Oh it’s totally vibes based. Also if I were writing it today I’d say I no longer experience social anxiety as a meaningful part of my social life (since at its core I’ve learned to simply associate the feeling of “anxiety” with the knowledge that I am now attempting the doomed mind control task, which has acceptable replacement behaviors that I can use instead.)
Perhaps more usefully, I think it’s reasonable to just track how often you feel the need to take micro-breaks in social interaction where the breaks involve going to places where other people aren’t, like the restroom or to your room. These are extremely clear tells because if you don’t feel like talking, you could just sit down in a common area seat, but socially anxious people frequently don’t do that because they’re afraid of being judged for not socializing.
Probably the most useful thing I track nowadays is how often I am successful in (1) detecting the presence of anxiety-as-mind-control and (2) redirecting the objective to either “say true thing” or “do the thing I would want to do if I could not be judged for it.”
I’m honestly curious how you measure that. I’ve been asking myself “am I progressing with respect to social anxiety” and I don’t have a good answer.
Oh it’s totally vibes based. Also if I were writing it today I’d say I no longer experience social anxiety as a meaningful part of my social life (since at its core I’ve learned to simply associate the feeling of “anxiety” with the knowledge that I am now attempting the doomed mind control task, which has acceptable replacement behaviors that I can use instead.)
Perhaps more usefully, I think it’s reasonable to just track how often you feel the need to take micro-breaks in social interaction where the breaks involve going to places where other people aren’t, like the restroom or to your room. These are extremely clear tells because if you don’t feel like talking, you could just sit down in a common area seat, but socially anxious people frequently don’t do that because they’re afraid of being judged for not socializing.
Probably the most useful thing I track nowadays is how often I am successful in (1) detecting the presence of anxiety-as-mind-control and (2) redirecting the objective to either “say true thing” or “do the thing I would want to do if I could not be judged for it.”