New, any help greatly appreciated

[Joe Vinson]

My name is Joseph and I am a 23 year old guy from Picayune, Mississippi. I have been struggling with panic attacks for about 3 years off and on and recently social anxiety. When it comes to being around a new person I am ok. When it comes to being around multiple people I am to myself the first few times. When I don't feel I have a relationship with or I feel have ill feelings about me no matter how many times we meet I stay to myself unless talked to. I can make it seem like anyone has a problem with me, and don't speak my feelings unless to one person. I have been seeing a therapist for about a month and felt it helped until the first week I rescheduled.

What it feels like to me...
I can't speak and I can't look people in the eyes when I am talking
As I talk I think to myself or after what I am saying isn't interesting
If people do or say things I think for them and what I think impacts me
I feel bad about being like this and not being able to control it anymore
It feels like everyone conspires against me
I would rather talk a little than to not talk
I am really easy to read
I feel unmotivated
Sometimes really high or really low
I see it impact everyone else and it sucks
I care to much what other people think
I feel like people in California are different than back home, more understanding
I always have something goin on in my mind and I just want it to slow down or stop

[Xerosnake90]

Hello Joseph,

You know why you are the way you are. You just don't seem to understand. You focus on ideas of inversion. You have a thought process that pre determines outcome based on the ideas you've chosen. You choose to believe what people will think about you through the ideas that you have of yourself. It's tough to understand just how this impacts you, but hopefully this will help. When you interact with someone, after the conversation try to understand why they were acting the way they were. Not by blaming yourself but instead think of how YOU feel when you act the way they just did. Were they indifferent towards you? Why would you feel indifferent to someone, more than likely because they were acting a tad bit strange correct. Without blaming yourself you can see why people react to you the way they do. It's not that you do anything wrong, or that you're boring. It's because of how you carry yourself. If you just had a smile and talked about the things you liked people will interact with you.

I have a friend. He has had some tough moments in his life, his brother had turned to suicide. So this friend when I first met him was completely introverted. Would not speak his mind and often would just act strange because he avoided all situations. I recently saw this friend and I couldn't believe just how much he'd grown out of his shell. He was acting like he wanted, having conversations after avoiding them at all costs. We joked and laughed and I even told him "I can't believe how much you've grown, I'm proud of you". It truly was a joy and it proves to me that when you set your mind to it , you can turn things around and be happy.

Your mission is to be yourself , and begin by developing love for you. Each time you think in a negative sense you counter it with a positive idea. The ideas you want for yourself. "People will think I'm interesting because of my charisma". "My smile shows how confident I am". "People appreciate my care for their ideas". "I'm a great listener and offer heart felt advice." Learn to love yourself and stick with positive ideas, every negative idea needs a positive one until you find yourself believing in those positive ideas. Then you eliminate the negatives by doing all the things you believe about yourself. Do these things and I promise you'll feel great and learn to be free of your biggest vice.