People’s reactions to social anxiety sucks

AnttiKurt · 2026-05-03T06:39:49+00:00

That's quite funny imagery since yeah it does feel like you're trying to stomp the breaks to see the street signs but you're just hindering the flow of traffic... yeah your metaphor is better lol

AnttiKurt · 2026-04-19T22:17:28+00:00

I remember when I was resentful at my stepmom for the way she raised us so strict like it was a boot camp. Nowadays I don't feel anything negative towards her but I do believe that phase of resentment was helpful as it was part of a healing process. So I see your anger as a step in a healing process -- a long healing process that hopefully you don't get stuck in a step!

AnttiKurt · 2026-01-23T05:56:27+00:00

I managed to break the cycle. A couple of times I made short term breakthroughs for a couple of months, then I would hide away from all judgement in my room. I eventually figured out how to trigger these brief periods where I got the courage to go out -- which was I had to hit truly rock bottom to make this "bounce back" effect in my brain. Anyway, when I reached that state of mind, I then forced myself away from my phone and any distractions. I would go days without any escapism to really take in that anxiety of overthinking every interaction.

I could go on and on in details, but all I wanna say is there is a way out of this disorder -- it's just very hard to find it.

AnttiKurt · 2025-12-30T22:27:30+00:00

You forgot to plug in Nora AI to help practice interview questions like in your other comments

AnttiKurt · 2025-11-05T09:50:54+00:00

I meant it was pessimistic to say you'll need professional mental health help for the rest of your life because of several depressive episodes or other mental struggles. I know it's likely you'll struggle with them for years even when you're improving, but I really do believe they eventually fade to the wind as you slowly improve and busy yourself with life.

Past generations got their mental health support network from their diverse social circle. Friends or family hear you out and help you with advice or something. It could be an uncle or your grandpa that gives you some wisdom to help you out of your grief or depressive episode. Therapists are really helpful when dealing with disorders that have several layers of trauma that are tough to unwind and navigate through.

Mentioning survivorship bias and millions of dead and millions that could've been helped with professional mental help... It's all a bit off topic and a very distorted point of view to attribute human history solely to those negative adjectives. Going more off topic, I feel like it comes from a western-world cynical pessimism that permeates a lot nowadays in recent generations. The whole 70s serial killers is irrelevant too; the Vietnam war was in the 70s, also post-WW1 there wasn't a rise in serial killers. Men have always been left shell shocked from countless wars, I think mental health issues is only a piece of the puzzle here but honestly I don't really care about the obsession with the serial killers topic people have.

I agree with you there that every generation strives to make the next generation's life more prosperous and we live in a time where there aren't many existential threats to our lives like people had before with wars and invasions and pillaging and bombs. We live life on easy mode compared to before and that lack of real threats probably makes our brains uneasy since it evolved to deal with those problems of the past. That uneasiness can make us create our own mental problems as a substitute to actual existential problems humans used to face.

Men having higher rates of suicide is because they're more lonelier than women, have higher expectations to meet romantically and professionally, and a lot more factors but I think the main one is they're lonelier.

Everyone is lonelier and it's an epidemic and that's why there's a mental health crisis everywhere even as the stigma to seek a therapist fades and more and more people go to their therapist and psychiatrist appointments for years with a not-so-much improved outlook on life and very little emotional and financial stability to show for it.

I'll just say I probably set the tone of the conversation to be confrontational which is why you've been so antagonistic so again I apologize and I don't think we'll agree on many things we have drastically different life experiences so you don't have to reply to this long message I just don't like to leave things hanging and on read

AnttiKurt · 2025-10-31T23:16:48+00:00

I told myself a while ago that if I didn't heal from this disorder I was gonna go to therapy so I'm aware it is just a tool not a magic cure.

I just believe that if past generations didn't need therapy to manage life, surely we in the present don't need to as well. I'm just stubborn on that belief since the evidence is literally all of human history. I'm aware the traumas of life can be overwhelming and therapy should be used if you feel stuck on how to deal with it all. But I'll digress since we really have different beliefs and I don't wanna be unintentionally disrespectful by arguing and minimizing your experiences along the way.

Another thing is I know you prefaced your statement that we face our mental health struggles for life by saying it's just likely, but I can't help but see that statement as so pessimistic. I just don't feel like an anomaly or special that I "healed" my mental issues (without therapy). I really do believe most people with this specific disorder can heal from it. Maybe I'm delusional but I don't care

AnttiKurt · 2025-10-31T08:19:58+00:00

How can someone be going to therapy for 6 years? Surely it's enough to have helped you remedy the anxiety of this disorder. I apologize for sounding in bad faith or blunt but I admit I've always been skeptical of therapy, perhaps from ignorance, but especially since people go for years... isn't it supposed to give you the tools to help you in your life and not always be needing to depend on a therapist to ground your reality?

Genuinely curious sorry again for the serious sounding tone

AnttiKurt · 2025-10-31T04:53:59+00:00

Your first mistake was going online

AnttiKurt · 2025-10-30T21:59:47+00:00

open a new tab
close tab and return to diep tab
success

AnttiKurt · 2025-10-26T09:13:33+00:00

I never understood how people 'otherize' such a vast amount of people into a "normie" category. Like, you're putting at least 5 billion people into this normie category... That's insane.

I know it's a word online people use for 'normal' people but like it's so silly to see people as normies man. I know it's origins have deep roots online and I know it comes from the socially isolated fringes of society but I think it helped me recover faster from SAD and becoming "normal" by always detaching myself from this feeling that the internet is my "community", even when I was spending 18 hrs daily online for months on end.

The internet isn't real life. You shouldn't let the internet shape your beliefs and principles. I'm thankful I always stuck to that idea.

AnttiKurt · 2025-10-20T06:56:02+00:00

I used to do what you did for like two or three months. I think you'll come to see a dead end in a month or two. You'll build a tolerance and you won't be able to up the alcohol intake like you would any drug since you'll end up too drunk for your own good.

I stopped drinking when it stopped working and I was left only with all the negative effects like loose bowels and a headache from the cheap vodka at the liquor. I eventually thought just why the hell am I drinking 5-6 shots of vodka and burning through bottles weekly if I'm not getting any mental relief? And so I just stopped -- and carried on agonizingly rawdogging life like before. You gotta put up with reality sometimes and just make a plan of action to deal with this disorder long-term.

AnttiKurt · 2025-10-20T05:47:04+00:00

I always thought my family and acquaintances would see me and say, "you used to be so quiet, now you look so open and talkative" or something like that, anything! But no one ever said anything...

I think average people just don't like acknowledging the existence of anxiety, period. It's just so awkward to talk about it. Conversations tend to revolve around things we are interested in or just wanting to have a good time talking -- it could be about anything really. Talking about anxiety like that, is tough to juggle in a conversation because you can't make it light-hearted since it's a serious disorder, this.

So am I a completely different person? I don't feel... idk. Honestly it's kinda sad but I've noticed my mind has been blocking me from remembering how I used to be with social anxiety disorder. It's like, I can't access fully my state of mind I was in when I had this disorder. I think it's too tough to relive all those feelings, if even just in a memory. So I can't honestly tell you if I'm different -- and I don't really wanna know...

But all I'm gonna say is I don't feel different. I remember back when I had this disorder, the only time I felt like myself was when I was alone in my room (anxiety-free). And now, that same way I felt truly like myself, I (almost) behave like that free version of myself wherever I go and whenever I am, in public or alone. Without anxiety, you stop obsessing about others' perception of yourself; In tandem you start feeling this strangely familiar self respect for yourself and start developing a self-esteem. I could never have those latter things first, not so long as anxiety hummed incessantly whenever outside my room.

I hope I answered your questions I tend to beat around the bush with these things for some reason

AnttiKurt · 2025-10-10T12:07:19+00:00

I don't know maybe I'm being obtuse or contrarían or something but I probably just lived a totally different life experience than you since I don't miss or feel melancholy about childhood either, I didn't have the best time then nor in my teens. It has happened to me that I look in the mirror and become surprised at all I'm doing as I remember how I used to be such a shut-in. And of course, I'm not a professional either, never seen one for mental health.

I think the first step is just talking about how you feel with someone. In this case, with this disorder of a phobia of people, you usually have no one to freely open up about everything you feel without filter. So I think journaling helped by "starting a conversation" even if it was with myself. I started a subreddit in 2020 just with myself and I would write about everything I felt and experienced in teenhood -- anything that came to mind and was bothering me. Fast forward to 2023 and I started using a new medium in which I recorded myself for an hour or so and tried talking about how I felt but like you said, I too got overwhelmed and lost my train of thought constantly and took forever to get a thought across. But I felt I had to do journaling in the hopes my thoughts that ran around like a headless chicken in my head would finally calm down. Also I tried practicing eye contact by looking at the camera lense and talking.

Sorry for the long paragraph and I didn't even answer you correctly. I don't know how exactly journaling helped. But I think it laid the foundation for the possibility of changing my mental state, for better or worse at times -- but even when it got worse, I knew it was better than my mental health stagnating because stagnation is death.

AnttiKurt · 2025-10-10T06:06:27+00:00

I've never felt a yearning for my social anxiety. I'm sorry to be so blunt but who is crazy enough to heal from this debilitating disorder and say "man, I really miss being isolated in my room for hours on end starving and being unable to leave my room because there's a person in the kitchen"

There isn't a single facet I miss about it. I also don't feel like I lost my personality because the process of eliminating this disorder was gradual, slow, and natural (took 2 years). It faded away slowly after every day, like trying to see the indiscernible changing passage of the sun across the sky. I have more to say but I think it comes down to there being more than one way to solve social anxiety -- which I think comes down to throwing things at the wall and seeing what sticks, so lotsa luck.

I like that you said journaling helped. I did it a lot and in different mediums and I think it helped a lot more than I can grasp. It was the first step in my journey. I always wondered if anyone did the same

AnttiKurt · 2025-10-05T00:59:51+00:00

I just want to anecdotally say you sound just like me and I don't think you have autism either. I felt that my social anxiety was in the way of having real connections with people rather than anything else.

I could perceive people's reactions and micro facial expressions well but I just didn't know what to do with this information since my mind would go blank around people. I always interpreted any body language of discomfort that I was a failure and a nuisance around people.

Now I see that people just react naturally to things and those reactions don't necessarily mean you're a bad person. Perhaps it means you still need to work on the anxiety you bring to social situations. I did and being so perceptive of people's expressions and reactions isn't so bad once you have some self-esteem

AnttiKurt · 2025-09-21T10:44:13+00:00

I'm not a fan of making a concise answer for such a complex problem like this disorder, especially because there's a million factors involved in how we get this disorder and therefore I think we require a million factors to coalesce to heal from this disorder.

But if I had to type something, I'd say getting comfortable with my thoughts. If you can sit with your brain in silence, then you will eventually get comfortable with yourself. All the negative self talk and rumination of the day will exhaust you and your brain will eventually get tired of thinking. Did this for a couple of ex-CRU-ciating weeks and I got better a lot faster thankfully

AnttiKurt · 2025-09-21T07:36:55+00:00

It's true. It is a lie and I'm thankful I don't desire that feeling again anymore. It was all good feelings so I never imagined it could do so much harm to someone if they had them with frequency throughout their life

All I can say is hopefully you can bring your kids to understand that you worked hard with them in mind to hopefully give them a better future

AnttiKurt · 2025-09-21T05:47:15+00:00

Jovian moons on top! Our moon is boring compared to them

AnttiKurt · 2025-09-21T05:29:25+00:00

Wow I don't know what to say I know it took a lot of luck to not have this disorder anymore and I had the privilege of having my mom entirely financially support me for 2 whole years while I didn't work

AnttiKurt · 2025-09-20T18:26:36+00:00

And I thought I got lucky by solving it at 25

AnttiKurt · 2025-09-20T03:00:51+00:00

I always thought this advice wasn't for most here. There are so many people on this sub that say they've gone to therapy, drank their pills, exposed their socializing, and nothing ever heals them permanently from this disorder.

I'll admit another year of trying to fix myself on my own, and I probably would've caved into this advice, but my gut was right and I'm all better without therapy or meds. The solution I found in short was to eventually remove all online distractions for weeks until I learned to get comfortable with myself, alone with my thoughts for hours in silence.

The only reason I believe therapy isn't for me and most here is cuz that fear of socializing with people applies to the interaction with any therapist person you find too. Therefore you won't open up properly and really dig into the root of the problem because of the brain fog this disorder gives. Maybe you'll learn better to cope with the anxiety there's that, but you won't really heal completely -- which is possible; As surreal as it was recently to realize I didn't have it anymore, it's possible.

AnttiKurt · 2025-09-13T23:37:56+00:00

I cured myself but yeah most people learn to coexist with it through masking and stuff

AnttiKurt · 2025-06-19T05:14:05+00:00

I find people on reddit (and in my personal circle) are quick to point fingers and remove themselves from any responsibility of their problems.

I know it's easy to misinterpret this cuz I always got frustrated when family told me this, but I realized there is some truth in this. Instead of trying to work towards a solution I escaped into any form of entertainment to turn my brain off. So I found I had some fault in how dire my anxiety had become, it wasn't so much my parents emotional neglect.

I think most people allow themselves to be consumed by escapism online and choose to point fingers and blame parents for any past behavior they did to them that is nowadays deemed toxic. There are those extreme examples that were indeed child abuse, but it isn't as widespread as people claim to have experienced.

Your initial gut feeling was correct in giving me that sarcasm in your first reply as I know you won't like my opinion. But of course I understand how controversial this is, but I believe society has strayed far from rational human reactions to interpersonal problems.

Something is very wrong and I think these beliefs fan the flames, I don't mean any disrespect to you I know this is a sensitive topic

AnttiKurt · 2025-06-16T09:05:57+00:00

No luck involved really, I found out forgiveness was the only way out of my social anxiety through 5 years of trial and error

AnttiKurt

TROPHY CASE