It took a long time to realize that being in the right frame of mind played an important role in how I interpreted feedback from the outside world. Quite often, I would miss a positive comment or gesture by others, and at other times, I would overlook the fact that I rose to the challenge and accomplished something positive – all because I was not in a very receptive frame of mind. This generally happened after having a particularly bad day or after surviving some negative social encounter. (more…)

My social experiments in and around town, were going ok. I suppose I had a lot to be proud of, but I didnt give myself credit for much. I was my own worst enemy. However, I did feel that a lot had been accomplished over the last year. I improved my appearance (smiling more naturally), I could walk with my head up and really look at the world around me, and I was much more aware of how I was behaving in public (shy, quiet, introvert behavior was quickly picked up and acted upon). (more…)

At 34 years old, I often wondered if I was too old to change who I was and re-write my core beliefs. As a child, could I have been trained to adopt a different way of thinking, and under ideal circumstances, have avoided this condition all together? Maybe, though I am still convinced that genetics played a huge part. (more…)

In a perfect world I would have been able to slowly and steadily see improvement in my quest for social normality. After all, I had a workable plan, a set of goals, and many techniques that I could deploy depending on the circumstances (many of which I still have to write about). Yes, in an ideal world this would have been very predictable and measurable. Things would have progressed on a linear scale. (more…)

Swimming with the sharks was quite an experience. With my new and improved smile, and the fact that I wasnt always staring at the ground, I almost felt like one of them – almost that is.

In reality, I was scared beyond belief. Although I looked like one of them, I felt like my old insecure and anxiety-ridden self. I sensed that, had they known this, they would have ripped me to shreds – metaphorically speaking, of course. (more…)

Confident that I had conquered the physical dependency of needing to stare at the ground as I walked, I decided that there was no time like the present to take it to the street and see what happened.

I started out at my usual walking trail in the park, except that this time it was around noon on a Saturday. The path was full of people. Walking, jogging, rollerblading, biking – you name it. The familiarity of the trail was comforting, but the extra people were causing a nagging anxiety to build up within me. I decided to just do my routine and ignore my surroundings. I should mention here that I was no longer over training and staring at the sky as I walked – this would have certainly attracted a lot of unnecessary attention. (more…)

Learning how to walk again was a challenge. It felt extremely uncomfortable and unnatural to be walking with my back straight and my head up. I spent a great deal of time practicing in the park, hoping no one would see me.

I started out by simply straightening my body and looking ahead towards the horizon. This proved to be difficult because my point of reference (the ground) was only there in my peripheral vision. This improved with time, however. (more…)

So it seemed that my staring at the ground problem was a little more serious than I thought. I always assumed that it was only triggered by social encounters, but it was clear that it had become a little more than that.

Looking away from people, ignoring my surroundings, and staring at the ground was caused by my social anxiety. However, it had gotten to the point that my body just naturally assumed that stance – in all situations. It had become a physical problem that was separate from social anxiety. (more…)

The ability to walk straight and actually look at the world around me has been one of the biggest breakthroughs in my fight against social anxiety disorder (thats why I intend to write a lot more on this subject). This changed the way I perceived people and society – and ultimately changed the way I felt about myself. Although it doesnt sound like a big deal, I was shocked by the difference it made in my life. (more…)

Breaking down the different components of my comfort zone was fairly straight forward. I knew which automatic responses took over in any given social situation, although I never really gave them much thought. There was one, however, that stood out above all the rest. (more…)