How I overcame social anxiety without a therapist
“If you think self-help won't help you overcome social anxiety, think again.”
Roxana Alexandru, known online as HonestRox, discusses her experience of social anxiety, and how she overcame it.
Photo: Roxana Alexandru.
A little more than a decade ago, I entered the workforce in, well, full force. I had just graduated with a bachelor's degree in Business Management and was offered an entry-level Financial Analyst position at a Fortune 500 company.
Honestly, I have no clue how I landed that role, being that I hated numbers and had zero experience with anything finance related. I accepted it for two reasons: one, it had a high starting salary, and two, it would look good on my resume.
At that time, each decision I made was from the lens of: how does this make me look? I never questioned whether it was something I was interested in or had any talent for.
That paved the way for many of the challenges I faced at the beginning of my career.
It wasn't long before I questioned every word that came out of my mouth or every e-mail I sent to my manager and director. Being in the finance department gave me visibility I wasn't accustomed to or even sought. I was in multiple weekly meetings with higher-ups, discussing topics out of my breadth and comfort zone.
I soon began to not only see myself as a total imposter for my lack of knowledge, but I'd develop anxiety over every interaction I had (even with people I didn't feel like I needed to prove myself to).
I couldn't quite name what this anxiety was. Still, I had it throughout my years at college when I was unable to ask a question in class for fear of sounding stupid or when I felt the need to decline hanging out with people because I constantly worried that they'd find me too boring.
After all, I wasn't much of a drinker, had an accent, and came to college after being homeschooled. A lot about me screamed, "does not fit in!"
Yet somehow, I thought that getting out of that university environment would magically fix me. I'd be among professionals, and there'd be no reason to experience that anxiety anymore.
Unfortunately, as I came to see, it only intensified. My inability to ask questions in school transformed into my reluctance to do so in important meetings, where I needed answers to complete my reports.
I didn't dare speak up for fear they'd find me incompetent. I often had trouble introducing myself properly and even forgot my title, which didn't give the right impression. Everywhere I turned, I ran into this debilitating anxiety. I was floored when my director pulled me into his office to tell me that I'll only be promoted if I learned how to speak up in meetings.
I realized I was facing something serious— my social anxiety was holding me back in my career.
This term was unknown to me. Social anxiety? I thought to myself: "No, no, I'm just an introvert – I just have a hard time talking to people." Of course, now I know it's a widespread misconception to associate the introverted personality type with social anxiety. Both might appear the same from the outside but couldn't be further from each other from the inner perspective.
I realize now that I used to stay home out of FEAR because I had social anxiety and was scared to run into people. In comparison, introverts stay home because they WANT to stay home, not out of fear of socializing. A vital distinction I didn't have visibility to at the time.
So, I toiled away and ground my teeth day in and day out. I prayed I wouldn't have to make any presentations, get negative feedback on my yearly performance, and fly under the radar for the next 20 years like everyone else around me.
Except there was one tiny problem getting in the way…my ambition.
Having played professional tennis in my previous life, I couldn't bear to sit in the corner, take notes and let everyone else around me advance in their careers. I wanted more for myself.
I decided, one day, to take control of my social anxiety. Not that I knew what that would entail.
I had no examples around me of people experiencing social anxiety. Everyone else seemed to have figured out how to be a functioning human being for all I knew (while I had to rehearse every conversation I would have beforehand). I was tired of playing small, feeling boring, and questioning everything I said and did.
I felt awkward, embarrassed, and downright incompetent every time I stepped foot in the office, and I had had enough of it.
Without any experience with therapy (or the ability to afford it), I unintentionally devised an action plan based on Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) which helps you understand your thought patterns, behavior, and triggers. Looking at the action plan template I laid out, several key components made the biggest difference in helping me overcome social anxiety.
One of them was understanding my thoughts and how they played a big role in my social anxiety. I wrote down my thoughts, the “why” behind them, and how to reframe them. The second component was exposure therapy, which I incorporated into my daily routine. I didn’t know this then, but exposure therapy is a big part of CBT.
I had to figure out a way to change my core beliefs and reframe how I saw myself in social situations, no matter their outcome. My action plan centered around the social anxiety I felt asking a question out loud in a meeting room full of people.
I wasn't sure how I'd get over feeling judged negatively, but I knew I had to try to overcome that.
See, the thing with asking a question, and why it's such a prevalent anxiety, is that all eyes are on you instantly. When you decide to speak up and look around the room, you feel the burning stares, and your social anxiety kicks in.
My social anxiety showed up in the form of me either stumbling on my words or dismissing that I had a question (also known as avoiding putting myself on the spot). For others, it might show as blushing, sweating, or shaking.
Either way, it's a very uncomfortable feeling that most of us tend to want to avoid.
I was tired of falling back upon my safety behaviors of either not asking a question and flying off the seat of my pants or risking being reprimanded for not doing something I should have known how to do.
I devised several ways to reframe my mindset and self-help myself to take control of the situation.
For this article, I use the term self-help in its proper and formal definition of “using one’s own efforts and resources.” I wasn’t aware of anyone else with this issue and didn’t think of seeking outside help. Again, my stubbornness and ambitious nature dictated that I could figure things out independently.
All I knew was that I had to rewire my thoughts, or else they'd take complete control of me, and I'll forever be that girl sitting in the corner taking notes instead of leading meetings as I genuinely believed the best version of me could.
With Cognitive Behavioral Therapy, and as you'll experience it with the Alena app, it's crucial first to understand the belief behind your social anxiety so that you're aware of where your attention goes.
Once you know where your attention goes, you can consciously reduce the time you spend thinking about it and lessen its impact on your life.
My core belief at the time was that I'd ask a "stupid" question, which (to me) meant that:
I wasn't paying attention
I had no idea about basic concepts everyone else knew about
They'd find me incompetent and fire me
I did everything to avoid feeling stupid or that I didn't belong there.
To counteract these beliefs, I devised several reminders to tap into each time a negative thought would pop up. I trained myself like Pavlov's dog. I became the dog. This is how I helped myself overcome social anxiety in this context.
The moment I felt the fear of asking a question, I automatically repeated one of the following four things to myself (to build up the courage):
If I have this question, chances are someone else has it also; hence it's NOT a stupid question
Even if I stumble on it, no one will remember what I said the next day
The worst that can happen is that I get an answer and can do my job properly
My biggest strength is that I know I don't know everything (which, by default, means I'm not stupid)
It took some time to work through these and to create space for self-compassion.
Ultimately, I understood the negative consequences of not asking a question, namely being left out in the dark. It was more excruciating for an ambitious introvert like me not to get ahead than to face my social anxiety.
I couldn't bear missing out on knowledge, information, and connections simply because I was too worried about what others thought of me.
Once I overcame my fear of asking questions, I applied the same framework to other areas where social anxiety was present. I realized that I couldn't tackle all my issues at once. I had to break each down into multiple pieces not to overwhelm my system. In this manner, I figured out how to enjoy public speaking, asking strangers for help, and showing up online authentically.
At the time, tools such as Alena were unavailable to help me overcome social anxiety, and I don't even know how I would have known about the power of CBT.
Since then, I've read countless articles and books on the subject. I now see that I could have streamlined my action plan without wasting precious time figuring it out alone. Alena has structured the process so intuitively that it's never been more accessible to self-help yourself and overcome social anxiety!
What I ended up devising for myself is not something you should have to do to overcome social anxiety. If you're ready to self-help yourself, I recommend you give Alena a try and see how with just 15 minutes a day, you can see improvements in a month.