hysteria.
---
(15.11.2022)
@Tom Please read people's comments with understanding, rather than jumping to quick conclusions, which is part of social anxiety.
Let's examine your bias, prejudice and bigotry.
" are afraid people will notice they are anxious"
Behind this fear is fear from punishment.
Therefore social anxiety is part of trauma. Social anxiety is Complex Trauma (not the same as PTSD). There was abuse, bullying, mobbing - and now social anxiety is prediction of abuse and aggression, social anxiety is easier detection of toxic people. Sometimes this prediction can be wrong, due to jumping to quick conclusions - which tell us that true socially anxious people would shut up and not talk about until certain.
Since you do not shut up and jump to quick conclusions - you do not have social anxiety. You have hatred and narcissism. Normal, healthy, kind, nice, friendly people are interdependent, they are kind to other people - which makes them prone to attract toxic people. Kind and nice socially anxious people will always assume guilt, blame and always look within to find faults inside. They will never accuse someone else, as you are doing.
You are great example of narcissists who is mimicking social anxiety to get sympathy from others and then control and blame and attack other people who do not think in the same way as you do.
Both narcissists and socially anxious targets of abuse stem from abuse, they were both abused once.
The difference is that narcissists like you decided to handle your anxiety by attacking and blaming other people without thinking what is going on. That makes you narcissists - you are self obsessed with your self entitlement without thinking about the other person, what other person is saying and how your rudeness and aggression is affecting the other person. You take everything personally - even though you were never mentioned by name. All narcissism, covert narcissism masked behind social anxiety.
"They fake their nervousness and can act normally if they want,"
Well you attack me and you are rude to me, You accuse me of labeling all social anxious as narcissists which is a lie. You are pathological liar, like any narcissist and you are intrusive, you feel entitled you can blame and throw wrong and false accusations just because - that is all narcissism. Truly Socially anxious people do not do that - they shut up and self censor. You do not have social anxiety - you have narcissism and you use Fight response to deal with narcissistic injury - perceived threat.
"however people with social anxiety cant control the anxiousness in them"
No one can control anxiety. Anxiety is Charcot Hysteria. Anxiety is not endemic to social anxiety. Again, one more sign you are narcissists - since you are extremely egocentric. You see the world from tunnel vision - you think all world works according to you. Truly socially anxious people are aware of other dimension other angles and they have ability to put themselves in other people shoes. You as narcissist do not have this ability.
"It is people like you who directly assume people are faking to beg for attentions"
You made this up. You took my words, and you reflect what you feel inside. You are talking about yourself - you are projecting your evil onto me. Projecting is part of narcissism.
"mark the victims as nassicists"
Lies.
I said that there are truly socially anxious people who are victims of narcissist.
There are also narcissist who do not have social anxiety but they mimic it in order to gain sympathy and control and manipulation over other people - by exploiting their victim status. Like you are doing now.
---
(17.11.2022)
You miss External factor here.
There are narcissistic people, abusers, who are using methods such as Grooming, Coercive control, Gaslighting - and they are successful in guilt tripping other people - by labeling any action as mistake, flaw or deliberate attack on them or someone else.
Making other people to feel guilt is the best way to control and manipulate other people. Machiavellians, Trumps, narcissists, predators are very successful in this methods since they are all psychopaths, they do not care how other person feels or how it will effect anyone.
When we have toxic shame inside us due to trauma, abuse, being exposed to untreated mentally ill people in close contact - we will be prone to validate this toxic shame through evidence we are guilty about something. Enter abusers and toxic people who love to place blame on anyone willing to take blame. Someone with high moral and ethical standards are great target to exploit.
"Intent to harm"
If we are not anti-social, if we are not serial killers, if we have no hidden agenda to harm or cause any kind of damage to anyone - there is nothing pathological inside us.
With high moral and ethical standards we will tend to self blame and seek issues inside us as the first step - only later we will look outside. In most cases we will actually find something wrong inside us - since we are human beings with never-ending flaws. However - if we are not Trump psychopath killer - there is nothing realistically wrong inside us.
I would see External factor as crucial factor in dealing with guilt issues. I am talking about externalizing guilt as virus being infected by someone who is toxic around us. Cutting toxic wherever possible is great tool, minimizing contact with toxic people. Letting go when we cannot leave toxic people. Letting go is complex - it means being courageous to face punishment from someone who is aggressively mentally ill and prone to hurting others unwilling to obey their control and manipulation.
Literally any action in this world can be labelled as wrong - hence guilt. Even the good and nice and positive, healthy actions. I would work on becoming aware of this hidden fact which narcissists abuse to hurt others into submission and exploitation through guilt-tripping.
---
Truth is that any action, anything we do - can be viewed through the prism of mistake, error, flaw. Anything we say, literally any kind of action can be accused of wrong and hurt and causing some kind of damage to someone - even though it is healthy, only option, good, positive and without any mistake - it can be labeled as wrong and mistake.
That is his message in this video.
We can be controlled and manipulated by toxic people simply for existing - we need to be aware of this tactics and techniques which toxic people employ against people who have high and moral standards, not wanting to harm anyone, being empathic.
---
(18.11.2022)
"Have u shared these thoughts with ur CBT therapist?"
This is exactly what is wrong with CBT.
CBT does not take into account the concept called Unreliable narrator.
Some people bluntly lie. Some covert narcissists use therapy only to get new information how to abuse their targets.
On the other hand many people who seek help do not know how to define their emotions, feelings, confusion - they do not have psychological knowledge, psych education to describe what exactly they have issues with - neither they know what is pathology, what is issue and what is ok.
CBT lumps it all together and joins into hysteria at face value, nitpicking over half information.
That is why CBT does not work.
The purpose of psychology and therapy is to set patient free - not to put blame, hate, labels, stigma on someone who is supposedly seeking help.
Psychology always need to be one step ahead and take all things into consideration - including unreliable narrator phenomena. CBT does not do that at all.
The point of psychology is to give tools to anyone seeking psychological help to get out of the cave.
Instead CBT labels anyone seeking help as sick and abnormal through placing "normalcy" and what is expected by conformism, groupthink, authority and groupthink is correct and "normal".
This way CBT is Ableism.
CBT ought to be banned. IT is extremely dangerous method leading to mental illness.
--
With social anxiety in the same time I am okay with everything and I am not okay with anything. There is blur, overlapping thus confusion and there is no clarity about what is boundary. I know this is due to Complex Trauma, wrong messages during growing up and being in toxic ambient of toxic shame.
There is red alarm light all the time and there is normalization and rationalization about anything including abuse - as if I am oversensitive so I am fine with anything.
Then this ends up with people pleasing since I depend on other people to explain what is ok.
I see that I need to take risk and be wrong and learn from my mistakes in order to get to healthy medium. This means that I rely on natural over reaction and learn how to accept anything that realistically is not dangerous as it seems.
I believe with abuse bullying mobbing experiences we have much higher ability to detect BS and fake people - and being fake is more less standard.
I dislike auditing and writing method technique - auditing anything since this leads to Micromanaging - then there is only more of anxiety and hypervigilance.
When the other person is toxic - we cannot heal that person. This is because toxic people use manipulation, coercive control, they are pathological liars. Any involvement with such people leads to gaslighting. self blame, self hatred, put downs, abuse.
---
(21.11.2022)
Social anxiety is not the same as Social anxiety disorder.
Social phobia is archaic term for social anxiety - this label was dropped because "experts" realized that social phobia is not phobia - since phobias go away after exposure. With social anxiety, anxiety stays on even though there is repetitive exposure to social situations.
Unfortunately in corporate crony world we live in, narcissistic managers rule and make decisions about everything - and this way CBT and DSM and medical industry in USA and hence all world, does not recognize trauma as factor behind social anxiety. This way CBT and DSM make social anxiety mix and intertwine with other inhibitions, making the social anxiety unclear and muddled on purpose, intentionally.
---
I dunno.
Why we would need to lean on conformism and groupthink and herd mentality?
Why we would not accept our awkwardness instead?
Who is the person who defines what is "abnormal" and "normal"?
Why would we add to someone's definitions what is normal?
Alarm in our brain are due to trauma. These alarms are normal reaction to abnormal rude dangerous people around us who have narcissistic mask and play-pretend to be friend, nice, good. With abuse, bullying, mobbing experience - our brain will naturally recognize toxic people and sound the alarm. This is totally normal behaviour for the brain.
Brain is 6 millions years old. It has history build on alarm and recognizing predators. That is the prime function of the brain. Without it, we would not live today, we would be eaten by predators long time ago, eons ago. So - the idea that we can nitpick our brain to calm the alarm, to ignore the alarm and to ashame such alarms as abnormal and hallucination will not work, it will add toxic shame and more of anxiety already present by its composition to alarm us when there is predator around us.
The function of the brain is not to make us happy - this is not primary function. The primary function as Darwin discovered it - is to detect predators and to adapt to toxic ambient - in a way that we feel safe.
There is also Maslow Hierarchy of needs which states that unless our primary needs are met - we won't have time or energy nor focus to be calm, chirpy, happy - instead we will feel those alarms.
This means - our alarms are not hallucinations, and our alarms are not sickness , it is not something to label as hallucination, abnormal or ashame it as silly or whatever. If we do that - we will create toxic shame and with toxic shame we will develop moral injury and external reference locus of control - which means trauma bonding. We will distrust our own common sense and intuition and we will turn to other people to guide us.
When other people guide us and when we believe we are inferior because we have these alarms in our heads - we will develop social anxiety.
Anxiety is messenger that there is something wrong in our external environment: toxic people. And that due to trauma (CPTSD) we do not know how to handle toxic people: cut them off or retort to their abuse and bullying. We never learned these actions due to neglect in our formative years. Invalidation means someone telling you that your alarm is silly, stupid and unworthy.
"Not to come across as awkward, uncomfortable, insecure to other people"
This is trauma bonding and social anxiety itself. We are afraid of judgement and criticism of other people, their opinion is order for us, command that we must obey. The problem with external reference locus of control is that other people are other people.
Other people are not in union. We cannot please all people.
All people have different labels about what is weird. If we have been conditioned to please other people due to growing in invalidating environment, now as adults we will depend on other people to define us and seek their approval.
Well, in reality - there is no approval. We can never gain approval of other people.
Instead we can only gain approval of our self, intrinsic locus of control. With abuse and trauma we do not have our Self inside we do not believe in self. That is because we were been criticized and neglected and invalidated when growing up as empaths and HSPs - we were been told that our reactions are weird, stupid, awkward and silly and we learned to repress our natural emotions and natural reactions to external stimuli.
If we are not out there murdering people, if we have no evil agenda in our goals, if we are not harming anyone - there is nothing pathological in our lifestyle.
Trauma we feel - the awkwardness stems from trauma. That is called dysregulation.
Dysregulation means there is wound, trauma inside us that needs to feel safe inside. If we decide to ashame ourselves for having trauma and dysregulation - we will keep wound open, and we will develop toxic shame, and this will keep us trapped in seeking other people approval - and ocd and anxiety will be after-effect of such trauma bonding.
"Georgy Clooney, Julia Roberts" - super confidence is Hollywood myth, it does not exist in real life. This is invention by Hollywood to sell marketing more. Super confidence is not real.
Urge to have super confidence like in a movies is narcissism. Again , this is due to exposure to narcissistic abuse - where we were conditioned to believe that certain emotions are sissy, weak, unmanly and that we must be strong, we must put on narcissistic mask of superiority because our abusers explained us that world is battle and we must be King of the hill winners, Dog in manger mentality really. This is unhealthy because with time, evil and bad things will happen no matter how much we try to build super narcissistic mask of superiority - and with time - if we continue with mentally ill idea that we must be supergod human machine - we will resort to criminal activities to keep this sick idea alive.
We are human being. This means we are not gods. We are allowed to make mistakes. We cannot be perfect. mistakes are part of normal life, normal daily activities. We can never satisfy all people - so there will always be some critic who will attack our performance, action or opinion - and if we seek their approval - we will never win it, we will always be trapped in hamster wheel trying to please other people. Narcissism is desire to seek approval and admiration from other people in order to feel safe and good. That is mental illness. This rigid mindset will produce chaos and destruction since it does not work, it is not functional.
"Some people are extremely skilled in this area"
Narcissists and psychopaths. They are skilled socially because their self worth and energy is drawn from being parasite and suck on other people's energy.
"Be yourself and be less nervous"
This is oxymoron.
"You worry what other people will think"
No.
This is surface worry.
The real deep worry is fear of criticism and negative evaluation due to some kind of punishment if we do not comply.
This is due to abuse in our formative years - we were conditioned to think like this way, that we are in mortal danger with guilt that is constant and toxic shaming.
Think about it logically - if we do really worry about what other people think - then we would feel social anxiety even in situations which are not social at all. We would be obsessed about literally everybody's opinion. Yet - we do not worry if the other person is loving, kind, nice, accepting, without evil agenda and someone we know we can trust and turn to help.
So - the statement that we worry about what other people think is false, this is incorrect statement and it is over-generalization.
Problem is when resources such as yours are putting wrong information in other people's head. You teach them the wrong definitions of social anxiety. Now you are making more damage, you are contributing to more anxiety - and your good intention is now part of evil and can be dangerous if someone is suicidal. So please, learn more deeply about social anxiety, from all resources, not only one resource.
"They feel less comfortable around you"
If someone feel less comfortable around someone who is shy and anxious, such person is mentally ill.
That person is abnormal. It is better not to associate with anyone who is not capable of handling other people's emotions which are not aggressive. This means such person has issues of their own or they are narcissistic. In reality - our fears and inhibitions will attract toxic people - since they will read our inhibitions as weakness and easy target to exploit. This is also worth mentioning, but you do not explain it at all - that social anxiety will attract toxic narcissistic psychopaths since they will know we will keep our mouths shut when they start to abuse us (put downs, exploitations, parasiting, dumping, cheating, manipulating, controlling etc).
"Who is just yourself"
You are saying that our natural fears due to trauma, abuse and bullying are sick and they are scaring all people away - and that we must be ourselves. Our fears are now part of our personality. As everybody's personality is their reaction to negative events. If you label any emotion as sickness and something to repress and reject and discard - you will create toxic shame in other person. Self hate. Self blame.
Fears and inhibitions are trauma. This is Charcot Hysteria. This means it stems from unconsciousness - it cannot be controlled. It cannot be switched off at the press of a button. IF this was possible - all scared people would do it long time ago. All emotions are valid - if we decide to reject and repress certain emotions - we will develop mental illness - even grammar school kids who never been educated about psychology know that repressing emotions is bad thing.
"Person who is calm and chill and doesn't worry what everybody thinks"
So - your definition of healthy mind is zombie? NFC Wojak. Someone without emotions, someone without opinion, someone without passion. Bad idea. What happens when we are in ambient where there is someone who is pathological liar, someone who is manipulative? Is it healthy to be calm and chill with Amber? Would it be healthy to be calm and chill if someone is having goal to cheat you or worse - and you do not pick up red flags to recognize serial killer, abuser, psychopath?
Also - we are all social beings. We need to think about others. We need to have interdependence. You cannot make any kind of interaction with people without listening to them and processing what they are thinking and speaking.
"Be that person"
Basically you are spreading here toxic shame. Deep core belief that we are inept and unworthy and that there is something wrong with us if we have inhibitions.
Inhibitions are not core character. Fears are not personality flaw. Emotions are part of life. It is normal to have fears. Trauma is external wound - cause by external factor: we did not cause nor initiate someone to abuse us and traumatize us. It is not our fault to have fears.
IF we decide to label fears as something disgusting and flawed and bad - we will create mental illness - extreme guilt and shame simply for existing. Again - if we are not out murdering people and being antisocial (violent, aggressive) - there is absolutely nothing wrong with us having fears and inhibitions which stem from trauma.
"Notice all thinking you are doing"
This is called micromanaging.
"You analyze responses, facial expressions, what other people think"
This is due to abuse and bullying - to prevent predator to harm us. This is totally normal reaction to abnormal people.
"So much thinking it is impossible to function"
This is called dysregulation.
This is called Amygdala hijacking. This is totally normal reaction to trauma and abuse. This is not something you can switch off at will. This is how brain is working. This is how brain is suppose to work. Without it, predators would destroy us long time ago. This is totally normal mechanism how brain is suppose to work, it is built that way. This is not pathology. Pathology would be if we are murdering people and attacking them.
"Identify all of your thinking and analyzing problem solving behaviours you do in social sitautions and work on stopping all mental activity directed to social anxiety concerns"
This is called micromanaging. This is highly dysfunctional approach and adds up to anxiety. This is ritual, any response to anxiety leads to Ocd obsessions and more anxiety, hypervigilance.
"You don't care, you don't think about it, you don't anaylze it"
So.. become Trump and abuse other people?
Social anixety is not sickness. Healthy dosage of social anxiety keeps friendships and our ethical and moral levels in check. Without it we would become anti-social.
"Become chill calm person who doesn't care"
Horrible. Just horrible.
I have no words. You are saying we need to lobotomize ourselves so that we make other people feel pleasant and nice and that other person are not worried about or that they re not being inconvenient by us.
You are placing too high focus on other people - by ignoring them.
This is social anxiety. You are promoting social anxiety and ocd.
Jung said - what you resist, persist.
"When you say not perfect thing"
Yeah,
You can actually say not perfect thing and still be anxious and awkaward.
That is the definition of not being perfect - that you actually allow yourself to be awkward and not depend on other people's definitions about what is weird.
"When you say imperfect thing and feel bad about it and nervous"
This is due to abuse and external reference locus of control and moral injury.
This means we were conditioned to worry about our self expression - which is part of trauma.
This is hypnosis, conditioning, Charcot hysteria, Skinner's box. This is not sickness - this is trauma, it is being stuck in repetative cycle due to abuse. This is not character flaw. This is not personality error. This is totally normal reaction to abuse, it is wound. It is the same as to say you are ugly because of wound when someone hits you. The wound is suppose to be darker, have blood wessles broken, it is suppose to hurt - because it is a wound. The wound is not your character, the wound is not your persona, it is not to make other people feel awakward - it is alarm that there was abuse.
The thing we want to focus on is what was the abuse and how can we protect ourselves from future attack.
"People will feel less comfortable around you because they'll feel that nervous energy"
Screw them. If they can't handle emotions, they are not normal and there is something seriously dysfuncitonal about grown up people who are snowflakes. When they are attacked by someone they will learn that being uncomfortable can come from far worse source than someone's depression due to trauma.
It is worrying how much you put imaginary people on the pedastal. You over-generalize all people as if all people do not have their issues of their own.
"Learn to stop thinking so much in social situations"
Will lead to OCD. Any reaction to anxiety is OCD. Even ignoring and stopping and stiffling and blocking especially.
"You can ask other person, not scared to share thoughts and feeling with extra time and energy"
Ok.
what happens when this super god confident person without nervous issues starts to be nervous?
When they throw temper tantrums?
When they are pathological liars?
When they have hidden goal to exploit and control but they hide this manipulation behind being super nice and kind and helpful and super friendly?
What then?
Social anxiety is not situation going to party and talk to random people-
anyone older than 21 years old with social anxiety have highly functional social anxiety - which means they learnd to stop worrying and they listen to others. Then they fawn and ignore abuse and bullying.
You do not mention toxic people at all. You talk about "all people" as angels.
Social anxiety is like being trapped in toxic job with constant bullying and mobbing and you cannot escape nor you are allowed to defend yourself: That is social anxiety.
From this prism, labeling our reaction to abuse as sickness and something to stop - would make us commit suicide - since there would be no other response to abuse to survive it.
Talking and fawning to abusers also would not work - since we would become their slaves.
The solution is Humanistic psyhology:
we need to build self worth
and this means self love, self validation, self acceptance, not being focused on our natural panic symptoms.
Focused on our goals, self expression rather than other people and viewing other people as gods.
IT is about vibing alone until we meet our own crowd.
---
Social anxiety is part of trauma.
With narcissistic abuse behind trauma - we do not have self worth. We do not have Self.
Instead we develop trauma bonding with other people.
This means - any action will be defined through the prism of other people.
And any action will be modulated and approved by other people and what we believe will please other people.
This means, any action will still be social anxiety.
There is concept called highly functioning social anxiety.
This means anyone older than 21 years old already learn to do scary uncomfortable things. Yet anxiety stays inside - due to trauma.
Social anxiety is not problem.
Complex Trauma (CPTSD which is not the same as PTSD) needs healing by self acceptance, building self worth, self love and self-expression and learning how to handle toxic people who are causing social anxiety in the first place.
With deliberate decision making - in social anxiety with unresolved trauma inside us - will make us to fawn, be people pleaser and pushover - when we do take action.
---
If we are not out murdering people,
if we are not serial killers,
If we have no hidden agenda to harm anyone,
IF we are not Trump
- there is nothing wrong with our actions.
---
You do not mention criticism and negative evaluation at all. That is social anxiety: Being stuck in bullying, mobbing, abuse without means to escape.
Instead you live in your narcissistic fantasy world.
Good friend example - unknown people at some unimportant /non formal party where you can literally show up and leave after 2 seconds - is narcissism.
Narcissism is not always Trump serial killer - monster Putin ghoul. All borderliners have it, too. Especially covert ones who appear nice friendly and scared and as victim.
People who struggle with social anxiety and confidence are not feeling safe, they do not have money nor shelter. That is why they don't have confidence. IT is not a matter of their "flaw" in their character, neither it is their stupidity not to figure out how to be chirpy and happy narcissistic zombie.
So your egocentric whining about going to party is narcissism. It is not real world.
Narcissists are obsessed with self improvement in order to control and manipulate other people. That is what you are speaking here.
There is no interdependence, there is no real empathy in your words, you see other people as object you use up and discard when you are finished.
Exposure and putting yourself out there - if you think about it more logically - third world countries would be Scandinavia now , due to exposure to any uncomfortableness that can exist. Instead they are filled with crime and chaos - due to narcissism and toxicity.
There is actually difference between being healthy and toxic.
Advice giver inside Karpman Drama Triangle is always narcissist.
---
You place value, worth in other people -even if you reject and ignore them and label them as zombie.
We still need service and help from this zombie system.
With social anxiety we do not have self worth - it is carved our due to exposure to abuse and bullying and mobbing.
Without self worth we will develop toxic shame - and we will allow other people to define us and we will depend on other people and their kindness and avoid potential abuse.
That is being slave to them.
Sometimes we have rights that we do not use.
Retort, complain, cause the stir - we won't do it if we think it is hopeless because we labeled the system as zombie.
---
Public speaking fear is not the same as social anxiety, this is completely different issue, it even has its own separate name: Performance anxiety .
Social anxiety is part of Complex Trauma (which is not the same as PTSD) which means there is toxic shame. With toxic shame we do not have self worth - instead there is external reference locus of control, trauma bonding, fawning, people pleasing and depending on other people's approval.
Social anxiety is fear of criticism and negative evaluation.
Social anxiety is being stuck in toxic job with mobbing, bullying and ongoing abuse - so idea of being indifferent means allowing abuse to continue. Abuser will interpret our indifference as green light to continue with their narcissistic abuse.
So the issue is what we need to do when we cannot withdraw and go away from abusive toxic people. That is core issue with social anxiety: how to handle difficult, rude, or even dangerous people (psychopaths like Amber) from whom we cannot escape away from them.
---
If you decide to label yourself as unskilled - you will allow other people to control and manipulate you. You will try to change yourself in order to crap fit into abuse and psychopaths masking as authority.
---
Social phobia is archaic term, it was abandoned in mid/late 1990s when "experts" discovered that inhibitions do not ease or vanish with exposure - since trauma is the cause of social anxiety: external factor is the problem, there is nothing to fix inside, there is nothing broken inside.
Making money on human neurosis is theft and abuse.
--
Any nitpicking our thoughts, to convince ourselves we are strong - is dysfunctional.
Any reaction to anxiety creates more anxiety. Jung : what we resist, persist.
Breathing idea will not help when we deal with toxic people who are the true cause of social anxiety. We will crap fit into abuse if we decide to label our natural reaction to someone rude as personal flaw, and something to cure.
The idea that social anxiety is sickness stem from Republican-psychopaths Americans, Trumps narcissists who managed to enter medical community and spread narcissistic abuse and narcissistic mentality there.
DSM and CBT ignores trauma. This way their pharma mafia is making huge money on human neurosis by keeping trauma information hidden and under cover.
WHO's ICD-11 recognizes Complex PTSD (Which is not the same as PTSD) as concept.
Exposure does not work - it only creates highly functional social anxiety, it leads to fawning and people pleasing and being pushover -and this enables abuse and abusers to continue their narcissistic abuse. Michael Jackson had severe social anxiety - yet he was successful in life, he performed in front of billions of people, always present in media in times when there was no internet everybody knew his name. So social anxiety is not sickness, it does not stop us from living.
Without social anxiety we would be Trump, unpleasant rude person without empathy -- social anxiety is not bad. It reminds us to be human, to have healthy dosage of shame.
The only problem is trauma, CPTSD which is the umbrella issue of social anxiety issues.
The idea to label our inhibitions as something to destroy, reject, hide away is Ableism. Fascism is the only true sickness here: herd mentality, groupthink and conformism which leads only to Milgram Experiment.
---
You are describing here shyness.
Social anxiety is already being curious and focused on other people - due to abuse before.
Spotlight effect is not social anxiety - that is narcissism.
Socially anxious people feel they are in focus due to abuse from past. This is similar if you burn your hand on hot stove- you will not put your fingers on fire - and being aware of fire does not mean you are in spotlight effect of something that is dangerous - it only means you are aware that you can hurt yourself of something that is extremely hot.
Socially anxious are already rewarding themselves this is called safety mechanisms and survival mechanisms.
Please study more about issues - this way you are providing wrong information to people who may have suicidal idealizations. This way your wrong information tips can hurt someone due to fake information you provide online.
---
Narcissism is often hidden behind social anxiety.
Urge to gain appraisal from other people is primary concern for psychopaths.
---
You understand words, not the concept.
If you truly understood trauma, you would not be preoccupied with rules.
There would be no strict perfectionistic mindset.
---
He is talking about shyness here. He mislabel something and think he is correct about it - and since he removed expectations - he now lives in narcissistic fantasy world where he is spreading false information.
That is why we have flood of narcissists in this corrupt world.
IT is egocentrism.
---
"But you also need to train your brain to let it know when anxiety is needed and when it isn't."
Brain is 6 millions years old. You can't teach old dog new tricks.. and you shouldn't. Brain made its way to survive for millions of years in detecting predators and any kind of hidden and covert danger.
Plus,
Any fantasy idea to label something sick inside you in order to fit in to conformism and groupthink will promote mental illness.
"What I'm saying works"
Self prophecy and hypnosis is fantastic tool.
You can literally convince yourself you are chicken if you are determined to do so.
Still - living in a narcissistic fantasy invented closed autistic world of your own - is not much healthy nor functional.
---
Social anxiety is part of trauma.
Trauma is being exposed to abuse.
Abuse makes our self worth destroyed, stifled down.
This means - without self worth we do not have GPS.
So 5 second rule will not be functional in social anxiety.
With toxic shame inside us, instead of self worth - we will take only those actions which we think will be pleasing to other people, not us.
Other people will command our actions without us being aware of it.
That is why social anxiety without Complex Trauma information will end up with fawning issues, people pleasing and being pushover.
If we do not love and if we do not accept ourselves - other people will control us and our actions will be zombie controlled by others.
---
Inability to handle narcissistic abusive matrix is social anxiety.
---
(22.11.2022)
Blunt lies. Literally your first words were "You've gotta work on your ,,,x,,".
You are defining victim of abuse as defective and that target of abuse must change and that there is something sick and broken and wrong in victims of abuse.
Bad things will happen no matter how much perfect we are.
No matter how much we work on anything, bad people will still exist and no - we cannot influence, manipulate nor control their own decision to be evil.
This is hamster wheel trap that many people with low IQ but big mouth are spreading, due to Dunning Krueger phenomena.
We are not responsible for evil people and their decisions to be evil - and no, we cannot change to accommodate nor soothe evil people into them being comfortable enough not to be evil.
If this was 1939 and you were UK premiere, you would be traitor coward Chamberlain.
---
It depends what is the source of anxiety.
If we are hypochondriacs, it is great to calm down and work on mental illness of paranoia.
However - many people feel anxiety due to covert narcissists attacking them in covert ways - through blame and guilt tripping.
Why would we calm down if we are in abusive situation?
When we are in toxic ambient - we need this anxiety to propel us to retort to manipulative pathological liars.
If we calm down and shut up and fawn to psychopaths, we will invite them to continue with their abuse. Being calm is the last thing in such situations - and many people who have anxiety attack are not safe, they do not have Maslow hierarchy of basic needs met.
Also, suppressing and rejecting our emotions - even uncomfortable ones - is highly dangerous, ineffective and it leads to mental illness.
What causes anxiety are covert abusers who are nitpicking our mistakes, flaws and lack of knowledge to attack us, present us as trash, object to kick - that is dehumanizing and it is part of fascism - where someone with mental illness tries to control masses into conformism and groupthink and herd mentality.
The CBT idea to label our emotions as hallucination, that we must convince ourselves that we are safe - when we are not - is ableism. Highly ineffective and dangerous for our mental health - it will keep us trapped in hamster wheel of self blame, self hate and fear and more anxiety.
We need to learn about narcissistic abuse, how to handle toxic people, cut contact with toxic people wherever possible and learn how to let go if we cannot escape toxic ambient. Letting go does not mean ignoring and rejecting nor suppressing our anxiety as reaction to abnormal people - letting go means that we let go of toxic people's expectations, commands and orders - with the risk of being punished by aggressive untreated mentally ill people - who are aggressive since most people will calm themselves down and never retort to them - and this way enable their abuse and psychopathy.
---
It is amazing how your comment is not liked and observed - yet you said it all.
This is dysregulation - if we decide to nitpick it, we will make it worse. Like urticaria, allergy skin rash - if we scratch it , it will spread and be worse even though it feels soothing to scratch. On the other hand, if we wait it out, it will calm down on its own, perhaps with the help of oilment.
The idea to label something uncomfortable as danger and something to attack and destroy instead of listening it or studying it is called Ableism. And that is CBT - it is therapy of narcissistic errors, based on ableism - to destroy and negate anything that is outside of the norm so that abusers and psychopaths who are causing the chaos are not bothered by our complaints about their abuse.
---
i liked her videos 4 years ago, until I learned about Complex Trauma.
Now I see her as nuisance, someone who spreads false information through CBT. CBT is therapy of errors created by narcissists to shut up the victims of narcissistic abuse. CBT promotes ableism.
Even in her description she writes "PTSD" while there is "Complex PTSD" which is not the same as PTSD.
How can we trust someone who is not educated enough but serves the corrupt matrix who is causing anxiety in the first place?
"You've developed this fixed system of beliefs which you refuse to submit to any kind of introspection. So what that means is that you will never have a new thought in your professional life. You have got to learn to take those ideas, set them to one side and try to move ahead...with one question - Why?"
6 Souls (2010)
---
"Nobody noticed, it went fine"
That is functional anxiety, you simply discovered a way how to work through in spite of anxiety. That is great and amazing, but the trauma that is triggering dysregulation is still locked inside. And trauma pattern tell us that 1) it won't go away and 2) it will turn into physical illness, usually related to our immunity internal system - auto immune diseases, allergies, god forbid anything worse.
This functional anxiety explains why Michael Jackson who had severe social anxiety succeeded in life - he went to concerts in front of billions of people through media, stared in tv shows, movies, gala events - made it big - he had functional anxiety and he struggled and gone to soon because he did not tackle the core complex trauma from his past which was causing panic attacks and relentless anxiety.
"Stay in character"
Another example is famous painter Dali. He also had different viewpoints about lifestyles, but in the same time he accepted that he was different and he talked about it without worry. Before sexual revolution he talked about his alternative sexual lifestyle and painted it in fascist Spain where sexualist was banned due to neo-nazi regime until 1970s. He stayed in character of being authentic - including his perks, quirks, particularities, individuality - and he was successful in life, even made movies with Hitchcock and Disney in extremely puritan USA era before 1960s sexual revolution.
"Actual danger wasn't real"
Body playing tricks - this is trauma stuck inside our body. It is not processed. It was not handled. There was some shocking event that caused this trauma - and we never found solution for it, and we labeled it as our personal flaw - that is what is making it stuck inside us. So solution would be to realize there is nothing broken inside us, trauma is external wound, caused by external factor, it is not personal defect in our character - and that we cannot control evil people nor evil events, we can cut ties with toxic people , and we are not responsible to seek solution for evil people, which means we can let it go and leave it unresolved - after we realize we are not broken and it was not our fault at all.
"Ground ourselves in reality"
This is great when we are driving and working and there is no external danger.
However if we are in relationship with someone like Amber, it would not be wise to ignore her psychopathy, nor to thus enable her in abuse. Then our panic is actually anger which we labeled as wrong and our anger would be our guide to cut ties with someone who is abnormal and aggressive mentally ill and dangerous. If we decide to calm down and stay with toxic people - we will crap fit into abuse.
I see anxiety as in sci fi movie from 2016 "Arrival" - it is message from our unconsciousness and it tries to tell us something, there is a message:
"Louise Banks, a linguistics expert, along with her team, must interpret the language of aliens who have come to Earth in a mysterious spaceship."
This panic attacks are Charcot hysteria - this was studied 100 years ago. Mesmer noticed it in 18th century and healed it with semi-hypnosis.
Unfortunately in our corrupt society where corporations are running the country, DSM and CBT are ignoring this trauma information and keep it hidden. Fortunately WHO's ICD-11 recognizes Complex PTSD (which is not the same as PTSD) as real concept.
Panic attacks are dysregulation. We cannot fight with it, Jung said what we resist will persist. We need to wait amygdala hijacking to run its executed program of hypnosis, virus program of trauma that is implanted inside us - until we naturally reboot- shift our attention. But this is not solution - we need to pluck this virus out of our software and learn how to install anti-virus program to defend ourselves against covert narcissists who are causing this trauma in the first place. Where "covert" is the key word.
Toxic people influence us in more ways than it is observable to the eye, as you said it yourself - "What you feel isn't what people see. What's happening on the inside so uncomfortable doesn't mean it is real on the outside."
"How patients began to understand that their own bodies are in some part their own responsibility. That many of these symptoms were not visitations from beyond. But directly due to their own experiences, memories, attitudes. Doctor was there to hold up mirror for them"
Mesmer(1994)
"Whether these alien ideas spring from the subject's own mind as in auto-suggestion following a traumatic experience or by hetero-suggestion as in hypnosis or by the Devil himself, as our forefathers thought is relatively unimportant."
Freud (1962)
---
CBT is therapy of Ableism. It denies the reasons behind any condition and it enforces what is supposed to be a "norm", conformism, groupthink, herd mentality, plus suppressing emotions and stifling them down, rejecting them and pretending there is no problem, and that toxic people do not exist.
---
(23.11.2022)
"The question is what is the best way or ways to heal the part of ourselves that feels anxious or afraid?"
Humanistic psychology, humanistic therapies.
Check out my Psychology videos - there are 155 videos which CBT is keeping censored and hidden away from us, concepts I learned after I realized that CBT is false therapy full of errors.
Check out quotes by Rollo May, Carl Rogers, Maslow.
Check out Anti-psychiatry movement and their ideas.
CBT is Ableism - it is form of fascism, they deliberately want to enforce idea of "normalcy" which is approved and defined by corrupt corporations running the medical industry.
One does not become fully human painlessly.
We need to accept our "negative" feelings, rather than avoid or repress them. Suffering and sadness are natural and essential parts of life, and important-they lead to psychological growth.
ROLLO MAY (1909-1994)
DK THE PSYCHOLOGY BOOK
The only person who is educated is the one who has learned how to learn and change.
Carl Rogers
The individual lives in an environment of constant change, yet frequently and all too easily, people deny this fluidity and instead create constructs of how they think things should be. They they try to fit constructs they have made.
CARL ROGERS (1902-1987)
DK THE PSYCHOLOGY BOOK
Rogers maintained that many of us have very strong, strident, specific conditions that must be met before we will grant approval or acceptance. We also base self-worth and regard for others on achievements or appearance, rather than accepting people as they are.
CARL ROGERS, DK
"Everyone always can improve"
"The curious paradox is that when I accept myself just as I am, then I can change."
Carl Rogers
Secrecy, censorship, dishonesty, and blocking of communication threaten all the basic needs.
ABRAHAM MASLOW
Each one of us has an individual purpose to which we are uniquely suited, and part of the path to fulfilment is to identify and pursue that purpose.
ABRAHAM MASLOW (1908-1970)
DK THE PSYCHOLOGY BOOK
People are not evil; they are schlemiels.
(*a stupid, awkward, or unlucky person)
ABRAHAM MASLOW
If someone is not doing what they are best suited to do in life, it will not matter if all of their needs are fulfilled, he will be perpetually restless and unsatisfied. Each of us must discover our potential, and seek out experiences that will allow us to fulfill it.
A.MASLOW,DK
---
Complex PTSD and PTSD are not the same.
There is significant difference in Complex Trauma, that is why it is called "complex".
PTSD stems usually from war incident.
Complex PTSD stems from being exposed to constant, relentless criticism, nagging, complaining in era when our psyche was forming and supposed to take shape. Instead of validation and acceptance and love from healthy ambient - our psyche received the basic message that people are unsafe and that life is struggle - since psychopaths view life as battle and King of the hill competition, there is Dog in manger mentality.
Being exposed to untreated mentally ill person or people is not our fault. Trauma of being exposed to narcissistic abuse is not fault in our deep core basic character. There is nothing to fix, modulate, calm or heal inside us - we are not broken and we do not need therapy - it is mentally ill aggressive narcissists and bordeliners who need therapy and they do not want it.
What we need to heal are wounds which are caused by the external . If we are not out murdering people and causing damage to others - there is nothing sick inside us to fix.
No matter how perfect we are, no matter how calm we are - evil will still happen, evil people will still do evil - because they are evil and our character, our actions, our thinking, our calmness will not influence their deliberate choice to be evil and do evil. We cannot control other people and their choices.
We can learn how to recognize red flags and cut ties with toxic people or even plan to relocate if we are in toxic ambient. That is all we can do. Being calm in abusive situation and then self blaming our fears and natural reaction to abnormal people is not healthy.
---
"we try to avoid our own discomfort."
There is more and deep issues.
People who are codependent feel inept, unsuccessful in life, losers basically. People are agreeable in order to avoid punishment.
You do not mention punishment.
Maslow told we have basic needs there is pyramid of needs. At the bottom there are our basic needs - which if not satisfied - will lead to mental issues such as codependency.
Basic needs are: safety, shelter/home/roof over one's head, finances.
So what happens to someone being afraid of confrontation - is that they are afraid of punishment, this is the punishment:
- being homeless
- without money
- hungry
- begging for food
- committing suicide as means of ending suffering of living in the streets
That is why someone is afraid of speaking up - people who do not have back up, they do not have money security nor home to know if everything else falls, at least I have shelter, money and safety (life without violence, someone peeing on you while you sleep in the streets or kicking you). Not all people are born with silver spoon in their mouth. Nor all people are parasites who leech others to get by in life.
At 6:38 you mention "Consequences of not confronting" that we will feel depressed, angry, road rage, little patience. Affecting your mood.
That is all true - but you do not mention at all consequences of confronting.
When people express themselves -
- they do get fired from job if they confront bullying and mobbing at work. There is great option to find another job quickly in wealthy country, in some cosmopolitan city like New York where you can change job as your dirty laundry - but many people are not so lucky to live in ambient where you can find income of money easily.
- people will also get attacked when they are authentic and when they self express. Someone being gay for example - there are psychopaths out there who physically attack them or there is mental torture like mocking
These are not easy issues to address.
People who are struggling with fear of confrontation are seeking how to resolve these socio-economic issues which are natural after-effect of confrontation - and you do not mention them at all: real life consequences of confronting.
Confrontation and conflict - it is sexy. You are correct. People will admire and like someone who is standing up for themselves, they do not like someone who is walked all over. That is all truth. Boundaries and self respect are important and they are the key to happy life -
however you do not mention what happens when we live in toxic country without job income and with violent and aggressive people who are antagonistic to different opinions.
When there is topic Fear of confrontation - the core issue problem is Consequence of punishment - and you did not cover it in your video. That is not your fault. 99% of you tube and other resources are not aware of this problem related to confrontation since we do live in self absorbed society, Trumps mentalities are much more wide spread than overt narcissists display to us.
Also one other thing that you did not mention in this video - that fawning and people pleasing and being quiet - is not always a bad thing. Sometimes we can allow others to win and use our mistakes as hidden help for others to succeed.
Also, imagine what will happen if we are confronting all the time - we will be annoying. Imagine if we are expressing our opinions about everything all the time - we will become super annoying. There needs to be balance. Sometimes it is good to shut up.
There are narcissists who like confrontation - they do not want resolution, they want opportunity to make you mad, so that they can point finger at you for being abuser - like Amber did. Narcissists feed on other people's reactions, angers, mood swings, that makes them good inside when they see other people suffering.
Also when we invest our time in rancour - you did not mention this also - we will develop deep grudge - which is the cause of all auto immune diseases, allergies, our immune system gets destroyed when we are in war mode. We spend time, money, focus on proving others wrong, it can become addictive - and of course - this destroys relationships and paradoxically attracts toxic people.
"When we fear punishment, we focus on consequences, not on our own values."
Marshall Rosenberg
La Rochefoucauld, the French philosopher said: "If you want enemies, excel your friends; but if you want friends, let your friends excel you"
---
(24.11.2022)
Quote from video: "own the fact we take the particular action, it is us we take particular action. Face full reality what we done.
Seek understand why we did what we did – compassion, came from empathy? Do this compassionately.
Other people involved what happened – we need to acknowledge that explicitly harm we done. Take full responsibility, consequences of our behaviour. Acknowledge how they affected us.
We take any actions available to make amends, correct our actions, do damage control. Do as much as possible to correct situation minimize harm we have done.
We firmly commit behaving differently." - end of quote.
There is a serios flaw with this approach.
The book is based on the basis that we are monsters, that we made wrong and that thinking about being wrong we equate with our character - which is called emotional fusion.
What I see here is internalized toxic shame and toxic shame is governing this book.
The basic question is - are we evil?
Are we murdering people? Are we having hidden agenda to harm other people? Are we enjoying in other people suffering and are we condoning their suffering by our actions and words?
The chances are if we feel guilt and trapped in guilt and if we seek solutions for the guilt - chances are we are not evil at all.
Instead we were made believe we are guilty by toxic people - usually in toxic ambient while growing up.
With exposure to narcissistic abuse we will over time develop chronic guilt for simply existing.
We will never develop self worth from inside - instead other people will define our self worth. This is called trauma bonding and external referencing locus of control. We feel toxic shame - basic belief that we are inept and wrong to the core due to exposure to toxic people who are also hating themselves - but toxic people spread toxic shame onto others in order to feel good.
So what happens is there is toxic shame in a spectrum. At one side of spectrum are receivers of toxic shame and abuse - and they will feel guilty about anything because others will manipulate and control and trigger their guilt. At the other side of spectrum are toxic people - who are depending on harming and causing pain to others in order to feel good about themselves - since deep down they know they are evil and they do not care about other people. They simply chase orgasm, food, and power. These people are mentally il, they are narcissists and with time they will turn to crime and criminal activities to achieve their satisfaction. That is why they are mentally ill - they are psychopaths.
The truth is that anything in life can be labeled as wrong and error.
Any type of action, anything we speak, anything we do - literally everything - can be labeled as wrong, as mistake and as something to feel guilty about. This is secret which abusers hold and they use this guilt tripping as their weapon to target abused people, people with high moral and ethical standards which they forged when being exposed to psychopaths while growing up, during long period of time.
Guilt is a tool to manipulate and control other people.
If we do not have self worth inside is - due to complex trauma and exposure to narcissistic abuse - we will let other people to define our life for us. And toxic people will sniff us out easily. Toxic people throw in regular intervals criticism and nagging - and they look and scan for reactions around them in that way they seek targets of their abuse. They will notice when someone reacts to their narcissistic bait - and once you are hooked , they simply engage conditioning, Skinner's box, hypnosis - barrage of targeted abuse. Toxic people also use grooming and honeymoon period to hook up potential victims - since empaths and anyone with high moral and ethical standards are usually isolated and lonely - so they target natural human instinct to be close to someone.
What is bad? What is evil?
"Nothing human disgust me unless its unkind or violent" - Tennessee from the movie "Night of Iguana".
If we are not violent, if we are extremely kind and nice - and if we still feel guilty about anything - this is a sign that we were been exposed to narcissistic abuse and that we are in toxic ambient.
It's most highly probable that we are people pleasers, pushovers and that we fawn to others, due to relentless guilt feelings over nothing. This also leads to codependency issues - since we were hypnotized to feel inept and wrong about anything we do due to relentless criticism and nagging and complaining by toxic people around us.
With toxic shame and abuse - we will be hypnotized and conditioned to believe that our core character is bad and wrong and faulty - because it feels certain emotions such as fear, panic. This is toxic shame making us believe we are wrong for being human.
The truth is no matter how much we try to chase perfection and not making mistakes - evil people will still be evil. Toxic people will blame, complain and criticize no matter what we do.
We need to realize if we are not serial killers or have Trump/Putin mindset of hatred and violence - we are normal. There is nothing guilty in our actions.
We live in dualistic universe. Any action can be interpreted as evil or justified. Any word, any opinion, too. There will always be someone who will not like what we do or what we speak. There will always be someone who will interpret our actions as something shameful and something to feel guilty about. Due to dualism.
So we need self worth inside us , our own common sense to be the judge. If we are not criminals - there is nothing wrong with our natural reactions and our chasing of our dreams and goals in life.
We need to become aware of what is Complex Trauma, and how to recognize toxic people - and cut them out of our lives is possible immediately. The guilt feelings we feel - which do not go away and when we did not realistically done anything wrong - are stemming from toxic people which we attracted due to exposure to toxic people when we were growing up.
We were bred and installed and hypnotized to be passive and to feel guilty and that we serve and obey toxic people - we went through Skinner's box conditioning, similar to circus animals or Pavlovian dogs - and this conditioning process at the basis is made possible with guilt and guilt tripping.
If we feel guilt and there is nothing realistically any reason to feel guilty about - this is hypnosis. We are under hypnosis - like on stage when practitioner makes subordinates believe they are chickens. We went through long period of narcissistic abuse - and in this period we were exposed to conditioning to feel guilty and thus to serve toxic people. This hypnosis must be broken.
The whole world is matrix of Trump toxic people who are hypnotizing normal, healthy, kind, friendly open individuals to be slaves to corny corporations and narcissists and psychopaths. Our kindness and openness, our sanity, our high and moral standards are used against us to become slaves to psychopaths. We need to become aware of this and break the hamster wheel of abuse and subordination to evil.
"So you ask, what is the motivation for a man to do what he did? Well, one motivation is to believe, or to have been persuaded to believe, in his own guilt. And to live in mortal fear of the consequences. Another is to believe, or to have been persuaded to believe, in the guilt of his friends and to live in mortal fear of the consequences."
Daniel (1983)
--
"Tell me professor, what in this video did he say that is wrong?"
"You can be bullied one in the office, you are not going to get raise"
He is creating hysteria here. He is hypnotizing young narcissists like yourself into feeling angry about nothing.
"People aren't gonna credit you with your own work, other people are gonna take credit for"
He is over-generalizing here.
Not all people are doing that. It is unrealistic to label all people as psychopaths who are doing criminal activities like workplace bullying.
"You are gonna go home angry because you are doing your best, you are trying to get along with everyone"
Here he is hypnotizing people with low IQ like yourself who are incapable to label emotions and to know how to regulate their emotions and thoughts and he is implanting emotions like anger into others, to feel anger. This is what makes psychopaths like him dangerous - like Trump or Hitler he is instructing people how to feel and what to feel, what others must feel.
"and nothing goes your way."
Another over-generalization.
"Well it because you are a pushover"
Pushover is trauma response from being exposed to narcissistic psychopaths like him. Pushover is not character trait.
He is spreading mental illness here, he is using emotional fusion to define someone's persona and personality.
"and you think that's good because you confuse harmlnessness with morality. It's not right."
Here he is instructing young insecure men like yourself to become violent.
he is instructing people with low iq to label being peaceful as being sissy and feminine. He lies.
"Just because you can't do any damage doesn't mean you are moral"
Here he does not define what damage means.
HE is literally hypnotizing young men to become violent.
"Just means you don't have the capability for mayhem and that makes you a pushover"
Nope. Pushover is trauma response, it is not character trait, it is not personality.
Horrible person, using psychology to install narcissists and psychopathy in people with lower IQ like yourself.
---
"He said not to let people push you around because you are too nice. He didn't say to push others around so you won't be pushed around. No, the point is to me a good guy not a nice guy."
He talks crap.
He is instructing hysteria and psychopathy.
People who are pushing others are psychopaths. The problem is not in your behaviour neither your persona if you are pushed around.
--
(26.11.2022)
"Is this CBT?"
Yes. Nitpicking over symptoms and making yourself believe we can jump skip over our symptoms and that being functional is enough. It isn't.
If there is trauma - pretending that trauma doesn't affect us will lead to bigger trauma.
It is the same as if we label rumbling in the stomach as socially unacceptable behaviour and that we analyze it why it happens and how to stop it since it is unusual and uncomfortable to hear.
Then as CBT instructs - we might come with conclusion overgeneralization to eat all the time.
Then we might end up with weight problem and high cholesterol.
Natural reaction to something are natural reactions.
We need to focus on our goals, dreams, solving and resolving issues or letting go if it is impossible,
It is insane to force ableism as reaction to life.
---
(28.11.2022)
SAD is all present fear, inhibition from social situations - even is safe situations. SAD is related to being paranoid.
AvPD is being sick of societies abuse but still wants connection. I see AvPD as more extreme social anxiety - victims of abuse,
There is actually big hidden and deliberately covered difference between social anxiety and social anxiety disorder which nobody talks about due to pharma mafia, keeping trauma information hidden:
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" facing my fears everyday stressing me out very much but I will never give up."
The idea that your fears are sign of your character flaw is creatin the disorder.
This happened due to abuse, exposure to untreated mentally ill person while growing up - someone who criticized us 24/7 in age when our psyche was forming.
Now we equate and fuse together our mistakes, flaws, trauma with our character worth, personality flaw in character which is definition of toxic shame.
Now we believe that we must be "strong" and "courageous" and that our fears are "test" to show we are man enough and worth enough to be human and worthy and accepted.
The truth is that we are ok and on par with others , deep core character is ok - while our trauma are where our fears stem from. Fears that we label as character flaw, weakness, being sissy - is actually Charcot Hysteria and it is byproduct of exposure to psychological abuse while growing up, us being HSP and being in toxic shame ambient with ableism (ableism= untreated mentally ill people who present themselves as superior & alpha or those with low IQ labeling anything different as sickness to cure).
If we are not out murdering people, if we are not BPD with evil schemes how to abuse others and cause harm - there is nothing wrong with our character and our self.
Fears that we label as weakness due to conditioning in Skinners box - are hypnosis. It stems from external factor - fears do not belong to us, we were forced to believe they are signs of our faults. That is creating the disorder. And CBT joins into hysteria and confirms this hypnosis conditioning.
More at my reddit forum - Profile - about.
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"Brain use high level of beta than someone who doesn't struggle with anxiety, level shoots up very quickly in certain social situations"
But this is normal reaction to abnormal people. If we are in relationship with abuser, someone narcissistic, dangerous - it is normal for amygdala hijacking to occur.
"National Institute of Health they state for many people social skills are Underdeveloped"
Let's clear this out;
People with social anxiety are divided in two main groups: 1) empaths and 2) covert narcissists who act pretend victims to attract narc supply: shy, nice, calm people. Narcs lack social skills due to psychopathic tendencies: to abuse and exploit others.
Empaths with social anxiety have high social skills- empathy - ability to put themselves in other people shoes - social skill which 80 percent of people do not have.
Social anxiety is part of Complex Trauma - being abused, experience of abuse, bullying and mobbing which creates social anxiety in similar situations: unknown people, requests to fulfill, being perfectionist and someone's criticism of our actions, opinions.
Social anxiety needs plan - but this plan needs only to include info how to retort to toxic people. Toxic people being the cause of social anxiety. With abuse and neglect and growing up with unfair criticism - we do not know how to handle toxic people apart from fawning and avoiding.
Plan needs to include information about narcissistic abuse, not plan regarding social skills if we are empaths - we have social skills - they are just buried like water on Mars due to previous abuse.
Social anxiety is not grocery store. Social anxiety is being stuck in toxic job with ongoing bullying, abuse, mobbing without any means of escaping it. That is social anxiety analogy - not going to grocery store.
There is concept called functional social anxiety -
where we do have ability to talk with people even though we had previous abuse experiences with covert narcissists.
Functional social anxiety includes breathing and being calm. The problem is still there. Trauma is still trapped inside the body. Toxic shame is still there. Breathing will not remove toxic shame nor trauma.
Functional social anxiety is being able to say hello and being social.
Michael Jackson had severe social anxiety -and he still performed at his job, in front of billions of people, always in media - social anxiety did not prevent him from being workable and functional - yet trauma blocked him from preventing other issues not related to his job.
Social anxiety is part of Complex Trauma (which is not the same as PTSD).
If we label our natural reaction to abuse as sickness and something to cure - this is ableism. We will create toxic shame, deep core belief that we are unworthy, broken, sissy, weak, unmanly - and this attempt to be normal and groupthink herd mentality conformism accepted definition of normalcy will create mental illness.
All emotions are valid - including fears and worry and inhibitions and not feeling comfortable in toxic ambient.
Without it we would be stuck with codependency and narcissistic abuse and we would never seek better people and healthier ambient.
---
Masturbation is healthy. Masturbation is not causing evil people to be evil. Our acts, our opinions, anything we do are not causing evil to happen. It seems to us because of abuse and narcissistic abuse while growing up - we were conditioned to believe that we are causing evil people to be evil and bad things to happen when we are selfish, happy, confident. This is result of living for long period of time with untreated mentally ill person(s). This is Complex Trauma and social anxiety is part of CPTSD (which is not the same as PTSD).
Humanistic psychology tells us to focus on our goals and what we want to do in life, as oppose CBT advice to focus on our panic as primary concern in life - which leads only to mental illness and more anxiety.
If we are not out murdering people, if we are not evil, if we are not causing harm to others and have no hidden agenda to harm others - there is nothing broken inside us, there is nothing that is causing others to be abusive, cruel nor there is nothing that through butterfly effect is causing evil things to happen out of thin air. It is the Skinner's box conditioning while growing up that we were hypnotized and conditioned to believe that we are the cause of evil and evil people if we do not comply to abusers and their demands that their wishes.
Trauma needs to be healed, not our compulsions, obsessions and any other natural reaction to abnormal people.
----
CBT is therapy of errors. It is narcissistic tool created by narcissists in medical industry to produce functional narcissists such as Elon Musk or Trump. CBT is part of Paperclip operation, when USA stole Nazi technology after 1945, CBT is form of brainwashing and mass control. CBT is fictional Ludovico technique described in Clockwork Orange (1971). CBT leads to people pleasing, fawning and being pushover. CBT focuses on panic symptoms and makes our live being organized around our fears and panic - making fears and panic our primary focus in life. Then fears and panic make our life - even though it seems that we are battling it against.
CBT ought to be banned.
There is humanistic therapies and humanistic psychology which tells us to focus on our dreams, wants, needs as primary concern in life, not our fears. It is focus on our self worth - while social anxiety stems from deep toxic shame - deep core belief we are unworthy and inept to manage life.
Social anxiety is part of Complex Trauma (which is not the same as PTSD).
Social anxiety is natural reaction to abuse, bullying and mobbing experience.
---
If I list fears - I will become highly aware of fears and I will equate of having fears with my personal defect - which leads to toxic shame and mental illness.
There is concept called functional social anxiety - where we perform and engage - yet trauma is still buried deep down.
That is why self help and guru without psychology expertise can be dangerous and toxic.
---
I think people are confused positively and they cannot yet process information in this video.
We live in world of ableism where we reject anything that is not accepted by groupthink - it is like living in USSR whole life and now we make discovery that there is a country like USA with freedom to think differently without being punished or sent to gulag if we self express ourselves - which is basically social anxiety, trauma.
This is extremely complex concept and it needs to be explained more - especially when we apply this concept of validation and dualism in real life.
---
(29.11.2022)
Social anxiety stems from being exposed to narcissistic abuse, bullying, mobbing.
We do not know how to handle toxic people since we were exposed to neglect and criticism in early age, when our psyche was forming and when our psyche needed to receive the message of self worth, acceptance and safety, taking care of ourselves. Instead we were conditioned to develop codependency and perceive loud and aggressive people as gods and saviours while we were told and ashamed into hypnotic conditioned toxic shame belief that we are inept, weird and stupid to handle life.
Then CBT joins into hysteria and continues the very same abuse we endured in complex trauma years: CBT explains we are inept, weak and dumb - and that toxic people do not exist, that we make them up in our heads. CBT explains that our fears are sign that we are sissy and cowards and that our core character must be proven to others, that we must depend on other people's approval by us being "strong" and "courageous", by facing our "fears" and this way that we prove our manhood to other people. CBT equates our trauma with our core character and thus creates permanent toxic shame and mental illness and more, new and additional anxiety.
In reality those "fears" are trauma, they are conditioned set of beliefs, that we were programmed to believe, it is Skinner's box; we were trained like circus animals to perform fear of punishment as amusement to psychopaths, we were trained like Pavlovian dogs to triggers and flashbacks to keep us in permanent cycle of worry and learned helplessness.
Our "fears" are Charcot hysteria - it is trauma caused by psychopaths, it is external wound - it is not our core character and no, we do not need to face fears to prove our worth. We are already worthy and we are already courageous for enduring toxic people from early age when other kids were fed by silver spoon.
If we are not serial killers, if we are not evil, if we do not have evil agenda to harm anyone - there is nothing wrong with our core being, there is no pathology and nope we do not need to prove ourselves to anyone, especially not to toxic people.
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Excellent that there is information about social anxiety.
This is something that none of official resources do not mention - that social anxiety can be sign of covert narcissism.
For anyone struggling with social anxiety - we know that social anxiety stems from empathy and abuse of empaths and it is extremely confusing to realize that there are actually abusers who also display social anxiety.
I call this phenomena mimicking social anxiety. Covert narcissists mimic social anxiety in order to gain super easy targets of their abuse: silent, quiet, super nice, helping, self censoring empaths, highly sensitive individuals into their web of deceit, their narcissistic supply.
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(31.11.2022)
Brave is not personality trait. Believing that being courageous is personality characteristics leads to mental illness.
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Also, been mocked for being sissy by bully since 4th grade at grammar school and it lasted for years. Other boys joined into hysteria for me not being good at sports, and as the result I never formed any male friendship relationship in my whole life. I did report it to teachers - but to no avail. Until bullying happened I had childhood friends outside school and I was very open and friendly and outgoing, happy and had no extreme inhibition issues with people at all. I ended up with social anxiety and CBT made things worse, I ended up with fawning reactions and feeling basically unsafe.
I learned only last year that this was not social anxiety as CBT explains it, in fact it is Complex Trauma (which is not the same as PTSD). This year I learned that bullying someone is part of ableism - it is desire to form unique, one sided definition of normalcy and anything different from groupthink conformism has to be destroyed, cured or suppressed down.
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Acceptance of social anxiety was great disovery for me.
IT also answers the ancient question why evil and trauma exists - evil needs to exist so that we know what is light. Without evil, there would be no contrast, without evil we would not be able to recognize evil and we would not be able to choose goodness.
Basically we would live in our fantasy world, become Putin and invade Ukraine since it appears as nazi to us - since there is not catalogue, list or archive of what is true evil.
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"People with severe AvPD would never search help, so it is hard to find these people."
Yep- and then covert narcissists step in. Vulnerable narcissists who are also traumatized and avoid society - but they hold grudge against society. Avoidants fear social situations but desire to form social contact. Narcissists disguised as avoidants and socially anxious actually seek easy targets: other avoidants and socially anxious to control and manipulate them.
Covert narcissists will playpretend to have social anxiety in order to gain narcissistic supply: other people. Vulnerable narcissists will mimic social anxiety to gain easy sympathy from others.
This way psychopaths become spokesmen for avoidants and socially anxious.
Truly avoidants and socially anxious will hate talking about themselves, bringing attention to themselves due to fear or ridicule.
Covert narcissists will have no problem talking - and they will enter therapy to gain knowledge and education how to exploit empaths and sensitive people who shut up and fawn to everyone, who are codependent to abusers.
Now covert narcissists will become measure what is social anxiety and avoidance - since they do not have social anxiety at all. They have natural reactions of hatred and disgust by people who they have done them wrong to - yet narcissist as expert in avoiding accountability will explain these natural reactions of abuse as fears and inhibitions in social situations.
That way CBT got wrong results in their big study and analysis done in early 1990s when social anxiety and avoidance were being defined and entered into DSM.
Narcissists explained to dumb CBT "experts" what is social anxiety - and this carries on even today because CBT is faulty therapy full of errors.
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What I hate about CBT is that CBT is default obligatory therapy for Social anxiety. If anyone with social anxiety looks information, books about social anxiety - 90 percent of resources will be based on CBT.
No one explains that this is CBT.
No one explains the dangers of CBT.
No one explains alternatives to CBT.
CBT is pushed without notice, without explanation as regular, forced, all accepted therapy - as if we live in North Korea with censorship and state run information which is heavily censored and moderated - so that we do not know the whole truth.
This philosopher prophesized nazi CBT tyranny:
"There will be, in the next generation or so, a pharmacological method of making people love their servitude, and producing dictatorship without tears, so to speak, producing a kind of painless concentration camp for entire societies, so that people will in fact have their liberties taken away from them, but will rather enjoy it."
Aldous Huxley (1894 - 1963)
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(2.12.2022)
I learned that Letting go is effective in situations where we cannot do absolutely anything about the problem, situation, difficult person. Letting go means either being willing to suffer punishment for not obeying someone's control and manipulation OR not engaging with them - gray rock method, minimizing contact as much as possible.
Empaths will tend to fix any problems that abusers will invent and engage in fixing abuser's emotions in order to evade their tyranny.
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"How about panic attack and anxiety
"
Also. Putting value on this means it matters of problem solving to get rid of it.
It is about realizing the fears and inhibitions and uncomfortable panic attacks are not out core personality. It is not our persona fault, some kind of ineptness that toxic shame produce us to believe.
Instead they are reactions to toxic people - external factor.
Then external factor is problem - not us.
Unless we are serial killers, abusers, psychopaths, anti social, Putin or Trump - there is nothing wrong with us, we are not problem.
We can learn how to recognize red flags to discover covert abusers, how to cut contact and how to Let go is we are not able to cut contact immediately.
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I would also add - if bullying occurs in the first place, if someone is deliberately putting additional job while protecting others = and these things are pattern and not one time incident - it is toxic place.
Something toxic will not fix itself on its own, and we are not super human who can change toxic people and toxic ambient. We need to leave toxic place - otherwise it will create trauma in our body that trauma will not be easy to process and release easily in the future.
In the end - nobody will glorify our efforts, nobody will make a movie about our energy, time and work we have done, nobody will name a street based on our hard work - so believing that somehow toxic people will change even when we stand up for ourselves is dangerous belief. I would work on our beliefs - what I need money for anyway, that for example - less popular job might not be better option. Do I need to spend extra money on buying things to impress random people who do not care if I live or die? Is it worth it?
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(3.12.2022)
It is advice to hypervigilance and new layers of anxiety. It is hypnosis with trauma belief that you are incapable of handling life and that you must learn how to be "normal" and "strong". That somehow your thinking can save you from evil people, and magically your thoughts and behavior can influence external factors - which lead to mild schizophrenia and paranoia in the end.
Instead of self-narcissistic abuse try out validating and self-acceptance, self validation and self love. And see where this will lead you.
You will discover that you never actually take care of yourself at all. And that was the whole problem to begin with.
When we equate outside circumstances - being poor, being in toxic ambient, surrounded by toxic people - as our own fault due to some character defect which can be "cured" by nitpicking our errors and imperfections - we will develop severe mental illness and become narcissist. Just as our abusers were. And then the curse of mental illness will pass onto the next generation. Break the spell. Love yourself as you are. Without any conditions of superiority and narcissism.
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(5.12.2022)
Social anxiety is not the same as social anxiety disorder.
If we are bullied, if we are in mobbing situation, any kind of abuse in social situation - we will feel social anxiety. This fear and panic is not sickness, it is not pathology. It is normal reaction to abnormal people: abusers, psychopaths.
Social anxiety disorder is paranoid delusional disorder which relates to feeling social inhibitions all the time, even with safe people.
This difference is not mentioned in any official medical resources and this is causing a lot of misdiagnosis and self-pathologizing.
Social anxiety which most are misdiagnosed stem from:
1) trauma, which is not the same as PTSD. Complex PTSD is being exposed to relentless criticism when we were growing up, invalidation similar to CBT treatment of anyone feeling inhibitions.
2) covert narcissists pretend to have social anxiety in order to gain narcissistic supply: shy, inhibited, introverted, kind, nice, good people who shut up most of the time and do not engage in conflict which makes them perfect target of narcissistic abuse.
While social anxiety disorder may as well be originated in brain and body dysfunction -
social anxiety is trauma, there is no sickness, there is nothing to cure. The only problem are toxic people and toxic ambient around someone who feels social anxiety.
More on this in the following text which I copy-paste every Monday when I scan for social anxiety videos on you tube:
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" you'll see that everyone is busy talking to each other"
Myth no 1: "People are not focused on you, feeling that they are is spotlight effect"
Truth:
In healthy ambient this is true.
However narcissists do exist. Psychopaths do exist. And they are very much focused on easy targets: insecure shy socially anxious people to make them into pushovers.
Think about it more logically.
If "exposure" works, then nobody would never feel any social anxiety, everybody would be de-sensitized already by now.
This exposure works only for shy ones.
Those who were abused, there is trauma stuck inside which is broadcasting the anxiety.
Myth no2:
"Socially anxious are not focused on other people so they do not see other people"
Truth:
People with social anxiety are already focused on other people, they watch other people - due to abuse they seek signs of potential abuse and attack.
Myth no3
"Socially anxious do not have social skills"
Truth:
People with social anxiety already have perfect superior social skills: empathy which 80 percent of people do not have, ability to put themselves in other people's shoes.
Also,
think about it more logically.
Nobody likes someone who is absolutely perfect in social situations. Such person is seen and perceived as stuck up and boring - and very charming people are known to be psychopaths who are using grooming and honeymoon phase to attract new victims into their codependency prison.
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"I just lose energy when doing that. It’s so tiring having to watch people in a social place"
Yes!
Not only that - most people with social anxiety do not have money nor friends to expose and make experiments.
Also - if we create ritual out of our anxiety as CBT is advising us - actually any ritual as response to anxiety will bring more anxiety.
We will make our fears into god which we either do battle or prove our worth. This way CBT is making us sick and mentally ill.
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"Despite how rational I can be my emotions doesn't care about rational arguments"
Yes!!
This happens because of amygdala hijacking. This trauma information is not mentioned by CBT and this way CBT is making us into freaks and as if we are crazy for experiencing abuse and being victims of abuse.
When we are abused , there will be triggers and flashbacks which will trigger our brain into lizard brain and our cortex brain will be switched off when we are in anxiety, fears and panic.
This means - no advice will help, we are in survival mode, hypervigilance.
This happens due to conditioning, Charcot Hysteria, hypnosis - we were groomed to be people pleasers and to fear other people. This is trauma being stuck inside our body, there is no sickness in our mind, persona as CBT is trying us to make us sick and deviant. This way CBT is creating mental illness.
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"the goal is to get used to social situations and not be so anxious. For learning to be social,"
Reality is that we will never get used to abuse, bullying and mobbing - which is the trigger and cause of social anxiety.
We were not built to be psychopaths, narcissists and abusers and this way we will never understand why evil people choose to do evil to other people.
Instead of CBT instruction to seek solution - there is actually Letting go. We cannot control other people. We cannot manipulate other people into them not being evil. Evil people will be evil and we will never understand why they are possessed by Satan and mental illness - and it is not our job to cure them and make them see the light, we are not gods, we are not jesus christ, we are not their therapist. It is their responsibility to seek medical treatment for their inclination to abuse other people.
Social anxiety means we are already social. If we didn't have it, we would not find socializing important. That is why social anxiety is called social+anxiety. There is social element. It is not called self anxiety. Problem is not inside us. We are not the problem. The only problem was and always will be psychopaths, narcissists, external element - social world - not us. We are simply reacting to abnormal people who are criminally insane.
No amount of education will not make evil person stop being evil.
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"I use this method. I can confirm it helps me immediately upon seeing everyone is caught up in their own thing and not focusing on me"
This is because you are having shyness.
If your fears go away on your own, by the power of your thoughts and perceptions - this means you do not have social anxiety.
You are making a lot of problems and confusion to truly socially anxious people who were abused and whose social anxiety is product of trauma and abuse - you are making them look stupid and lazy, as if they do not try hard enough to not be afraid. In reality - you are simply shy - you do not have social anxiety or more precisely Complex Trauma issue (which is not the same as PTSD).
Due to your shy egocentrism and inability to see that social anxiety is part of trauma and abuse which you cannot see so you think it is not present - you will label other people for not trying hard enough and this way you will stigmatize abused people. So please stop making such egocentric comments and stop self diagnosing yourself over internet. You are creating damage to other people with your egocentric misdiagnosed comments.
Social rejection is painful - and shy people may be convinced any social inhibition is social anxiety due to depth and trauma and hurt which you feel even with slight and unimportant fears that you feel - so you think due to egocentrism that social anxiety is the same fears as you feel.
It is not.
Social anxiety is deep trauma , it is being exposed to relentless criticism while growing up when their psyche was forming. IT is being exposed to untreated mentally ill person while brain was in developmental stage. That is not shyness. That is not what you feel when you have power and ability to regulate your shy emotions with your thinking and behaviour.
Also,
one other thing that CBT bothers me and which is connected actually to your shy emotions which you misdiagnose as social anxiety inhibitions -
is the fact that CBT and you - are forcing everybody to create shadow and reject any uncomfortable emotions away. As if feeling uncomfortable emotions is sickness and pathology.
It is not. Thinking this way creates mental illness and narcissism.
Emotions need to be processed - not shut down and shoved under the rug. Emotions are to be felt. It is not healthy to suppress undesired emotions - especially if we feel fears in the presence of someone who is dangerous like Amber or Trump or Putin or any other psychopath. Our emotions of fear and anxiety tell us that we are in danger and we need to cut contact with crazy mentally ill people.
The idea to lobotomize yourself with the goal to feel ecstasy, joy and orgasm till the day you die will create mental illness and narcissism.
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" I get hit with a wave of seemingly irrational frustration like I did something wrong or I don’t even know why."
That is trauma - complex PTSD which is not the same as PTSD.
CBT is misdiagnosing us because CBT and DSM are not recognizing trauma as real concept.
This way crooked corporations and mentally ill people like Trump are running medical industry and they are making money on our neurosis through misdiagnosis and pharma mafia. They will simply claim that we are lazy or not trying hard enough - while in reality narcissistic abuse is going on - which ironically is the true cause of social anxiety.
Instead of CBT there is Humanistic psychology which really helps with social anixety.
Trauma is stuck inside our body - and this trauma is creating constant toxic shame and self invalidation. CBT joins into hysteria and making us believe we are sick for having fears. We are not. Our fears are trauma being stuck inside our body - it is like having virus or parasite - it is external element and it is not our fault to be infected.
CBT claims that our fears are part of our persona, and that we must prove our manhood and courage by facing our fears - and this way CBT is creating mental illness and narcissism inside us - so that we see world as battle and engaging into useless King of the hill competition, Dog in manger mentality.
CBT is part of narcissistic abuse and is contributing to more social anxiety.
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" I've learned that those things are considered partial avoidance"
What I learned is functional anxiety.
Where we learn just the perfect way how to talk - yet anxiety is still inside us.
This is due to complex trauma (which is not the same as PTSD).
Trauma is causing our anxiety.
CBT is keeping trauma as secret because CBT is making money on our neurosis by misdiagnosing social anxiety deliberately as personality flaw.
ICD-11 by WHO recognized Complex PTSD and trauma as real issue.
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CBT ought to be banned.
CBT is misdiagnosing us by using limited psych vocabulary to describe complex issues. This way CBT is making over-generalization which CBT itself claims to be cognitive distortion.
CBT bans information about trauma and CPTSD (which is not the same as PTSD)
while WHO's ICD.11 recognizes trauma and Complex trauma as real concept.
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Pharma mafia makes money on our neurosis.
Psychopaths like Trump are running medical industry and they suppress information about CPTSD (which is not the same as PTSD) in order to keep us confused and misdiagnosed.
Then narcissists in medical industry will say - you are lazy and you are not trying hard enough.
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"You need to expose yourself to people"
This leads to people pleasing and fawning. This leads to social anxiety becoming functional.
Trauma is still inside. Trauma is still not processed.
Exposure does not help, that is why social phobia was renamed into social anxiety in late 1990s.
The problem is not inside us, we are not the problem.
Problem are toxic people, psychopaths, narcissists, abusers who caused social anxiety in the first place and who are keeping social anxiety ongoing.
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"I'm not sure which is applicable to me. If I know the 'rules' I can get through whatever it is I need to communicate. Otherwise, I freeze or avoid the situation completely if possible."
It is applicable,
1) we can never be prepared for anything in life. Idea to be prepared for danger leads to OCD issues, same family group as social anxiety.
2) freeze is trauma response, it is part of Complex trauma - the same as social anxiety. While growing up we learned that we are unworthy and damaged - as CBT tries to hypnotize us to believe. And that we simply need to find some magical way how to be perfect and good - which leads to narcissism and mental illness. CBT is making huge damage to our psyche, the same damage the same abuse that caused social anxiety in the first place: being exposed to narcissistic abuse.
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Everybody has social anxiety.
Social anxiety is not sickness nor pathology.
Social anxiety helps us to connect with other people and to keep our hygiene.
It helps us to come to job interview on time and to respect other people.
This CBT idea that certain emotions are sickness leads to narcissism, mental illness and narcissism.
Rejecting emotions leads to mental illness.
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“It is difficult to connect because I feel anxious because of lack of time and lack of opportunity to make these deep connections”
I don't think it is healthy to pathologize small and insignificant caprices with anxiety.
People do not connect and people have social anxiety due to abuse, mobbing and bullying.
Idea to label selfish people and corporate Trump narcissistic money chasing compulsion with anxiety is not healthy and functional, I would not encourage making these connections.
If we make ourselves believe that we need time to make connections and to say something - we are deluding ourselves into fantasy world. In reality - most people have low IQ and low social skills - that is why they do not have social anxiety in the first place.
So our expectation that in random mix with strangers will lead to deep conversation is delusion.
Most people are simply dumb. We cannot go through life with expectation that we are not surrounded with neandertals around us.
This fantasy belief that we expect most of people to be smart will cause a lot of disappointment.
Also, labeling social anxiety as narcissistic entitlement to expect other people to fawn to us - is also not healthy nor functional- We cannot control other people, we cannot manipulate other people. We cannot put expectations on other people - other people are not our dolls to play with and to manipulate and to control. That is narcissism.
Another issue is that some people are narcissistic and abusive and covert psychopaths - so actually it is good to not have too many deep connections. Abusers will present themselves as whatever you look from other people - they will act whatever they sniff you want from other people - in order to gain advantage from their targets - in order to parasite or steal energy, money, focus from their targets.
Social anxiety is not babbling. Social anxiety is not about conversation as primary concern.
Nitpicking about deep conversation is not social anxiety.
Social anxiety is 1) being stuck in toxic job with mobbing and abuse all the time without means of escape. That is social anxiety it is trauma. It is not narcissistic preoccupation about how much someone yacks.
2) it is connected to Maslow needs- If we are poor, if we do not have job, if we do not have security, safety, shelter - we will feel anxiety and social anxiety consequently since our basic needs are connected with society.
The idea to equate superficial disappointment about living on dumb planet with trauma & poverty are delusional.
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Stage fright is not the same as social anxiety. These are two different issues.
Also,
I don't think it is healthy to suppress, reject, pathologize our emotions. All emotions are valid. If we have trauma stuck inside our body, the idea to overcome trauma leads to more trauma. Jung said what we resist, persist. Any ritual to anxiety leads more to anxiety, it will cause OCD issues and mental illness if we keep doing it.
If we have fears and panic - it is indication there is trauma stuck inside us that needs to be processed. And it also means we are in unhealthy, toxic ambient. There is someone toxic, there is toxic external factor which we do not see due to panic and CBT explanation that panic is personality flaw. It isn't. Our emotions are not pathology. If we are not murdering people, if we are not anti-social, if we have no hidden agenda about harming someone - there is no pathology.
Idea to label our natural reactions to abnormal people as sickness leads to ableism and stigma, social stigma.
I would go in direction of Humanistic psychology and everything I learned about Complex trauma,
Panic is a sign we do not love ourselves. So love ourself. Panic is sign we are invalidating ourselves, we repeat narcissistic abuse which caused trauma in the first place and now we copy paste learned conditioned Charcot Hysteria panic - by shoving down and suppressing emotions of panic. So : validate ourselves. Panic is conditioning created by untreated mentally ill person(s) while we were growing up. So - self express. Make mistakes. Make mistakes deliberately instead of CBT advice of being perfect. Turn into self worth so that we do not have external referencing any more - depending on other people's approval.
Panic is narcissism. Panic stems from being exposed to narcissistic abuse. Now this trauma is stuck inside us.
The idea to suppress and reject and remove panic is narcissism. Narcissism is mental illness, it is sickness. It is virus program implanted by abnormal people around us.
Also not having Maslow needs satisfied leads to panic emotions, too. This means - if we are poor, if we do not have job, if we do not have safety, security, shelter - we will feel panic. This means panic is not sickness. It is simply natural reaction to socio-economic conditions and circumstances -
so before idea of calming and rejecting our panic - I would see whether it stems from trauma: abuse or not having our needs met -
so instead of self absorption techniques of calming down and suppressing panic - I would rather go in direction of processing trauma and planning our future, taking care of ourselves.
Chances are with trauma we will attract toxic people parasites into our life - and we will create codependency where we won't make ourselves to meet Maslow needs. We won't take care of ourselves. We will fawn and people please other people - and this will create constant storm of panic. So instead of calming down - I would tackle into self worth, taking care of myself, cutting contact with toxic people - and see if that helps rather than suppressing, ignoring and rejecting panic.
If we live with Amber or psychopath such as Trump or Putin - it would be highly toxic and unhealthy to breathe our panic emotions away. This way we would enable serial killers to be criminally insane without holding them accountable - and we will crap fit into abuse.
The idea that we make ourselves to believe that we are in safe place while in reality we are codependent and in toxic ambient is extremely dangerous.
The panic itself is very clear sign, signal and alarm that we are not in safe place. If we ignore this fact, we will invalidate and hate ourselves and we won't take care of ourselves. Instead we will create psychopaths into our gods and believe any crap they tell and explain us -
we need to trust ourselves. If we feel panic - believe it. Do not suppress it.
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It would be good to make first distinction between Social anxiety and Social anxiety disorder.
Social anxiety disorder is paranoid delusional disorder.
While social anxiety is part of Complex trauma (which is not the same as PTSD).
Both avoidance and social anxiety can be part of narcissism - where psychopaths mimic being victim - and then
truly anxious avoidants will only believe such covert abusers and hence form close contact with them that will turn into codependency - which paradoxically exposure to narcissistic abuse caused social anxiety and avoidance in the first place.
For example - someone with avoidance will join into forum - only that forum is being run by psychopath and narcissists being inside that forum - confusing and exploiting easy target: someone scared of people and fawning to them
Covert narcissist psychopaths caused social anxiety and avoidant disorder.
The problem is in external factor, not in our natural reactions to criminally insane psychopaths.
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The idea to "conquer" social anxiety leads to narcissism and mental illness.
All emotions are valid. If we reject uncomfortable emotions such as panic to reaction to Amber, psychopaths, parasites, serial killers, Trumps, narcissists : we will crap fit into their abuse. Our panic is here to signal us to cut contact with toxic people. If we do not have feelings of dread and panic around toxic people we would stay stuck with abnormal criminally insane sociopaths.
Social anxiety stems from being exposed to narcissistic abuse. Living in poor country, poor ambient where our Maslow needs cannot be met is also part of narcissistic abuse : usually mafia running the country to be poor and mentally ill people supporting criminally insane politicians due to self hatred.
This means social anxiety is our ally. If we enter into CBT belief that anxiety is enemy - we will create narcissism because we will reject parts of ourselves where empathy residues, our ability to put ourselves in other people shoes.
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Covert Narcissists tend to mimic social anxiety to gain sympathy, narcissistic supply; shy and inhibited people who shut up and tolerate high levels of abuse.
This creates a great deal of confusion to truly socially anxious since they cannot understand how can someone who declares themselves as shy and anxious to be abusive and demanding and borderline.
Also this created prejudice in most people who are never educated about trauma, abuse nor social anxiety -so they over-generalize all shy anxious inhibited people as manipulative.
Narcissists create all chaos in the world like butterfly effect their abuse is creating wars, violence, drama and neverending conflicts.
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Social anxiety is not primary concern talking to someone or being social party animal.
There is concept called Functional social anxiety. With functional social anxiety we can talk to other people. So all this lecture falls into abyss of ableism.
Michael Jackson had severe social anxiety yet he was highly functional in performing in front of billions of people.
There is myth that socially anxious ones do not have social skills.
That is not true. Socially anxious are empaths and have high levels of empathy, putting themselves in other people shoes which is social skill that 80 % of people do not have due to egocentrism and narcissism.
Social anxiety is part of Complex Trauma.
The idea that there is something broken inside us that is causing anxiety leads to mental illness. All emotions are valid. Emotions are not pathology. If we feel panic and anxiety - 1) we are inside toxic ambient 2) there is trauma stuck inside our body, caused by external factor - the problem is not in our fears, our fears are not personality flaw.
The idea that we need to be superior and perfect is idea forced by mentally ill sociopaths, abusers and narcissists, criminally insane crazy people who are ironically true cause of social anxiety.
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"'Any held tension cannot be justified in the service of free expression' excellent"
The problem starts when we stigmatize our natural reaction to mentally ill psychopaths as sickness and something to overcome. Then we will be in survival mode, and with lizard brain we do not have resources to self express.
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Problem is external referencing locus of control, trauma bonding that stems from internalized toxic shame.
With external referencing, trauma bonding and toxic shame - you perceive strangers as gods. With narcissism you see other people as object to conquer.
Why it would be so hard to be on par with others?
Why would we need to be codependent and be afraid of being alone?
Why would be force to connect with strangers in the first place? If we seek their approval, validation and ways to nitpick our fears - we will end up with mental illness and narcissism.
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This is nothing new - he talks how to become narcissist and abuse other people.
The quickest way to handle anxiety is to become psychopath and criminally insane.
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Social anxiety is reaction to narcissists, psychopaths, abusers, Ambers, serial killers, criminally insane. Social anxiety is not personality flaw. To believe that social anxiety is persona dysfunction leads to narcissism and mental illness.
The "thing" that dictate our fears and inhibitions is not social anxiety at all. It is trauma, complex PTSD (which is not the same as PTSD).
Social anxiety is simply alarm stemming from being exposed to narcissistic abuse when our brain was forming our psyche and persona.
Now we have high level ability to detect toxic people - very easily at the start of butterfly effect of abuse - we have ability to detect narcissistic abuse and psychopaths in its infancy.
The belief that this ability is sickness and that trauma does not exist and that trauma should not be processed but conquered leads to narcissism and mental illness - the same one that caused our social anxiety in the first place.
This way we become abusers and we pass trauma and abuse onto the next generation.
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It is not social anxiety. It is Complex Trauma.
Trumps ,mentally ill narcissists in medical industry are putting DSM and CBT explanations of trauma by ignoring trauma - and this way they misdiagnose ourselves in order to make money for their pharma mafia.
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"and overcome it by 24"
You never had it in the first place.
You were shy and with exposure your shyness calmed down.
Social anxiety is nothing to be overcomed.
Social anxiety is part of Complex PTSD (which is not the same as PTSD).
Idea to label mental issues as something to reject and suppress and ignore leads to ableism, narcissism and mental illness.
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" I realised I had social anxiety at 16 "
Idea to self-diagnose is bad idea.
Idea to seek help from narcissists and mentally ill people over internet just because they present themselves as good nice saviours lead to codependency, cult following and mental illness.
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Social anxiety is not sickness. It is not pathology.
If we are not out murdering people, if we are not monsters as Jordan Peterson tries to hypnotize young men into, if we are not anti-social, if we do not have hidden agenda to cause harm to others - there is no pathology.
Jordan Peterson is mentally ill person with high psychopathic narcissistic characteristics. He is turning young men confused with emotions into narcissists and abusers.
Socially anxious people are already focused on other people , they watch others very closely due to previous trauma, abuse and bullying.
When our Maslow needs are not met, when we are bullied - we will be in contact with body panic symptoms, this is not pathology. This is trauma, this is Complex PTSD (which is not PTSD) - it is caused by abusive sick people like Jordan Peterson.
Exposure do not work - that is why social phobia was renamed into social anxiety in mid 1990s. IF exposure helps - nobody would have anxiety, and third world countries would be wealthy rich organized countries since they would be exposed to evil abusers like Jordan Peterson by now they would learn how to become normal and healthy with exposure to sick mentally ill people like Jordan Peterson. They don't - since exposure to narcissists and mentally ill criminally insane people like Jordan Peterson do not work, does not help -
toxic evil people use grooming and honey moon phases to manipulate and control their targets.
Jordan Peterson is narcissists and his mentally ill mind is obsessed with creating super human abuser, Putin serial killer to abuse others and show dominance and superiority to gain appraisal and validation from his subordinates.
Anything that Jordan Peterson is speaking is hypnosis and brainwashing into mental illness, narcissism and criminal psychopathy.
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"you're fearing things that are not even there"
That is partially correct. In reality - social anxiety is fear of criticism and negative evaluation. This stems from Complex Trauma (which is not the same as PTSD) - where we were exposed to relentless criticism 24/7 while our psyche was forming and now our mind is conditioned-programmed-hypnotized into expecting brutal punishment whenever we say or do something. So in a way - it is there - potential to criticize is always there, it lingers in the air like Schrodinger cat - just waiting to be opened and checked.
In real life - anything we do or say can and will be used against us - even if it is the most perfect thing in the world.
However with complex trauma - exposure to narcissistic abuse over long period of time - we were conditioned to believe that we must be perfect and that people will judge us negatively. This is like virus program being installed into our software and it runs itself whenever it is executed by anything social.
The virus is not our persona, virus is not us, virus is not our character - it is external element, implanted by untreated mentally ill people: narcissists, abusers, psychopaths, parasites, aggressive borderliners, sociopaths, emotional vampires, Machiavellians.
It is important thing to notice that social anxiety is caused by external element - and it is being reproduced by our mind and behavior and it seems as if we are being sick - we aren't. We are simply being run by virus program. Like zombie.
This is important to realize - since society will jump to quick conclusions as always and label someone who appears shy as personal choice.
In reality we never know what is going on other people lives and it is not our business to prick our nose in other people intimate areas and judge them without knowing what is going on really. It is not fair to pre-judge, it is not reasonable nor healthy to hold bias against anyone.
"everybody can relate, I think we all go through this pathway"
It is interesting you say this because I made topic "Everybody has social anxiety" at main reddit forum about social anxiety - and my topic got deleted and many people commented that this is not true. I rewrote topic in my own reddit forum - link is in My profile - about - I cannot put link here since YT algorithm will block it as spam.
"phobia"
Social phobia was renamed in mid/end of 1990s into social anxiety because "experts" in medical industry actually finally made clever conclusion about social anxiety and they noticed that social anxiety does not wear off as phobia would with exposure. Instead if lingers on.
There is concept called Functional social anxiety where you can have social inhibitions and still act normally and confident without fears nor panic. The best example is Michael Jackson who had severe social anxiety yet he performed without problem in front of billions of people.
0:33 "You start feel as if people are looking at you"
Nope. This seems like that to someone who does not understand social anxiety. Actually in reality socially anxious people look at other people due to previous abuse and bullying trauma experience which caused social anxiety in the first place. Socially anxious look at others and they pay close attention how other people behave, their tone of voice, what they are saying, shouting and yelling is monitored, gestures and non-verbal cues. So contrary to CBT bias that people with social anxiety are self absorbed. nope they aren't. They are very much attuned, as any empath onto other people and their emotions and feelings and words and acts.
1:02 "Any social setting I feel like everyone is looking at me"
This is trauma. This is complex trauma (which is not the same as PTSD). This is Charcot hysteria. This is trauma being stuck inside our body and this trauma is not processed. It would be advisable to learn more about trauma: Gabor Mate, Peter Levine. This feeling that others are judging stem from our previous exposure to narcissistic abuse, bullying, mobbing, where untreated mentally ill person psychologically abused us - in times when our psyche was forming. Instead of being exposed to validation, love, safety and security - we were exposed to nagging, complaining, criticizing, coercion, manipulation of any kind by psychopaths around us. This feeling of dread is not hallucination as CBT explains it. It is also not disorder - it is not schizophrenia - since if it were, then this feeling would be present in all other situations with all people. We feel social threat only in social situations, that is why it is called social anxiety, social+anxiety, it is not called self anxiety - there is social element inside it. Which means external factor is the cause of anxiety, not our thinking. We feel threat since and due to exposure to narcissistic abuse we now have heightened sense to recognize toxic people in its infancy and we can see through masks and manipulation which covert abusers create to lure victims inside their abuse by charm, charisma and coercion and manipulation. Our social anxiety is simply alarm that we are in the presence of evil. Narcissists do not come in one single package of being blunt criminal. There is Sorites paradox which states that any condition is still condition even in small quantities or small traits. We do not need to be surrounded by criminally insane people like Trump, Putin or Amber - some narcissists and psychopaths cover their anti-social tendencies and control them. We are simply able to sniff them out easily - due to exposure to sick mentally ill aggressive borderliners and other psychopaths from early age.
1:09 "sweat over back, that is how anxious I would get"
There are far worse socially panic symptoms - and they all have role - to warn us against danger. similar to cats crouching their backs then they feel threaten- This is all natural normal response to abnormal people around us, abnormal toxic environment.
"IT is problem"
Problem are narcissists, abusers, psychopaths, not our reactions to toxic people. It is crucial that we understand that if we are not serial killers, if we are not anti-social, if we are not our murdering people, if we have no hidden agenda to cause any kind of damage or harm to others: we are not problem. There is nothing pathological inside us that is problem. CBT will join into hysteria and it will claim that we are problem and that our fears are sickness. They are not - feelings are all normal, all emotions have their right to exist and suppression of emotions lead to mental illness, that is why CBT is therapy of narcissism, narcissistic abuse and ableism, it is therapy of errors. CBT is default main therapy for social anxiety. 99 percent of self help books and online support about social anxiety are unfortunately based on CBT and that is why social anxiety still prevails today. CBT instructs us to believe that our natural reactions to toxic people are problem and that toxic people do not exist. This way narcissists like Trump become presidents and sick mentally ill criminally insane psychopaths get managerial seats in medical industry and make money to pharma mafia by parasiting on our fears.
1:50 "Everybody looking at you but your logical brain knows it is not true"
First of all - our logical brain is switched off when we are under panic. This phenomena is called amygdala hijacking. Our cortex brain goes offline and we are left to be in safe mode similar to Windows/Android safe mode where only basic functions can function.
In reality there are toxic people who do look at others because they are mentally ill and they get pleasure and worth by criticizing others and noticing what other people are doing wrong. When we reject our instinct - we will create toxic shame. When we decide that our brain is malfunctioning - this will create insecurity, more anxiety and external reference locus of control - because we will believe that we cannot trust our own judgement so we must rely on other people to explain us reality. That is recipe for codependency and toxic relationships and this is invitation for toxic people to abuse us. We need to trust ourselves, even if we are wrong. Other people cannot validate us, other people cannot lead our life, other people cannot be captain of our goals in life. Other people are idiots just as we are - they re not smarter than us - even though is seems that other people are superior since they do not display fears at given moment, openly.
2:07 "It is illogical to assume that they are focusing on you"
Why would be that illogical - there are psychopaths who are focusing on easy targets to exploit and take advantage of: people who are scared and who feel scared. There are narcissists out there, aggressive borderliners who are mainly focused on other people since they hate themselves and they built their worth by putting other people down. Social anxiety by definition is fear of criticism and negative evaluation - so social anxiety will occur when someone is focused on us and nitpicking our mistakes and attack us for our mistakes, for not being perfect. Please think about this more deeply.
2:31 "focusing on moment, focusing on controlling your mind"
Bad idea. This is rigid mindset. Life is not controlled. We cannot control people. We cannot control evil events. We cannot manipulate other people. Our thoughts cannot prevent criticism. Our mindset cannot prevent evil things from happening. Evil people will be evil no matter how much calm and controlled we are. Critics will criticize us even when we are perfect and when there is nothing to criticize. Our idea to change ourselves in order to evade punishment leads to OCD, toxic shame, more anxiety - and this idea will attract toxic people into our lives who will parasite on our idea that only if we magically change ourselves that somehow life will be rich and without problems. It won't. Evil things will happen no matter how much perfect we are. There is concept called Wu wei - when we give up on control. Many things in life we cannot control and it is not healthy to control and trying to control something outside of our control.
Idea that we change and prune our thinking leads to fascism and self hatred and self invalidation - that is toxic shame, self abuse and ableism - basically it leads to mental illness.
2:35 "Not letting yourself be consumed by your own thoughts"
And we are not. This consummation of thoughts stem from trauma. Trauma being stuck inside our body. Think of trauma as energy force that cannot be discharged so it wrecks havoc inside us. Like static electricity. Static electricity is not bad or good - it is field of energy and it can cause damage if it is not lead out, processed out. In the same way - thoughts that are rumination and intrusive thoughts stem from this external wound, trauma that is lodged inside our body. This means, our thoughts are not sick. We do not have persona flaw, we are not disabled, we are not invalid. we are wounded, we are injured. Abusive people attacked us and we are wounded - that is trauma - it needs healing - it needs education how to recognize toxic people so that we do not have any contact with them, it needs education how to retort and defend ourselves from abuse in the future and how to handle bullies. Our thoughts are not sick - we simply need education about trauma and toxic people.
2:40 "No one actually cares, people are focused on themselves"
1) psychopaths and narcissists care and covert ones are the most dangerous ones. They care about others in negative pathological manner and they find faults and study others to parasite upon easy targets: people who are scared.
2) we are conditioned to people please and serve and fix other people emotions. That is why we are focused on other people - due to conditioning, trauma and hypnosis, being exposed to narcissistic abuse when we were suppose to receive normal dosage of child psychological nutrition. Instead we received abuse and psychological malnutrition. And as result - we care what other people think.
2:46 "Breathe"
Idea that we calm ourselves down
1) will create toxic shame since we will invalidate our natural and legitimate reaction to toxic people
2) we will crap fit into abuse and enable toxic people to continue with abuse. We can cut contact. we can go gray rock, ignore, mute other people. We can say that we disagree with someone who is unreasonable. With abuse and fears we believe we do not have right to say that we disagree and we fawn and people please ourselves into submission to toxic people. Breathing is part of fawning and enabling abuse to continue.
2:58 "focus on present, focus on what is happening right now"
Yeah - go deeper.
Focus on becoming Sherlock Holmes and seek for the clues. Become scientist and study what is happening. Gather the evidence. Validate and legitimize your fears and panic. Find who is narcissistic. Learn about psychopaths (Robert Hare - is criminologist - there is video in my psychology playlist on YT) - learn about red flags, how to recognize hidden covert abusers, communal narcissists, vulnerable narcissists who present themselves as socially anxious so we believe and trust criminally insane people into our private life.
We will find triggers and flashbacks and toxic people who are the cause of our panic. Our anxiety stems from abuse -and anxiety itself stems from our unconsciousness, discovered by Freud and Jung 100 years ago. We have machine, mechanism inside us that protects us against predators - we have brain that is 6 million years old - this was discovered by Darwin 200 years ago. Our brain function is not to make us happy or in ecstasy - our primary function of our brain is to detect predators - and social anxiety is this evolutionary progress, it is Darwinism in action - we can actually feel this ability to sniff out predators inside us thanks to social anxiety. It is actually quite fascinating. If we label our social anxiety as awkward weird, stupid - we will reject ourselves and we will create deep toxic shame which leads to mental illness and dependence on other people to manage and lead our life. We will attract toxic people who will gladly fulfill this role to parasite on our fears.
4:55 "Rumination is habit of consistent negative thoughts looping"
Not necessarily.
Rumination is also sign we have higher IQ and brain that was abused tries to assess the situation and see how to protect itself.
Idea that we must avoid avoidance and that we must depend on other people to feel good about ourselves is recipe for codependency, toxic shame and it will attract toxic pathological criminals into our life. Actually if we are in toxic ambient with toxic people - drugs ,alcohol, putting others down - it is better to be alone than develop using hard drug issues, alcoholism and criminal mindset of abuse.
We need to be careful how we define anything in life. Our labels can make us hypnotize into believing wrong and detrimental ideas which will limit our expression. This belief that we must find resolution in life, and that we must explain everything stems from narcissism, it is stems from narcissistic abuse that we were exposed while growing up. WE are human beings, our brain has limits, we are not computers, we are not gods. This means we will constantly make wrong assumptions and jump to quick conclusions in order to survive life. If we are not aware of this basic human limitation, we will create narcissism - belief that we are superior beings who must be perfect and know everything. We are not obliged to know everything. We can have assumptions and in the same time have humility to know that we might be wrong. If we try to be perfect and have rigid mindset - we will create toxic shame, narcissism and fascism in our heads, mental illness. Then we will treat other people like garbage and pass social anxiety onto the next generation, curse of trauma on the next generation. This ability to doubt ourselves is crucial to overcoming egocentrism and it was invented by Socrates and Descartes. I doubt therefore I think, therefore I am. The doubt is the crucial element in thinking and coming up with conclusions and ideas. With social anxiety we do not allow ourselves to doubt since we were abused into punishment when we did not know something. We have trauma we carry trauma inside us - being exposed to untreated mentally ill people who abused us - and that is why we have social anxiety issues now.
5:09 "Rumination destroy mental health, destroys mental clarity"
Think about it deeply. We ruminate in order to please abusers and bullies. So that we find solutions and to be perfect. That is what toxic shame gives energy into rumination, which is actually intrusive thoughts, it is pure OCD. This is hypnosis. When we find ourselves ruminating - we need to understand that we are under spell. We are repeating program pattern that untreated mentally ill abusers implanted inside us thruogh Skinner's box conditioning while we were growing up, when our psyche was young and forming. Instead of safety - our psyche was exposed to adult trauma and hysteria which child brain is unable to process. Our brain was not fit to handle never ending assault of criticism - and not we are stuck with trauma which comes up as rumination. It is important to externalize our problems - and see them as set of trauma issues that are not connected with our character - we are not sick. Unless we are murdering people and being anti-social - there is nothing pathological in our trauma thinking and rumination. This is important to understand.
5:33 "For me to try to gain an understanding of situation I attempted just to loop thoughts in my own head and I wouldn't sleep"
This is all normal reaction to bully, mobbing and abuse. This is what happened when we were abused as kids - we learned that our thinking and behaving are causing abuse and that abuser is normal and authority - and we must not criticize them back, we must be nice and fawn and try to magically change our thinking in order to crap fit into abuse. Normal people find solutions, normal healthy people seek understanding and they are focused on resolution -
sick people are focused on criticism and putting others down and making drama out of everything due to their toxic shame. And us staying in toxic ambient enables narcissists to continue with abuse. Bullies and mobbing occurs in envorinment where no one hold criminally insane people accountable.
5:59 "You need to address situation, sometime you need to leave that job"
Addressing situation with crimnally insane psyhopath is useless since mentally sick people do not seek resolutions. Psychopaths seek to put other people down in order for them to feel good about them.
It is great that you left that job - but many people cannot leave toxic jobs due to money, shelter, third party - and then we are left with the true cause of social anxiety: sick deprived toxic people in authority.
6:19 "You need to overcome that social stuff"
No.
We do not need to change ourselves. We do not need to throw our mental health in psychopaths hand to play. We do not need to spend money on building walls.
Bullying and mobbing is crimnal - it is sorted in court. We need to document the abuse - like Amber lost her case by Depp documenting her abuse.
It is important to realize that we do not self blame ourselves for other people being psychopaths.
With trauma and CPTSD we will tend to self blame ourselves for someone being narcissist and their abuse.
6:29 "The only way out is through"
Everything is contextual.
Sometimes it is great to retort and confront crimnally insane person.
Sotimes it is great to leave without finding resolutions and seeking understandin what happened.
Again - you tend to have rigid mindset - that we must have one unique solution to anything in life. That is not healthy approch. We cannot control life. we are not gods. And other people are not superior to us - we are on par with other people.
Idea that we must become superior leads to narcissism and we become abusers ourselves.
Idea that we must control life leads to OCD and anxiety and hypervigilance.
8:23 "self improvement"
This is narcissism - idea that we must be perfect and superior - and this belief will create ocd and anxiety.
In reality - all problems, all trauma stem from self hatred. Deep down you hate yourself if you believe that you must self improve. IF you loved yourself you would believe in yourself and you would understand the process. We start with not knowing - and we learn along the way. If we base our life on self love and validation which is the opposite from narcissistic abuse - we will naturally improve. Maslow disovered this with his hierarchy of needs.
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"I hate the whole mindset that “anxiety is your friend, it’s just there to help you” when I don’t see how my anxiety making it impossible to talk to friends or girls without embarrassing myself and giving off a stalker vibe is helping me very much"
1) you are making other people to be gods. This is due to trauma bonding and external referencing locus of control.
2) you reject your feelings, emotions and you want other people to take care of you, to guide you, to be in codependency and others to tell you what is ok and what is wrong.
That is dysfunctional.
With abuse we were raised to believe that other people are there to carry us and that we cannot feel good if other people are not around us, to validate us and approve us.
This obsession with other people is part of narcissism as well - where narcissists depend on admiration by others to feel worthy.
If other people will judge us when we embarrass ourselves - or if they somehow label us to be stalker - while in reality we are not serial killers, abusers, anti social maniacs - then the problem is with those people. Such people are toxic and it is better to be alone than endure their criticism abuse and narcissism.
We will reflect our own being onto others.
When we hate ourselves, we will attract people who hate us and who nitpick and criticize us all the time -
we are not aware of this dynamics at all -
but it all stems from self hatred, taught and conditioned into us by untreated mentally ill people around us when we were growing up.
Now we simply repeat the trauma abuse and conditioning - by believing that our anxiety is disgusting and that other people must love us and accept us - and when they don't that it means that we are disgusting and wrong - and that somehow we must change ourselves to crap fit into their abuse.
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(6.12.2022)
I learned that this "Inner critic" actually is
1) complex trauma - trauma stuck inside our body
2) hypnosis - repetition of criticism when our brain was forming
3) brain injury - long term exposure to narcissistic abuse causes brain fissure, brain wound observable in brain scan
Narcissistic abuse: constant and relentless criticism, nagging, complaining, constant: coercion, manipulation, lying.
4) conditioning - discovered by Skinner's box - being exposed to untreated mentally ill person(s)
5) toxic ambient
6) Maslow need not being met: shelter, finances, security/safety not being present.
The one common characteristic of all of these is - that inner critic is not inner at all.
It stems from external factor, socio-economic issues which are never ever mentioned by CBT since CBT is run by Trump crony corporations who are causing socio-economic issues in the first place.
The mainstream media, Trump-like medical industry, crony capitalism tends to blame us - even when talking about self blame like this inner critic issue. As if we are responsible and to blame for blaming ourselves and having self blame mechanism inside us.
This way psychiatry is causing serious psychological damage to ourselves since CBT will explain us that our character trait is producing inner critic, that our persona is flawed and that we have control of this "inner critic".
In reality - it is not.
Think of inner critic like in lame sci-fi violent movie from 1987 called "The Hidden" where alien parasite is infesting random citizens and causing them to wreck havoc.
Instead of using self blame to treat self blame, instead of deficiency motivation which is CBT itself - I would go into direction of externalizing our problems.
It all comes down to simple elements of psyche: if we are not violent, if we are not serial killers, if we are not anti-social, if we are not having any kind of hidden agenda, covert manipulation mechanism to harm and cause damage to others or anyone at all - we are not sick. Any problem we are experiencing is trauma being caused by untreated mentally ill people around us who will never seek professional help for their untreated and undiagnosed psychopathy.
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"You are stronger than you realize and you have more possibilities than you realize. "
I dunno. This sounds like narcissism.
Why would be stronger than anything?
What is wrong with just being ourselves as we are? Whom we supposed to be stronger to? Are we soldiers in paranoid delusional fantasy where the world is one big giant battle - as psychopaths see the world as stage to war and chaos.
---
"Cant wait to part two."
Spoiler:
develop self worth.
All trauma, inner critic stems from our deep hidden covert hate towards ourselves.
This is conditioned, deep seated hypnosis that we are not aware of consciously but it comes to surface with Charcot Hysteria outlets which we label as "Inner Critic".
Self worth, self love, self validation - all basis of Humanistic Psychology states exactly that : that the basis for mental health and functioning in this life is to have strong intrinsic locus of control, which means high ethical standards and common sense.
Unfortunately self help gurus turn this self love concept into affirmations and other worthless crap which they charge a lot to learn about.
Self love, self worth is like peeling onion layer - it is not easy task, it takes time and it will uncover a lot of hidden and forgotten and stifled trauma, grudge, rancour really that we repressed, ignored in order to fit in into sick Trump narcissistic society filled with psychopaths like Putin who will never seek mental health even though they are criminally insane. Living in such toxic society, no wonder we internalized deep seated hate towards ourselves, which we cover up with toxic habits.
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" I hate my inner critic"
That is paradox.
Inner critic stems from deep seated self hatred which we internalized from our toxic ambient while growing up.
You can't heal hate with hate.
Instead try to love it and accept it. See it like wound that hurts and screams for help, that needs long forgotten and never received nurture, care and empathy.
If we look at it logically - inner critic is actually telling us to be good, nice, perfect, without mistakes - to fit into groupthink, conformism and society , society which is actually mentally sick like Trump or Putin. The goal of inner critic is to fit into abuse, to crap fit into abuse.
Anything in life - whatever we say or do - is double binding. In this reality - we live in dualistic universe. Anything we say or do can be criticized and labeled as wrong - even though it really isn't wrong at all. It can be labeled and explained as wrong, due to double binding or dualism.
This is the secret which CBT is not explaining us. Instead CBT joins into hysteria and uses its own criticism to paradoxically explain us criticism.
Narcissists, psychopaths, abusers, manipulators, Machiavellians, emotional vampires, parasites - they all know this hidden secret: that anything in life can be labeled as wrong. Since we are not pathologically sick in the head - we play fair and we listen to authority and we do not question what authority claims and explains us as reality. This way we are in Milgram Experiment - where authority can instruct us to commit crimes and explain it as good and nice and productive. Being in such toxic environment - inner critic can actually be good voice that warns and alert us that we are being manipulated and controlled by sick people around us. This is very complex matter for anyone who never dared to think outside of box and realize the sick world we live in - but -
It all comes down to this, plain and simple:
Due to our high moral and ethical standards we are trying to be good and nice - but this makes us target to exploit. With our urge to be good and nice and obedient - we become like puppet on the string for covert abusers to exploit us - and again - due to our high moral and ethical standards we become blind and we do not see what is happening behind the curtain.
Now the only voice that gets through to wake us up from this manipulation is surpassingly and surprisingly: inner critic.
CBT as official medical mechanism ought to explain this in detail - but it doesn't. CBT deliberately protects crony Trump narcissistic psychopathic machinery that exploit us and make us into obedient slaves - so CBT gives us half information - mostly based on more criticism and self blame to paradoxically explain criticism and self blame - just enough information to keep our head above the water so that we do not drown.
Inner critic is here as a jester, it is alarm system from our subconsciousness telling us that we are in toxic ambient - and that we need to wake up and start believing in ourselves. Inner critic tells us that we do not trust ourselves and that we place our worth in external reference locus of control.
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"When I have a critical thought, I've learned to say "I'm having the thought that.""
I am not sure that this is healthy.
From psychological knowledge we have - any reaction to anxiety will form OCD issues.
Anything in life is contextual. Imagine if you have made some error - deliberately or by mistake. Inner critic will appear as SuperEgo actually - and you will label this voice of reason as delusion and you will reject and suppress it with "I'm having the thought that."
Now imagine what this will do to your social life and your ethical standards.
Other people will hate you and be disgusted by you - for not owning your own mistakes, not being man enough to own errors you done, you will build narcissistic superior persona who is not allowed to make any mistakes, that is not allowed to show any mistakes and that is not allowed to admit any mistakes - it is road to mental illness and criminal acts.
Because once you start ignoring your mistakes and flaws - you are on the road to become psychopath. You will simply rationalize and explain away anything that causing you to feel fear, anxiety, hurt, pain.
All emotions are valid. Stifling down emotions and labeling them as inner critic is bad take.
Inner critic - if you perceive it as enemy, as some force that you need to fight and engage battle in - you will create more of drama and chaos, not less. You will spend time, money and focus on civil war inside your head. Totally dysfunctional and unhealthy path to take.
Psychology ought to explain us this in detail, but CBT is therapy of errors and narcissism so CBT doesn't explain at all.
Instead CBT instructs us to build walls and spend money on pharma mafia to farm our neurosis into someone's bank account while we become zombie and obedient slave to covert abusers masked as authority.
Inner critic - Jung said what we resist will persist.
When we notice that we have doubts, criticism and shame - instead of dismissing it and ignoring it and stifling it down as you decided to destroy your mental health - the correct path is to have empathy towards ourselves ,as we have to other people.
Everything is contextual - we need to become Sherlock Holms, scientist in a laboratory and investigate what is happening, why we feel criticism, from where it stems from.
1) is it coming from triggers and flashbacks from untreated unprocessed trauma, deep core belief we are unable to take care of ourselves
2) is it actual threat - are we in presence of pathological liar who is dumping criticism and unrealistic expectations on us - can we cut contact immediately with such covert psychopaths
3) is it Charcot Hysteria - deep seated conditioning, where there are no triggers and flashbacks but only our toxic habit where we learned as kids to worry and ruminate as habit in order to please and fix emotions of untreated mentally ill people in authority around us at the time
If we understand inner critic as trauma - and we learn more about trauma, we will not live in spasm of total defense, living in survival mode as you made yourself believe that is ok due to CBT which is therapy of errors and wrong instructions that actually promote mental illness.
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"Do yourself a favor and kindly remove those people from your life and focus on the people who are genuinely kind and encouraging to you."
You are totally correct to externalize inner critic -
however people who have issues with inner critic and psychological well being - cannot remove themselves from toxic ambient. That is the core problem,, that is all problem. Which CBT does not explain at all - CBT does not talk about socio-economic issues like having money, shelter, safety/security and not being able to leave toxic job or toxic relationships.
Femicide statistics are real - women and men are being killed if they leave toxic partner. Depp was almost destroyed by his lover psychopath.
Also -
everything is contextual.
Sometimes we make mistakes and it is natural to feel inner critic voice. In this case, it would not be fair to blame other people around us for the crap we done in the first place. IT is normal healthy to admit mistake and amend it - not to insist to blame other people.
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"I highly recommend you rewrite that into something more concise."
So basically in this video about inner critic you spread your criticism, your arrogance and your narcissistic entitlement where you see yourself superior enough to demand and order people around what they ought to write?
"That is literally twice or three times the size of my longest comments."
Thank you.
"If I don't have the time to do more than skim that, nearly all of YouTube won't get past the first line."
If you do not have time to treat your mental illness, then you are in victim mode, like any narcissist - vulnerable narcissists to be exact.
You like to wallow in pity, self pity and seek others to gloom and catastrophize and criticize others around, as a way that narcissists feel good inside and seek worth by putting other people down while never examining your own shadow and sickness and pathology that stems from covert narcissism.
"I think you have good intent but perhaps not quite grasped the point of this video."
I disagree with you.
"There is a world of difference between having a moral code yet not spiralling into a catastrophising self-loathing"
Yes, for a narcissists it is dangerous place to examine trauma.
It is much easier to treat you tube commentators as sub human and slaves and order them around what and how they ought to write their comments.
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". especially if what is "wrong" is you just not doing what they think you should be... then they need to go. "
Again, you are absolutely correct.
But you need to understand that people who suffer from "inner critic" also have bad environment around them - no money, and deep core sense of toxic shame and extreme social anxiety - these are only some of the blocks which prevent them from realizing that they can go in the first place - and without money and security they cannot go at all.
For example -
I had issues with people pleasing and fawning for large part of my life.
CBT never explained it that way - CBT instructed me to engage in useless battles with fears and other failed techniques which only CBT can produce.
So it is only last year that I discovered , after learning about humanistic psychology - that I can actually say online, on twitter for example "I disagree with you" or that I can block someone.
Just think about it for a moment what this means.
People who have trauma, inner critic - has this blockages and hypnosis, hangs up and being stuck, beliefs about being nice and good - that it is like veil over your face which distorts your reality.
There are two blockages which prevent cutting contact with toxic people:
1) hypnosis, conditioning
2) external elements such as poverty, debt, financial problems which prevent people from quitting their toxic job, any kind of narcissistic abuse.
These two things CBT does not cover at all. CBT ignores it. CBT also claims - well if something is bad in your life - just quit it.
Well - they can't.
And now we have problem to solve:
How to help someone who cannot quit toxic ambient?
How to survive in toxic ambient?
I see solution once again in Humanistic psychology.
It is about validation of anyone who is stuck in toxic ambient with toxic people. That is the first step which CBT never displays. CBT instead goes to the path of instructing self
pathology anyone who seeks genuine help.
Without self worth, without self love - we cannot move on with our lives. When we take care of ourselves, we can slowly cut ties with toxic people, build finances and plan to relocate. This is different approach than simply saying cold assertation which is CBT: Leave and go away from narcissistic abuse and toxic people around you.
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(7.12.2022)
Good points however I would add this two important information related to inferiority complex:
1)
Instead of comparison with others (which is called External reference locus of control) there is intrinsic locus of control. Intrinsic locus of control means that we build ourselves up based on our own self worth - not as appraisal or criticism from other people.
2)
Maslow needs - hierarchy of needs tell us that there is external factor which is outside of our control - and due to external factor we neglect our self care. It is important to realize that self care is equivalent to intrinsic locus of control mentioned above. This means - if we do not have money - we cannot realistically be movie star or famous sport person. If we live in toxic country - we will probably have no options to grow without corruption and committing criminal activities.
The point of understanding Maslow needs is to remove self guilt and self pathologizing which often accompanies any discipline ideas.
Small steps are as much as valid as bigger steps. When we take care of ourselves and when we put intrinsic locus of control - we will start to reject toxic habits and make positive shift - which is what you talked here in your video.
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Maslow needs tell us that we will naturally progress and take any kind of challenge as soon as we have met and satisfied our basic needs: finances, security, safety, connection. If we live in toxic ambient it is extremely unhealthy to blame ourselves for not making progress and self pathologizing ourselves for being immobile. We will literally create mental illness if we start with self improvement idea if we live in toxic ambient surrounded by toxic people due to its toxicity. We will come up with idea that our flaws, mistakes and implanted toxic habits are part of our persona, personality - and this will build deep seated toxic shame, deep covert self hatred, deep complex trauma which is hard to heal since we won't even be aware that we have deep seated rancour hatred towards ourselves, this cover self hatred is mental illness at its core. And then this shadow will make choices, actions for us which will be detrimental to us and our environment, mostly good nice close people around us - we will destroy it all.
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Narcissists use therapy for play acting victim mentality to learn how to exploit people with psychology information, so that they use people as objects - narcissistic supply.
CBT is narcissistic therapy since it does not explain this.
---
"they won't like us"
There is also fear of punishment, violent outbursts, temper tantrum from others - fear of aggression from others that keeps toxic shame hiding your emotions and opinions from others. Where the problem is toxic person in our toxic ambient. Covert abusers - who present themselves as friend or help but in reality they spread toxic shame onto us through criticism and nagging and unfair judgements and pathological lying - do not make this any simpler either.
It seems to me that you lack this information about external factor. Toxic shame is not inborn, we were not born with this-
we were conditioned and hypnotized and programmed into deep seated self hatred. If we ignore this fact of the true origin of toxic shame, we will create more toxic shame - by self pathologizing ourselves and self blaming ourselves.
Externalizing shame does not mean talking about toxic shame to others.
Externalizing toxic shame means blaming other people, toxic people, abusers and criminally insane people who never seek help for their undiagnosed mental illness around us for having toxic shame in the first place.
6:30 "it is not from inside, someone narrative, idea" "It always comes from outside"
Yeah! That is what I am talking about.
7:02 "Something terrible will happen, be punished, physically" "It is defensive mechanism"
Yep Yep! That is it! You got it!
7:40 "Can be transferred by generation so you may not know whom it belongs to" "We may internalized from them and operating from that"
Yes!
8:55 "It belongs to other people"
Yeah!
Toxic shame is at the root of any mental imbalance.
It is connected to belief that our reaction to bullies is personality sickness and unfortunately main official therapy called CBT supports this toxic shame idea of self pathology. CBT will explain that our fears are our own idea and that we must hate ourselves for having fears - and that we need to control and destroy and waste time on our fears and inhibitions - which is toxic shame itself.
Basically it comes down to : if we are not serial killers, if we are not criminally insane, if we are not anti-social, if we do not have hidden covert agenda to harm anyone - there is nothing inside us that is sick. Trauma we feel, fears and inhibitions and toxic habits and immobility stems from virus of untreated mentally ill people in our toxic ambient - and we never learned how to take care of ourselves due to deep seated self hatred.
Toxic shame leads to Charcot hysteria - it is deep seated automatic thinking patterns - such as inhibitions and social anxiety - for most people this comes without our awareness, and unfortunately this part cannot be healed by logic. We cannot say to ourselves to smile when we are depressed in order to "cure" depression.
Healing toxic shame I see in the direction of peeling off onion layers - it is long work that takes patience and love. I see Humanistic therapies as correct approach in healing toxic shame.
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(8.12.2022
Unresolved problem is when we get punished and or fired from job when we say No.
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And toxic people exploit our toxic guilt to control us, to make amends which are going in other people's advantage - where we never made anything realistically bad.
Anything in life can be labeled as bad or good. That is greatest secret withheld by toxic people and even abnormal totalitarian authorities.
There is no truth - so anything in life can be explained and rationalized away or tormented and satanized, depends on secret agenda of someone in power who can punish someone to control the outcome of their agenda - such as firing someone from job, financial control which we experience with corrupt corporations and banks.
---
What I learned from my own socially anxious mind - that "constant guilt" is pattern of being in toxic ambient.
IF we are not serial killers, if we are not evil people, if we have no hidden agenda to cause harm to anyone in any way, if we are not anti-social YET in the same time we are somehow always guilty of something - that is definite sign there is someone toxic around us controlling, manipulating and taking advantage of our empathy and high moral ethical standards against ourselves.
We need to lift the veil over our eyes and become Sherlock Holms, scientist in a laboratory and see what is really going on around us.
There is high chance that someone narcissistic is using coercion, grooming, honeymoon phases, gaslighting to induce guilt inside us - which is incredibly easy in HSPs due to our kindness, niceness and ability to see positive in people while rationalizing bad sides away - while toxic people do the exact opposite with us: they dismiss our good actions while highlighting natural errors as catastrophe and explaining it as personal damage to them.
Waking up, realizing red flags, then with-
Holding criminals accountable for their crime(s) is the key.
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(9.12.2022)
Start changing the way you perceive social anxiety. Accept it. Social anxiety is alarm that in the past we were invalidated. Social anxiety is also alarm that toxic people trigger us to remind us of this invalidation.
In real life - this means: we have awareness that everybody is going to watch us and judge us as inept, stupid and abnormal.
Accepting social anxiety means that we turn our primary locus (what we see and judge in the world) internally. In this example - intrinsic locus of control would be our physical health - that we have healthy body without high cholesterol.
That we now take care of ourselves, we put ourselves on the pedestal - not the other people's judgement about us.
Now - accepting part means that we also accept other people - there will be people who will watch and judge us. So - let them watch and judge. Unless they are criminally insane, violent - they are free to do whatever they want in the boundaries of law and common sense.
This accepting also means - ok, I will do some mistake, mistakes are natural and obligatory part of anything social. It would be strange for mistakes and flaws and ignorance not to happen. Again - the focus is on us, not the other people. We cannot control other people and it is not ethical to manipulate other people (as narcissists do).
Do it as experiment, see what happens when you have this internal locus of control along with acceptance that other people watch and judge you. Now they simply are not in the line of sight, perception of in your focus anymore.
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Things we need to take into consideration is that setting boundaries:
1) we will get fired from the job. So we need to have backup - money to survive, live in prosper country where it is possible to find job that will pay the bills.
2) we will get punished. There are psychopaths out there, the most dangerous ones are covert ones, who stab their victims in the back. Both are worst - the ones who are aggressive and violent, and those who plan and have hidden agenda and then destroy our lives without us being aware what is happening - usually through smear campaign.
So for many people out there who cannot set boundaries - this stem not only from trauma, but there is also socio-economic reason which is almost never mentioned at all. IF we do not have our basic Maslow meets met (safety, shelter, finances) - it is totally normal to be pushover, people pleaser and without boundaries. With boundaries we would probably end up homeless in the streets with hooligans abusing as at night while we try to sleep covered with card box.
Boundaries are connected with Liberation psychology, oppression and crony capitalism and politics - right wing states tend to install and prosper the correct party and correct members of secret or overt societies - while all the others are meat that these parasites chew on.
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(12.12.2022)
Mere exposure only turns social anxiety to be functional.
Social anxiety is still there.
Trauma is still there.
Rumination is still there.
Worry is still there.
Michael Jackson had a severe social anxiety. Yet he was successful and wealthy, he performed in front of the billions of people, every person on this planet knows his name - yet unresolved trauma which motorized social anxiety was present until his death.
Social anxiety can be easily functional. We simply suppress emotions, pretend and ignore trauma - and hence develop plethora of illness related to immunity issues.
---
It is amazing how "normal" people are stressed over mere 2 years of isolation - while people with social anxiety live in isolation for 30 years or introverts their entire life.
The idea in the video is that social anxiety is caused by medical issue such as virus. In reality, people with social anxiety are traumatized - instead of virus threat there was bullying, mobbing and abuse. Instead of invisible agent which we overcame with law regulations - toxic people and toxic ambient is the only agent of trauma beneath the social anxiety.
CBT ignores this fact. CBT is promoting toxic empathy idea that toxic people do not exist. They do. There are manipulators out there, there are narcissists who are essentially dumb but they can charm and honeymoon phase easy targets - people with lower IQ and motivate these to become presidents of countries - not only USA, we can see mafia leaders in Hungary or Balkans running the country. There are dangerous, toxic people out there which cannot be cleaned out by following strict medical rules where we can declare the danger is over.
Breathing techniques will not help someone stuck in toxic job without ability to quit that job.
Healthy body will not help if someone is gaslighting us and someone being pathological liar.
Doing things for fun such as yoga will not educate us how to recognize red flags and prevent any contact with toxic people.
Re-discovering our wants will not help us if we were conditioned in trauma years to fawn as automatic response to unreasonable requests by highly narcissistic individuals.
Comfort zone idea does not work even on logical level. If comfort zone is the cause of fears and anxiety - then people who are living in third world countries, exposed to issues and problems 24/7 would make them being Scandinavia until now - they would somehow magically learn skills how to create organized life - yet they are neck deep in mafia, corruption, poverty and issues which can be easily solved with using half brain. The reason they do not prosper outside comfort zone are toxic people, which CBT consistently ignores and suppress as fact of life.
17:59 "Emotional exhaustion, burnout" from social anxiety perspective, when we understand Complex Trauma - we learn that this is called Survival mode. It is also called Amygdala hijacking. It is normal reaction to abnormal people, abnormal situations and abnormal events. CBT ignores once again the external factor and instead places self blame on victims of abuse - as if we are not motivated enough and we must become slaves to abusers, we must be happy drones who are chirping living in concentration camp which crony capitalism is forcing upon sheep who stay silent due to conformism, groupthink and herd mentality.
"emotional crap we carry"
This is CBT idea of self pathologizing ourselves which leads to more fawning and more social anxiety. Crap is here because toxic people shovel us with crap. We do not crap others, we clean our crap. When we have social anxiety - it is signal, alarm that someone is craping all over us - and we are in toxic ambient. There is nothing we can do to fix or nitpick ourselves into balance - there is nothing wrong with us. To believe in idea that we are faulty for living in toxic ambient will lead to toxic shame, more anxiety and mental illness.
---
"Social anxiety has to be the most common thing. I feel like so many people have a hard time even recognizing that they are experiencing it.
Most people will feel depressed at some point of their life. Most people will feel anxious. With social anxiety most people at some point of their life will feel socially anxious. "
I made topic on main forum for social anxiety at reddit earlier this year, where I wrote about this. The topic was named "All people have social anxiety, all" and soon enough a lot of commentators protested that I lie, that I spread false information - and the topic was banned, deleted and I was rejected from reddit later on.
My point is that as we grow up - most people are not exposed to relentless criticism 24/7 and they will not develop toxic shame which is the core motor of social anxiety later on in adulthood - deep seated self hatred - and these kids learn in their normal regular growing years to adjust and regulate other people's criticism and negative evaluations. They build up their persona on social anxiety experiences.
Those of us who were traumatized and went through Complex Trauma (being criticized all the time over all mistakes, flaws even those who are not connected to us, in early age when mistakes are totally normal part of learning and growing) - that invalidation will make us stuck in unresolved social anxiety trauma: constant worry and apprehension in any social situation. To make it more complex, with toxic shame and fear cycle inside us - we will attract toxic people who will parasite on our fears and present themselves as solutions to our issues and controlling us easily with criticism, like puppet on a string.
"There is no line in sand when it becomes social anxiety disorder, when it becomes problematic. "
I love this sentence,
That is Sorites Paradox -
"The sorites paradox is a paradox that results from vague predicates. A typical formulation involves a heap of sand, from which grains are removed individually. Wikipedia"
Basically it is hard to label something - since the truth itself is that there is no truth about anything - which philosophy studies for 2000 years now. Labels leads to stigma, so any diagnosis is criticism itself - which means seeking help for social anxiety will lead to more social anxiety - because criticism is motor that keeps social anxiety ongoing - criticism is reflection of deep seated self hatred, destroyed self worth which toxic shame created after exposure to narcissistic abuse in our formative years.
That is the reason why CBT, the default main therapy for social anxiety is not working. CBT can instruct us to become functional in our social anxiety- but it does not help with social anxiety - CBT only makes us to be zombie, drones, slaves to money and being in survival mode - the social anxiety is unresolves, unprocessed even when we are highly functional - not avoiding job or social situations.
Michael Jackson had a severe social anxiety, also caused by being exposed to abuse in his formative years - and he as adult had not problem performing in front of billions of people, he was wealthy - so social anxiety does not mean automatic poverty.
The question is - is this the cure, to carry unprocessed complex trauma (which is not the same as PTSD) inside us?
As it is stated in this video - I see social anxiety as positive and normal part of life - it mobilize us to clean ourselves, to be and to have empathy to others, to be good and nice. The quickest solution to social anxiety trauma is to develop narcissism and pass social anxiety onto the next generation. The quickest fix to social anxiety trauma is to traumatize others and oppress others, usually those who are seen as "weaker" than us - but this is anti-social and leads to criminal acts and mental illness such as psychopathy.
The difference between social anxiety and social anxiety disorder is not perceived by many therapist, CBT does not know that there is a difference - CBT lumps all social inhibitions into social anxiety disorder. CBT does not recognize Unreliable Narrator phenomena and takes any lie as truth - since CBT itself is narcissistic tool created by psychopaths hiding themselves in medical community.
If anyone is interested I present my ideas on my blog in detail and in compact way on my own reddit forum for social anxiety: SocialAnxietyIdeas. I am not allowed to put links here due to spam algorithm, but there are links in my Profile-About.
I copy-paste this following text regularly every Monday, when I check out social anxiety videos for passing week:
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Fernando is spreading projecting his shame onto you.
This way narcissists resolve their social anxiety in quickest way : to abuse others.
---
Rocky as Fernando in comment above is resolving his toxic shame by abusing others - usually nice, good people who are helping others.
Social anxiety is part of Complex Trauma and toxic shame is the motor: toxic shame is deep seated self hatred and belief we are inept to live and manage life.
Empaths will try to resolve this shame issues by self blame and developing social inhibitions.
On the other hand of the same spectrum are narcissists who are resolving their shame, inhibitions by projecting their self hatred onto others, through abuse and blaming and making drama and conflict out of nothing, total lack of empathy. This way they get what they want: narcissistic supply: there will always be empath on the receiving end who will try to resolve the issues which narcissists invent - and then we get codependency and Karpman Drama Triangle - where narcissists are abusers and initiators of problems and by being jerk they are active in life, by yelling and blaming and their temper tantrums - they appear as confident to most people - and it seems as if they are leaders and someone we need to listen, obey and be controlled by.
Narcissists and narcissism is integral part of social anxiety - and we need to educate ourselves about narcissism and borderliners - who are causing social anxiety in empaths.
Narcissistic abuse is the cause of social anxiety.
---
These are all tips how to develop functional social anxiety. Social anxiety trauma is still there, trauma is still present.
With trauma, toxic shame - we do not have self worth.
Happy - should not be our goal in life. Idea to suppress "evil" emotions will lead to mental imbalance. When we are happy all the time, we will attract Ambers into our personal life, and we won't be able to recognize red flags that we invited psychopaths into our life voluntarily.
Why would we talk to strangers? What if that other person has severe social anxiety - our interrogations will cause havoc and drama into their lives. We cannot please other people, it is okay not to like certain people.
Socially anxious people are already looking at other people - due to trauma, mobbing abuse, which caused social anxiety in the first place - we are already looking closely other people and watch their verbal and non verbal cues to get clues if they are angry, dangerous and whether they will abuse us as we were abused in the past.
Social anxiety is present in our lives because it is alarm alert that we are in toxic ambient surrounded with toxic people.
Instead of talking and making close contact with strangers and stray dogs in street - we need the opposite: to learn how to recognize red flags to recognize psychopaths and to allow ourselves to cut contact with toxic people - not to make connection with them.
We need to learn how to retort to criticism. Not how to talk with people who are pathological liars, parasites and who live on drama and creating conflict out of nothing through relentless criticism 24/7.
Being amazing connector will not get us jobs. That is misleading information.
We can have amazing jobs and still have social anxiety trauma.
We can have millions of strangers whom we chat - and still being stuck with unprocessed Complex Trauma.
---
All this social fear inhibition complex panic stems from - being exposed to relentless criticism while growing up, repeatedly over and over again being invalidated.
Toxic people play huge role in creating and maintaining social anxiety in their targets of their abuse.
Also not meeting Maslow needs will make us prone to feel social anxiety trauma - not having shelter, finances, safety, security - all leads to social anxiety no matter how perfect we might be or try to be. Not having safety will simply default back to PureOCD intrusive worries of social inhibitions trauma.
I see important information to separate feelings of abuse and non safety away from our self worth and sense of who we are as individual. That we do not equate our mistake with our persona. That we do not equate feeling fears along with being weak, sissy, non manly, unhuman or not deserving to exist.
Naomi Osaka is an example of functional social anxiety - similar to Michael Jackson who also had sever social anxiety yet in the same time he performed in front of billions of people without problems.
Social anxiety is explained in this video as self pathology, as something to self blame and that is it hallucination, our own problem which we invented to get attention - which narcissists do. Narcissists use social anxiety to gain narcissistic supply: other people's sympathy and attention and admiration, even if it is negative.
In reality social anxiety is reaction to much serious problem: narcissists and toxic people like Trump or Putin or Musk, psychopaths hidden and covered as leaders and "successful" individuals who are abusing and putting their targets down for them to feel good about themselves.
Social anxiety is alarm, alert that we are surrounded by toxic people, that we discover and are much more aware of sick violent people who are wearing mask of empathy and altruism, charm and charisma to attract narcissistic supply.
Idea that we suppress "negative" emotions and to nitpick ourselves into perfection will lead to more social anxiety.
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"I severely lessoned my social anxiety by accepting those things about me that caused my fear of rejection"
You never had social anxiety in the first place.
Social anxiety is called social+anxiety because it is social. It is not self - anxiety. The problem is in the social, not inside ourselves. If you decide to label parts of yourself as faulty and wrong you will develop severe toxic shame, as all narcissists and belittle yourself into perfection. Then you will belittle others around you, since you treat yourself as you treat others around you.
Any reaction, and idea, any nitpicking over anxiety leads to more anxiety. Jung said: What we resist, persist.
Idea to ignore, reject, suppress our emotions lead to invalidation, the same trauma which caused social anxiety trauma in the first place.
All emotions are valid -
if we have inner critic, this means that there is trauma stuck inside our body. Charcot hysteria was studied 100 years ago - and it was not resolved by logic, since the problem is in the unconsciousness. Releasing trauma takes time, patience and self love and self validation - not explaining it away or splitting our personality in bad parts which we need to discipline and lobotomize into peacefulness of being zombie.
If we are surrounded by toxic people - the problem are toxic people, not our normal reactions to toxic people.
If we are not meeting Maslow needs (safety, finances, security) - we are not responsible for living in poverty, we are not responsible for the legalized crime, for mafia running the country, for toxic corporations destroying humans and enslaving them - our thoughts will not make evil people go away. Neither will our ignorance and being okay with abuse make abuse anything less - in fact it will enable the abuse.
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" And because people are generally weak willed cowards who are terrified of being rejected themselves, they reluctantly, or sometime not so reluctantly, go along with it. "
With trauma experience we make other people into our gods without being aware that we are doing this trauma bonding. This is called external referencing locus of control where we place our worth in explanations and actions and definitions of other people.
The opposite of that is mental health: intrinsic locus of control. People may hate us, people may love us - but we draw our self worth on our own common sense, not other people. We listen to people - without allowing them to control us. We can be nice and good and friendly and social and still say no the others without hating them. That is internal locus of control - where other people do not define our goals or what we want and desire from life.
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Think about this more deeply:
"But just talking to a few people after going off stage is nerve racking cos you don't know what they would say and what to respond"
You would know how to respond if you were validated and accepted and admired, as narcissists try to gain from other people on force.
We with social anxiety trauma do not know what to do, how to respond, how to retort when we are invalidated.
It is not issue about rejection as CBT explains it. It is invalidation , since invalidation in narcissistic abuse created social anxiety in the first place.
We need education hence about toxic people, how to recognize red flags, how to handle narcissistic abuse, how to build self worth so that we do not spend our money on impressing people who wouldn't give a damn about us for a nano second.
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"Social anxiety is much more than just fear of rejection. This is a very simplified perspective."
Yep!
Social anxiety is part of Complex Trauma. Information which is banned by CBT and DSM. WHO's ICD-11 recognizes Complex PTSD (which is not the same as PTSD) as the real concept.
It is not fear of rejection at all - it is fear of invalidation - chronic invalidation, exposure to narcissistic abuse, relentless criticism is creating social anxiety. It is toxic people, narcissists who are causing social anxiety -
social anxiety is indicator, litmus test of toxicity of certain ambient where we are inside.
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She missed the part of toxic people causing social anxiety.
Instead she turned to CBT idea of self pathology, self blame and toxic shame as tools to handle social anxiety through repetition of invalidation, narcissistic abuse. CBT is therapy of ableism.
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Seems to me like narcissism. People with social anxiety are afraid of punishment and violence, bullying.
You on the other hand hate being exposed as bully. Narcissists hate truth, transparency, resolving issues, objectiveness, bringing things into the light. If you did not do anything wrong, anti-social - there would be no reason to be embarrassed about.
Truly socially anxious people are afraid of embarrassment in the context of prelude to violence, putting downs and beating up.
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Horrible tips.
It is all instruction to become zombie, NPC Wojak without our perks, individuality, without authenticity, without being honest and true self, without self expression. This all lead to more anxiety and mental imbalance:
1) Limit phone usage.
People with social anxiety do not have friends - so they do not talk over the phone.
People with social anxiety have higher IQ and hence use phone as education, not to watch porn.
2) Interact with strangers.
Why? Why would we need to make friends with everybody? We cannot please all people - it is impossible task. Also there are a lot of pathological liars, covert abusers who seek desperate lonely people willing to talk to strangers in order to exploit nice and good friendly people in their desperation. Also - some people strangers are having social anxiety panic - why would we cause panic simply because of our narcissistic self absorption to wipe our dirty hands on strangers around us, as if other people are object you use for training.
Social anxiety stems from fawning and abuse - so not interacting with strangers would be actually correct approach.
3) Don't this, don't that.
Why this need for perfection? Why is it is so hard for CBT to teach others about self love and being ok with misakes and flaws?
4) Feel good.
Suppressing emotions is not healthy. Even grammar school kids know the basic of psyhology: that all emotions are valid. The idea to reject, ashame, throw away "negative" emotions will lead to Jung Shadow being repressed - and we will end up with mental issues.
5) Isolation is killer, don't be recluse.
Deficiency motivation never works, it leads to toxic shame. If we live in toxic country, isolation will save us from destruction. If we are surrounded by toxic people from which we cannot escape, any type of recluse isolation from toxic elements will save our life. Idea to label introversion as sickness and something shameful is ableism. And it is part of invalidation and abuse which is ironically causing social anxiety in the first place.
6) Process of elimination
Here we are instructed to make our fears into our gods. We make our panic to guide us and tell us what is correct. We make our fears into our primary concern. It is similar to Trump's idea to build a wall. Building walls will create momentum for all scary things we avoid to accumulate and burst at given moment. This tip is actually creating trauma and mental illness.
This is why social media can be detrimental - we get tons of dangerous tips which are causing mental illness and are presented as "normal" and "healthy".
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Yes. Both conditions stem from trauma.
Empaths will self blame while narcissists will traumatize and cause social anxiety into the new next generation.
Empaths will fawn while narcissists will fight.
Empaths will seek therapy while narcissists use therapy to learn how to abuse others without getting noticed.
CBT helps narcissists to use social anxiety information to their advantage. CBT will teach narcissists that toxic people do not exist and if someone is feeling fear from abuse - that these feelings are hallucination and that all people can change their thinking patterns and hence enable abusers to continue with abuse while targets self lobotomize themselves into passivity and rationalizations of abuse.
We can see narcissism is found in many of those who claim to have social anxiety if we visit reddit main forum for social anxiety. Soon enough narcissists will not have social inhibitions to attack anyone with independent thoughts and ideas. Narcissists will not have empathy to stop themselves from belittling and putting down others.
One girl at reddit talked how she was abused at her job - and rescuer narcissist from reddit, probably moderator explained her that she was hallucinating her abuse and that she must be perfectionist and become superior at job so that she does not make any mistakes at all - and hence escape criticism. All narcissism. Narcissists hide behind social anxiety since it is endless supply of their narcissistic supply: scared people who fawn to hysterical maniacs.
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IT is wrong because it leads soon enough to criminal activities - once you find out that progress is natural and it happens based on our goodness and moral and ethics, not on your selfish desire to abuse other people. Then you will be left to anti-social tools to "improve" and self aggrandize yourself into admiration for being perfect and charismatic. Basically you will play act and wear narcissistic mask - and anyone trying to expose the truth will be abused and attacked.
Then your desire to feel superior is the root cause of all criminal activities, evil, wars on this planet. Like Putin.
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Social anxiety is not the same as social anxiety disorder.
Social anxiety is having empathy and connect with other people and consider their needs. So it is not bad thing at all.
Social anxiety disorder is being afraid of people all the time, including safe people. It is part of delusional disorder, mild schizophrenia.
"Social anxiety" which people seek information is actually somewhere there in the middle of it.
Social anxiety is part of Complex Trauma (which is not the same as PTSD) - being exposed to narcissistic abuse, criticism and invalidation while our psyche was forming.
Social phobia is archaic term for social anxiety, it was abandoned in mid 1990s because CBT "experts" discovered that exposure to feared object does not make fears go away as it is case with all phobia.
Public speaking fear is not social anxiety - that is separate issue which even common wikipedia recognizes.
Social anxiety can be functional - and then we can socialize, not avoid, not resort to safety behaviour, be in public places and make any kind of social connection - and still have social anxiety trauma unresolved inside us.
Michael Jackson had severe social anxiety - but performed in public without any problem. In private he had trauma issues from abuse in his childhood, as any social anxiety stems from it.
Another example is tennis player Naomi Osaka. Or Cher or Salvador Dali.
Idea to label all social anxiety as dysfunctional is damaging since it programs socially anxious to equate social anxiety with sickness and danger - hence creating more anxiety through hypnosis and self pathology and self prophecy. This way CBT is part of problem, creating new anxieties without resolving anything.
Physical symptoms of social anxiety are Charcot hysteria - this was studied 100 years ago, but pharma mafia decided to cover up this information and obfuscate it in order for crony corporations to make huge money profit on pushing drugs to neurotics.
"Seek medical help"
CBT and DSM do not recognize Complex Trauma, while WHO's ICD-11 recognizes Complex PTSD as true real concept.
Crony capitalism denies trauma information since trauma means that narcissists are the cause of anxiety and mental issues - and many Trumps hidden in medical industry and crony corporations would not like to be exposed as mentally ill. Then it is easier to nitpick and blame easy targets: abused socially anxious targets of their abuse.
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"What do you suggest?"
Instead of quick self diagnosis I suggest:
Education. Read a lot.
I read 200 self help books, countless articles online, been to therapy twice - I ended up explaining social anxiety to them.
If you do not know where to start - check our my playlists: Psychology and Philosophy. And learn more about concepts there. Perhaps you will find something useful on the process.
When we do not have education we are being repressed without being aware of our oppression.
We have transparent black veil over our eyes and we jump to quick conclusions which is officially named as Confirmation bias and Availability Heuristics - which traps us inside egocentrism: tunnel vision where we explain reality through what other people - usually toxic ones- define and explain to us. This is how politics and marketing works - we are basically drones, slaves in the matrix world without being aware of it.
The only way to get clear is education - not jumping to labels or quick diagnosis.
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This is myth: that socially anxious people are focused inward.
Social anxiety stems from invalidation, bullying, abuse and mobbing. Therefore socially anxious will be focused on other people's violence, tendency to mood swing, anything that can provoke punishment, their criticism and negative evaluation. They will notice non verbal cues also.
There is self absorption in the same time - so yeah , social anxiety is being in survival mode, it is not functional when we are afraid of punishment.
But I would externalize that fear of punishment. Not our persona.
Externalize toxic shame - by noticing that toxic people are causing social anxiety.
That is why social anxiety is called social + anxiety. It is not called self anxiety. Social is the key word. There is anxiety related to to society - where anxiety stems from social - not from our selves, we are not sick, we are not the ones who are violent or anti-social.
Narcissists are.
The true problem are violent narcissists, toxic people - not victims of their abuse.
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" Focus on what's going on"
People with social anxiety are already focused on other people - that is why social anxiety is called social + anxiety. It is not called self - anxiety.
Social is the problem. Critical people. toxic people, violent people, rude people.
"how you can enjoy this the most"
Bad idea.
Then you end up with Ambers who seek easy targets: weaklings who are seeking to enjoy and have quick rush of ecstasy.
All emotions are valid, If we reject "negative" emotions, we will develop mental illness. If we feel like crap because someone is treating us like crap it would be self sabotage to ignore it and pretend abuse is not happening for the sake of being in happy euphoria all the time. Totally unrealistic and extremely narcissistic idea that we must have admiration and appraisal all the time or else we are not worthy.
"look at the party or event "
Social anxiety occurs at toxic jobs too. If we embrace anything toxic we will crap fit into abuse and rationalize psychopaths as normal - and then serial killers like Trump/Putin will become presidents.
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"all those people worry you judging them."
Good point.
However social anxiety stems from invalidation, narcissistic abuse, mobbing and bullying experience. So there are toxic people who are pulling our fears, control and manipulate us - and hence we have social anxiety.
We need to learn how to handle discover covert abusers, that is why we have social anxiety in the first place - it is Darwin detection of predators in action, how to adapt to toxic ambient filled with predators presenting themselves as neutral, help, friend or overtly as "strong" leaders but in reality are acting and are not strong nor competent at all.
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The idea to suppress, self blame, ignore and rationalize our mental issues is not healthy decision.
Trauma will not go away on its own, it will direct our life and we won't be aware that we are puppet on the string.
Without learning psychology and philosophy - other people will control and manipulate us easily. And the worst thing is that we won't be aware that someone is taking advantage of us in the first place. It is like having parasites on your body and you are not aware that there is alien creature sucking your blood, health, energy, money and focus.
Social anxiety is not feeling. Social anxiety is not being sissy or "coward". Social anxiety is not about being "strong", it is not connected to being non manly masculine or not suffering. Idea that suffering is normal is enabling the abuse and crap fitting into abuse. We end up with serial killers like Trump or Putin being our leaders with such toxic idea.
Social anxiety is result of being abused. It is being in poverty, not having money, not having back up, safety. If we decide to self blame and self pathologize ourselves for something that is totally external - we will develop mental illness.
Actually narcissistic people who decide to ignore their mental health are the cause of social anxiety in other people, they produce chaos since they do not find mental hygiene - instead they abuse other people to feel good about themselves.
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This makes sense.
Some think social anxiety is being inferior, beingquiet and silent - but many people decide to over-compensate their anxiety and paraadoxically end up the opposite of their fears - hence superiority complex. It is still inferiority complex, even though it is masked as confidence.
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"men grow through success and suffering. what he says is basically exposure therapy which will in fact cure social anxiety"
All people grow automatically, that happens thanks to Hierarchy of needs by Maslow. We cannot cheat on this pyramid which Maslow discovered - if we are poor, if we have no finances, shelter, security - exposure will do nothing.
Think about it logically - if exposure really works - then third world countries would be Scandinavia long time ago. They are constantly exposed to suffering all the time - yet due to toxic ambient, mental illness, violence, legalized mafia and serial killers running the country - they keep third world countries being poor and filled with crime and mafia. Exposure does not help them.
Also prisons - if exposure idea works, then prisons would be hotbed of science, philosophy, engineering and university alumni - yet prisons produce more criminals.
Or if you live in slums - exposure will not help you become successful - instead you will become drug addict and deviate into crime.
Instead of logical fallacy of exposure, there is difference whether something is healthy versus toxic.
I see a lot of toxicity here.
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I noticed this phenomena on social anxiety forums.
I could not understand how people with anxiety can be so hurtful to other people especially when they know from the first hand what anxiety is and how it effects us.
I learned only this year that psychopaths hide behind and it makes sense. We as empaths attract narcissists and they will follow us, pretend to be like us in order to form connection with us, like parasite seeking organism - and our empathy without education will tend to become toxic empathy and we won't cut contact with toxic people, we will rationalize their abuse as normal. IT isn't.
What these people are doing is psychological abuse, bullying. And they mask it as criticism.
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(13.12.2022)
It seems to me that man obsessed with macho and alpha concepts are putting way too much focus and power into genitalia.
Placing primary concern in sex and genitalia leads to limited tunnel vision - where we will jump to quick conclusions and ruin our mental health.
If we nurture idea that we are not suppose to be "accommodative" or "submissive" - we will destroy relationships and connections with normal people who are not having their genitalia running their minds.
Then the only way to live life will be to become parasite and exploiting "weak" and depended people which will seem to such person as being macho, alpha and strong - it is not. Exploiting others is being coward.
"Alpha is providing" - but how the hell you are going to provide if you must connect with others to achieve that same providing - which by definition means not being stubborn. If you have your own business - if you are stubborn and not listening to others will end up by others avoiding you - and your business will fail.
It would be great if life is managed by our genitalia and that other people automatically admire us and that our self worth is based on narcissistic supply - but life is not functioning that way. In fact, narcissism leads to dysfunction, chaos and criminal charges.
Labeling someone as doormat or nice - is not fact, that is stigma.
Idea to stigmatize others leads to mental illness and living in your fantasy world, will end up as schizophrenia, delusional disorder.
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(14.12.2022)
What happens when we can't let go? Due to any reason (money, finances, third party, safety - femicide, security-home, mental issues such as codependency)
Problem is what to do when we are forced to be with toxic people - we need answers, guidance, explanations what then.
Everybody with Highly Sensitivity inside us already knows how to isolate, avoid and cut contact.
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"it's not going to kill you"
Femicide statistics show that this is not true statement.
Many know that being fired from a job is result of standing up for ourselves.
There will be some punishment inside narcissistic abuse for our disobedience and resisting repression/oppression.
Untold truth about setting boundaries is that we need to have money, security when we stand up for ourselves.
Toxicity is not coming from us, toxicity stems from toxic people.
Toxic people are pathological liars, they use manipulation and control, coercion, gaslighting. IF we decide to label our reactions to psychological abuse as hallucination, we will be blind to Dark psychology - and easy targets for toxic people.
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"Some of us are introverts. Our brains are wired differently to extroverts"
This is why CBT is therapy of Ableism.
CBT is narcissistic abuse.
CBT is detrimental to psychological health.
CBT is form of bullying.
CBT ought to be banned.
CBT is fictional Ludovico Technique from "Clockwork Orange": brainwashing.
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She is promoting CBT.
The idea of CBT is that we lobotomize ourselves into subservience, obedience, conformism, groupthink and herd mentality, one-sided thinking based on being obedient, silent, passive slave and drone to crony corporations.
CBT is basically fascism.
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CBT in this video is doing extreme psychological damage - by explaining that social anxiety is hallucination and that paranoid delusional disorder is equal to trauma, as if abuse is someone's vivid imagination and abuse never took place.
This is why anti-psychiatry was invented in 1960s.
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I find it important to discover where this shame came from. If we do not do this, we will interpret as said in video in egocentric way - that we caused it. CBT is reinforcing this egocentric belief where social anxiety is explained as hallucination and self invention, not as social anxiety being caused by toxic people, abuse, mobbing and bullying.
I see toxic shame stemming from being exposed to relentless criticism, micromanaging when our brain was forming.
CBT denies that other people can cause damage to other people by talking, words, that actions and opinions can cause damage to others - CBT denies this. In reality, there is emotional contagion, people can be hypnotized and how we treat other people influences their self esteem of negative emotions if we are critical and invalidating.
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"Just talk to everybody casually. Nobody remembers most of the time what you said"
I followed this CBT advice for 20 years - and I ended up with severe fawning reaction, being pushover and people pleaser.
When I met someone corrupt, violent, abusive, sneaky, manipulative, controlling - I would label their criminal behaviour as my hallucination - and I would stick with them as CBT instructed me: in order to expose and that I believe in CBT idea where somehow toxic people do not exist and nobody cares about my blunders, mistakes or flaws.
Yet - they do. There are toxic people out there
and it turns out our social anxiety alarms are not fake at all - and many people are covert abusers, covert narcissists where altruistic, communal narcissists are the worst of them all along with borderliners.
You open up to them, invite them in your private sphere and they wreck damage and blame you for it.
Wrong advice is the most damaging part in social anxiety - when we turn for help and we get crap like this through CBT- making things worse and damaging.
CBT ought to be banned.
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(15.12.2022)
Spoiler:
when we say No - we will get fired and or we will be punished in whatever way psychopaths in power feel at the given moment.
The hidden information behind saying No - is that there is certain requirement before we start to say no to difficult people (mentally ill psychopaths) - and that is we need to have money, security and safety. Without these basic Maslow Needs - when we say no we will end up homeless and hooligans will kills us in the streets when we die slowly due to lack of food or shelter.
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"Maybe because you do not belong to this world, but you are from heaven."
We are all like aliens from 3rd Rock From the Sun - we try to fit in and try to conform to groupthink and be accepted and loved by sick society filled with toxicity.
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(16.12.2022)
"Think what I choose."
That is the problem.
People who have issues with intrusive thoughts are powered by toxic shame, deep seated self hatred - and then we do not choose anything - other people choose for us.
The only trick is in self validation, self love.
Intrusive thoughts are signal we are in toxic ambient and there are covert abusers, covert narcissists around us who are infecting us with negative energy - and our brain - which is 6 millions years old - is genetically predisposed to detect predators easily.
If we ignore parasites - they will suck out our energy and destroy the quality of our life.
What we resist, persist.
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Bad advice that leads to mental illness and danger.
IF we live with someone who is psychopath such as Amber - if we ignore our danger thoughts, we will end up broke, being labeled by court and film industry as rapist and abuser and our life will be destroyed - simply because we choose to think about orgasm, eating food or anything pleasurable.
Religion must stay away from psychology, it has done enough damage in the past with witch burning.
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Spoiler:
intrusive thoughts stem from toxic ambient and toxic people around us - both in past and in the present and potential future.
Toxic people are culprit here - not our reactions to psychopaths and worst of them all: covert narcissists who appear as friend and help to us so we allow them in our private sphere.
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Any reaction to anxiety leads to OCD rituals, more anxiety.
If we ignore our PureOCD we will allow toxic people around us to control and manipulate us - since we will conform to their desires, while we are preoccupied in handling negative thoughts - which stem from covert abusers around us who are creating this intrusive thoughts in the first place.
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" I didn’t author the intrusion"
You haven't. In reality it is toxic people around us who are masquerading themselves into normal people and we trust them. While they spoil us like bad apple does to good apples - and we think we are sick ones for experiencing anxiety.
Instead of self-absorption we need to become Sherlock Holmes or scientist in a laboratory, seek for evidence, see it under microscope, check out what is going on in reality, learn about red flags, manipulation and control, gaslighting, educate ourselves about Dark triad and Dark psychology - and see when "friends" and "help" are actually coercion us into submission and when "good meaning" people around us are actually pathological liars.
Unless we are serial killers, anti-social, evil people with evil agenda to harm and abuse - there is nothing wrong with our thoughts.
So if we are kind, nice, empathic people without ill will or grudge - and if we feel intrusive thoughts - we need to externalize them and seek the cause and the author in the external.
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Yeah, with self pathology we become people pleasers, pushovers, passive and in submission to narcissists and then serial killers like Trump or Puting become presidents - while we believe we are sick for having reaction to narcissistic sick society filled with murderers and sick people.
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(17.12.2022)
Then those people never had social anxiety to begin with - if they "overcame" it with logic.
They were simply shy and suffer from shyness.
Social anxiety is like Sorites paradox - it depends where we start to define the heap to be the heap.
Social anxiety is fear of criticism and negative judgement that cannot be shaken off. This happens due to trauma.
If it weren't - all people would resolve social anxiety long time ago simply by thinking about it.
There is concept called Functional social anxiety, where social anxiety is still present, yet people are functioning in life without avoidance. The best example is Michael Jackson who had severe social anxiety - yet he was performing in front of billions of people. Another example is Cher or Salvador Dali. Or Top Tennis Player Naomi Osaka - who eventually gave up sports due to social anxiety.
If we suppress and negate our emotions - including social anxiety - if we cover it up and put a fake mask just to "perform" and do "job" - we will become slaves and drones while toxic people, criminals basically, who cause the social anxiety in the first place become presidents - like Trump or Putin.
Complex Trauma (which is not the same as PTSD) lies behind social anxiety.
When we realize social anxiety is trauma, we can take different approach - of self validation, self love and accepting, rather than conforming, groupthink and herd mentality which eventually leads to being pushover and people pleaser - just for the sake of being "normal" and like everyone else.
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(19.12.2022)
Self diagnosis over internet could be potentially very dangerous.
Not only it can lead you to a wrong direction where you end up fixing something that is not broken and make permanent damage in the process - you also get sucked in by psychopaths who seek anyone in need by providing wrong information to fulfil their own evil agenda - such as CBT which is the main default therapy for social anxiety.
Google also makes devil's help by not providing the correct information.
The most obvious error with google is that it follows CBT - so anyone seeking information about social anxiety will not notice the very small but critical fact:
that social anxiety and social anxiety disorder are two different concepts.
If you have social anxiety and follow social anxiety disorder "advice" you will end up with severe toxic shame, damaged self worth and deep seated belief that your feelings are equal to your persona itself - which can end up as mental illness.
There is one meme I found over twitter yesterday by anon:
My therapist said, "I don't think you have social anxiety, I think you're surrounded by the wrong people," and that really hit me. The entire time you think it's you, it may just be that the people around you are toxic or do not align with you. Be very careful who you let in.
unknown
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Exposure does not reduce the pain. What happens is social anxiety becomes functional - yet social anxiety is still inside, buried.
Because social anxiety is trauma.
Trauma will not go away by being ignored.
IT will build up and it will burst eventually.
So mere exposure is actually dangerous - if trauma is not tackled and validated.
Also, perfectionism and trying to keep image of competence stems from narcissism - which was implanted by narcissistic abuse - which caused social anxiety in the first place.
Another aspect which CBT never has eyes to see:
what happens when the external ambient is perfectionist - for example being fired for small mistake or scolded for minor errors, over and over again.
If we focus on our symptoms and decide to battle with them by exposure - we will create our symptoms to be our god. Our fears will be our GPS and then we will turn our life into battle ground - which is path to psychopathy and narcissism.
Our goal in life ought to be self expression, transparency, being honest, validating ourselves - the primary focus being in intrinsic locus of control -
not our fears and not our reactions to fears.
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Go deeper.
It is not unpredictability at all.
IT is criticism, negative evaluation.
Unpredictability might be train being late.
It is yelling and screaming that we are late is what scares us - not unpredictability.
If we never see clearly what our fears are - they will guide us and we will form wrong conclusions - mostly by self blaming and self pathologizing ourselves.
If we live in unpredictable ambient - this is sign of narcissistic abuse, bullying, mobbing. IT is not in our head.
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", but whenever I push myself to socialize, I always feel so much better and happier."
Until you meet triggers and flashbacks : toxic people, narcissists who caused our social anxiety in the first place.
Then we are at square one - since trauma is true cause of social anxiety.
Social anxiety is mere symptom, reaction to abuse we endured.
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CPTSD is umbrella issue of social anxiety.
Social anxiety is bleeding, CPTSD is knife.
We will get cut again if our trauma is not resolved and regulated.
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This information is not available since it would lead to trauma information, and actual resolution and healing -
and CPTSD is banned by CBT and DSM due to Pharma mafia. How would all those quacks out there make money if our neurosis would be quickly gone?
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" because you want to be ‘perfect’ and create a great image to others"
That is surface level awareness.
Deeper one is fear of punishment,
since social anxiety is part of CPTSD, social anxiety began as reaction to bullying, abuse, invalidation, mobbing. There was repeated punishment and repeated pattern of criticism which formed our social anxiety issues.
The problem is not in our head - we are simply repeating implanted toxic programming which untreated mentally ill people put in our head in early years when our psyche was forming.
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@anarki777 You never had social anxiety disorder in the first place.
Social anxiety and social anxiety disorder are built on deep seated toxic shame - which cannot be shaken off by logic, thinking nor behaviour - otherwise all people would remove it a long time ago.
Social anxiety is like Sorites paradox - there is a question when heap becomes the heap.
You simply had a few dusts of sand - that does not make it a heap.
The most devastating problem you create here is that you provide wrong information to people with true social anxiety.
You convince them that they simply need to expose themselves to abuse and toxic people and somehow magically their fears, natural reaction to psychopaths will be gone.
You are telling the message that our fears and emotions are dirty, sick, abnormal - and that we need to be chirpy happy and wealthy - and all our problems will be gone.
Well, money does not come with silver spoon in our mouth, it does not fall out of heaven.
And evil people will always be evil no matter how happy we are.
Our emotions and reaction to negative people are not our persona.
Ignoring trauma will not make it go away.
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If exposure really works, then third world countries would be organized and wealthy like Scandinavia.
Instead of exposure there is term what is toxic versus healhy,
and that we self express ourselves versus fawning which would be invent with exposure.
CBT exposure can lead to being pushover, being people pleaser and fawning due to unresolved trauma.
Also, a lot of people do not have opportunity, money, time nor resourced to expose in the first place.
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Charcot hysteria,
it was studied 100 years ago
Freud discovered unconsciousness based on it -
and it is banned and covered by CBT - which is nothing but mass lobotomy and nazi ideology imported by Operation Paperclip after 1945 from Nazi Germany.
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"I have never met a narcissist that had an anxiety disorder "
Great text.
I would comment this quote part.
Well I discovered that narcissists actually mimic social anxiety.
It is great narcissistic supply, place where they can find new supply - super easy targets: quiet, nice, empathic, friendly, open, patient types. Narcissists have grooming stage and mirroring where they take on and act whatever other person is saying or doing in order to gain their trust.
Anyone with social anxiety is victim of narcissitic abuse.
Narcissism is at the other side of social anxiety.
What we need is information about narcissistic abuse and how to handle it and how to recognize it, more education about it.
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"focused on themselves and quite uninterested in others "
People with social anxiety are extremely focused on other people - but not in party mode. They look what other person is saying, how they are forming their words, expressions on their face, movement of hands, small details which other people would not notice- the tone of their voice. IT is like being microscopically zoomed onto other person.
This happens due to repeated exposure to narcissistic abuse which caused social anxiety in the first place - it is fear of punishment.
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Narcissists are the cause of social anxiety. They spread mental illness on easy targets: empathic, nice, kind, open, friendly, play fair individuals.
The difference between self importance in narcissism and social anxiety is that narcissists are predators - they see world as battle, they are egocentric, they have hidden agenda to harm other people and exploit them.
Socially anxious simply react to such psychopaths.
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Social anxiety is not only party-going issue.
"Feeling" itself about event are not the problem - it is toxic people. Narcissists, abusive people, nitpickers, someone who will fire us and throw us in the street if we do not obey to their endless temper tantrums and unrealistic unreasonable demands.
Social anxiety by definition is fear of criticism and negative evaluation - it is not fantasy fear, it is detailed fear of narcissistic abuse which caused social anxiety in the first place.
Anxiety is normal emotion, normal reaction to abnormal people and abnormal situations.
I think you are mixing up shyness with social anxiety.
"I'm learning how to become comfortable in social situation"
So - if we live with someone narcissistic and borderline like Amber - who appears as lover in private space (due to grooming and honeymoon phases) but in reality actually is mentally ill aggressive psychopath covert as moody - if we bury down our panic reaction to such abusive sick mentally ill person who is causing social anxiety symptoms in the first place - we will end up with such person - and we will lose court, we will be labeled as rapist and excluded by movie industry, without money - just because we decided to ignore anxiety.
All emotions are valid, even negative and scary emotions.
Idea to stifle down normal reaction to abnormal situations and dangerous people is not healthy approach.
Social anxiety is being trapped in toxic job with mobbing, ongoing bullying and constant abuse where you are not allowed to defend yourself and you must take putting downs and aggression and be silent about it without escape exit strategy - that is social anxiety.
Going to movies, and having uncomfortable issues , going to prom anniversaries, parties - is shyness. Not social anxiety.
I don't think suppressing our emotions is healthy at all, neither ignoring toxic ambient, nor ignoring red flags - what could end wrong?
Also, adding techniques and rituals to anxiety paradoxically leads to even more anxiety. Now it will only become covert and deep seated, like onion layer. Highly dangerous for mental health.
What we resist, persist. - JUNG
Social anxiety is not phobia - it was renamed from phobia into anxiety in mid 1990s because CBT "experts" discovered that exposure does not resolve social inhibitions at all. Phobias are cured with repeated exposure, social anxiety is trauma issue - the problem is not in our brain at all, wound is externally inflicted, programmed like virus inside us to execute. If we decide to equate our symptoms with our self worth we will end up with deep seated toxic shame, which leads to mental illness.
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Social anxiety is not going to parties.
That is shyness issue.
Social anxiety is being trapped in toxic job with bullying, ,mobbing, aggression, violence and you cannot defend yourself nor escape and leave quit that job - that is social anxiety.
Problem are toxic people - they cause social anxiety - problem is not in our head, there is nothing we can fix inside us to make evil people change and become normal human beings who do not nitpick or criticize small irrelevant details.
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Toxin is not inside us. If we believe we can "fix" something inside us to make evil people turn into normal will lead to mental illness.
Toxic people cause social anxiety - that is why it is called social+anxiety. There is social element.
It is not called self - anxiety.
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Yes, communicate it with it, it is not evil , it is defense mechanism.
IT does requires compassion and understanding.
Complex Trauma (CPTSD which is not the same as PTSD) is umbrella issue hovering above social anxiety.
There is trauma stuck inside our body causing this dysregulation.
Depending on external factor is called External reference locus of control or Trauma bonding.
Humanistic psychology tells us to self validate, self accept, self express and put our goals as primary concern, intrinsic locus of control - where when we start to take care of ourselves, we will ward off toxic people - who are the cause of social anxiety in the first place.
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Education is the key.
The more we know, the more we will have tools to handle difficult and complex issues we encounter in life.
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With social anxiety we need education.
Panic symptoms make us stuck in egocentrism and we rarely look outside, that perhaps social anxiety stems from abuse, toxic environment, our Maslow needs not being met etc-
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"why do only some develop social anxiety. Lots of people I know who were bullied never had social anxiety"
We all react differently.
Some people are hurt but their IQ is so low that they do not recognize it.
Some recognize it, but their emotional IQ is so low that they have no idea what emotions they feel, they cannot recognize it.
Some recognize the problem but they live in strict, toxic ambient where emotions are labeled as sissy and weak, so they are stifled down.
Some show dysregulation in society's accepted format: through violence, abuse, nagging, complaining and many have no idea that such talkative person is actually scared of people, since they wear armour of superiority complex.
Some people are bullied but have strong loving validation at their healthy home family and ambient - so there is no soothing ground for toxic shame to take root.
We are not robots, we are not clones.
Idea that we all must react the same way is ableism and it is connected to Asch conformity experiments.
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(20.12.2022)
You mentioned Michael Jackson.
He had severe social anxiety yet he was wealthy, famous and performed in front of billions of people without any issue or inhibition.
That is because social anxiety can be functional. We can expose and be out there and very social. With social anxiety still inside us.
These feelings of not taking pride and inhibitions - are actually dysregulation.
We can start to make sense of social anxiety when we put it where it belongs: inside Complex Trauma.
We were traumatized and social anxiety is after-effect of trauma. The problem is not inside us.
Our emotions, thinking, patterns, actions - are not sick. CBT explains it as if we are sick fundamentally, and CBT in this way adds up toxic shame and mental imbalance and created new layers of anxiety.
Psychiatry can be detrimental to our mental health.
When we take limited vocabulary from CBT and label ourselves as abnormal - we will hypnotize ourselves into victimhood forever.
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there is huge problem with information about social anxiety.
Many people with social anxiety are not aware it is CPTSD actually.
They google their symptoms and google or doctor directs them to CBT - which is pill popping therapy filled with self pathologizing and trauma information is banned. Any self help book, any resource on google when we type social anxiety - will direct us to CBT - which is flawed and detrimental and filled with false information about social anxiety.
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All people are strangers -
in the beginning when they meet.
You can live with a person for decades and this person will still wear mask - where you won't know who this person really is.
The point is that with social anxiety our perception of other people is thwarted due to abuse, bullying, improper behaviour which was never sanctioned or been held accountable.
When we have social anxiety -we have to become aware that it is crucial to start Descartes Evil Demon Hypothesis - where we start to doubt our conclusions and other people's definitions as well. The simple act of doubt - allowing ourselves to see any label, definition, conclusion, bias, prejudice - from a different perspective.
If we have time to study psychology and philosophy - we would come to discovery that interdependence is the most highest form of connection on this planet.
Where we give and take and where we are on par with other people.
With social anxiety, due to abuse and trauma - which CBT never mentions - our views about other people are skewed - and they need correction.
We will observe other people as dangerous and scary - this belief comes from trauma, not from reality.
CBT and DSM do not explain this - that we need to express our anger, boundaries - in the correct time, with correct people in correct amount.
With social anxiety - we put wall and we are rigid, we have rigid mindset - where there is no will to live, to socialize, to express, to enjoy life.
Instead of building a wall - I would try to heal the trauma -
and learn how to put a wall when it is needed - when we want to put Trump in prison for his crimes - and break a wall when it is time such as Berlin 1989.
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"What did you do differently to overcome it?"
We got to be careful.
A lot of people who claim to have social anxiety are narcissistic- They use up social anxiety as an excuse to abuse other people.
The idea that social anxiety can be overcome is narcissistic.
Social anxiety is reaction to abuse, bullying - this cannot be overcome. It is wound.
If anyone overcome social anxiety - they did not have it in the first place.
Narcissists see the world as battle, as destroying other people and narcissists feel entitled - so any criticism is perceived as personal attack - not as opportunity to stop and see what is going on.
Socially anxious people want other people, they feel on par with others and they are hurt only by criticism which entails punishment and violence.
Narcissists only see themselves, their entitlement their pleasure, their orgasm. while other people are object who must fawn over to them.
We need to start seeing this difference between social anxiety and narcissism - in order to accept social anxiety and reject narcissism.
Narcissistic abuse creates social anxiety.
Narcissism is godfather of social anxiety.
Social anxiety is not wart, something to reject or throw off in disgust.
Without social anxiety we will treat other people abusively - as he did to me and the quickest way to "heal" and "overcome" social anxiety is to abuse other people and hence spread social anxiety into the next generation as a curse.
Social anxiety is not bad - it is reaction to bad evil people. There is nothing to overcome - but narcissists and bullies.
CBT and videos like this suppose to explain this dynamics, but instead CBT is taking side of narcissist and abuse us and invalidate our reactions as abnormal through self-pathologizing and placing our mindset into hypnosis that the world is battle where we are suppose to be strong, happy, chirpy, conquerors and slaves to superior people above us in corporations.
We live in sick world filled with narcissists who are mimicking normal people - and then put standards of abnormality for us to obey.
---
Blog and reddit. And these you tube comments, too. I would encourage anyone with CPTSD to talk and express their opinions, views, no matter how we think they are wrong, not acceptable or weird. Self expression is the key to healing trauma - without hurting and harming anyone in the process, understandibly.
I find comments like this, some people react kindly and with validation - as you.
Some people react as if I personally attacked them. Those I block immediately.
Trauma can create us abusers if we allow it to spread.
---
" this is a very sadistic and pessimistic view about the world."
It is realistic, and I am extremely optimistic in the same time. I think it is not healthy to base quick judgements - it leads to logical fallacies, prejudgments and basically pessimism itself, ironically.
You simply prove the Jung theory - what we resist, persist.
What you hate and can't stand nor tolerate - you parodically & paradoxically create more of it.
That is because you do not base yourself on love.
You base yourself on society message that you must not be vulnerable, sissy, weak --- and superiority complex does the rest - you become obnoxious person who is hating everybody.
---
"Acceptance is worse than ruminating. It is like a hell"
You are confusing accepting with letting go.
This is because you base your self worth on sick society message about what is suppose to be man. You read too much Jordan Peterson and you end up with mental illness - belief that accepting means abolishing your rights.
Acceptance means we accept cruel reality as evil and ugly and bad - but in the same time we have tolerance and understanding about yin ying dualism of the world.
This does not mean not doing anything to evil. this does not mean shutting up nor self censorship.
We can validate anyone and everything in the world and still speak our mind and set boundaries.
The belief that acceptance is dangerous and is equal to treason and siding with bullies and toxic elements will lead to mental illness and tremendous problems with depression later in life.
Develop it , learn more about it.
Start with Wu Wei concept.
---
Letting go is great, there is also difference in between not caring and engaging in toxic ambient.
This is extremely important topic, it is related to mental issues, mental health - it is extremely important that we learn it, study it, it is extremely complex - it is not as easy as it looks at the first sight.
"Acceptance can change your fundamentals of your personality"
You are missing concept called Locus of control.
When we have external referencing locus of control - other people control us, with accepting or not accepting.
This happens when there is toxic shame deep inside us - deep self hatred which we learned due to sick society. It is hypnosis, filter, veil over our eyes - distorting our reality, confirmation bias and availability heuristics described in psychology.
Intrinsic locus of control means drawing our value from within us, from our common sense, our ethics and moral understandings.
Other people must never define these for us - otherwise they will control us, as you say it.
It is up to us to understand what is evil, wrong and error and make it clear to choose the good, without expecting reward or external appraisal for it.
---
"to judge one"
You are correct - every judgement is criticism which is attack on some person.
Yet - we cannot form any kind of contact communication or expression of our boundaries without judgment.
We cannot form our persona, our identity without judgement.
IT is like being hedgehog and we will eventually prick other beings around us, just for being close to them. This is called Hedgehog dilemma - google it.
What can we do about it - is not to have any hatred inside us, the trick is to be free of any rancour, trauma inside us, that we wish no harm to other people , that there is no evil agenda to cause any kind of damage to others.
In our sick society, especially to people like Musk or Jordan Peterson - sick society instructs us to equal being evil with being man.
As if there is no other way to be powerful, strong and forceful other than hating and hurting and showing teeth.
There is another way.
We can be who we are and express our opinions which other people will interpret as judgement. And still express ourselves no matter what other people judge our judging about. That is the correct path.
Shutting up and self censorship and seeking some kind of magical way to talk and communicate with people without harming them in the process is futile.
Whatever we think and do - someone will find error and fault and harm in it.
As I said, if we are not psychopaths - we have no reason to fade and be silent and carry guilt and shame for not being perfect in social situations.
---
We live in sick narcissistic society. Many information we receive is wrong and even detrimental.
CBT is the worst - it suppose to help us and inform us about social anxiety - explain the trauma in detail. Instead it joins into hysteria and sets us to self-pathologize ourselves for reacting to abuse.
But is makes sense.
Social anxiety thrives on our toxic shame inside us. And when we are governed by trauma and unconscious programming inside us - we will attract the same thing, the same toxicity in outer external experience.
Deep down we hate ourselves, and we attract the same self hatred - since it feels natural to us and we'll attract without being aware what is natural to us.
Toxic shame being the core problem with social anxiety.
Psychology ought to explain this - and it doesn't - since it is not money making profit for corrupt medical industry.
---
You are describing egocentrism.
Piaget discovered this as the last phase of growing up. At some level, we may stay stuck at confirmation bias and availability heuristics. Then we form logical fallacies, bias and quick prejudgments. This is common issue with humans, it is our job and task to overcome it, learn it and be able to see multiple angles of anything and anyone. This is not the easy task.
One of after-effects of this ability, side-effect - is - surprisingly - social anxiety.
Social anxiety is not always the bad thing.
Then it is easier to put curtain on, put filter and obfuscate our perception - it hurts less when we are not aware of all and everything.
But at what cost?
To be short-sighted, selfish, cruel, animal basically.
---
(21.12.2022)
@Ali Jung Shadow,
Intrinsic locus of control,
Jung False Self.
Descartes Evil Demon Hypothesis.
Asch Conformity experiments.
Google these concepts or check out my Psychology and Philosophy video playlist at YT channel of mine.
Our true Self is not rigid, it is flexible.
The minute we set our definitions, labels, judgments - we form rigid mindset. Descartes discovered that we need to allow ourselves to start doubting anything and anyone - including our own thoughts and people around us - this discovery gave birth to modern philosophy.
Example in real life is Complex trauma and Social anxiety issues and Narcissistic abuse, Oppression of any kind.
It is when we are in toxic ambient with toxic people, they punish us and condition us into hypnosis and without noticing it, we are controlled by toxic people.
We may fawn - we will be manipulated by others.
We may built walls and engage in fight response, such as Jordan Peterson proposes - but this leads to be controlled by toxic people - since we will react to their words and their actions - we will end up dancing tango with them - since we do not base our worth and decisions on our own moral and ethical standards and beliefs.
Our conditioning in sick narcissistic society taught us to be part of groupthink, conformism, herd mentality and this builds our mindset to be oppressed - we are easily ashamed when making anything different which may be easily be labelled as abnormal by large groups of people. Then we became slaves to elite and those who have money to control masses.
Example for men - being afraid of being sissy or labelled as gay if we wear clothes which are not macho for example.
----
I agree, basically we are talking about the same thing, you are simply using the words to describe concepts from your background and ambient which are different from mine and we may seem as if we are talking about twi different things, hehe.
I see Karma concept and Locus of control concept from the perspective of Social anxiety.
In Western medical community, social anxiety is described as shyness - but in reality social anxiety is connected to both OCD and society.
Our anxiety is reflection of society around us. When we live in sick narcissistic society - it is natural and normal reaction to feel OCD issues and anxiety and panic.
When we learn concept about Locus of control which is internal, intrinsic - we learn Humanistic psychology concept which is self love, self validation - that we do not self pathologize our emotions but understand them.
If we are not serial killers, if we do not kill people, if we are not anti-social, if we have no hidden agenda - there is nothing sick inside us.
Including your doubts and shame that you may feel.
Shame is excellent tool to control easy targets: people who are kind, nice, quiet, normal, friendly, open, who listen, who have empathy, who are understanding and apologetic. Then evil people easily label something wrong about us - and we get hooked to be good and nice and kind.
I see solution to OCD, anxiety, social anxiety, our worries - in balancing out our skewed distorted definitions about what is good and wrong.
We basically need to allow ourselves to be "bad" and labeled as wrong and evil by other people - and not get it affect us when we know deep down that we are not violent aggressive psychopaths. That is intrinsic locus of control - to be ok with ourselves, as we are, authentic, honest - whatever that may entail.
---
I would add realistic obstacle:
toxic, narcissistic people who love and adore conflict, endless confrontation without reaching conclusion and their only wish is that we lose control and then to be blamed and labeled as difficult one - concept called Reactive abuse.
With psychopaths it is useless to have any kind of arguments.
And if we are in conflict all the time - if this is a pattern which never gets resolves - this is a sign of toxic ambient -
and our best route is to plan exit. We are not jesus christ and we cannot heal aggressive mentally ill people who love their sickness.
---
(22.12.2022)
"but I’ll leave you with something to chew on for now"
I have no idea why YT never alerted me about this reply. I never seen this so I didn't reply.
" do you really disagree with what im saying, or is it possible you are applying the most extremist example "
I am not important here.
"data/info about me and the main point of the video"
You are also not important. Don't be narcissistic.
We discuss here ideas. Not your personal life. This is YT, we are icons. I cannot possible know you personally, and vice versa. Please de-fuse from personal issues when here, it is pointless. Ad Hominem is always pointless.
"helping them develop"
Before you start codependency and rescuing other people -
Check out Rescuer role in Karpman Drama Triangle.
"I believe human beings are hardwired for development."
It is like on moving escalator. We will develop even if we stand still
Desire to imrove without basic Maslow being met leads to superiority complex and mental illness such as narcissism where connection with others is destroyed.
"We seek out others who help us, who complete us"
All I can say -
I think you have unresolved issues with codependency.
Yes, people are like puzzled and interdependence is the most important aspect of psychology and philosophy. But if you lean all your worth on other people this will end up as trauma bonding.
-
Guilt is cemented by toxic people and toxic ambient. Guilt is excellent tool to control and manipulate someone, and psychopaths love this abnormal, mentally ill control of other people.
If we are positive and happy as person, our persona generally being positive and with firm hope as with any normal being without anti-social tendencies - surprisingly the guilt we struggle with inside us is actually stemming from the external factor.
We need to recognize all covert red flags and cut narcissists off and away
and see from the psychological aspect why we do not recognize psychopaths in the first place - which to save time in seeking the reason: will be our low self worth -- and then how to work on our compromised self worth, toxic shame (hidden, deep seated self hatred inside) intrinsic locus of control, to draw value and validation from inside - not other people and their definitions, labels, explanations, orders, commands.
---
Jordan Peterson is narcissist, he is mentally ill and he spreads mental illness.
Here he is hypnotizing young men into hysteria. What he is doing is teaching how to develop mental illness: that we observe the world through bi-polar lens, like trauma splitting: where someone is either good or bad. It is rigid belief that life is either black or white. IT is not.
Everything is contextual.
If we stand up for ourselves - the most likely we will get fired and be without job, without money -
so one thing he is not saying that not being agreeable requires you to have large sums of money, shelter and security. He hides this fact because he is sick in the head, he sees reality from tunnel vision, without any ability for empathy and all the life circumstances.
Here he says that we must bring everything in the front - and when University talks and bring in front facts about him - he sues the University. So he is pathological liar and hypocrite.
In reality, in real life, outside of his sick mentally ill mind - we need to be vulnerable most of the time.
We stand up for ourselves when we have security that we won't be harmed in the process - such as ending up being homeless when we stand up to bullies.
IF we follow his borderline narcissistic advice to be stubborn - we will never form any kind of friendship or contact with other people.
---
True.
"Assertive people respect themselves, and other people."
Yet this leads to paradox.
When we are around arrogant people - who are triggers not to be assertive - to respect them means to respect their disrespect to us.
Then we are back at square one.
Shutting up and not confronting someone's wrong advice, detrimental order, commands, criticism.
Also:
Engaging in conflict, confrontation, assertiveness with difficult people is useless - since they are stubborn and they do not want resolution which would show their deficiencies which they hide by superiority complex.
If we need to be assertive - it is a sign that we are in unhealthy toxic ambient where narcissist psychopaths, Machiavellians are running fake mask of superiority to control and manipulate other people.
Their sole purpose in life is to be toxic. Staying inside Chernobyl will not make us immune to lethal radiation.
Problem starts when we cannot cut off run away door slam toxic people - due to finances, job, security, third party. And then we need to make some kind of survival with someone who is mentally ill, criminally insane.
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"don't try to be anyone but yourself"
People who are anxious don't have self.
That is where anxiety is stemming from.
The self is destroyed by toxic shame.
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"response to external things (including toxic people). That is why exposure therapy is so helpful, it builds up our resilience"
You got it all wrong.
Anxiety means we have high ethical and moral standards. That is not bad thing at all.
Without reaction to abuse and mistreatment we would allow toxic people to swindle us.
Exposure will not work - since anxiety due to toxic people also means toxic shame which means - people pleasing issues, codependency and fawning. These will not "go away" with exposure. In fact, it will make it worse - and can lead to trauma being cemented, years of nightmares, triggers and flashbacks, more fears and more anxiety.
Rejecting emotions, suppressing them, ignoring them, numbing them - is really a bad idea, it can cause mental illness.
---
(23.12.2022)
"Previously I said narcissistic supply is primary to understand. It isn't"
"the real driver is individuation. They are trying to grow up. They're trying to become human."
This is shocking. And disturbing - the mother and scapegoat part.
This is deep level, deep layer of abuse explained here. IT is like cracked code for abusers, their hypnosis revealed how it works. Amazing work! Thank you for this information.
"You don't realize they colonized your mind. After narcissistic relationship, you act as an narcissist."
This makes perfect sense.
I see it like spreading the abuse to the next generation. The curse. It is like virus being passed on to others, it spreads, it is like disease, infectious one.
I would add the devaluation part - their constant criticism is how we get hypnotized and conditioned into guilt. Their constant nitpicking and voicing out what is wrong - and everything is wrong to them all the time, it is relentless criticism that gets stuck and makes us stuck.
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" The solution mentioned, "engage and overcome" likely has very limited benefit mainly because those who have deep fears of rejection simply won't take the risk"
Oh they will take the risk.
People with social anxiety are extremely brave and courageous even though they appear at the surface as meek, weak and susceptible to narc abuse due to silence, fears and panic - surviving, being in survival mode, hypervigilance 24/7 - and going through this panic through life makes them extremely strong and courageous and risk takers.
The problem is not having guidance how to manage and cope with abuse, bullying and mobbing - which are the core cause of social anxiety in the first place.
It is a lack of information and facts and explanation what is going on.
It is like Sandra Bullock scene from 2013 sci fi movie Gravity where she spins in empty space trying to get hold on something firm to get a grip and stop spinning.
We do not have grip - we do not have ground to earth ourselves. Instead we have plethora of toxic people parasites who see we are struggling and they act as ground to us - only to produce more stress anxiety which they farm and suck energy, money, time, focus from us.
Instead of CBT, there is Humanistic psychology which truly helps with social anxiety. CBT is part of narcissistic abuse, ableism.
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(26.12.2022)
"I used to worry what other people think now I don't worry."
So from one extreme he went to another extreme.
We need to have empathy and put ourselves into other people shoes. Without this ability we will become autistic, narcissistic, solipsistic, egocentric. Then we will end up abusing other people, causing them trauma.
Love, friendships, business - it is all about give and take - it is not about give me. It is not about tyranny, that is dysfunctional.
If it was so easy to handle social inhibitions, everyone would do it long time ago.
"More importantly you enjoy yourself, being with people you like."
Yet - you cannot choose co-workers, teachers, family, clerks - if those are toxic, you cannot fulfill needs without them.
If you do not have money to support your exits, you depend on toxic people who are causing social anxiety. If you ignore toxic people they punish you.
If you stand up for yourself at job - without money and connection - you will get fired from that job.
So his solution is being homeless? So hooligans will attack you in the street while you roam around hungry?
Social anxiety is part of Complex Trauma, it is result of being exposed to narcissistic abuse - exactly from those people who do not care about others.
So his solution to social anxiety is becoming narcissist and spreading social anxiety onto next generation.
---
In real life, people who struggle with social anxiety are surrounded by toxic people and they cannot escape their toxicity. That is the problem. Their thinking is not problem at all. Toxic people are problem,
if you are not anti-social, there is nothing to fix, there is nothing to focus or think in better way that somehow evil people will suddenly disappear by you fixing your thinking process.
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" People are really focused on themselves and their own lives. They really aren’t paying attention to you"
This is incorrect statement.
Narcissists focus a lot on other people due to their narc supply.
Toxic people seek how to abuse and bully others, mock and make fun of any mistake or error.
Parasites look how to take advantage of easy targets: kind, nice, happy, open and friendly empaths.
Borderliners look how to groom their targets and then abuse them.
All Cluster B is extremely anti-social and they are very much focused at other people in very detail.
Social anxiety is stemming from abuse of those cluster B disorders.
---
Nope.
Self esteem is when you do a good job task and you feel good about it.
What you are looking for is self worth. That is intrinsic locus of control where you find happiness, worth, appraisal, appraisement, goals from within yourself, it is not depended on other people likes or dislikes.
Toxic shame internalized in socially anxious traumatized people is destroying self worth.
If you do not heal toxic shame, your "self esteem" will be based on other people, their comments - and this means more anxiety.
---
Liking wasn't primary problem at all.
The problem are toxic people who are tyrannical and control and manipulate us. Then you are conditioned and hypnotized to please them, due to system of punishments such as their temper tantrums.
IT is great when victims of narcissistic abuse are wealthy and they can cut contact and leave parasites, however most of socially anxious are poor, without finance support and they are stuck in toxic ambient with toxic people and toxic shame internalized.
---
That is great that you realized for yourself,, great job,,
but most people do not have choice nor money nor support to simply pick toxic people away from their jobs, families, ambient - and they are stuck with abuse.
Ignoring toxicity is really bad choicae.
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" but if you don't participate then you lost the only thing something important in which you were given"
Traumatized people such as those struggling with social anxiety are conditioned, hypnotized and punished into immobility and passivity. It is not a choice.
Deficiency motivation is crappy and it never ever works in real life.
---
This is shyness advice.
Any reaction to anxiety will lead to PureOCD issues, you will soon have plethora of safety rituals to calm yourself down.
Problem with social anxiety stem from toxic people. Not from our reactions to aggressive narcissists. That is why social anxiety is called social+anxiety. it is not called self anxiety.
Social is the crucial element here, social which means society - people. People are causing anxiety, not your reactions of safety mechanisms you invent to trick your fears into not reacting to dangerous Machiavellians and covert narcissists.
---
It doesn't help because he is giving surface level advice.
IT is the same as to tell the depressed person to smile and be chirpy.
Eventually depression will fade, and person will smile once more - but this is the process.
Unfortunately videos with good intentions like this are making more damage than good. Good intentions are pathway to hell.
Social anxiety is reaction to abuse, bullying and mobbing. There is nothing inside us that needs fixing, there is nothing broken inside our brain. Our reactions to anti-social maniacs are normal reactions to abnormal people , abnormal situations, abnormal events.
Idea that we need to fix ourselves - while there is nothing wrong with us (we are not murderers) will create mental illness.
---
""just don't worry" is easier said than done"
He is providing surface level advice.
He is making himself confident by giving others advice which does not work in reality.
This phenomena is called "Rescuer role" inside Karpman Drama Triangle.
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" I realized we were all building it up in our heads."
Great story. But what does this have with social anxiety?
Social anxiety by definition is exposure to toxic people who criticize and spread negative evaluations. They do this. They are toxic. It is not us who are thinking this, it is not our imagination - and nope, we cannot control other people with our thoughts and realizations and insights.
That is why social anxiety is called social + anxiety. It is social. There is this word "social" inside anxiety. it is not called self - anxiety. it is not delusion anxiety. The anxiety stems from the social element, not our head. Our fears panic and uncomfortable feelings are the result of being exposed to narcissistic abuse.
The idea that somehow we need to fix our thinking in order to crap fit into abuse leads to mental illness and more anxiety. Endless hamster wheel of trying to change out thinking so that somehow by magic our outer reality will become "less evil". It won't. Evil people are evil because they are mentally ill. There is nothing you can realize that you can make evil people stop being evil. it is their choice to be evil- and social anxiety is reaction to this evil, social evil.
---
" reduced face gaze"
That is Charcot hysteria. It was discovered 100 years ago, and Freud discovered unconsciousness based on it.
Nothing new here.
Social anxiety is caused by rigid mental systems like communist China or the same equivalent as fascism in Balkan countries and Hungary/Poland.
Social anxiety is called social + anxiety - due to social element. Face being rigid is reaction to toxic criminally inside herd mentality, groupthink and narcissistic abuse.
---
" I almost never surround myself by the ppl I like"
This is called Fawning. And it is part of Complex Trauma (which is not the same as PTSD).
Fawning is trauma response. Unfortunately we do not receive the correct information by official medical industry (CBT) nor from videos such as these or self help books.
We were traumatized into people pleasing due to exposure to narcissistic abuse over long period of time. Temper tantrums, relentless criticism, nagging, complaining - it sets up toxic shame inside us, where we hate ourselves, this rancour is deep seated and we do not notice it - we notice the panic and fears as reactions to criticism and nagging and complaining and negative evaluation from others. This is called Triggers and Flashbacks - and these keep us in Survival mode - constant hypervigilance, worry and trying to fix ourselves.
CBT and videos like this suppose to explain all of this in detail - instead they join into hysteria - and they give us message that we have faulty brain, that we must change fix ourselves. There is nothing to fix. The true and only problem are toxic people around us.
If we are not murderers, if we do not have anti-social tendencies, if we do not have hidden agenda to cause harm to others - there is nothing wrong with us.
Our fears and panic are trauma response - these are not our persona or personality.
Social anxiety stems from toxic society. And toxic society itself is giving wrong misleading information and hence instructions about social anxiety.
---
This works in job that allows delayed response - which is what 1% of all jobs?
In reality, toxic people, abuse and bullying, mobbing at work - sets us system of punishment, including getting fired from the job unless you are people pleaser.
Now being fired from the job is amazing if you live in UK or USA or any other normal, wealthy country. However for all the rest, getting fired from toxic job means not finding any new job, hence not paying the bills and living the street, being homeless.
People pleasing is trauma response. It is not connected to any our mechanisms, routines or tricks.
People pleasing is also sign of oppression and living in a toxic ambient with tyranny and lack of justice, filled with corruption and criminally insane people in authority - like Trump or Putin.
---
People pleasing is trauma response. This is conditioning, hypnosis - it cannot be "removed" with logic.
Trauma means being stuck in processing some difficult person, event or situation.
The critical point is that people pleasing is a signal and alarm - that we are not the problem at all - it is toxic people.
In normal, healthy contact it is normal and healthy to be giving and vulnerable. With toxic people this friendliness and openness turns into being pushover.
This is the message of this video, to build self worth. If we do not know what we like, other people will fill in this information for us.
---
Seems to me you are confusing shyness with social anxiety.
Social anxiety is not about food. Social anxiety is the result of exposure to narcissistic abuse, bullying, mobbing. It is getting triggered by intrusive queries, criticism and negative evaluation. It stems from toxic people hence the name social + anxiety. It is social, social is the element of anxiety. Not the self. It is not called self anxiety.
Other than this confusion with the fundamentals, any advice relating to CBT idea that somehow our thinking is sick and wrong and that we must guard our thinking process in order to calm down evil people - leads to mental illness and schizophrenia. If we are not serial killers, if we are not anti-social, if we have no hidden agenda to cause harm - there is nothing wrong with emotions.
CBT idea to stifle down emotions leads to mental illness and more anxiety. Suppressing emotions is not healthy, even kids in grammar school know this who have no idea about psychology.
"That is their opinion" does not help much.
Conditioning through punishment which causes social anxiety leads to trauma stuck inside the body. Any logical resolutions and ideas will not help with this Charcot hysteria. In fact, it will add up to toxic shame and anxiety.
"Repeat multiple times in mirror"
leads to PureOCD. Any ritual to calm anxiety leads to more anxiety.
Confidence cannot be boosted by talking to ourselves. If this works everybody would do it long time ago and it would work. Same goes with gratitude.
This is the same as to say depressive person to smile.
Sorry, this surface level information you provide is waste of time. It does not help at all.
Good intentions are pathway to hell.
----
"What bothers us is what we want from them"
Nope.
Intrusive toxic people who cause social anxiety are intrusive.
Intrusive means exactly that - they impose themselves with criticism, nagging and complaining and labeling something as wrong through temper tantrums, hysteria, loud and obnoxious behaviour followed by put downs.
Normal healthy people are not intrusive. Toxic people are intrusive.
Toxic people are the problem here, Cluster B personalities, jackals, parasites, predators.
Your logic is flawed.
If you lower your expectation, then you will end up with criminally insane people doing whatever they want with you.
Ignoring and pretending that abuse is not happening is safety mechanism - it is withdrawing into magical fantasy autistic world where other people do not exist.
Normal healthy connections evolve interdependence, give and take. If you decide no to give and not to take - you simply end up either avoiding people or being a pushover and people pleaser. If you do not have expectation about what is aligned with your self worth - other people will fill in those blanks for you and manipulators are great at control and manipulation.
---
Problem with detrimental CBT ideas such as exposure and challenges is that you end up creating your fears to guide your life.
Instead of your own goal and your own moral compass being your captain of your own brain - you let your panic, fears and trauma to guide you.
This challenge and exposure will never end. There are billion things to be afraid and scared of. And once you tell your brain that there are fears to conquer - the brain will invent new fears to be afraid of and to conquer. This leads to OCD.
I know this information is too complex to understand to Kyle.
I am trying to explain this to him for past 6 months - and it is ok if we chooses to be victim and trapped in fears for all of his life- it is not ok to spread this OCD anxiety factory onto other people who are seeking genuine help.
Social anxiety is not about bills nor parties.
Social anxiety is part of Complex Trauma - it stems from exposure to narcissistic abuse, constant and relentless criticism 24/7 while our brain was suppose to form psyche and persona(lity). Instead it got arrested in development where fears started to be captain of our goals in life.
---
CBT is therapy of errors. CBT uses rigid mindset which leads to mental illness. CBT is narcissistic abuse itself where CBT instructs traumatized people to develop self-pathology. CBT ought to be banned. CBT uses limited psychological vocabulary to describe complex life situations where everything in life is contextual, CBT is like North Korea regime where pharma mafia makes the standard of what is accepted, normal and correct.
Exposure can lead only to social anxiety becoming functional. Social anxiety is still there. Social anxiety is part of Complex Trauma (not the same as PTSD).
CBT idea to stifle down our emotions and that we must never feel fears or anxiety leads to mental illness.
----
You mix up social anxiety with social anxiety disorder. These are not the same.
Background music is annoying.
Exposure therapy does not work because you end up letting your fears to decide what to do in life. Once the brain notice that we make fears into authority and that we feel good when we conquer our panic - the brain will create more fears to conquer.
This ends up as OCD.
---
I use many words because it is complex topic. I've read hundreds of books about it, I know what I am talking about.
I also know that toxic shame prevents anything related to self worth.
"When you appraise your own self worth"
People who have issues with self worth were exposed to abuse, which is conditioning and hypnosis - then you cannot appraise. There is no inner calculator, instead there is toxic shame which destroys self worth.
When you talk about any technique or mechanism of self worth it is like you want to build a house on a water without basis or columns to support it.
---
You don't built anything. It is like onion layer. You skin it off to reach to self worth.
Building up comes naturally when we satisfy our basic Maslow needs: money, home, shelter, finances. Anything other than that is cheating and narcissism, superiority complex - which is still inferiority complex.
When we have money, support, friends, home, shelter, security - our self worth, self esteem confidence comes naturally and it builds itself up, like a flower.
A flower in a desert or on a rock will not bloom into anything, it will be stump.
When we are in toxic ambient - we won't get immunity by staying in Chernobyl. Radiation will not make us strong nor resilient - toxicity will destroy us.
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(27.12.2022)
It is not about comments at all.
It is about Milgram Experiment.
You keep on harming people even though they scream stop - just because someone in authority (CBT) told you it is good to hurt people.
What is your goal here?
Other people's wellbeing or you being right even though it doesn't work in reality and creates damage to people?
I tried CBT, exposure and challenges for 20 years. I was left with people pleasing, fawning and being pushover - since I would interpret negative emotions in the presence of covert narcissists as my personality flaw due to social anxiety. I never allowed myself to acknowledge and feel the panic. I would cover it up and pretend it is not there.
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Love it!
These will spark narcissistic rage and narcissistic injury, we need to keep this on mind - temper tantrums and aggression. Coupled with psychopathy they can be violent in reaction.
And it makes sense why narcissists use put downs - they learned that constant criticism, nitpicking, fault finding, attacking before they are attacked - they noticed that this disables good nice people who play fair, makes their target immobile and empaths try to seek resolution and solution while narcissists throw more and more imaginary issues and catastrophes and drama out of nothing - for their targets to solve.
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(IMDB)
That wasn't even a term at that time. You simply put up with it or, you found yourself a husband and hoped you found the right one who wouldn't "bully" you for the rest of your life.
I can only say that this movie confirmed something I suspected for a while.
That pre sexual revolution era was not so nice, clean, good as it is portrayed in the movies.
I was convinced that the world is going downhill after I was born - since that is reality I see. I did not experience life in 50s 60s - and the only source of information are the movies. Which obviously went through the censorship and Code.
Not everything is fair in this world.
What I learned about narcissistic abuse that general estimations and idea to shut up and not talk about some critical issue just because "it is always been that way" and it "is like it is" - is all BS with goal to keep abuse ongoing.
If we see crap in the world - the worst thing possible would be to ignore it and not talk about it.
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This is trauma. We witnessed abuse, bullying and mobbing and we never processed it. Now it is stuck inside us and we have no idea how to handle, manage people, energy, evil, problems, issues. All these linger inside us and immobility and passivity, fear and panic are side-effects of unprocessed trauma.
We have no idea that these feelings are not who we are, they are not part of our persona(lity), they are not our character, we are not the same as our fears- but since it comes from the brain, our thoughts, it seems as if these panic and fears are part of ourselves, something that is our fault, something that is faulty inside us. That creates toxic shame, which means more trauma and more anxiety and more panic.
CBT ought to explain all this in detail - but instead CBT joins into hysteria and labels us as cowards, that we ought to be courageous and strong - as if our emotions are fused with ourselves. Instead of help, we receive social stigma and ableism from the main therapy for social anxiety.
I see separation process from our fears away from our self worth as crucial first step. That is Humanistic psychology, which actually works for Social anxiety.
Separating fears from our persona means to realize how social fears stem from the social - toxic people.
We are simply reacting to toxic ambient and toxic people, whereas covert toxic abusers as the worst of them all - those are who appear friendly or service but in reality they parasite over our fears by mirroring our needs and then abusing us in the process.
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(28.12.2022)
You mentioned Michael Jackson, that attracted me to respond to your post.
A lot of people with social anxiety have no idea 1) that Michael Jackson had a severe social anxiety. Even though he and others said that he was shy and easily embarrassed. 2) that he is a role model and proof that social anxiety can be functional. We get message from CBT and other official "experts" that social anxiety is equal to poverty which is misconception and bias. When we take on labels from such sources we self pathologize self label ourselves, we end up with fulfilling self prophecy and end up self sabotaging ourselves.
That is why Michael Jackson is critical concept to understand when we think of social anxiety.
There are a lot of wrong and detrimental information data about social anxiety out there, mostly stem from official medical industry which is suppose to help us and give us full and correct information. Instead CBT, self help, supposed expert therapist and internet gurus obfuscate and mislead us into more anxiety.
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@Soul Ongoiba You are describing Trauma bonding and Codependency, Karpman Drama Triangle, External referencing locus of control.
I think you should check this concepts out.
Basically it is being preoccupied about abuser and making toxic person calm and happy in order for him/her not to become abusive, dangerous, violent, unpleasant. Tyranny in short.
The problem with self awareness is that is leads to self absorption paradox:
"The self-absorption paradox describes the contradictory association whereby higher levels of self-awareness are simultaneously associated with higher levels of psychological distress and with psychological well-being. Wikipedia"
Yes, being self aware is super important and not being on auto-pilot IF we are inside toxic ambient surrounded by covert manipulation and Dark Triad and Dark psychology, as I said Cluster B personalities.
Being self aware is taxing on our focus, mental energy, physical energy, it steals our money, time and goals - it is living in survival mode. It can last for a couple of hours , but if we take self awareness as lifeystyle, we will end up living in survival mode all the time - that is extremely damaging to our physical and mental health.
In healthy environment we are suppose to be on auto-pilot where we don't fear someone will hurt harm exploit us, neither we have hidden agenda and hidden rancour, hidden anger against someone with book of debt what someone done do us and how to defend against relentless criticism.
Self awareness is micromanaging - google this concept too . It is extremely unhealthy and can lead to mental illness.
Another reason is Ebbinghaus Forgetting Curve.
Whatever techniques, mechanisms, self improvement knowledge we have - we will simply forget it with time - and come back to auto pilot, our natural state where we feel normal healthy and balanced. As it suppose to be.
There will always be some black swan event, catastrophe, drama that will pull our awareness, resources into handling and managing problem at hand - and we won't have time, money, resources nor energy to be self-aware.
Another reason is perfectionism. If we do not allow ourselves to make mistakes - if we think we must be perfect and never make any kind of mistake which naturally will occur when we are on auto-pilot, we will develop OCD, anxiety, hypervigilance. More mental imbalance - and it all comes from our natural default thinking that somehow we can prevent and control all the evil in the world if we only change our thinking and our behaviour. In reality we end up with mental illness since we destroy our belief and trust in deep core self - since we believe that mistakes define us who we are. And we believe that our emotions which are unpleasant define who we are (emotional fusion). All these lead to mental imbalance, and narcissism. Narcissism is fear of being vulnerable, fear of mistakes, fear of others labeling us as wrong and mistaken and deficient and inept.
Struggle to be perfect and without mistakes is noble intention but psychologically this ideas is extremely damaging since it leads to hamster wheel of people pleasing and being depended on other people's approval.
That is why solid basis - self worth, intrinsic locus of control is needed where we draw and make decisions based on our worth and value, Kohlberg's moral theory, common sense, healthy super ego, which is flexible and non-egocentric - it is not rigid mindset carved into stone. Rigid mindset is equal to mental illness.
"You are doomed to make choices.
This is life's greatest paradox."
Wayne Dyer
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" I would place that boundary or just plain leave. Why should we have to waste our energy on them?"
That is the problem.
People who are stuck with toxic people and toxic ambient is because of inability to move.
There are people who do not have money to support themselves. They live in sick abnormal places such as Balkan countries filled with crime and toxic shame as way of conversation. Being assertive in corrupt country is equal to getting fired and not having money to support yourself. In such sick countries the paycheck you get for hard work is barely the minimum for surviving. So the only way to cover your bills is to be abused, bullied and mobbed at work for all your life. The only solution to resolve it - is suicide when you cannot longer live through abuse.
Then,
There are people who are bonded trough trauma where psychological labyrinth prevents them to leave such as social anxiety issues. These people seek help only to be given wrong and detrimental messages from CBT and self help - which give message that their reaction to abuse is hallucination and imaginary.
There are people who are married with children, there are third parties - perhaps disabled family member - where they cannot just walk away and leave someone helpless in the hands of monster.
There is narcissistic abuse ongoing which is almost always covert and hard to recognize. People in such ambient stay mesmerized with love bomb and hoovering and honeymoon periods so abuse becomes like Skinner's box, hypnosis and such people have no idea what is going on.
For the last example - it is crucial to explain this concepts when we talk about any kind of mind concepts such as your video. So that people who are hypnotized become aware that they are inside Karpman Drama Triangle.
The greatest problem with Assertiveness are those people who cannot leave toxic ambient and toxic people - and then being assertive will only bring them more drama, chaos, violence - since mentally ill person on the other side will react with narcissistic rage whenever someone assert themselves.
Then being assertive becomes dangerous. Femicide statistics show this. Johnny Depp might end up broke or dead if he stayed with his abuser.
When we are trapped inside toxic ambient and with toxic people - assertiveness does not work. Then we need other methods and techniques - which are healthy, functional and which will not cause mental imbalance.
What I learned, instead of assertiveness which is highly detrimental in toxic ambient - is that there are actually techniques which are not mentioned by official medical resources at all.
One of them is Retort.
Another is learning about Jung Shadow and Jung Trickster.
And Grey Rock Method - which is good only for a small time.
When we are exposed to narcissistic abuse - it will effect our brain in traumatic way, because long term exposure to narcissistic abuse causes brain injury - google it.
Assertiveness is not healthy because it instructs people to 1) believe that they can somehow magically control other people and evil in the world by the power of our thoughts and behaviour - which can lead to schizophrenia. In reality, evil people will be evil no matter what we do. That's because they are evil, without empathy and they base their evil actions on hidden agenda to harm other people and exploit them, not on our thoughts and how we act.
From our point of view due to confirmation bias and availability heuristics it will seem as if our people pleasing or yelling and screaming reactive abuse to them is somehow changing them. It doesn't. Evil people simply scheme ways how to perpetrate their evil without being recognized. They change their evil mode like virus. But we won't notice this since they will find covert ways to abuse us.
2) it tells that our negative emotions are sign we are weak, we have deep character flaw, emotional fusion is happening - where we will define our well being based on our emotions. This way anything and anyone can control us and manipulate us. When we reject our emotions - we create toxic shame - deep seated belief that we are inept and unable to handle life because we feel unacceptable: weak, scared, non-manly.
3) without noticing there is side effect of idea to be assertive: it instructs us to be perfect and without mistakes. We tell our brain that we must be conquerors, without vulnerabilities and admitting any mistake. We will start to see life and world as battle place - and this leads to psychopathy and narcissism.
In reality, we are human beings, we will always make some kind of mistake, it is natural to make mistakes if we do something for the first time.
Because when something bad happens, when black swan event happens, when there is drama, catastrophe, when we are abused, when someone is evil and violent - we will naturally feel scared and non-confident - and then we will remember that we must be confident, happy, chirpy all the time, and that feeling natural reaction to something negative is sick and abnormal. As I said this leads to emotional fusion - but now it is more than that - we end up with OCD, routines and techniques to escape negative emotions and feelings just for the sake of being confident.
Basically without being aware of it - assertiveness is ableism and invalidation. It is highly dysfunctional even though it appears as good intention.
Assertiveness sets us up to rigid mindset where we trauma split and polarize life:
we end up hating yin yang dynamics, we only want to be good and happy and confident - while in reality life ought to be experienced full and our shadow be embraced to live fully and healthy.
We need all our emotions in life - everything is contextual.
When someone dies - it is natural to feel sad, scared, angry. It would be abnormal to smile and ignore and pretend we are Chad just for the sake of appearing strong or convincing ourselves that we are strong.
Assertiveness is covert narcissistic mask.
It is fake and it serves purpose to get admiration and appraisal and be trapped in fantasy world and egocentrism, which is road to mental illness.
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Michael Jackson had functional social anxiety. I believe Japanese culture is mimicking social anxiety and from our perspective it seems like social anxiety - but it is not the same. Japan is based on shame culture, as Russia and Balkans and Africa. Western world is based on guilt culture.
Toxic shame creates social anxiety.
Both shame and guilt are used as a tool to control and manipulate masses. The difference is that shame destroys self worth and then external referencing locus of control happens - which is trauma bonding and believing that authority has all the answers while we are clones in a system.
Japan is specific since their culture and history is focused on work and some kind of military mindset. It is obvious that anyone who wakes up from that matrix will feel social anxiety.
Social anxiety in the west is based only on toxic shame and narcissistic abuse - as a mean (tool) to exploit and take advantage of nice, kind, friendly, empathic, HSP, open people. It is Machiavellianism - and this evil agenda does not exist in Japan.
Michael Jackson also went through narcissistic abuse and he never processed the trauma. He find way to make his social anxiety functional and to work up in career but privately trauma wrecked him to his demise.
With social anxiety we all have trauma inside us which is not processed. That included Japanese Taijin Kyofusho.
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(29.12.2022)
I have encountered one person over Twitter with toxic empathy and she really believes in belief that toxic people do not exist and that evil people are traumatized and abused - and that we simply need to work with their pain and we are obliged to do our best to heal them. A lot of people believe in this due to social stigma and sick society - myself included. She reminded me of myself.
For years I also truly believed in that toxic empathy concept without knowing toxic empathy as concept - since I misinterpreted Bible, Buddhism, new age, idea of Karma - basically any peaceful religion (peaceful from the perspective of modern time!). Their message of being loving to enemy - they all set us up to be nice to people who treat us like trash and I ended up being people pleaser, pushover and fawning to them without realizing that they are parasiting over my toxic empathy. From my point of view I believed that I am inept while they appeared superior since they had ability to "speak it as it is". I did not realize that they were cruel and evil to the bone. All I seen was that they were not loved while growing up and they have capacity to change - and that I must be the link in chain which will somehow help them by being kind to someone who is cruel, evil, abusive.
That is why this topic is especially important for socially anxious and anyone stuck in complex trauma response called Fawning.
"Let the way they are treating you teach you what you need to know about them even if it breaks your heart."
This is where it gets complex with manipulative and Machiavellians in Dark Triad triangle:
there are narcissists who use narcissistic tools such as hoovering, mirroring, honeymoon phase, love bomb phase - which makes their targe to be hooked to their "love". Covert abusers to this by default. I find mirroring the most sinister one - where they gather information about their target and then give exactly those things which target stated which are missing. If the target is lonely - they will be with them for agenda time. Narcs mimic caring. If target is unhappy, they will direct energy to mobilize target - for a moment - while devalue phase is just around the corner.
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Problem start when you do not know INFJ type concept - and then you seek answers and end up with faulty and detrimental CBT which is explaining:
1) this hate/discomfort about being around other people is social anxiety and 2) social anxiety being hallucination where 3) toxic people do not exist
and then due to CBT explanations you end up with self pathology, deep seated toxic shame and self blame with fawning to abusive people due to CBT explanation that avoiding people is basically mental illness.
CBT being all resources online, self help, therapy, default medical machinery is all based on CBT lies and limited psychological vocabulary unsuccessfully trying to explain complex human mind - where you are not presented with alternatives and all truth about psychiatry - such as Humanistic psychology being healthy alternative to CBT and Anti-psychiatry movement as explanation that diagnostic traditional psychiatry/self help can be detrimental.
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I love that you are aware of flip sides. Usually a lot of people are only aware of one angle, egocentric.
What I am allergic to is "Stop" videos.
Deficiency Motivation is never working. All this social awkwardness stems from abuse. Being exposed to narcissistic abuse and untreated mentally ill people over long period of time. This means, we were conditioned to be socially anxious, where anxiety is reaction to toxic people who trigger us, flashbacks of the original abuse.
"Stop" techniques (how to stop, step by step) are not working due to Ebbinghaus Forgetting Curve - we will simply forget all tips and tricks and default back to original trauma which is not healed. What we need is to heal the trauma which is causing all the problems, not our symptoms which we observe and easily detect.
Confidence is paradox - if we nitpick and try to be confident - we'll turn up insecure and with over-compensations.
Alas if we don't try to be confident - paradoxically we will become confident, since we won't care what other people criticize.
We will be confident when we are okay with our mistakes and blunders. In social situations mistakes and blunders go hand in hand.
And what's more - perfect people are dull and nobody likes them. Those who are obnoxious, who fart, burp, talk nonsense, loud and obnoxious, those who gossip and do all the social faux pas - are accepted and loved.
If we try to be perfect and without mistakes we end up being stuck up and fake - and people notice that we have some kind of hidden agenda which they will interpret as evil and manipulative and controlling.
Socially anxious people have only with emotional vomit - to reveal either too much or nothing at all.
Socially anxious people do not have issues with other issues explained in the video: eye contact, read social cues, proximity, no filter. Only Autistic, Borderliners and narcs have those issues.
It is great to know that we do not reveal to much, but as I said Ebbinghaus will make us forget this and we will default back to our learned programming and conditioning. Black swan event, drama, hysteria, lack of resources - and we will default back to our primal learned instincts.
That is why instead of "stop" motivation techniques I would encourage Humanistic therapies approach - validation, self worth and acceptance. That is only thing that works with complex human mind and whatever environment we're at.
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When we are ready we receive the message. When we're not, we don't read and have no time.
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(30.12.2022)
CBT did not help me at all with social anxiety. In fact it made things worse - I ended up with people pleasing, fawning and being pushover. This happened since I would be in toxic ambient without knowing it is toxic - and I would feel toxicity and as I am about to label it as toxic - I enforced the messages from CBT: 1) that toxic people do not exist 2) that my discomfort is hallucination 3) that if I am abused that I can change my thinking through ABC model and I ended up with total self blame and self pathologizing myself 4) people would walk all over me - since I would lobotomize my natural discomfort emotions as reaction to someone being rude.
CBT is so wrong on so many levels, Humanistic therapies are the correct therapy.
CBT is using limited psychiatry vocabulary to describe complex human condition and this sets CBT up to over-generalizing and black and white cognitive distortions. We live in fuzzy logic and dualism - and CBT enforces only one mindset, CBT is like North Korea.
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"What is the cause of us blaming ourselves for someone else's negative emotions?"
1) Complex Trauma - exposure to relentless criticism in early age when our psyche was forming and suppose to build up in psyche that does not have triggers and flashbacks or conditioning to fawn
2) Trauma bonding - with toxic shame internalized inside us we expel our self worth into other people and we develop Stockholm Syndrome where we see loud, negative, obnoxious, dangerous, violent etc as gods, superior to us, competent just because they scream and throw temper tantrums - as we were hypnotized to believe while in early years being exposed to narcissistic abuse
3) External referencing locus of control - with toxic shame, trauma we turn to other people as GPS, we seek their approval, we are scared of their criticism, opinion, punishment - since our self worth is exported into other people - so we feel what they feel and their approval admiration is important to us - and we have no idea what is self love self worth - other than being addicted to other people for guidance and approval.
Shame and blame are excellent tool for toxic people to control easy targets: empaths, HSPs - anyone with high moral and ethical standards, anyone who went through psychological abuse while growing up - so now their targets will develop toxic empathy.
Toxic empathy is when we do not want other people to experience pain and trauma we experienced so we shut up and protect all people from harm - and this means not reacting when other people become abusive. We simply do not want to hurt their feelings and we end up with people pleasing, fawning and being pushover - as we were conditioned while growing up.
Skinner's box conditioning means growing up in similar classroom as in Blue Eye Brown Eye experiment - where brown eye kids were tormented and being told they are shameful just for having brown eyes, and then they failed their tests and become highly neurotic, worried and obsessed to gain approval from authority.
CBT does not explain this at all.
CBT instructs us to develop more toxic shame, self blame and self pathology, since CBT simply states that our thoughts are sick, distorted and that we are hallucinating abuse. This way, CBT joins into hysteria and narcissistic abuse. CBT ought to be banned.
Humanistic psychology is correct therapy. CBT is created by narcissists and it spreads ableism.
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"If the clerk at the store is giving me a lot of attitude, shortness and is being rude, I don't necessarily have to get lit up over that. That would be me having an appropriate emotional boundary."
This is what I personally have problem with and it is what I label as social anxiety.
In all cases when someone like that was rude - I would indeed have emotional boundary - I would not get up lit up over someone being rude at all. I would shut up, self censor, I would not make a scene.
And this ended up me being taken advantage of, people would say incorrect things about me, accuse me of things I didn't do - and I would not rock the boat, I would shut up. And I ended up being pushed around, I would fawn, and ended up being people pleaser.
"Don't assume other people's emotions."
I wouldn't - and I ended up shutting up when they were rude or even violent. Let them do whatever they want. This does not work in real life.
With learning psychology I discovered that anger is okay emotions, too. That suppressing emotions leads to mental illness.
As I would not do anything if someone was rude- I would feel toxic shame, self blame inside and embarrassment that I am the cause of problems. Other person would blame me for any issue - and my silence would approve it - and I ended up dancing around as others ordered me. This CBT instruction to not react to toxic people leads to being passive.
Like in drama movie "Incident" with Martin Sheen from 1967 - with passengers trapped in train where hooligans molest them without any passenger reacting to their abuse.
We need to assume what is happening - otherwise other people will fill in missing information for us. They will provide their version of reality, and hence we are getting manipulated and controlled. As Dyer said - we are doomed to make choices, that is life's paradox. This means - we are doomed to make mistakes and to have bias and prejudices - we are not god nor computer to bring super healthy decisions 24/7 - sometimes we will mess up since we don't have all information and we don't have time to process all information -
and when we don't process information trauma will occur. So CBT advice not to assume leads to trauma and being stuck - as I was with people pleasing, fawning and being pushover - where other person (rude, abnormal, screaming drama queens) would define conclusions for me and I would go along with whatever abuser state is happening - I would subscribe to their version of reality - while I would be calm, nice, good and without reaction drama as CBT instructs us.
That is why CBT is horrible therapy, it is filled with errors.
CBT is trying to tell us that we are regulated and that we do not jump to triggers - that we heal our trauma - but CBT does not recognize CPTSD (which is not the same as PTSD) and hence CBT has no tools , explanations to describe what healing trauma means.
So CBT is simply giving us instruction to smile when we are depressed. That we are calm when someone is abusive and irrational. In real life this leads to being passive - and that is CBT's goal. CBT is invented for criminally insane - it is not therapy for neurotics, anxious individuals who are voluntarily seeking answers to fears. CBT is directed to serial killers, insane aggressive scum, criminals - so that they calm down.
Example of CBT over-generalizing and black and white polarizing:
In social anxiety CBT instructs that we expose all the time to everything and CBT equates trauma with personality - CBT says that we need to be strong as if being strong is persona, character. Or to be confident - as if we are not allowed to be scared if we are in danger.
2:26 "You ruminate what you did"
That is trauma - which means something is not resolved, it is not processed. Some event, some remark, someone's comment, someone's action - we don't know how to manage it - due to Complex trauma: exposure to relentless criticism and narcissistic abuse while growing up - we never learned what to feel other than fawn, people please and avoid punishment by being passive and obedient and trying to fix emotions of someone who appears to be in some kind of authority (we need service or help from this person). Trauma is spiraling in emotions because of someone emotions.
4:42 "You have to separate emotions"
This does not work in job ambient where we cannot separate from demanding coworker or boss. Then if we do not live in healthy and wealthy Western country - where we can find another job - in toxic country like Balkans - we are trapped in toxic ambient where we must obey to tyranny in order to survive. Here CBT advice to separate does not work, we need better solution - which is Liberation psychology. This is example how CBT is built up for wealthy people - it is not for mass to consume.
CBT is created by Republicans and narcissists - parasites who are wealthy and have money and that is perspective of anything that CBT explains reality. CBT creates incredible psychological damage to real people with real jobs and real problems.
Liberation psychology tells us to express ourselves - as a way to separate while being glued into toxic ambient, without drama, just pure facts - so that we do not get fired based on our reactive abuse - such as screaming back to abusers and toxic people.
CBT does not explain self expression at all - CBT is focusing on us being servant and depended on toxic people by creating Trump walls to what we perceive as threat. Without noticing it - we make our primary focus into toxic people - we spend our energy and focus - by CBT advice.
Humanistic psychology is being focused on our own goals - which would mean planning to leave toxic ambient in the future when we are ready. Primary goal is our dreams, wants, needs with mutual respect and interdependence, using common sense and instinct to guide us - not our walls nor building our walls.
When we build self worth - we will naturally build walls - we won't be obsessed with walls or toxic people - they will be in the background - and our well being would be in primary focus.
With CBT is other way around - we make toxic people our OCD concern, in prime focus while our needs are somewhere in the background, forgotten and suppressed.
This is because CBT is corporate tool created by sick narcissistic mentally ill people like Trump.
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Codependency is not a choice. Boundaries lead to more codependency.
Codependency is trauma response - it stems from exposure to untreated mentally ill people while growing up when our psyche was suppose to form into adulthood but instead it got stuck in arrested development.
CBT therapy will not work since Complex Trauma is banned by CBT and DSM - so CBT cannot explain codependency nor healing from trauma. CPTSD (which is not the same as PTSD) on the other hand is recognized by WHO's ICD.11,
In reality the only thing that matters is our self worth, self love, validation - which CBT does not mention at all. All these are basis of Humanistic therapies - which actually help to heal trauma.
When we build up our self worth and expel toxic shame - we will naturally start to build and reinforce our boundaries without being aware - so we won't spend OCD rumination energy into building walls as CBT instructs us.
With self worth and self validation - we will naturally be focused on our well being, plans, goals, life - and toxic people will be nuisance in the background which serves only to learn human condition - it is not something to react and build walls and spend our energy and time to serve.
Without realizing it - toxic people are manipulative. They use Dark Psychology and negative attention to receive attention and focus from us - even by building up the walls against them - they are happy to cause stir, drama, conflict - since they feel good when we are stirred up by them - since they are mentally ill.
Building walls as CBT tries to force us - leads to hypervigilance and being preoccupied by toxic people - and that is external referencing locus of control.
With intrinsic locus of control we put our life safety in the primary focus - and then we won't ruminate anymore - we will make decisions on the fly, on the go, without too much drama, we will block , mute, cut contact, grey rock, ignore toxic people out of our awareness and focus - and we will fill our life focus with our values and needs.
When we follow CBT advice to react to toxic people - we are hypnotizing ourselves for toxic people to control us - through negative reaction we build up our life in accordance to toxic people - we avoid places where toxic people are or might be, we stop hanging around with someone or somewhere where toxic people might be, we shut up and self censor ourselves in order not to draw attention to us so that toxic people may not join in.
Without noticing it - toxic people control and manipulate us while from our egocentric perspective - we are convinced how we build boundaries against toxic people.
What I am talking about is that with self worth - we will naturally build titanium strong boundaries and shields -
Jung said What we resist - will persist.
CBT does not explain self worth and self validation information - since this will put into jeopardize narcissists, corporations, toxic people and criminal toxic mentally ill organizations like Republicans, Tories or Catholic church-
where instead of losing our time in rancour and debating with enemy - we simply ignore them and move on with our life.
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"It’s difficult to handle the reactions of people when you say no"
Yep! That is where CBT does not have any instructions nor answer. This is weak link for CBT.
Also -
Maslow needs - if we are poor, if we do not have safety, home, security, if we have no money to support our big mouth confidence - we won't be able to be firm-
instead toxic people will exploit us since we will depend on toxic people to provide us with shelter, food, home, security, money - and then we are back at square one: having no boundaries.
CBT is false therapy and gives answers only to the wealthy and those who can have money from family to support their life. Everyone else will not get correct instructions how to handle life and problems in life.
That is why Humanistic therapies and Liberation psychology help us.
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"He's not contributing anything of value to an educational video."
He is important. "Clinical psychologist" is providing wrong instructions from CBT point of view filled with egocentrism and ableism - where "reporter" is corrective tool - he warns the CBT mindset that life is not rigid as CBT attempts to portray it and people's life problems are not case book examples - instead life is complex and it cannot be verbalized with limited CBT vocabulary.
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"I thought codependency was used primarily in the substance abuse literature."
CBT's limited psychological vocabulary cannot describe complex life environment and factors.
That is why anti-psychiatry was invented in 1960s.
CBT bans information about Complex Trauma (which is not the same as PTSD) while WHO's ICD-11 recognize trauma as concept.
CBT is autistic therapy closed in egocentrism and confirmation bias filled with availability heuristics an as such is creating incredible psychological damage to anyone who follows it.
So any attempt to broaden its vocabulary - by introducing apocrypha such as "codependency" concept is welcomed.
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(31.12.2022)
I would just add what I learned and missed to say the last time.
I missed to say that Humanistic psychology (Rogers, Rollo, Maslow) is correct therapy instead of CBT. Humanistic therapies put focus on client - where client knows the best both environment factors and inner variables which CBT cannot handle nor describe with limited psychological vocabulary.
I learned in these 4 months that CBT is therapy of Ableism.
Ableism meaning that it negates anything from someone's definition of what is normal - and we live in relative world where everything is relative.
Unless we are anti-social, violent and or criminally insane - our fears, panic, trauma is not sickness to cure. Our negative emotions are part of ourselves and our life, stifling down emotions leads to mental illness as Jung and Freud said. Trauma means there was wound, it is not that our core self is sick, twisted or distorted as CBT claims with cognitive distortions ideology.
All people are prone to bias, prejudices, due to limited brain function we cannot grasp all the information, we cannot process it in few seconds - sometimes we need years to realize that happened and how to make correct choice about certain events, situations or people. CBT ignores this and forces us to develop perfectionism and hypervigilance to worry how to be perfect and without mistakes.
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