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Alcohol
Actually, using alcohol could make the problem worse through classical conditioning. By drinking alcohol every time you get socially anxious, it teaches your body that alcohol is coming. That would make your body get even more anxious to make up for the anxiolytic effect of alcohol. Eventually, not only will you be dealing with social anxiety, but also alcohol cravings. You’d be socially anxious and alcohol dependent.
I understand all of that, my comment was a joke. But I appreciate you pointing this out for others.
cheers 🍻
entirely expected instance name, god bless
omg, is this one of those things where everyone knew they meant something, but I thought it was something else, so I go off on some unprompted lesson of facts and people roll their eyes at me? lol
Tbf, I strongly relate to your top comment and am mostly not autistic, so I think it was worth putting out there.
nah i think it was warranted, but it’s just very funny to see a big infodump given at the slightest opportunity, and then reading that instance name
lol, how funny! Im happy you enjoyed it ♥️
no they just thought you were autistic because you said smart words like anxiolytic lol
and I guess the “actually” but honestly? I appreciate it. the realities of substance use disorders need to be faced
ah, thanks! I actually 👉😉👉 answered like that because I used to rely on alcohol to numb social anxiety and overstimulation, so I wanted to make sure people were aware of that phenomenon, even if the OP was joking. I also used it a bit to numb the flashbacks when going thru trauma therapy. The therapist said that doing so was teaching my body that having a flashback would result in getting alcohol, so I was actually 👉😉👉 teaching my body to continue having flashbacks and more intensely. Once I cut the alcohol and rode out the flashbacks, I started to be more calm. Though not as calm as 6 beers in, I’m more calm the next day without a massive hangover too.
If anyone is dealing with alcohol dependence, I get it. It’s scary af to even accept you’re out of control. Whenever you get those moments of clarity with extra mental energy to tolerate acknowledging your reality, work towards building a plan to quit. You don’t have to do it all in one shot. Every step towards progress is still progress.
wow that sounds great! you must have made so much progress. I’ve spent many hours of my life trying to get people to figure out what you just explained. be proud of it and keep speaking out! PTG is real and not just a silver lining
Used to think this, and absolutely would have ignored me if someone had said this to me at 25, but quitting booze altogether has really evened out exactly those more extreme feelings.
heyy alright! I will not drink with you today buddy
Right back at you, friend
cognitive behavioral therapy for social anxiety can have a huge impact. also, learning diaphragmatic breathing helps regulate your stress response and can de-activate the sympathetic nervous system (and re-engage the parasympathetic nervous system). there is also some promising research emerging regarding sensiomotor psychotherapy.
goddamn i should do cbt??
All therapy is contingent on the quality of the relationship between client and therapist. Thought Records, which are a huge part of formal cbt, can be quite effective in reducing the emotional impact of negative automatic thoughts, which is a very large component of social anxiety.
ow my balls
Social interaction is fight or flight. The other person is thinking about whether to eat you, fuck you, or otherwise exploit you.
Ours is a transactional society.
Me and my buddy off to mutually exploit eachother over some coffee and doughnuts 😈😈
I can do that in small quantities. Though buddy indicates you’ve already negotiated a relationship in which one isn’t food for the other.
Hypothetically, we’re supposed to be civilizations of good neighbors, so that I, Californian can trust any New Jerseyite or Alabaman not to take advantage if I’m a sexy young person in the dark of night needing a lift home. But we suck at crews of more than fifty or so people.
I’m more down for eating my friends personally
Same
Is it a new thing? Are people born after 1980 just walking anxiety?
Nope. A very old thing.
People born before 1980 just have other names for it.
There be ghosts in my system!
Just kidding I was born in the '80s, I’m walking anxiety.
Really couldn’t have opened with that fact?
I got the cocaine and morphine ready to deal with some ghosts in the blood. What am I supposed to do now?
More cocaine and morphine, obviously.
People with social anxiety born before 1980 didn’t have the memes to express themselves
But were there so many of them?
Yes. They just didn’t have nearly as many outlets to express it.
Hard to say. Definitely not as many people actually naming their anxiety. It was sort of taboo to talk about mental health plainly.
But a lotttt of folks with dubious coping mechanisms, just repressed and bottled up without even the memes to combat their anomie.
Like a lot of the problems from the past, you basically figured it out yourself or just went off to die in a corner alone and didn’t talk about it.
No, people before were too. They just self medicated to the max 🍷🍷🍷🍷🥃🥃🍻🍺🍺
things generally haven’t been great since the industrial revolution, but the big thing is that nowadays we’re just soaked in stress at all times with little reprieve.
Used to be in the past that things were generally chill except for big stressful events that happened every now and then, but nowadays things are constantly loud, we constantly have to hurry to do stuff, we constantly have to worry about affording basic things and knowing that we’ll probably never own a home, etc etc etc.We’re also in the middle of a loneliness epidemic, it’s basically standard at this point to have few friends and not hanging out with people anywhere near enough. Add these things together and you get people being miserable.
Given that there always a combination of words that will end up with you being punched in the jaw, I say it’s justified.
nahh I don’t believe that any given person has some magic key phrase that would change their behavior instantly
I fucking wish there were though, therapy would be so much easier
ppl who punch faces are already face punchers. just dont talk to face punchers
“Hello.”
Do I punch them or run away? Maybe both??
I read that “hello” in James May’s voice, so given that scenario I’d say neither.
Teach your body? Sounds like you’re looking for a bottom-up grounding technique. That would be things like sensory stuff, letting your body receive calming sensations to remind it that there is no threat. Like temp shocks (ice/heat packs), bilateral tapping, smelling something nice, or counting all the blue objects in the room. Or good bottom-up techniques could also take the form of posture control, breathing exercises, half-smile, willing hands, etc.
Top-down techniques are trying to consciously talk your brain into being cool, which apparently isn’t working well, but is also an important component. That’s a lot of the CBT stuff like challenging cognitive distortions etc. Top-down calming is when you smell smoke and have a panic reaction but you remember it’s not a house fire; you’re cooking something.
And always remember: nothing can take the pain away from life. All of these techniques are just bandages. Only by learning to radically accept will you learn how to turn it into something bearable - for the sake of something greater.
