Habit – -an acquired behavior pattern regularly followed until it has become almost involuntary” (http://dictionary.reference.com/). If you have some bad habits, you may not even realize how unhealthy they really are, because you’re so much used to doing those things that you don’t even give it a second thought. Some of these unhealthy habits may be directly associated with your social anxiety, depression and your overall mental and emotional health. You’ve probably heard a phrase -healthy body – healthy mind”, so why don’t we keep our body healthy if we want to rid ourselves of social anxiety once and for all? The reason may be our bad habits, the way our brain has learned to behave in a certain way over a long period of time. I’d like to share some of the unhealthy habits I used to have at the peak of my social anxiety:
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One of the most damaging misconceptions a person with social anxiety disorder is prone to hold onto is the concept that they cannot be saved. The reason that myth is held so firmly by those who are so unfortunate as to have this debilitating phobia is that the most dominant feeling you have when you are in the midst of a panic attack or suffering the effects of social anxiety is helplessness. But when anybody who is suffering with a disability or an illness gives up like that, doctors as well as family and friends have an uphill battle to try and help you.
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When you are suffering with social anxiety disorder, many questions haunt you including, “What caused this to happen?” and “Why me?” Because social anxiety disorder is such a wide spread psychological problem, medical science and the psychiatric community has been working hard to track down the causes of social anxiety disorder. As we all know, if you know what might be causing an illness, that is the key to coming up with a cure.
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Like many psychological disorders such as bipolar syndrome and severe phobias, social anxiety disorder is a problem that you may have to learn to live with. While therapy and skilled psychological treatment can virtually eliminate the symptoms of the problem, these solutions can take a great deal of time and patience. In order to help someone who is suffering with the ugly consequences of social anxiety disorders, one step that can be a big help is to empower the patient with the ability to cope with the process so that the one who is enduring social anxiety can muster the patience to step through the therapy on the road to total recovery.
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When social anxiety disorder begins to take control of a situation, you feel surrounded on all sides with no hope of stopping the assault of fear. People who just go through “stage fright” or shyness have a tiny glimpse into the horror you go through when your social anxiety is so strong that it can paralyze you from being able to perform even the most basic of social functions. The combined trauma of feeling anxiety turn you into a nonfunctional human being combined with the terrible embarrassment and social isolation you feel when people in your social circle witness an anxiety attack makes episodes of social anxiety disorder a genuine hell on earth experience.
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Warm greetings to everyone who reads this blog, my name is Vladimir, and Im the new owner of shyandquiet.com. I will be blogging about my own social anxiety experiences from now on. Drew has decided that he will dedicate more of his time blogging about other things, now that he is recovering from social anxiety, and so he passed this blog on to me.

Ive had social anxiety for ten years, since I came to United States from Russia. The cause of my social anxiety was the new language - I was unable to express myself the way I would in my native language so I became isolated from the rest of people and never really became adapted to the new environment. To this very day, I still think there is something terribly wrong with the way I speak, despite a lot of people telling me that my voice sounds just fine. My social anxiety has diminished a lot since I started a healthier life about two and a half months ago and Im on my way to recovery. It will be a pleasure sharing and blogging about my social anxiety with the rest of the world and hopefully I will be able to give hope and inspire anyone who thinks they cant overcome social anxiety.

I have also started video blogging about my social anxiety on youtube.com and you can check out my videos at http://www.youtube.com/user/VladimirRussianDude

Social anxiety disorders and social phobias take many shapes and forms. And the variety of social triggers for a legitimate social anxiety problem can be quite diverse. One person may be perfectly fine speaking in front of 100 people but experience severe social anxiety that would qualify as a phobia just attending a Christmas party. Very often social anxiety disorders surface in situations we face at our jobs.

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It is not uncommon to observe shyness in young children. When you are in public and you meet a friend who has a very young boy or girl who hides behind the mother, cries when addressed or is unable to dialog with any adult other than loved ones, we don’t usually consider that to be a chronic situation. Of course, not all children go through a shyness phase and many are outgoing and expressive virtually from infancy. But it is not considered a sign of mental problems for a youngster to be a bit shy around strangers. In fact it is rather cute and the adults in the child’s life may be encouraged that the child’s distrust of strangers may serve her well to protect herself from people who would do her harm.
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When you have a big ego like I do, finally admitting you have a problem with social anxiety disorder is difficult to say the least. I was like that guy in the joke who won’t admit he is paranoid but prefers to insist that everybody really is out to get him. I can’t speak for everybody, but in my case, denial was the biggest obstacle I had to overcome to finally seek some help with my social anxiety disorder.
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It is probably safe to say that there isnt a man, woman or child alive that has not had some form of social anxiety. There are some circumstances where feeling nervous or on edge is not only natural, you would be pretty strange if you were not ill at ease. Public speaking is just such a situation. They say that the fear of speaking in front of a crowd is the biggest fear most people have and is an even more common than the fear of death. That is one impressive fear.
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