(No useful information here. Just pissed off this morning lol)
I woke up in a bit of a bad mood this morning but it got better while I was travelling to work on the bus. There were some road works and it meant that it took the bus 40 minutes longer to reach the stop I was heading towards. It's quite a scenic route and I've been learning meditation techniques recently so I tried taking in the scenery and not worrying about being late etc.
It worked! It was as if all my anxiety disappeared and I was just enjoying the moment. This feeling stayed with me when I finally got to my stop and walked through the park towards the office I work at. For the first time ever, I was really looking forward to the rest of my day and planning how productive I was going to try to be.
Then, just as I'm approaching the office, I see a guy I know standing about 30 metres from me and looking in my direction. I don't now him extremely well (he's the nephew of the barber next door to my office) but I know him well enough and he seems nice enough. Really, I should've acknowledged him but I ended up doing my usual thing when I feel anxious around someone which involves badly pretending as if I've not noticed the person (knowing full well they probably won't buy it) and just continuing to walk on by.
It's these moments that really make me feel bad about myself and bring my mood right back down to earth with an almighty crash. I don't like ignoring people and I feel awful afterwards but I just can't seem to stop myself reacting that way in social situations. I realise I must come across as very rude when I do it. In fact, I know I do as when I have spoken to former pupils in my year at school several have told me that they thought I was ignoring them because I didn't like them or that I even looked down at them.
These types of events also add to a general theme running throughout my life: I always manage to do something small but stupid which ruins the positive nature of the day (I consider turning something that would usually piss me off, like being late for work and sitting 40 minutes extra on a bus, into a positive experience as a real achievement for me personally).
Coward. That's all I am when I really think about it. I get a bit of anxiety and I allow it to rule over me. If I could just pluck up the courage to acknowledge someone I know in the street then it would stop this cascade effect which ends up destroying my mood and general self-esteem. It would also go a long way to improve other people's opinions of me rather than them thinking I'm just some arrogant *******.
Or maybe they would be right; if I act like a rude ******* then perhaps I am a rude *******. I'm sure everybody suffers with a certain level of anxiety yet I'm sure many people would still go out of their comfort zone in order to be polite with others they see.
The worst thing is I want to be polite but I feel that if I truly wanted to be polite then I wouldn't let anxiety get in the way of it. However, I do let it get in the way of it and then spend the rest of my day (maybe even a whole week) obsessing over, and feeling bad about, little events like this and end up crushing what little confidence I have.
It makes me wonder why I can't make this one simple step to deal with my SA. All I'd have to do is smile, nod my head, maybe even wave and then I'd not have to deal with this crap. Although to be honest if I did smile etc I'd probably end up obsessing over whether I looked stupid while doing it and if they thought I was a weirdo lol.
New brain please!
(and apologies for this essay with absolutely no positive input at all :( )
I woke up in a bit of a bad mood this morning but it got better while I was travelling to work on the bus. There were some road works and it meant that it took the bus 40 minutes longer to reach the stop I was heading towards. It's quite a scenic route and I've been learning meditation techniques recently so I tried taking in the scenery and not worrying about being late etc.
It worked! It was as if all my anxiety disappeared and I was just enjoying the moment. This feeling stayed with me when I finally got to my stop and walked through the park towards the office I work at. For the first time ever, I was really looking forward to the rest of my day and planning how productive I was going to try to be.
Then, just as I'm approaching the office, I see a guy I know standing about 30 metres from me and looking in my direction. I don't now him extremely well (he's the nephew of the barber next door to my office) but I know him well enough and he seems nice enough. Really, I should've acknowledged him but I ended up doing my usual thing when I feel anxious around someone which involves badly pretending as if I've not noticed the person (knowing full well they probably won't buy it) and just continuing to walk on by.
It's these moments that really make me feel bad about myself and bring my mood right back down to earth with an almighty crash. I don't like ignoring people and I feel awful afterwards but I just can't seem to stop myself reacting that way in social situations. I realise I must come across as very rude when I do it. In fact, I know I do as when I have spoken to former pupils in my year at school several have told me that they thought I was ignoring them because I didn't like them or that I even looked down at them.
These types of events also add to a general theme running throughout my life: I always manage to do something small but stupid which ruins the positive nature of the day (I consider turning something that would usually piss me off, like being late for work and sitting 40 minutes extra on a bus, into a positive experience as a real achievement for me personally).
Coward. That's all I am when I really think about it. I get a bit of anxiety and I allow it to rule over me. If I could just pluck up the courage to acknowledge someone I know in the street then it would stop this cascade effect which ends up destroying my mood and general self-esteem. It would also go a long way to improve other people's opinions of me rather than them thinking I'm just some arrogant *******.
Or maybe they would be right; if I act like a rude ******* then perhaps I am a rude *******. I'm sure everybody suffers with a certain level of anxiety yet I'm sure many people would still go out of their comfort zone in order to be polite with others they see.
The worst thing is I want to be polite but I feel that if I truly wanted to be polite then I wouldn't let anxiety get in the way of it. However, I do let it get in the way of it and then spend the rest of my day (maybe even a whole week) obsessing over, and feeling bad about, little events like this and end up crushing what little confidence I have.
It makes me wonder why I can't make this one simple step to deal with my SA. All I'd have to do is smile, nod my head, maybe even wave and then I'd not have to deal with this crap. Although to be honest if I did smile etc I'd probably end up obsessing over whether I looked stupid while doing it and if they thought I was a weirdo lol.
New brain please!
(and apologies for this essay with absolutely no positive input at all :( )
via Social Anxiety Forum http://www.socialanxietysupport.com/forum/f35/small-dealings-with-sa-get-me-down-242658/
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