Overcoming Social Anxiety and getting to a meet

[Chuchu]

I don't think I have any social anxiety, although I'm sure my wife does and so I feel that I can empathize to a degree.
Personally though I've come to realise that I do suffer with perfectionism (although I know I'm far from perfect in many many ways) and I can be / have ocd in some areas. I think it's about having control over certain areas in life when I'm totally lacking control in other areas.
Heck, we're complicated creatures, yet so very simple...

I’m the same, have no issues with anxiety and do suffer with wanting to do a job well which is where I can be a bit OCD as my wife tells me.

 

[LeStempy]

I've suffered with depression and generalised anxiety for many years. It's very cyclic but very debilitating if it hits hard. Thankfully that's a rare occurrence and meds keep me on the level. Don't have a fear of social situations but I am very particular about everything I do and things have to be just so, so I guess that's a form of OCD. I am often accused of paying too much attention to detail.

The human condition is a complex one. We are all just animals with the same basic instincts, but with a heightened sense of self awareness. It's a fact though that the subconscious brain is very much more powerful than the conscious part, so it's the basic instincts and emotions that rule our everyday lives and sucker our higher level mind into believing that which is not the actual reality of any given situation.

 

[Chasdad]

Its seems like we're a group of crackpots.
My ocd was brought on by stress as a child.
And still is . Its seems to be a way of trying to get control of things that ive got no way of controlling.
It feels like you have a person sitting on each shoulder. One telling you , you need to do things or bad things may happen. The other saying do you realise how ridiculous that is.
Reading this back I think i needca padded cell not an Elgrand

 

[Chuchu]

Its seems like we're a group of crackpots.
My ocd was brought on by stress as a child.
And still is . Its seems to be a way of trying to get control of things that ive got no way of controlling.
It feels like you have a person sitting on each shoulder. One telling you , you need to do things or bad things may happen. The other saying do you realise how ridiculous that is.
Reading this back I think i needca padded cell not an Elgrand

I think the Elgrand is well padded so you should be fine.

 

[MarkB]

My wife got the letter immediately after lockdown, that she was on the clinically extremely vulnerable list. (No spleen and itp). Advised not to eat with the family, avoid contact with our children, sleep separately etc etc etc. We've just been talking it all through again at 4am how utterly broken she is from it all. Feeling like she's been gaslighted and programmed into a fear and anxiety driven shadow of her former self.
She has major (and I mean major) social anxiety and it's going to take time...

Terrible man. Yeah, I mean. I was forced back into interactions with work but at the point of recieving that letter my wife was pregnant with our youngest and it really hit home then “Christ if this is that bad I could not be here to see the little one” then imagining her with two toddlers and a newborn struggling really worried me.

I had my 2nd jab in April then nothing again until I caught covid over Xmas and it was extremely mild. It made me feel a little hoodwinked by it all if I’m honest.

 

[Elliematt83]

I've had ocd since I was a kid I would have to walk around things a certain way or had to touch things a certain way plus other niggles I then started with depression and anxiety in my mid 20s I had a good few hard years but it's more the anxiety nowadays and ocd alto it's different from when I was a kid I don't look too much of a loon now but my main is time I'm always way early like way early(wife hates it) I like stuff organised in order and if I say lose a socket out of a set my world feels like its going to end and would have to get another set oh and making sure locks are locked,I just go with my ocd compulsions as it makes the anxiety a little better

 

[Chasdad]

I've had ocd since I was a kid I would have to walk around things a certain way or had to touch things a certain way plus other niggles I then started with depression and anxiety in my mid 20s I had a good few hard years but it's more the anxiety nowadays and ocd alto it's different from when I was a kid I don't look too much of a loon now but my main is time I'm always way early like way early(wife hates it) I like stuff organised in order and if I say lose a socket out of a set my world feels like its going to end and would have to get another set oh and making sure locks are locked,I just go with my ocd compulsions as it makes the anxiety a little better

Have you ever thought about seeing someone.
Ive only ever told my mrs and i dont think she believed me.
Im suprised no one picked up on it when i was a kid
Locks , light switches are a bit of a nightmare for me. And loads of silly things.
Cant have a tv, or radio sound on number 13.
I think depression is a big part . As im a moody git

 

[Elliematt83]

Have you ever thought about seeing someone.
Ive only ever told my mrs and i dont think she believed me.
Im suprised no one picked up on it when i was a kid
Locks , light switches are a bit of a nightmare for me. And loads of silly things.
Cant have a tv, or radio sound on number 13.
I think depression is a big part . As im a moody git

Yes mate I've seen and done loads of different therapys and meditations but the best therapy for me was talking to like minded people who have an understanding I've definitely come miles from where I was a few years ago,I find it more controllable now,I've also got a thing with 13 I couldn't leave anything set on that

 

[Chasdad]

Yes mate I've seen and done loads of different therapys and meditations but the best therapy for me was talking to like minded people who have an understanding I've definitely come miles from where I was a few years ago,I find it more controllable now,I've also got a thing with 13 I couldn't leave anything set on that

Bloody ridiculous really.
Im not superstitious , dont believe in god, ghosts etc. But think if the radios on number 13 something bads going to happen

 

[Elliematt83]

Bloody ridiculous really.
Im not superstitious , dont believe in god, ghosts etc. But think if the radios on number 13 something bads going to happen

Crazy isn't it im not superstitious either, I like to do things in 3s like telly I have on volume 6 when I get up in a morning my stereo I have on 12 and so on

 

[Chuchu]

Crazy isn't it im not superstitious either, I like to do things in 3s like telly I have on volume 6 when I get up in a morning my stereo I have on 12 and so on

I have a thing about the volume being on a even number so to screw with myself I purposely put the volume on an odd number and see how long I can last before having to change it. My wife has also noticed I have this thing and never puts the volume to an even number. I call this torture and she says she does it out of love

 

[Mark76e]

I vividly remember as a child maybe 8yrs old I had an obsession with having to walk across the lounge carpet stepping only inside the squares of the pattern and I had to cross the room in an even number of steps. I also had an obsession with my 8x table. To this day I can mentally do my x tables to infinity.
All of this though was the same time my parents were going through HUGE marital problems so there was lots of shouting, anger and tears. I guess some of these behaviours and obsessions are coping mechanisms for kids?
I'm more of an armchair philosopher than an armchair psychologist though.

Confession: I can't set my alarm to an exact hour. It has to be at a random minute to or past

 

[Chasdad]

I vividly remember as a child maybe 8yrs old I had an obsession with having to walk across the lounge carpet stepping only inside the squares of the pattern and I had to cross the room in an even number of steps. I also had an obsession with my 8x table. To this day I can mentally do my x tables to infinity.
All of this though was the same time my parents were going through HUGE marital problems so there was lots of shouting, anger and tears. I guess some of these behaviours and obsessions are coping mechanisms for kids?
I'm more of an armchair philosopher than an armchair psychologist though.

Confession: I can't set my alarm to an exact hour. It has to be at a random minute to or past

Mine started when my parents were going through a bad patch too.
Which has made me determined to try to never row with my wife in front of my son

 

[Kermit]

Can I just say, you lads are epic. Not being patronising here but well done for talking openly about it.

I don't have OCD but I too will not have the sound on the TV or car stereo on 13. I always think 'it's not worth the risk'

 

[Chasdad]

Can I just say, you lads are epic. Not being patronising here but well done for talking openly about it.

I don't have OCD but I too will not have the sound on the TV or car stereo on 13. I always think 'it's not worth the risk'

Watch it your border line loopy like me. Just dont go buying a transporter with quarter of a million miles on it

 

[Kermit]

Watch it your border line loopy like me. Just dont go buying a transporter with quarter of a million miles on it

There is the odd time when I think 'I must do that' and I force myself not to so hopefully I don't start to go down the rabbit hole.
My brother has OCD though, checking doors, lights, has to drive back home to make sure he turned stuff off. Awful.

 

[Chasdad]

The more i think about it the wierder it is.
I quite happily leave my car , van open with tools or wallet in it . But check doors several times before bed or leaving a customers house

 

[Kermit]

The more i think about it the wierder it is.
I quite happily leave my car , van open with tools or wallet in it . But check doors several times before bed or leaving a customers house

Whilst it's awful you need to check several times, this does kind of suggest that you care more for others than for yourself do you think? Which is kinda nice in some ways. Still a ballache though.

 

[Chasdad]

There definitely an element of that . As that's how it originally started. Worrying about my mum.
I think everyone with my form of ocd is the same .they care,worry too much .if that's a thing

 

[Lpgc]

As a kid I had a thing about counting everything.. Tiles on the roof, number of metal bars on the front of the electric fire (I still remember it was 23 lol) and 6 divisions / cubby holes at the side of the fire. But not only that, I'd also play about with the numbers, like the ratio of tiles on one row to other rows, like thinking of a random number and seeing how quickly I could work out which cubby hole that number would land on if I went top left, top right, same on middle row and bottom row (which is obviously just X mod 6)... unless you do the rows/columns in a different order lol. I'm still fascinated with maths and mathematical constants (of which of course Pi is the most well known). My mum said I used to talk in my sleep, like playing chess with myself while asleep, mentally projecting complex design in progress circuit diagrams onto my bedroom curtains... and sometimes wake up next morning having somehow solved a design question in my sleep. Me and friends used to jump over the shadows of cars (while on the causeway) as they passed on our walk to school (not just jump, more a matter of the shadow not passing you while your feet were on the floor so instead of jumping you might lean on top of a wall etc)... I remember once doing it while I was walking alone, laughing at myself for feeling the need to it while alone (so not even playing the 'game' with mates), never did it again after that lol.. But I still hardly ever switch off, always thinking even in bed. If it's not work related it could be thinking about a design for a variable compression engine, methane powered gun, an electric circuit design, or might just be contemplating space/time, dark matter/energy, black holes etc lol.