Q&A #3 - OCD and Social Anxiety
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- čas přidán 13. 12. 2015
- It can help to tackle OCD and Social Anxiety as the same beast, not separate disorders.
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I am currently 21 and just diagnosed with OCD and social anxiety. I was feeling very lonely and terrible due to recent OCD attack and the thought that I will be alone forever. When I see others doing good in life, having friends, enjoying, I can't help but just feel hopeless. Anyone going through the same, I love you, a big hug.... Hope is what keeping me alive...I went to a psychiatrist and he told me therapies are useless just take these medicines and you will be fine, like wtf ERP do wonders and this guy selling medicines.... It's very difficult to get good treatment in INDIA...
a big hug to you too-you aren’t alone in feeling this way. meditation and mindfulness really help, attracting the energy you wish to have and pretending you’re already there do wonders. example: in the mornings i imagine being comfortable and adaptable in any situation and visualize it for a few minutes and everything i want and have like it’s going to be a plan for the day, and then when im done imagining this i feel a lot better. it takes time.
Hey Monty!! A big hug for you:)
I m also diagnosed with ocd and social anxiety. I know its really really hard...and hope is the only thing keeping me alive. I am from India too and you are right...it's really hard to get a good therapist or psychologist here. But don't worry...you are not alone...there are many ppl. I hope things get better for you. Thank you for ur kind words..it does make me feel a lil better. And I hope you are feeling okay now:)
You will be alright brother, we all will ❤🙏
We will be well, brother
have you tried fluvoxamine
I never comment on videos, but this one is different, I’ve been looking for a long time for someone to tell me this. Cause I suffer from both and was almost sure it’s the same thing.. thanks for making this video
:) You're welcome!
All your videos are always great Mark.
This is genious!
I can see now how a lot of different aspects of my life that i am currently strugling are related,, even things like procrastination, lazyness, lack of organization etc. All goes back to this habit of avoiding things that i think will be unpleasant.
I liked how you emphasised the importance of focusing on healthy actions and thoughts in this one. Such a helpful vid. Thanks for sharing, Mark!
You're welcome!
So clear and helpful! Especially with the positive feedback loop part. I am cutting out fantasizing about having a perfect life (I guess you could say this is rumination) whenever I feel unloved or wronged in some way by people. Stopping this, I feel like my brain no longer keeps those feelings around and it makes it easier to just go out and talk to people with little expectation that someone else needs to make me feel loved or valued, which did contribute to social anxiety I felt. That's just one example I wanted to share. Excellent video.
+Kamran That's awesome, Kamran! It's so useful to switch from trying to get things from people in social situations. It helped me so much, too, to stop trying to get things I don't control, like a particular type of feedback, respect, acceptance, love, etc. It's only natural to get anxious if we're trying to get things from people instead of trying to give them things.
I think this is a really good point. Because OCD has aspects of perfectionism, then chances are when going into social situations you’re expecting perfection from interactions, and of course that’s things like if I talk to this person they MUST find me utterly interesting and compelling, they MUST really like me afterwards and want to be my friend - and of course if you find the interaction is normal and not so spectacular, not terribly interesting either or the person needs to run off and do something else, that turns into a personal self criticism. Clearly I wasn’t interesting enough or my damn social anxiety made me nervous and I wasn’t relaxed, or I wasn’t funny enough and OH GOD NO, I can’t actually interact with people at all. Here we have an enormous perfection expectation from these situations which is highly unrealistic and sets our standards far too high, and when not met we regard the situation and hence ourselves as having failed which feeds our anxiety. Being conscious of what happens to you in a social situation can probably go a long way to relaxing you during the interaction. For example being aware that thoughts like “they don’t like me, they look at me weird, I must be doing something wrong” are just thoughts and in that moment you can just call them “social anxiety” and continue with the person anyway. If you find the interaction was not super interesting, won’t necessary lead to anything else then just be happy with that and tell yourself that it’s perfectly ok. Most importantly move on to the next person and start it all over again. I SWEAR to you that you are so much better than you think at interacting with people - you just have to challenge the fears and practice the skills !
this was quite relatable actually. thanks for sharing!
This is glorious, I've been looking for "treatment for social anxiety and blushing" for a while now, and I think this has helped. Ever heard of - Telaavar Anxious Amanita - (Have a quick look on google cant remember the place now ) ? Ive heard some awesome things about it and my m8 got excellent success with it.
Thanks for this video, Mark!!I find that the worst obsessions I have are centered on social events, question everything beforehand, what I'm doing in the moment, and then going through every one of my actions after the event and worrying about what people though.
+Emily Pfaff You're welcome, Emily! I struggled with all of those compulsions you mentioned and it was incredibly helpful to cut them out.
Such truth here. I currently notice a lot of social anxiety during my OCD, hidden, quiet fears about making a fool
of myself, of an interaction not being perfect, of me utterly failing to tell jokes and in turn the person finding me uninteresting and boring... and so, I push past it and do it anyway and guess what, the fear is mostly incorrect, a good 95% incorrect in fact. Feel the fear and do it anyway...
Hello mark, this is my first time stumbling across your channel, and I’m glad I did. I’ve struggled with pure ocd for years, and it’s made high school really hard for me. My obsessions tend to shift around once a month, sometimes one will stick around for longer, up to a year or two if it really scares me. I had a situation a few years back that I used my mother and emotional manipulation to get her to comply with rules I made about who to make certain jokes around....I reassured myself that she didn’t actually think the rules were real for years because I was so deathly afraid she thought they were real, and one day it occurred to me that based on her behavior she probably didn’t have rules, and after 2 years of reassurance it went away...recently, the ocd has reappeared because I am so afraid of it....it caused me so much pain and now that it’s back it terrifies me....I tend to be compulsive in nature, before going places repeating things like “maybe I will say the wrong thing, maybe my mom thinks there’s rules and that’s ok, maybe I will act weird because of my ocd and I accept that”. Or I repeatedly tell myself things like “your ocd is irrational, do not listen”....both are sort of mantras. I know in this video I said u directly faced your uncertainty with social situations, telling yourself you could have something in your teeth or say something stupid, but with me if I do this it’s kind of a mental preparation for some type of stability before speaking to someone....with the video you made using the apple as a metaphor for accepting bad thoughts, you said it’s not an active thing as much as it is letting them be there and still engaging in activities you cared about....should I just let the “rules about jokes” thought sit there while I continue to talk to people and engage in my life? I’ve been hiding a lot lately, I’m always afraid this ocd is here to stay again...last time it almost killed me
Ps:I tend to obsess over what my mom thinks of things....as a person, I don’t really care that much about her opinion, but my ocd always gets hooked on things she says
This video has suddenly become extremely relevant to me, I've cut out an enormity of compulsions in my life around POCD, HOCD, Environmental OCD (and a million others) and after a relationship recently didn't work out the way I wanted it to, suddenly I was hit with a waterfall of fears around what I'm like socially, how I interact with people, most particularly of the other sex, and it bleeds into how I am with colleagues, do they like me, do they just tolerate me, do they think I'm weird, strange etc. It was only very recently that I decided again that whenever my brain is anxious in ANY particular area we're going to take the ENORMOUS risk that it might just be the repetitivity of OCD and guess what, it's absolutely that. It's entirely centred around social performance right now - whether people find me interesting, worth talking to, do they judge me for how I behave and the more I try and judge their behaviour, their facial expressions and probably exaggerate what I notice the more I close up. But you know what, I stay with them and continue talking as long as they want to and usually, something breaks inside and it begins to flow and the conversation improves and the confidence returns. KEEP GOING, keep talking and keep teaching the anxiety it's not necessary.
Keep showing your brain you're in charge of this show!
It’s really a unique video. It contains many new things which are very beneficial for our daily activities. Thanks a lot…👌👌
Incredible insight!!! Thank you so much.
You're welcome!
When I was in my early twenties I developed OCD-like obsessions and compulsions that centered around fearing that certain thoughts and feelings would lead me to feeling so anxious that I couldn't interact with people naturally - that I'd forget how to be myself. This unfortunately manifested as anxiety that got high enough that it did severely impair me socially for a good year or two around pretty much every single person I knew. A horrible period in my life. I always wondered what it was, as I've never met anyone who had quite that flavor of social anxiety. Now that I'm older and have done some ERP on what I now recognize are OCD behaviors, I can see the link to OCD much more clearly. I agree that we can't avoid the situations that we fear. I forced myself into the situations that scared me over and over and used mindfulness, along with other techniques. Eventually I got past it. Though I should have also gone to therapy much sooner than I did. 😆 Just wanted to leave this here in case it helps anyone else going through something similar feel less alone.
Wow, what you've literally wrote is exactly what I've experienced. Usually I'm very social, but sometimes an event would occur and unless I would ritualize in a certain way, I would be unable to talk to others, socialize, I'd loose my personality. Had this fear of loss of social skills.
@@Oliverkor I'm so sorry you had to go through that hell too! It's absolutely awful. I hope you are in a better place with this stuff now. 💕
That's EXACTLY the root of my obsessions and compulsions that take up the most of my time!!! Omg im not alone.
I spend 6 to 8 hr running thru convos from the day and what may have hurt ppls feelings or most often, if they misunderstood me. I run thru what I should've said, sometimes even out loud. Then I think about all the possibilities for the next day and try to "anticipate" them. It's exhausting.
@@coo4231 For me the rumination would occur but it was more like I'd get a feeling or trigger, and all of sudden boom as the OP post said above "I'd forgot to be myself." Like naturally I wasn't awkward, but sometimes out of nowhere I believed that I had lost everything. And I would start analyzing am I shy, am I awkward, why am I awkward, am I just pretending that I was previously social, will I always be this awkward? And I would ruminate and imagine previous situations where I was social. It was a self-fulfilling process, more and more I analyzed my social skills and "turned my cameras inward", less I would focus on the other person and the conversation. Then I'd use that experience to prove to myself that there was something wrong. It was not fun.
@@coo4231this is EXACTLY what I’m going through right now. It began may of this year and it has not stopped at all for me since that day It’s been 24/7 every single day from when I wake up to sleep since may and it’s December now and I feel the same way although I feel myself getting better especially now finally finding the root and reasling I’m not the only one loosing my shit for no reason
Hi Mark
I have watched a number of your videos and truly I must say they are brillaint, and have provided much clarity on ocd and how they affect changes on the personality in different situations, which I have wondered about for years.
I overcame ocd by myself a number of years ago and since always felt like I was living out of my instincts rather than my mind(intuatively rather than intellectully, if that makes sense).
I still howerer, at times get stuck in certain bad patterns of thinking and behavour(when I get overwhelmed by pressure and begin to doubt myself and struggle to make a intuative choices) making "intelectual" choices rather than "intuative" ones ,cuasing the symtoms to re-appear - especailly if i act out of character as a result .
These patterns are then very hard to break and the finding the source of the anxiety very ilusive.
I have found that cbt provides a great perpespctive but doesnt break to the pattern, and overall this still has a massive affect on my life.
Any advice you could offer?
Thanks again for your video's - its great to know your not alone in this fight!
Thanks, Marco. Can you describe what the pattern is that you keep getting stuck in?
Again and again and again.... You are a genius sensitive Man dear Mark💓 Bless You 🌸
Thank you for the kind words 🌸
You are amazing Mark 💖
Thank you. Let's be amazing together!
@@everybodyhasabrain I am 😊
Very interesting video. I have been suspecting that my SA and OCD could actually just be the same thing. A lot of people don’t realize that most psychological phenomenon don’t have a direct neurological analogue that has been discovered. It’s all just categories based on apparent symptoms and the way we categorize them constantly changes anyway.
I think what is very important to mention here is that doing exposure in social situations requires you to pay attention particularly to very subtle mental compulsions. This is very tricky because you want to be loving towards yourself generally but not try to appease yourself or make yourself feel safe in the situation. Because saying "She will respect you, even though you feel like she will find you laughable and can't help but burst into laughing at your sight, she will respect you. She will respect you for trying blabla".
This is admirable and it's kind. You always want to be kind towards yourself. But you have to ask yourself what they are designed to do. And in this case they are designed TO MAKE YOU FEEL SAFE.
I'm struggling with that myself. Other things are little things like trying to conceal your blushing face and walking off the situation early. You have to stay... in the painful situation.. for it to go down in time... and then leave.
+1Kilili Enjoy throwing out those compulsions :)
+Mark Freeman Thanks ! Can you recommend an online forum where I can ask more questions and give more answers ? So I could only post the most important ones here.
I'm never sure about forums, because in many they just wine and drag each other down . I want a progressive and upbeat one !
+1Kilili No, unfortunately. I sometimes participate in various forums but I see them mostly as places for people looking do what you described in your comment. Forums for illness tend to be about having the illness. So if you're working on NOT having it, I suggest joining forums connected to the healthy skills you're introducing into your life. It can help to build community around skills you're going to practice the rest of your life rather than the things you're throwing out.
+1Kilili My OCD definitely manifests itself as Social Anxiety, so virtually all of my exposures are based on conversing with people. I'm very proud of myself for working up the courage to talk to people again but also struggle with the subtle mental reassurance/checking exercises I do before speaking.
And I agree with @Mark Freeman, I sometimes look at the reddit OCD and it seems to be mostly people uninterested in actually improving.
I can recommend Jonathan Grayson's "Freedom from Obsessive Compulsive Disorder" book. It is very direct and almost harsh in a "make no mistake"- kind of way. And it makes very clear to you what's at stake with every compulsion you do. I find that makes things easier. It's also very detailed. I also liked Pema Chodron's books which also deal with compassion and that kind of stuff .
Thank you so much, that's very helpful !
I want to be sociable, smily, and friendly, I got so many comments on how my face looks angry/unhappy/serious .. and people always judge me and think I don't want to talk to them but in reality it's just my resting face that looks like that , and sometimes it's because I'm feeling stressed because of my OCD thoughts, and my stressful feelings are reflected on my face and I don't know how to hide it . Now I'm trying to smile more often and it's hard because I feel I'm faking it and that in reality I'm a sad anxious person ... I really can't act spontaneously anymore, especially after being judged thousands and thousands of times because of my facial expressions.. Since my childhood I always got these comments from everybody (family, teachers, friends, strangers ...) of "smile more" ,"why are you angry/stressed " even before I struggled with OCD , and now OCD makes it worse of course , I want to change that and be a smily, happy, friendly person, any advice please 🙏
I have the same problem, I can never hold a smile and that makes me insecure A LOT. People recognize I am not comfortable with them or ignore the eye contact when in fact I just can't handle the anxiety and its symptoms/intrusive thoughts in that moment. You are not alone with that!
A really helpful video as always, Mark! Too bad that I didn't have the possibility to watch this video some years ago, I missed a lot of opportunities making friends because of my social anxiety. :\
+Sabir Kuliev Even if you were a 90 yr old man, you would still have opportunities every day to make friends. You haven't missed anything.
Interesting, though for me with an ED and OCD, it often does feel like I have little (or big) OCD monsters and eating disorder monsters fighting at times. Sometimes they agree, and then when that happens and I do what they agree on, it can feel like relief...but um, then bad. One thing I've noticed is when the ED is more active, the OCD is less, or just food related, while when all the food related things might be cut out, I will be hit with horribly violent and/or scary intrusive thoughts. I remember that from the last time I "recovered" from the ED, had gained and was like, hmm, not so much food stuff, then "huge OCD intrusive thought about something bad." and I was like, "OMG, I forgot about these! I'd rather have the food stuff back!.. No wait." In that sense though, I can see how both are a way of my brain trying to handle anxiety. Sometimes their rules just conflict. For instance then, if the OCD rules are broken, which it obviously doesn't want, sometimes I'll feel the ED be happy in a way like, "Yay that rule was broken, now lets make one more suitable to me and then I'll let it get stuck on that rule and then it'll be fine, so long as it serve me." Of course then there'd be the other option of doing what neither wants...and my brain tends to blank out, like, what would that be?? Or "Why would you do that?" Though I've been reflecting on it and how you've spoken about acting on values; so often when it comes to challenging the ED, sometimes I just feel like I don't, because it seems to be something I (at least think) value. The OCD to some extent before would keep me relatively "healthy" physically, but wouldn't let me do anything and was disabling in a "you can eat, but it has to be exactly like this, and this is how your day has to go.". The ED rule seemed to be, "You can do normal stuff, but you just can't eat." So it is like a trade off...again, doing what neither wants though. My brain feels a bit paralyzed. Not even sure if that made sense, it's all jumbled!
All good advice Mark, Mark I struggle a lot with intrusive/associative thinking and Social anxiety, and as someone with that struggle should I actively try to get rid of anxiety or not care about it all. I feel like when I actively try to get rid of anxiety it never helps. In addition I feel that if I ignore the anxiety, I give it less power, and eventually it just fades away.
Trying to get rid of anxiety makes the anxiety necessary in our lives. It's like if I measure success by defeating enemies, then I always need enemies so I can be successful. So it can really help to put the emphasis on the things we actually want in our lives.
Thanks Mark, that’s really helpful
This is great! I am a therapist who has clients with a long history of social anxiety. I think this video really normalizes their concerns and enables them to feel less isolated. It is hard for them to share their struggles with others.
I've been struggling with depersonalisation with a side of social anxiety too. I think one of my fears is to do with feeling like I'm not myself, and the fear that people will notice this/think I'm acting weird/not treat me how I think I should be treated etc. Therefore my brain is constantly trying to gauge what people think about me/how people are perceiving me/if I'm acting 'normal'. I'm guessing the way to tackle this is still the same as with OCD and social anxiety - as you described in the video? Thanks :D
Depersonalisation with a side of social anxiety is one of my favourite take-away meals! Yes, like you said, the more we react to that fear and check things, it only encourages the brain to worry about it even more. Instead, we can accept those feelings, not get caught up in the checking, and do the social activities that we value.
Hey Mark, since October I’ve been avoiding social interaction with everyone. If I’m near anyone I get super anxious that I might say/have said something. I’m always getting invited to hang out with friends and I always decline because I’m too anxious. I feel as if I might unintentionally say something that I wouldn’t want to.
It can help to see that avoiding people is a compulsion that actually fuels anxiety. Often this compulsion comes up because we care about being with others. We get anxious about saying something we want to say and people being upset about us. But then we withdraw from people, which is exactly the thing we don't want. So withdrawing from people makes us even more anxious because we really care about people. So when a fear like this pops up, I find it's useful to recognize that it's there because I want to be close to people. And then it helps to go and do things with people and practice trusting myself. If I say something I don't want to say, that's ok. I can trust myself to handle that.
Diagnosed with OCD this year. I'm not organized, I procrastinate, and if you where to tell my wife I think my self a perfectionist she would laugh really hard. I knew I had a different pathology when I literally froze talking to someone at work. A co-worker who I am completely comfortable with. I said something, got in my head, and descended into a spiral that created a feeling like I was on a stage with my pants down. Lost the ability to form sentences. Which, is reallllly odd for me for those that know me. Thought it was a form of social anxiety for a lot of years. Something I could "get over." I'm discovering its a learned cognitive behavior that tricks you into where your trying so hard to be your best self in social situations, causing your mind to as you said to "try and control" the situation. I absolutely will not allow silence in a conversation to happen if I'm meeting you for the first time. I have been described as talkative, but its me running from "feelings I'm trying to control."
My compulsion is analysis. I'm a HUGE over thinker. In fact, I'll probably rewrite this comment a few times until I feel "satisfied" with the result. It'll probably still have errors, but that's not what I'm going to rewrite it for. I'm going to rewrite it a few times until when I read it back to myself, I feel like its something I'm comfortable with random people on the internet reading. So I guess I'm a perfectionist that sucks at perfect.
I'm writing this comment because I found this video while over analyzing a conversation I had two days ago. It really hit home for me and wanted to share this so maybe someone out there can see they aren't crazy, there are people who think like you do. I'm getting help, but I got diagnosed late so a lot of it is really set in deep and will take work.
Thanks for sharing! Watch out for those stories you're telling yourself about yourself. Like the pathology being "different" or believing you got diagnosed "late" or the patterns being really deep. What you're doing there is a common compulsion. I like to call it "differencing". We invent these stories about why we're special and why it's going to be very difficult to get over. But everything you described is totally common. There's no countdown clock on diagnosis. You can cut out these compulsions and leave them behind if you want. You can also hold onto them if you choose that route. You've got options here. But it might help to leave behind some unhelpful stories if you want to go the route of leaving OCD behind.
@@everybodyhasabrain Thank you for your reply, it weirdly gave me some bit of comfort. Differencing... now there is something that I'll chew on for awhile. Valuable insight. Cheers.
I started watching this like mmm, I don’t know about this one, but hot dog banana, this guys got it down. Like, you know when you first start to get treatment and you start reading about your condition and just cry like a monster cause it hit so hard? Well, I’m stuffed up on anti depressants and anti anxiety pills for my OCD and tell you what, my nose and eyes are BURNING and my heart pounding cause I wanna cry so bad. Hit the nail on the head, Thank you!
You're welcome!
Why are you always right about everythingggggg 😬😬😬
I do have social anxiety but I wouldn’t say that I have ocd, however I do have paranoia. I remember having ocd when I was younger and I have had social anxiety pretty much my entire life. Is there a connection between paranoia and social anxiety as well?
Mark what about when social situations do go wrong? Like when you try to talk to someone and they end up making fun of you and you can hear them mocking you afterwards? Like what should I do? Should I keep exposing myself to social situations? Is exposure the only way to get over social anxiety? I’ve heard from some other people that exposure doesn’t work for social anxiety? Are they just wrong? Thanks
I have a hard time differentiating between my anxious thoughts and my true desires/needs. An example, I don't get along with my family, and I feel obligated to go to get togethers. How do I know if I'm acting on my anxiety and avoiding being uncomfortable or just practicing self-care/boundary setting for something I know I won't enjoy? This often comes up when I feel like saying no to social events.
I found it most useful to keep the focus on actions that I value. Trying to judge and discriminate between thoughts/feelings only fuels more uncertainty and anxiety. So I just set some values related to family and other things in my life and those guide my actions. Sometimes that means doing things I don't feel like doing but I know will make me happier in the long term, and other times it's about not doing something that others want me to do, but I know there's something else I value doing more.
That helps me see it in a different way, I guess determining my values is the next step then. Thank you for your response! :)
This makes an awful lot of sense now
Hey Mark I wanted to ask you a question. So I've been doing good, but today in particular I had someone over and unconsciously I started engaging in mental compulsions. Because I was with someone I found it so hard to be aware of what I was doing. I didn't want to flee from the situation but I recognized I was engaging in a whole bunch of compulsions related to the situation. Is it unhealthy to step back and look at what is going on, if it involves recognizing what is going on from a larger perspective? Sometimes it can be hard when you're with someone.
+Susie Velasquez It is hard with other people! It takes lots of practice. Self-awareness is very useful as we notice what we're doing, can recognize what we want to be doing instead, and then do the things we actually value in a situation. It takes time to get consistent with doing the things we want to be doing. Enjoy the practice as you get comfortable with having people over!
i have this fear that I’m going to get angry and hurt people, and the behaviour is to avoid confrontational situations, which can include incredibly innocent and small negotiations, it also makes me easily controlled
Learning how to be ourselves and set boundaries, even in conflict situations, is very useful! We can have these experiences as part of our lives.
I like worry before I meet someone, like anticipation anxiety. And then I can't be myself and I'm trying to fight off the thoughts. Find it hard not to live in my head
It's great you can see those compulsions happening before meeting someone. It is useful to cut out stuff like that.
Hi mark i just have been struggling as I am not happy with like who i am. I went outside today and just hated the person that I am and felt very self conscious and just very unconfident. A lot of my ocd was working out who to be and being who i want to be, is this part of social anxiety? Should I just stop working out things and eventually I'll be ok with who i am? Thanks
I've been told i have both,
life are hell
Interesting since I developed OCD and then began feeling anxiety in social situations soon after...
So i see people with ocd probably have social anxiety, but I dont think its true though that everyone who had social anxiety has ocd?
+M Avila What do you think is the difference between the symptoms that get labeled as "social anxiety" and the symptoms that get labeled as "OCD"?
No shit
My pure ocd thoughts start when I'm around other people. I dont fear the interactions I fear the thoughts I will get.
Trying to avoid and control experiences like thoughts is a very common compulsion. It's great you can see it's about things you're doing around thoughts and fears!
Exactly same here. Then I don't feel good from the anxiety then I don't feel myself im not experiencing in just sitting in my head thinking
Hi mark I’m just wondering I also keep thinking of what if thoughts that are to do with social anxiety. Like what if I get into an argument, or I have to dance in front of someone and etc... I’ve resisted some of my compulsions now and I feel a bit better, but I am also thinking now “what if” anxiety thoughts like what if I have to act or dance in front of someone, and also thinking about past school and uni events where people would have to act and dance in front of others. Are you like at the moment fearless? Like do you have to worry about this stuff, or not at all because you don’t have any more anxiety?
I guess I’m asking like if I resist my ocd compulsions, would that also get rid of my social anxiety even if I don’t expose myself to social situations?
I would separate social anxiety compulsions from any other compulsion. It's all the same stuff: just reacting to fears about some thing you're judging as bad. But something that jumps out is that: there's nothing wrong with anxiety. There's no reason you can't be anxious AND go and talk to people. There's no reason you can't be anxious AND do things in the present instead of obsessing about the past. The problems don't arise from anxiety or fear, but from the reactions we've come to attach to those emotions. To answer your question: I don't have to worry about that stuff but not because I don't experience anxiety. If I got anxious, that would be totally fine! But experiencing anxiety doesn't mean I need to react to it and put it in charge of my actions inside or outside of my head.
Mark Freeman thanks mark for replying I appreciate it
Hi Mark great video. I have been struggling with what I believe is POCD for the past few months and have grown concerned that I have accepted something against my will (that I could be a pedofile). I no longer have the intrusive thoughts and am not in distress and this worries me to a great extent. All has gone quiet and I'm not okay with it. I have fought my intrusive thoughts and images day and night and then one day it all got too much and I accidentally said something along the lines of "I accept I could be a pedofile" and regret even thinking that as it got so bad. The thoughts have mostly gone .
Is this normal or have I accepted something against my will
+David C First off, it can really help to make sure you're working with a professional that's experienced with helping people recover from OCD through evidence-based approaches like ACT. Secondly, it can help to focus on the healthy actions you can take each day. No matter what stuff is in your head, the healthy things you can do in the present don't change. Trying to wrestle with symptoms like these is like trying to be certain you're not an alpaca, and then getting upset when you no longer question whether you're an alpaca or not, because that could mean you've accepted that you're an alpaca, or you really are an alpaca?! Instead of trying to be certain about things you don't even want in your life, I'd shift the focus to what you do what in your life. What are the healthy things you can do in the present that align with your values and will help you reach your goals in life? Do those things.
+Mark Freeman Thank you for the reply Mark.
I started seeing a therapist last week and he is leaning towards me having OCD after the first session so I'm hopeful it's not something more sinister.
Thanks for the reply, really gives me hope after going through hell these last few months.
Hi mark I have been taking your advice and trying to just get on with life and not keep working out my ocd and obsessing over things. I still am just a bit confused about my social anxiety. Like if I do the erp work for my ocd like by not responding to thoughts and things like that, will I still be anxious in social situations? Like will doing erp for my ocd get rid of my social anxiety aswell? Or will I still have the same level of social anxiety and have to keep exposing myself to social situations aswell? Thanks
I would approach them as the same. Compulsions are about trying to avoid and control unwanted feelings. Just because the unwanted feeling involves a social situation, that doesn't make anything different. We each only have one brain, so I don't find it useful to get caught up on different labels. Those labels don't actually mean anything inside your brain.
I'm wondering if deactivating social media and interacting with real people would help? I am worried Facebook is holding me back- I interact with people better irl.
I realized my fear of getting stomach sick in front of people is definitely more than just I’m scared of sensations in my stomach or being sick. I’m scared of consequences of it : being judged, being embarrassed or rejected.
One year I have been out of work and recovering. I had a bit of everything you could label such as harm, somatic, POCD, health ....
I have an online interview tomorrow. The idea of going back to an office makes me sick : literally sick. Like running bathroom and nausea. But I’m going to try I want to. I’m going to bring my fear and my thoughts with me but not do strategies such as avoidance or controlling = compulsions
Any advice Mark ? :)
This is really common! That's great you can see what the fear is about and you already know not to do the compulsions. I had the same fear and have worked with a bunch of people on vomit fears. One of the tricks that can be so fun and helps with overcoming this fear, is to want to vomit on everybody! And then to handle that experience. When the fear comes up, and I noticed that urge to avoid and control, I would tell myself that I wanted to vomit on people. I'd picture myself doing it at the front of the room. Covering everybody! And they would be upset and I'd handle that. So much of the fear is really about not handling the consequences. So imagining myself handling those consequences and showing my brain I can thrive with them is how the brain learns it doesn't need to be afraid anymore. I'm so much more than a bit of vomit. You are so much more than vomit!
@@everybodyhasabrain That is great, thanks! Then I am going to imagine myself being sick look at people disgusted or mocking and I will handle it and come back the day after :) It sounds so tough - a year ago I was not able to go down my appartement. But I want to try, so lets ride with the anxiety YAY :)
@@everybodyhasabrain and by the way, me it is not about vomit but having diarrhea :) it started because it was one of my physical symptoms of anxiety and it has happened at work and since then the phobia started
Do you reckon I should try and pick a fight with someone and that would help me with social fear? Like if I try to get into conflict and fight with someone, that would reduce fear and also help ocd thoughts?
No, I can't think of how that would work at all. It just sounds like a compulsion to fix feelings and to get in a fight you'd likely have to get caught up on lots of controlling compulsions. There are lots of great books on cutting out social anxiety compulsions. This isn't weird secret stuff. You can also just work with a skilled professional on it
So are animal phobias the same? I know you say not to separate social anxiety compulsions and ocd compulsions, should I also not seperate these from animal phobias? And as I use erp for ocd and social anxiety, would my phobias also decrease?
A fear is a fear. It's not like fears come in special individual, separated boxes inside your head. Just fear. And the goal is not to decrease fear or anxiety. The goal is to do the things we want to do in life.
Mark sorry to keep asking more questions all the time, so are you saying that social anxiety and ocd are exactly the same?. So if I do erp for ocd then I will also be socially less anxious. And if there exactly the same, are they the same for specific animal phobias?. Sorry to keep asking, I am just a bit confused that’s all
But they're also the same for this checking compulsion you keep doing to chase certainty about this. It can really help to shift the focus to the actions. If you're chasing certainty about emotions, chasing certainty an animal won't attack you, chasing certainty about recovery, chasing certainty about people not judging you, or not doing something embarrassing, etc, those aren't different. That's one compulsion: chasing certainty.
Mark Freeman Alright thanks Mark for always replying
Mark my ocd has been very severe recently and I keep obsessing about recovery and erp and how to get better. My social anxiety is also very bad to. Should I just forget about the ocd and focus on social anxiety, and therefore my ocd will get better anyway? I just feel so lost and stuck and unable to help myself. Thanks
This is the same question you've asked many times, and I've answered it several times. You can start making changes whenever you want. But chasing certainties like this isn't something I'd see as useful
I left this below another comment but also going to leave this here. Just in case anyone feels alone, bc i couldnt believe i was readinf what i experience.
I spend 6 to 8 hr running thru convos from the day and what may have hurt ppls feelings or most often, if they misunderstood me. I run thru what I should've said, sometimes even out loud. Then I think about all the possibilities for the next day and try to "anticipate" them. It's exhausting.
I used to do this, too! It was so useful to recognize it's a compulsion that's just teaching my brain to throw up these types of anxieties so I have something to think about for hours. A big help was also cutting out all of the problem solving I would do in my head around things that seemed "normal" and necessary, too. If I wasn't going to take action on something right then, I didn't need to be doing anything with it in my head.
@Mark Freeman thank u so much for sharing. I didn't realize they were compulsions for a long time and I appreciate hearing your experience and what has helped.
I had been diagnosed early on with anxiety disorder and substance use disorder. Spent 18 years of my life treating those. A lot of the therapy for those two things involves "figuring out why" I was how I am. I think it made things worse. I'm so exhausted and really looking forward for my first appointment next month, and starting ert, now that I have a more complete diagnosis. And at least things feel like they make sense now, I knew what I experienced couldn't be typical but it feels a little better to just know so I can start working on it the right way.
@@coo4231 Enjoy the steps ahead and letting things be easy!
@@everybodyhasabrainthanks mark. Your advice is always so great.
I'm not sure if this even makes sense but I don't get anxious about going up to people, but I get anxious while I'm talking to them, I think too much about what I'm going to say while having a conversation, and get so scared I'm too boring and won't be able to make conversation flow. It's like the thoughts come automatically and I have no way of doing ERP while talking it's confusing ahh
Exactly the sam for me, I could go up to any stranger and ask sth, but if its about holdin a conversation I probably dont know the end of, the intrusive thoughts start during the convo and I get anxious...
What do you think of the labels extrovert and introvert? I've been hearing them around more lately, and my friends seem to use it as a label to say just who they are. For example my friend wants to be able to socialize better, but she says "oh well I'm just an introvert so I can't." It seems a little silly to me and unhealthy, but she denies to take look into anything I recommend lol.
I think they just get used as excuses to engage in compulsions. It's like somebody saying they'd like to run more but they're slow so they're not going to run. Of course they're slow if they don't practice running!
Exactly my thoughts!
Mark what do you think of faking it till you make it? I have bad ocd and a lot of self hatred, should I fake it, and eventually I'll be ok with myself?
It'll really help to just take action. All of this checking online for reassurance if something will "work" is the same as somebody checking for a special soap to clean away contamination. There's nothing wrong with having difficult feelings. Interacting with people doesn't have to feel any particular way. The action is the goal. Not a feeling. You can interact with people. And the brain can do whatever it wants
Im a bit confused by this though, like does that mean that I don't have to get treatment for social anxiety?. I've been diagnosed with both, but if I do erp for ocd, then that means I won't have to get social anxiety treatment at all?
You only have one brain, so I'd be curious about how you could approach OCD without working on fears of judgments or compulsions around the physical sensations of anxiety. Many of the classic OCD obsessions are really about the fear of doing something bad that other people would judge, ie: a social anxiety. Building great mental health skills isn't something that can only happen in a specific area of our lives. You'll be working on healthy skills throughout your life.
Hey Mark so as you know I don't really have issues with thoughts worrying about insecurities but more so the thoughts of "how to talk". I recently am great at accepting thoughts and would say I'm pro at it. Problem is I'm always telling my self to be wanting to talk to people and I know talking is a value but it seems that I don't know when to stop. I remember on an old skype call you told me that if I have nothing to say I don't have to say anything. It's not really an issue of asking myself "when do I talk or how" I don't answer those anymore and it's great. But really I always feel this urge and sometimes I have nothing to say. But then if I'm with people I just can't always stay quiet and focus on something else. When you talk to someone I notice you connect to your brain when you use it and I always have that urge to try and see if I can talk. But should I just not connect with those urges and wait for an impulse to say something else not out of that reaction? I know it's a value of mine to talk to people but my mind is always confusing me . I always have that urge to talk but I realized it's somewhat forced. Then if I tell myself "you're pushing yourself too hard don't talk" then I stay stuck not talking and people are wondering why I'm so quiet. This is really the only thing I've been struggling with lately
Hi Susie, it can help not to try to get things like this, "right". We're always going to be in situations where we can see that we can recognize that we've been talking a lot because we're uncertain about something, or that we're not talking because we felt uncertain about something else. So much of the practice of being ourselves is simply noticing that we are doing that. And that's totally ok. If we want to change something, we can do that next time. If we don't want to change something, we can notice how we felt. We can be curious about how we act in any social situation. Through that we can understand other challenges or fears we might want to deal with.
Mark Freeman
Mark Freeman you're totally right. Funny to say Mark it's been a long time but your response really made me realize something. I have been forcing myself to talk even when I don't feel the need to because I wanted to uncover that equation of learning how to talk and what type of acceptance to apply. Today I haven't been acting like that anymore and am giving up chasing that "I need to do this to recover and figure out how I need to apply acceptance whenever I feel uncertain." I'm now just choosing what to do because right now that's what I choose. Not in response to a hamster wheel. Thanks!(:
That sounds great. Enjoy being yourself!
Mark Freeman it's amazing how little things like you replying and explaining things can help change a persons whole mindset in one read. :) so appreciative for all your work.
Mark my ocd is really bothering me now and so is my social anxiety. If I do social anxiety exposures, will my ocd also get better? Like is it all just fear and they all go together? Like if I start talking to strangers and going to parties and start also talking on the phone, will my ocd also get better at the same time?
Have you asked this question before, several times?
No
This video is about how compulsions around social fears are no different than any other compulsion, so you can't separate social anxiety and OCD. That's just a bunch of compulsions. And it helped me to recognize that OCD is all about stuff I do. So cutting out compulsions around people is YOU changing OCD. Anytime you cut out compulsions, you're making useful changes and building better mental health skills. It can really help to approach it from that angle of building. Because then we can just keep on adding more things we want to do in life. Cutting out compulsions around people and relationships isn't about fixing some diagnostic label. It's about living our lives.
Mark sorry if I talk to more people and improve my social anxiety, will my ocd therefore improve? Like if I just disregard ocd and focus only on social anxiety, will my ocd get better at the same time? And the anxiety will get less around ocd thoughts? Thanks
Hi Bob, this is the same question you've checked on previously. OCD is just the compulsions. Trying to avoid and control anxiety, in social settings or anywhere else, is the same compulsion. Trying to lessen anxiety is not something I would see as a useful goal. That's the problem, not the solution.
@@everybodyhasabrain I dont mean to keep asking, i just don't fully understand. If someone has ocd and social anxiety. And they do a social anxiety course or something, or just focus on social anxiety with a therapist, and get say 90% recovered, will there ocd also be 90% recovered aswell, as they are supposedly both the same? Thanks
@@bobbill2587 OCD is compulsions. Did this person cut out 90% of their compulsions? You're talking about OCD like it's a thing that passively happens. It is not.
Hey Mark.. Love all your videos. Sorry for all the questions lately, but I have another one that I think may help other people too...
How do you deal with the ups and the downs of having ocd? One day I'll be fine and the thoughts won't bother me.. And then a couple days later I feel like I'm back to square one. Normally my happiness would come from not HAVING the thoughts, but notice I said they just didn't bother me as much. Which is now my goal. To live with the thoughts. But, it's hard dealing with the emotions and feelings that come from the constant changes ocd throws at you. Do you have any tips? And once again thank you for everything. You are truly awesome!
Mark my ocd is very severe and the anxiety is very bad i feel I can't stop doing compulsions and when i try to stop doing the compulsions I find it very unbearable and the anxiety lasts for many hours and I eventually give in. Should I try now to focus on my social anxiety and my ocd will become maybe less severe. Like if I focus on talking more to people, will my ocd related intrusive thoughts become maybe more bearable and I will be able to cut out compulsions more easily?
This video is about them really being the same. Compulsions are compulsions. But one thing I would like at is: anxiety lasting for hours is not something I'd see as unusual or particularly severe. Grabbing a good book to follow along or working with a skilled professional could be helpful ways to get a structured plan to follow for making changes while welcoming any feeling.
@@everybodyhasabrain ok, but I just feel so helpless and tangled in my ocd. If I was to face some social anxiety exposures, like talking to strangers as you say, or dealing with conflict, will my ocd change at all? Because they are all related?
@@bobbill2587 It helped me to recognize that OCD is all about stuff I do. So cutting out compulsions around people is YOU changing OCD. Anytime you cut out compulsions, you're making useful changes and building better mental health skills. It can really help to approach it from that angle of building. Because then we can just keep on adding more things we want to do in life.
@@everybodyhasabrain so I am really struggling with ocd, doing non stop compulsions all day and feeling like theirs no way out of this ocd. If I do some exposure for social anxiety, such as standing up for myself or getting into some conflict or talking to somebody would that help my non stop ocd compulsions?. Also what is your thoughts on other forms of therapy like electro therapy (ect) and taking medications aswell?
@@bobbill2587 Compulsions are compulsions. You only have one brain. There are no separate compartments for social anxiety and OCD. If you cut out those compulsions around people, that's a great help! You would be cutting out compulsions. It might really help to work with a skilled professional on learning some mental health skills and understanding what's going on. There's nothing unusual about anything you've mentioned. This is just very standard OCD. So asking about ECT really doesn't make any sense. You're fully capable of cutting out those compulsions.
Anxiety disorders share the same symptoms and the same intrusive thoughts
It's like it's all happening in one organ!
So this is a very practical question I'm surprisingly calm about right now. So there's this cute woman that goes with me to yoga classes. And basically she's always smiling. So now I saw her on the bus, I was surprised, she smiled and waved me over, I blushed, my face went red, and that made me so embarrassed that I sat down away from her and didn't come over. I waved, blushed, turned, hit my head against the bars where you are supposed to put your hands when you are standing in the bus and sat down my back towards her.
I am very sad now. But I didn't let my inner critic do me in. I'm just very sad she has this weirdo impression of me.
Is it advisable to next time go up to her and say : Hey I'm struggling with this anxiety issue. I'm making progress. " My goal would be to make her see I'm not weird.. I just struggle with this still.. and I am friendly.
Similar things like the bus incident happened with other students. And I didn't tell them, and some of them still greet, others don't. What is your advice? I would like her to like me because I like her. Or at least see that I am more.
I don't focus on dating advice, but I can say that trying to control what other people think, because you're judging yourself and what you think they think about previous compulsions, only leads to more anxiety and more uncertainty.
Thanks ! But I think it's not about dating. It's about whether or not you decide to explain to people your current struggle so that they can be more open and accepting towards you. It would be like having rashes on the skin and explaining to people that it's not small pocks or syphillis, but only an allergy. This is more about people's ignorance and being open versus keeping one's privacy .
Judging what you think others think about you and reacting to the fear that compulsion causes by trying to engage in compulsions to control what others think is something I would only expect to create more uncertainty and anxiety. Instead, you might find it more enjoyable to keep the focus on being yourself in the present. You can't change the past. But if you see this person again, you might find it enjoyable to be yourself, not trying to control your feelings or theirs.
Thank you ! :)
Now I find that the hours before exposure, all of my thoughts become aligned to talk me into procrastination. And yesterday it occured to me that all I could do then was to feel the excruciating pain in the body and not listen to the thoughts at all.
There would be nothing but pain and a little space .. no more, no values .. no positive thinking. Is this how you do it ?
I'm not sure what you mean by "hours before exposure". Mental health is 24/7. Our thoughts are always with us. Procrastination is a common compulsion. Ruminating on reasons not to do things is a common compulsion. So I didn't totally understand what you were describing.