What I mean is(well atleast for me, just wondering if you have these type of rare days too) do you have days where all the stars align for you where you basicely feel good looking, confident witty and just more competent with everything than usual? It's like I'm a different person or atleast a better version of myself then.

I get it like once a month sometimes twice. It only lasts for about a day and then the adrenaline wears off and things unfortunately go back to normal. It also has a demotivating effect because it's kind of devastating getting a taste of a different life yet it's still so far out of reach because your mentality can't keep this up.

It's something random so unfortunately I can't pinpoint it, if there was a medication that could always make me feel this way I would hop on it for life.

The only time I feel this way is when I'm hanging with two of my oldest friends from school. I have known for a very long time, they know about my social anxiety. So I feel at ease. They honestly can't get me to stop talking.

I imagine if I got a partner I was close with, it would be the same way.

Sadly haven't seen them because of the pandemic, but we keep in touch on Facebook.

I never feel 'in the zone' with random people or distant family members. It is awkward.

I have my good days and my bad days but I don't think I'm ever like 'on fire' or in the zone socially. Mostly I just muddle through. I have pretty ****ty social skills, no confidence and I'm pretty avoidant so it's hard to be in the moment socially. I'm usually trying to get myself out of those moments.

Usually only when enough alcohol comes into play. When it does happen, it goes on for maybe a few hours at most and I crashed and I need to be a hermit for a day or two straight.

Never

I certainly vary in my social abilities. This depends a lot on my mood. I never feel as fluent as I should be, there are always "the brakes" on, i think. Something stopping me from feeling fluent.

But with the new job coming up, there will be a lot of social interaction, and I feel if I am able to get in there and do it (and overcome my other health issues, like inability to sleep) for long enough, I will actually get there. I have the ability to be somewhat charming, in a quiet way (I see it sometimes when I make videos), but its a real drag to get that to come out in social situations. It's there, buried deep, but I can get in the zone if I can create the right supportive environment and opportunities to expose.

The key for me, quite simply is exposure, frequent enough repeated enough. Last week I did two interviews, its the first time I have done two in a week. The first day my anxiety was down at a 7/10 (which in itself is insane, since I have been strongly phobic of them for many years and never thought i would even be able to do one), the next day, 4/10, which is basically a level I can operate at for a long time.

It's just extremely difficult to:

1. Get social situations that last long enough to cause extinction (interviews, interestingly are perfect, as they last 30 mins to an hour, which means anxiety can reduce significantly during) - but you need to build up to that with mock interviews, and other similar situations.
2. Be in a good enough mood to be able to handle the critical voice that comes before, and after exposures
3. Get social situations that occur often enough to cement the extinction
4. Do all of this when stuck inside your house (lol apocalypse).

So its really the mechanics, and controlling mood and critical self-talk, as well as making sure there is support and things are in place to promote the ability to expose etc.

"The zone" is there, underneath, just digging it out is taking insane amounts of work. Am pretty sure the people around me are (probably unconsciously) filling the hole back in behind my back (that's hard to explain).

I am rarely ever that delusional.

Like other people have said, I have good days and bad days, and days where I'm more motivated than others to socialize. But I wouldn't ever say I have times where I'm "in the zone" or anything. I do think I can get "on a roll", though, where I do one thing that I thought was going to be challenging but actually wasn't all that hard, and then I can use that momentum to do other potentially challenging things.

Very rarely now, I seem to have regressed as I got older, probably because I took my foot off the gas, hid away again, it takes so much energy for me to maintain it burns me out, people are energy vampires.

In my 20's I was in a job for a while where I needed to be sociable & I forced myself to do it & that was the best time for me in that regard, got into the zone regularly, even though I was also using/abusing alcohol where possible at the time aswell.

Yes. It depends on the situation, but the phases where things are better with anxiety it's I would say even quite common.

I've noticed it also depends heavily on who is around: in uni environments it has been easy to experience that with people who I'm only getting to know, due to being able to have interesting discussions.
Whereas with say, my current coworkers it has taken a lot of time where I needed to get to know them, to be comfortable around them.

What has helped me with the latter, is that I learned to accept that I probably won't be able to talk much to (most of) my coworkers (and that's completely fine!).

in the twilight zone, definitely

I would say that being trans (and in the closet) has made that effectively impossible. There is no way for me to "be in the zone" without being at the same time a good deal "abnormal" for a man. Everyone would wonder why I was acting so strangely. Being myself means being openly trans, and until recently there was no safe way to do that. And at this point, even being out of the closet, people are so used to me being the way I've always been that being myself just creeps them out. So I generally downplay it to a level I think they can tolerate. The only time I ever feel remotely "in the zone" is sometimes when I'm chatting to people online and they don't know what I look like. About the only time I can be myself.

I have never felt good-looking because I am not good-looking and I don't generally feel things that have no basis in reality.

Yup, i flip-flop all over the place. Usually I'm anxious and feel insecure and self-conscious and unwanted but every so often those insecurities dissipate and I feel like god's gift to man (not usually that extreme, but sometime it is). Really confusing but also kinda nice to sometimes feel good.

Not since I quit drinking.

Everything I do irl is a carefully constructed * lie, so no.

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* not really carefully constructed, lol that makes me sound smarter than I am. I think basically most people care too little to notice me or the gaping holes in the character I present to them. To keep the lie I have to be invisible though.

Yes, and thankfully I know how to manufacture it (for myself at least). I realized that when I'm in a position of power or separation from the crowd I feel loads better about being around people. For example, I joined a social group that hosted mixers every once in a while so that I could practice feeling better around people. I went as far as to volunteer to help host the mixers. Hosting the mixers made me able to interact with everyone but in a managerial capacity instead of feeling like I should be forced to make conversation. I had a mission, like a purpose, to welcome people to the mixer. So I was interacting without really mixing.

Although, I suppose you could say that was kind of against the whole point of going to a mixer, but I still felt happy during those times, and I felt like I was part of the crowd. I even managed to make friends that way, which is very rare for me.

Yes, it's usually when I happen to be talking to someone who shares a strong interest in a topic that I'm interested in so I feel very free with my words, body language, and personality. Then later that night while in bed my brain forces me to go over everything I said, everything that was possibly stupid or possibly misinterpreted by the person, etc. And for the next day or two I continue to constantly go over and exaggerate in my head the things I might have said or done that might have possibly portrayed me in an unflattering way. And more than likely the other person was just simply having a conversation about a topic they enjoyed and after that they probably forgot about it entirely.

For some reason it's not difficult for me to keep this up on my own. The issue comes up when I have to do that around other people lol. It makes me super nervous having people flock to the quiet person because they said or did something interesting and now you basically have to keep up "the act" for all of them. Guilt washes over me the next day or the next time they see me, because my social battery is drained for sure.


I feel that. Stopped for a few months last year and felt so out of place, way more than usual.

I do get this sometimes. It's like walking into unknown territory and I somehow make it out alive.

Of course, the worse part is when it all comes back down again and I wind up failing the new expectation that I am normal. It tanks my morale when people actively try to get along with me only for me to not be able to do what I did before, thus ruining the perception again.

I think my problem is that I get too caught up in the mood and I let it pressure me instead of just letting go. It also doesn't help that I'm just not familiar with these things and I'm usually not always sure how to interact with people. It's frustrating 'cause I'm having to figure it all out as I go but then I go and mess it up.

That's the whole point though, I suppose. I'm just a boring guy.

Yes, with the right people and activities. But I need a lot of positive feedback to get in the zone. More than most people I suppose. When I don't get that feedback, I suppress my sense of humor and only talk about certain things, so I come across as boring..