Social anxiety?

[Doihavetogotoworkdotcom1]

I met just 2 friends after work in a cafe/ bar. After a while of us all talking I felt weird, maybe a bit like my brain was going to explode, it’s hard to explain. Or maybe a feeling of being lightheaded. What ever it was, occurred because of the social situation I was in. I don’t really understand what was going on. Even now, hours later my brain won’t relax. Can anyone identify with this?

Yep! I had a degree of social anxiety pre pandemic, but the lock downs have made it so much worse!!
I went to a wedding a couple of weeks ago with people I'd known for over 20 years...felt uncomfortable all night.

It’s exhausting isn’t it?

Following ! Any tips on how to manage this?

Were you in your head a lot while the conversation was going on? What was running through your head?

My social anxiety is though the roof. I used to be very confident until early 40s, could be peri and hormones or just a general feeling of social powerlessness.

What I would like to know is, can it get better and ifs, how?

DD is having treatment for social anxiety. Think she possibly always had it but Covid made it 100 times worse.
The best treatment is apparently Cognitive therapy which is different to CBT which is also supposed to be effective. I don’t know a lot about medication for it as she’s too young but the online program she’s doing is working. Went into the city with a friend yesterday 😁
I have seen free online seminars (had found one on eventbrite but her treatment started so we didn’t do it) and there is this organisation I found whilst looking for info for her. Youngminds has great info too but aimed at young people
www.social-anxiety.org.uk

Doihaveto my DD explains her head/brain exactly like this. She says she zones out after a while, can’t relax for ages after and is then exhausted and can’t remember things that happened. Her therapist is giving her strategies to cope and teaching her “how to get out of her head”

@ouch44 can you please give me the link for the online course?

I do struggle with social discomfort, but it took me a while to realise that the caffeine hit of coke/strong coffee + chocolate cake, late in the evening was making everything a thousand times worse!

My anxiety is totally manageable now that I've cut out caffeine almost entirely.

er, I don't think that's true.

Some people love social situations, most people are ok with social situations but some people find social situations anything from extremely difficult to almost life threatening.

cookiemonstermummy sorry I didn’t explain very well had just woken up.
What DD is doing is a course she was referred to by school.
This was what I’d found online. Although I don’t know how good it is as didn’t end up doing it
anxietycurse.com/social-anxiety-bootcamp/?mc_cid=f883fc432d&mc_eid=74c70297c7