I have noticed one of my problems that I have been having is that I ,unless I am close to people, am afraid to talk to them. I am always paranoid that I will say the wrong things and make them mad or have them look at me like I am nuts.

In general conversation, sometimes it is not so bad, but when I have to ask for help, I am afraid any question I ask will be silly or naive or something I should know already. Then self esteem is dropped a little lower when they give me the "Is this dummy for real?" look. The same way when I am asked for an opinion, what ever I say is going to come out, DOY!!!!!:nono:

Still that is nothing compared to when I have to request for something that I need or would like...Now I they may feel I am asking too much and I making them mad and I'm afraid they are going to yell at me and make me feel worse. There is nothing I hate more in the world than making someone mad ..unless deserved of course.

The only time I have no problem to speak up is when I am emotional and angry about someone, but rarely to the person I am angry at, just to avoid confrontation, only when I am mad enough to tell someone off and there is no limit to what comes flying out of my mouth!

I don't like to be this way...I want to be able to speak up and not be so shy. I feel like a wimp :sad:

Why should it take an outburst of emotion for me to finally open my mouth to strangers or people that I may even work for? What in the H*** happened to me years ago to make me feel this way today? Is this social Anxiety? ARGH What is Wrong with ME!!

I feel the same way... improv training helped me conquer it.

Dunno why it happens.

What is improve training? Mesa never heard of that.

I have noticed that it is not just face to face interaction, but also sometimes online too.

Theatre classes... improvisation. Beware, all ye shy ones who enter here. :D

Ohhhhhhh Ok...beware eh? Do ya think it is shyness or I am just mental

i can relate mel.... i'm the same way. i think it must have to do with self confidence and/or self esteem

Or the Social skills of a caged animal.

I can be the same way in some situations. But I find I do so much better if I know that I am in control of the conversation. If I loose control of the conversation, everything that comes out of my mouth is so wrong

I am going to have to take a public speaking class in college, and I dread it so much.

One reason is that when I was little I lost my adnoids (sp?) and tonsils at the age of 3. We believe that because I was not able to properly direct my airflow after the surgery, I talked through my nose. It has made a very big impact on me because I was always picked on about it. I am now told that I don't talk through my nose, but what happened as a child is still in my head and sometimes I feel like I am still doing it.

And the public speaking class will be hard for me because I am being forced to speak in public and not by choice, where as choice puts me in control. It gets so embarassing when I know what I want to say, and then I am talking and all of a sudden I got completely blank and I am sitting there with this blank look on my face and ticking and saying ummmmmmmmm ummmmmmmmmm ummmmmmmmmmm ummmmmmmmm

I wish I had answers for you Mel, because I am wanting to overcome the same problem within myself.

That's ok Bunny, this is a tough one and OMG do I ever hate blanking at the start then I look like a deer caught in headlights! Every other word out of my mouth is uh uh uh...I feel so mortified.

At least we can relate though.

Melly... I believe in you hon... you're doing great, especially here!

I Try, Mary, but then again I am typing and not speaking...but I am working on getting enough nerve to speak my mind here. Thanks for believing in me, Mommy. Love ya!

You're welcome hon! Love you too!

I dunno what I would do w/o you guys.

Melly...I can relate to this and the other post you posted few days ago that spoke about the anxieties related with the outside world. I dont know what is it to be done to get out of this shyness, fear of being called stupid.

You know all this while, these many years I felt it was only with me that such things, tentions happened so its a very relieving thing that someone like you are also facing some of the issues that are bothering to me.

I wanted to ask you a Q. Melly. I assume you have had treatment for ADD, anxities with meds and such stuff...while I havent even been diagonsed properly now my only glimmer of hope is on the remote chance where everything will fall in its proper place for me to have a good and affordable doc/treatment plan and the plan actually working in my life...and on the other hand I have this ball of anxiety curling up in my stomoch that perhaps it will all faill..that somehow I either I will return to my old ways of giving up or something other negetive will happen. I wont be able stand one more such failure for I am as it it I have sunk upto the neck.

sorry it has to be this long & i asked this in your thread..but I wanted to ask it to before I visit the doc tomorrow.

Hope You'll understand.

Wishing You & Everyone a Wonderful Day Ahead,

With Love,

Nachi

Yeppers Nachi Sweetie, I have been diagnosed with ADHD and other fun fun fun disablities...and going to ask if there is possibly something else wrong with me when I go to doctor the next time.

Good luck to you tommorrow..what ever is the problem...either way it should be a relief to know what is causing all the things you are going through...and never give up babay...wesa no let yousa give up...hugs hun and keep da faith.

I know exactly where you are coming from. I have been struggling with the same problem for years and it's one of the main reasons I had trouble functioning well in many of my jobs. SInce most of my jobs were in call centers, it would be really bad when I would have to deal with an irate custmer. I would tense up and sometimes even start stuttering. Obviously, this would encourage the customer to dominate the situation and walk all over me till he/she got what they wanted from me, which I would usually oblige in giving them just to get them off my phone. Unfortunately, this would get me in trouble whenever my actions violated company policy. And if I happened to be confronted by one of my supervisors over a mistake I had made , I would get tongue tied and I would automatically blurt out some kind of excuse for fear that coming clean would have devastating consequences. In a situation where I needed to ask for help or needed to ask my supervisor for help/suggestions with a recurrent job-related problem I was having, I would be too traumatized and would keep putting it off until the supervisor contacted ME first because things had gotten to the point where his attention was drawn to my poor performance. What was frustrating, was that every time I thought I had learned my lesson, I would always fall back into the same patterns of behavior. And it's the same in social situations: I seem to be dominated by this fear of saying the wrong thing, sounding stupid, not being able to properly defend or back up an argument and look stupid, etc. The weirdest thing is, the neuro-psycholgist who diagnosed me claims it isn't due to chronic anxiety but is basically a learned condition that has become ingrained through force of habit.

Yeppers that is exactly how I am...Maybe a nasty combo of anxiety and cause it's a repeated pattern.

I have noticed one of my problems that I have been having is that I ,unless I am close to people, am afraid to talk to them. I am always paranoid that I will say the wrong things and make them mad or have them look at me like I am nuts.

In general conversation, sometimes it is not so bad, but when I have to ask for help, I am afraid any question I ask will be silly or naive or something I should know already. Then self esteem is dropped a little lower when they give me the "Is this dummy for real?" look. The same way when I am asked for an opinion, what ever I say is going to come out, DOY!!!!!:nono:

Still that is nothing compared to when I have to request for something that I need or would like...Now I they may feel I am asking too much and I making them mad and I'm afraid they are going to yell at me and make me feel worse. There is nothing I hate more in the world than making someone mad ..unless deserved of course.

The only time I have no problem to speak up is when I am emotional and angry about someone, but rarely to the person I am angry at, just to avoid confrontation, only when I am mad enough to tell someone off and there is no limit to what comes flying out of my mouth!

I don't like to be this way...I want to be able to speak up and not be so shy. I feel like a wimp :sad:

Why should it take an outburst of emotion for me to finally open my mouth to strangers or people that I may even work for? What in the H*** happened to me years ago to make me feel this way today? Is this social Anxiety? ARGH What is Wrong with ME!!
I haven't read anything else on this thread...but I do the same things as this. I am shy...but I'm not...if it's all in a group...I'm good, but I don't like to be the centre of attention...so I rarely speak up except in instances where I feel 100% confident...one on one though...way shy, unless I know the person VERY well...and it takes me a loooooong time to get to know someone.

I also know how you feel in terms of the emotions and speaking up. I have no problem letting someone know when I am ****ed as hell...I can swear like a trucker...but why does it take such an extreme of emotion before I can speak....frustrating.

I dunno i think it's when our buttons are pushed hard enough we can't bite our tounges and we have to let our voices heard....other stuff we can easily blow off cause it is not that bigga deal, ya know?