I have very mixed feelings about 'shame attacking' techniques.

What most people are anxious about is not negative reactions per se; what they're anxious about is being judged negatively for who they are. If you go somewhere nobody knows you and pretend to be someone you're not, those people are judging a persona you've created, not who you really are deep down inside as a person.

I suspect a person can tolerate a good deal of negative judgment when they know that it's not really them who is being judged. You can see this sort of thing happening to some degree even when people aren't pretending to be someone else; many people feel less anxious around complete strangers they never expect to meet again than they do around people who know them. That's because they don't expect anything to come back to haunt them. Many people can do things on the job they can't do in their private lives because they're representing someone else, not themselves. I could make 50 phone calls a day at work without thinking too much about it, but I'd still have to spend hours psyching myself up if I had to call someone on my own phone representing no one but myself.

I think for a technique to be truly effective it has to expose the real you to the judgment of other people. But I've never looked into the research about this particular tactic.

 

What most people are anxious about is not negative reactions per se; what they're anxious about is being judged negatively for who they are. If you go somewhere nobody knows you and pretend to be someone you're not, those people are judging a persona you've created, not who you really are deep down inside as a person.

I kind of disagree. I think a big part of social anxiety for a lot of people is a faulty expectation of how your own identity is perceived by others. You have constructed an identity of self in your head, and when you fail to perform it, you get anxious. At least, that's how it works in my head.

 

I have to say, that is perhaps one of the more original takes I've seen as a therapeutic approach to combatting social anxiety. Because, dressing up as a bum, going to beg for money in another city - that is another ballpark I wouldn't have quickly come up with myself.

That said, if it's effective, who is judging? I think it'd be a little bit too much out of my comfort zone (fully realizing that that is the point of the exercise) to go through with it, but can also see it working. Just, y'know you have to be actually prepared to dress as a bum and beg for money, which seems like a whole life experience on its own.

 

I have to say, that is perhaps one of the more original takes I've seen as a therapeutic approach to combatting social anxiety. Because, dressing up as a bum, going to beg for money in another city - that is another ballpark I wouldn't have quickly come up with myself.

Yea it seems pretty original.

 

Anything will work if you actually do it

 

You could also get into bum fights and push off rival beggars off your turf. The ultimate exposure therapy.

 

I don't think this kind of thing works because you have to overcome every specific thing that creates anxiety and that seems like acting plus just asking them for money doesn't really open you up for conversation 9/10. Most people will just ignore you anyway or at best give you money and leave.

What I found in the past is if I became comfortable with someone I'd have to start from scratch with every new person and on top of that if I don't talk to/hang out with someone regularly I start from 0 again or at least have to get over the rustyness.

 

I'll tell you guys how it goes when I become homeless.

Actually, I probably won't, because I won't have access to a computer, but y'know.

What I found in the past is if I became comfortable with someone I'd have to start from scratch with every new person

This is how it is for me. Everyone is a murder ape until proven otherwise. Which can take time. And the more power someone has to hurt me, the more anxiety I feel.

How to calculate how anxious I feel:

number of murder apes X how dangerous* they seem / how well I know and trust them

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Maximum anxiety would be something like a Hell's Angels biker convention (well, being captured by cannibals, but that's less likely). But even something like retail is bad because you're constantly exposed to stranger danger. I'm most comfortable 1 on 1 with someone I know I can trust. But even then, if they have a lot of power to hurt me, I can feel very anxious around them. Probably one reason I still experience a lot of anxiety talking to my parents.

* Danger is hard to quantify. Mostly it refers to how close a person conforms to the stereotype of a person who'd beat me to death with a tire iron. (Quite a few of those.) But I'm also afraid of children. Not because they're dangerous, but because I'm afraid a dangerous murder ape (like their parent) will see me as a predator and beat me to death with a tire iron. Safer just to give them a wide berth. I can get similar anxiety around single women if they seem too skittish/likely to blow a rape whistle. I tend to cross the street to avoid people like that, because I don't want a white knight murder ape to beat me to death with a tire iron. It's sort of exhausting being a Hollywood villain everyone hates and fears. I see torches and pitchforks everywhere I go.

 

I think I've read something similar to this at one point in one of the SA books.

I'd never do anything like that. I did manage to push myself to do things completely outside my comfort zone, but it ended up backfiring, and I ended up worse than I started.

Also, there's the possibility of pushing yourself to the edge and then backing away (which I've done at some points). This is probably the worst thing ever and will reinforce your SA.

Exposure is a really risky exercise imo. I think it should only be done if you know beforehand there's 99% chance you'll be able to go through with it + deal with the aftermath emotionally.

 

Also, there's the possibility of pushing yourself to the edge and then backing away (which I've done at some points). This is probably the worst thing ever and will reinforce your SA.

Exposure is a really risky exercise imo. I think it should only be done if you know beforehand there's 99% chance you'll be able to go through with it + deal with the aftermath emotionally.

Yes

 

Might work for some people with more confidence but I don't think I could ever do that. I already have ZERO confidence and care way too much about what people think of me. I always shame myself retrospectively about every encounter I have with another person, replaying it in my mind over and over the things I've said, imagining all the negative things they might think about me. I don't want to begin imagining how that will be if I act like a homeless person.

 

Personally, I think a better exercise would involve something like partnering with a local (to you or not) cause and offering to canvas for them/pass out flyers. That sort of thing. There are, more or less, similar stakes... But with more potential for real conversations and less likelihood for potentially draining resources actual people in need could benefit from.

Shrug.

 

Personally, I think a better exercise would involve something like partnering with a local (to you or not) cause and offering to canvas for them/pass out flyers. That sort of thing. There are, more or less, similar stakes... But with more potential for real conversations and less likelihood for potentially draining resources actual people in need could benefit from.

Shrug.

I agree

 

That sounds horrifying. I could never do that and it sounds dangerous anyway.

Why would a therapist recommend that you humiliate yourself? If a therapist told me to do that then I would get up and walk right out. Rude.

Homeless are the easiest targets for another homeless to direct their spontaneous fits of rage at. Ever seen a hobo walking in the middle of the street screaming? Now imagine that they are screaming at you and are threatening you. That could realistically happen if you go through with this.

 

I got this idea from an old self-hypnosis recording I used to listen to where he told a story about a therapist telling a patient to go to a store and ask for something absurd. I don't really remember much else.


A few weeks later I went to a shoe store and asked the person who worked there for a large pepperoni pizza. I just remember her looking really confused.

I don't remember what I said after that but I left quickly after and when I got outside I couldn't stop laughing. It felt really good.

The fear leading up to it was intense...then moving through it and in the end coming out feeling an instant boost to my self-esteem because I realized it didn't matter what she thought about me. Or anyone else. But myself. In the sense that how others see me doesn't effect who I am. I do believe it's important to keep a sense of how others may perceive you but not to the point you let it become your fixation.

 

@truant

I guess I meant new situations more than new things I don't know.

Yeah I think I said the wrong thing a few times but most of my memories of that were at older ages pissing people off (like late childhood a few times,) when people talk about young kids not caring I doubt I was ever really like that because of my mental health issues.

Edit: also yeah until my brother was about 10 most strangers thought he was a girl because of his hair length. When we were very young people thought we were twin girls (he's actually a year and a half younger than me,) he should have been the trans one clearly (Maybe I'm too adjusted to twitter etc, but I should probably point out this is sarcasm in case someone freaks out that I'm transing my 28 year old child brother.) He also played/looked after a baby doll at one point in childhood (He's actually pretty masculine in that nerdy way though.)

I sort of think this is the other side of the coin, tbh. You have an image of yourself, and you don't like it when you are not able to live up to that image. You think of yourself as being a smart person, but then you do something stupid (a common occurrence for me). But I feel like, as far as SAD goes, that it's only really a problem if there are other people there to witness your failure (ie. when you embarrass yourself). Your awareness of their awareness of your failure is what makes you hate your own failure. Or am I misunderstanding you?

(this part of your post wasn't addressed to me, but I kind of related to what they were saying.) Actually things like you mentioned bother me when I'm alone, it's not just other people's judgement bothering me they both bother me or sometimes society doesn't judge me and it still bothers me (though society is usually judging obviously because that's what people usually do.) I guess it's not exactly anxiety though but I'm not sure it's ever anxiety, it's basically just self disgust/shame. The anxiety is really just secondary.

 

We all have a inner beauty. Sometimes it takes the love and understanding of others to really showcase it to us, but when we become aware of it, it gives us inner confidence and possibly the opportunity to really let it shine and make it work for us.

 

It's like taking a PTSD patient and telling them to go get re-traumatized the same way every day until they forget the original trauma. Purposely humiliating yourself and subjecting yourself to ridicule by doing inappropriate things is not a cure.

 

That was kind of my thoughts as well.

 

That's absurd.

That therapist is socially incompetent. I would of told the therapist to try dressing up like an intelligent moron, then come back to talk to me about the experience.

 

So I had a therapist years ago suggest this to help with my social anxiety.

He told me to got out and panhandle or beg for money like a homeless person. He said to dress up like a homeless person (old, dirty clothes) and ask strangers for money. And he told me to go to a different town then what I lived in where no one knows me and place where it is legal to panhandle.

So I think his theory was this would expose me to interacting with strangers and then desensitize me to being rejected by them or desensitize me to people being rude to me. Which would be highly likely since I think a lot of people are rude to people begging them for money. He said give it a try and you may even make some money out of the deal!

I never did go through with it but I can see the logic in it now, Perhaps it would have helped. Do you think this would have been a good idea or that it would help you?

In order for your therapist to suggest that, I assume the person knew you well enough .....I can't judge his decision because I don't know you or in what level your social anxiety is in...I think only you can truly answer if you feel comfortable doing that to overcome social anxiety. It is a step by step process, that's the way I see it...the more I push myself to talk to people and get myself out there the easier it becomes, but given the pandemic it's not as easy to practice right now. I just try to keep a weekly journal (even during the pandemic) and do certain things /exercises to keep myself going out there and not complete isolate like I did in the past..