Finding Your Voice: Conquering Social Anxiety in the Workplace

Finding your voice: conquering social anxiety in the workplace. “Social anxiety is ruining my life.” I sometimes think that when my anxiety is really high. Towards the end of when I was working, I suffered from excruciating social anxiety.

At my last job, I lasted one week. The anxiety was so apparant, it felt like eveyone was staring at me bumbling over procedures.

I couldn’t make complete sentences and I was shaking badly. Because of the social anxiety, I couldn’t keep up, so I quit.

I don’t work now not because of the anxiety (although it would have been a good excuse), but because I have the beginning stages of Parkinson’s Disease.

Shyness social anxiety can effect your roll in the workforce. Therefore, you might be hanging back not really participating in learning the job. I did that at a couple of jobs before the last one.

At this point, I was afraid to try a new job, plus the movements were becoming more apparant. So, now I’m at a point where I hardly have any social anxiety, only a few panic attacks a month and my self confidence is overflowing. I’ll tell you how I did it in this post.

Social Anxiety in Large Groups

If you work for a big company, of course there are going to be a lot of people working with you. By acquainting with one person, possibily the person training me, thats how I mastered large groups

I would get to know them, but I wouldn’t go sit with them and their group at breaks. I would go out to my car.

Once I felt more comfortable around my trainer, I would sit with the small group at breaks. At first I wouldn’t say much. But eventually I got to know that small group and became friends.

What I did is called Exposure Therapy. You gradually work from one person to a small group getting to know everyone.

The more you engage, the more your self confidence comes out and you’re not so anxious or having panic attacks.

Fear of Being Judged by Others

Finding your voice: conquering social anxiety in the workplace. Fear of being judged was a big downer for my self confidence. Even more, I always felt like I did everything wrong. I was worried they thought that I couldn’t do the job.

How did I overcome that? I accepted me for all my abilities including defeats. Instead, I realized that I was trying to be perfect and there is no such thing.

Furthermore, I accepted my mistakes as a learning curve. I might have repeated it a couple of times, but I learned eventually. All in the process of learning.

Basically, I gained so much self confidence that I became very good at whatever job I was doing and I actually enjoyed it. Being that, I was part of a group of people that had accepted me and that was very humbling.

Fear of Meeting New People

Because of my shyness, I don’t like meeting new people. That goes back to the judging thing. What if they don’t like me? So what! Nonetheless, you can’t get under everyone’s good graces, so don’t even try.

I’m more outgoing now because of the increase in self confidence. In any event, it starts by meeting just one person and getting to know them, then it grows into “hey, I can do this!”

Sometimes I would have a panic attack when meeting someone new. In brief, I think I just got fed up with the loop I was in. I wanted out bad enough that I changed my mindset.

If I started to feel panicky, I would say “no” and think of a good time in my life. In essence, that way the panic attack had nowhere to go but to get out.

Social Anxiety Disorder and Depression

Finding your voice: conquering social anxiety in the workplace. Social anxiety led to depression…I’ve delt with that enough so far in my lifetime. In reality, I still do every once in a while to this day. Heck, everyone does. It just depends on how you react to it.

If you succomb to it, your life isn’t worth living. That’s what I used to think. I lost count of suicide attempts. However, It was more for a cry for help then trying to end my life.

I’m very persistent. So to make it through the depression I would do things that I actually enjoyed like listening to music.

24/7, I’m listening. I listen to hard rock because it expresses parts of me that I can’t. Some might say that that would put you in a depressive state because of what they write about.

Consequently, the ideas in hard rock gave me back my ability to express myself. Also, I can relate to it. If there is too much screaming , I go to the next song.

Social Interaction Anxiety

Social interaction anxiety is the bases for social anxiety. Hence, you just don’t like interacting with ANYONE!

Meanwhile, my decisions were based on how I was going to react WITH THE ANXIETY! That’s not living, that’s hiding from yourself. In effect, you start to isolate like you’re the only person on the planet.

True, I don’t have a job now, but when I did a few years back, something just clicked inside of me. I was no longer going to put up with the anxiety because it had taken over my life.

Not saying that I’m free of all anxiety, but I am in control of my life and I want that for you too.

I still say exposure therapy is the best way to quiet down social anxiety. There is still some there, but it’s much more quiet.

Managing Social Anxiety

Finding your voice: conquering social anxiety in the workplace. Once you get the freedom from most social anxiety, managing it is easy. When a panic attack arises, I just focus on my breathing or distract myself.

That usually stops it dead in it’s tracks. Hence, an excellent distraction is paying close attention to your 5 senses; taste, sight, hearing, smell, and touch. Notice those and your panic attack goes away within minutes or sooner.

Thus, the true testament is not to panick when anxiety pops up, that only makes it worse. You could think of a “happy place” where everything is so beautiful and tranquil. This is called guided imagery.

In like fashion, I used to have a bunch of guided imagery CD’s and would listen to them when I went to bed. They helped put me to sleep. I’ve moved many times and lost track of them.

Lithium social anxiety

Lithium improves the body’s ability to synthesize serotonin. In short, this simply means that the body’s levels of serotonin increase in response to lithium. This has the effect of improving mood and reducing feelings of anxiousness.

I know, I was on Lithium for bipolar, but I didn’t know it could be used for social anxiety. Although, you have to be careful when you’re taking lithium. You have to have your blood checked for lithium toxicity.

In sum, symptoms of lithium toxicity can include diarrhea, vomiting, drowsiness, muscle weakness, tremors, and in severe cases, it can lead to seizures or coma.

Typically, when starting lithium treatment, blood levels are monitored more frequently, often weekly or biweekly, until the desired therapeutic level is achieved. Once the stable therapeutic level is reached, monitoring may be done every 3 to 6 months.

Social anxiety self help

Finding your voice: conquering social anxiety in the workplace. So, what can you do to help yourself with social anxiety? It start with you and your mindset. I have to admit that I have a helper with me to help with the anxiety.

Klonopin. Although, you have to watch that you don’t become addicted to it. When I first started taking it years ago, I did get addicted and then was taken off of it.

Years later the same thing happened. Subsequently, I was off of it for a year and asked to be put back on it because the Hydroxyzine wasn’t helping. What’s so different now from back then? My mindset.

All in all, I made a choice to take one a day and not try to get that “high” from it. I no longer crave it. Basically I made my peace with it, so it works like it is supposed to.

To Sum it Up

Don’t get me wrong, I still have social anxiety and panic attacks, but I made the conscientious decision to take my life back. I was tired of the anxiety and depression.

You just have to stop fighting the anxiety a nd co-exist with it. I’m afraid there is no magic cure. But, I tell you, I like looking through the glasses of self confidence then through the glasses of anxiety and depression.

Your environment becomes bright again and so does your life. I also started practicing meditation. It is so liberating. The calmness you feel doesn’t match anything else.

So remember, exposure therapy to help you get acquainted with coworkers. In time, change your mindset. Take back your life. And if you need it, medication. I was so far gone, I needed something strong.

Finding your voice: conquering social anxiety in the workplace. Think to yourself “social anxiety will NOT ruin my life” and you could live a promising life. It’s time to take back your life…one step at a time. Until next time…