My story with anxiety, any advice?

[Dylweed]

A little backround about me: I'm 21 and I'm still a virgin. Throughout my life there have been plenty of girls who thought i was cute but i was always too scared to ever do anything with them. I feel like i am a pretty attractive guy (just a little slim but I'm hitting the weights now).

Anyways, almost exactly a year ago i got friend zoned by a girl who originally liked me because I was too nervous to make a move. Then after that happened i felt regret for messing up a good opportunity. I also had feelings like I would never succeed with women ever in my life.

Then a few weeks after that i had my first anxiety attack. And then I started having them all the time. It was extremely embarrassing for me because when my anxiety would kick in strong, it would cause my face to get red on my cheeks and nose, and sometimes even my neck if it was real horrible.

After this started happening i began researching anxiety to find a cure and i came across helpful exercises such as self awareness that slowly started my recovery. And then a few months later i found this website, which I think helped alot. It gave me confidence because while applying the info i've learned here, i started getting much different reactions from girls (I know results over reactions, but at least these new reactions made me feel much better about myself and it helped me realize all the possibilities).

My anxiety is much better now than it was last year, but i still sometimes have feelings of being anxious. It comes and goes and it usually seems worse in the night time.

Anyways, I feel like my anxiety started because i was unhappy with how my life was going, basically having zero success with girls when i felt like i should have had alot. I realize this isn't the best place to ask this, but anybody here know if this could be true, if feeling like this is what caused me to start having anxiety? And if so, will becoming successful with girls make it go away? Thanks

 

[Light]

I also had feelings like I would never succeed with women ever in my life.

This is the root of all your problems. Its all in your mind.
You just simply chose to believe this. You made up a story in your mind that you are this weak pathetic guy who can't get girls.

Anxiety is an emotion turned into habit created by your fear of losing / screwing up.

Take that fear away, and replace it with a belief of "I'm Awesome".. and you won't even get anxious anymore.

If you want to fix this problem of yours, you need to fix your habit.
Try this:
Wear a thick elastic band around your wrist, and each time you start getting anxious, pull the the band and snap your own wrist. Yes it will hurt.
Damn right it should. As human beings, we seek pleasure and avoid pain. You anxiety is the habit of avoiding potential pain. So you need to overide it with a real pain.

Snap yourself out with the band, and make yourself take certain actions, such as saying "hello" to that person.
That is all. Practice doing that until you are comfortable, and then improve on it.
Sooner or later you will be fearing the pain on your wrist more than the fear of approaching, and your anxiety will naturally go away.

To Summarise:
1) Introduce a new real pain
2) Set an action to be taken relating to that pain to help remove anxiety.

 

[Dylweed]

I also had feelings like I would never succeed with women ever in my life.

This is the root of all your problems. Its all in your mind.
You just simply chose to believe this. You made up a story in your mind that you are this weak pathetic guy who can't get girls.

Anxiety is an emotion turned into habit created by your fear of losing / screwing up.

Take that fear away, and replace it with a belief of "I'm Awesome".. and you won't even get anxious anymore.

If you want to fix this problem of yours, you need to fix your habit.
Try this:
Wear a thick elastic band around your wrist, and each time you start getting anxious, pull the the band and snap your own wrist. Yes it will hurt.
Damn right it should. As human beings, we seek pleasure and avoid pain. You anxiety is the habit of avoiding potential pain. So you need to overide it with a real pain.

Snap yourself out with the band, and make yourself take certain actions, such as saying "hello" to that person.
That is all. Practice doing that until you are comfortable, and then improve on it.
Sooner or later you will be fearing the pain on your wrist more than the fear of approaching, and your anxiety will naturally go away.

To Summarise:
1) Introduce a new real pain
2) Set an action to be taken relating to that pain to help remove anxiety.

Thank you for the advice. The thing is though, wouldn't that only help with approach anxiety? I've pretty much had that all my life. But thats never affected me in situations that don't involve approaching a girl, or making a move, etc. Sometimes now though ill be all alone and the anxiety just creeps up out of no where for no reason at all.

Maybe youre saying though that if i attack my approach anxiety, then this other anxiety will go away, is that what youre saying?

 

[Light]

Hi Dylweed,

What I'm saying is that the reason you're getting any sort of anxiety at all even for no reason, is because you have allowed it to become a part of your habit in your daily life. It is no longer something you can freely control. It is drilled into your subconscious mind, and it will trigger at times for whatever the reason.

So what you need to do is basically change your habit. Anxiety is just an emotion that is connected to your physiology. It could be the way you sit, the way you breath. Change all of that and you will be able to fix it.

Example:
Think of how someone is sitting down or lying down, being bored. What would they look like?
Then think of that person hearing a good news that really excites him! He can't wait... What would he look like?
He would be jumping up and down screaming and going "Yes Yes!".. right?
What just happend there? - He snapped out of a boring habit.

That is all there is to it. You need to create a pattern that allows you to snap out of your anxiety mode and into a more pleasurable mode. If that makes sense. You do that by either introducing a new pain, or a new pleasure. But pain is more effective, hence I've suggested snapping yourself with an elastic band.