Shyness and Social Anxiety--Diane Rehm Show

[Dr. Richard Grossman]

Hi everybody,

Here's a Diane Rehm Show (NPR) on shyness and social anxiety:

http://thedianerehmshow.org/shows/2011-08-09/shyness-and-social-anxiety

Also, Susan Cain, one of the participants, wrote a New York Times Op-Ed (6/25/2011) entitled "Is Shyness an Evolutionary Tactic?":

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/06/26/opinion/sunday/26shyness.html?_r=4&emc=eta1

Most interesting to me are the "upside" correlates of the "shy brain", e.g. sensitivity and empathy to/with others...

Comments?  (Don't be shy...)

Richard

[Hopalong]

Hi Richard,

I'm not shy, socially, quite the opposite...but I am a caretaker so I didn't want to leave your thread unresponded to. 

I do have a lot of empathy, used to be nearly a crippling amount.

So being an extrovert, and gregarious, doesn't necessarily mean less empathetic, imo.

I was thinking about how my heart always instantly melted when I met a man who was wounded. I have been involved with alcoholics, married someone partly paralysed with a broken back, a cancer survivor...

What is odd that all but one were also Ns. So I think the combo of N-plus-tragedy is the bouquet of red flags I know now I must refuse. (Not that I won't keep caring about people's suffering, but that I believe I must no longer sign up to dedicate my life to holding someone else up. I want reciprocal support, reciprocal caring, and reciprocal responsibility...)

Which all means I've sort of diverted your thread to a discussion about codependency, probably. Sorry. I'll yak about that elsewhere.

Shyness. Other words...intraversion? I guess shyness is intraversion + pain? Because just being a quiet type or mellow or contemplative sort doesn't have to make one uncomfortable or unhappy.

So I guess shyness might be intraversion plus fear? If the fear can be dealt with, a quiet person can be quite happy?

Hops

[Meh]

Eleanor Roosevelt, King George, Emily Dickinson....we always have to point out our high status symbol exceptions


So if someone does experience social rejections that is not a trait that is the human animal experience.

Watched a grouping of about 7 teenage girls eatting breakfast on some school outing type event. One girl with a handicapped leg sat by herself at one table while the rest of the other teenage girls crowed around another little table away from her. One of them seemed to suggest that they should invite the handicapped girl to their table but they all just looked over in a wary sort of way and never did.

That sort of thing is not really a trait it's a social event that repeats itself daily. Unless her parents goad her into some special Olympics type environment which is an artificial social event.

It's easy to see what her problem is but other people with emotional issues are harder to spot and then maybe they get called shy as well even though maybe they shouldn't be lumped into the shy category the emotional issue person and the crippled person are not exhibiting traits they are responding to a social interaction. ?
 

[Hopalong]

Hear, hear.

Sitting stunned by human cruelty isn't ... shy.

It's alive.

Thanks, Guest.

[Meh]

I found myself being contrary in general to the dialogue because it's become a bad habit of mine I guess because of being on the receiving end of contrariness and also just being angry and pissed off in general so my first reaction to the discussion was

"that wasn't helpful"

But then today as I was walking down the street thinking about a frustrating conversation topic I have had going on made me realize that just because some conversations between two people seem to repeat and repeat...well not all conversations have to be that way. The type of dialogue that happens when people are exploring a topic like shyness even though some of it is predictable it is an exploration conversation style...where other conversation styles get rutted.

So it wasn't so much the subject matter that was helpful to me, rather it was the way people were verbally bouncing around in an exploratory type of way that felt like an opening rather then the closing-in I experience in coversations that go back and forth the same way every time. "Do this"...." No I don't want to do that there must be another option....
"Do this"....no I don't want to do that

[Guest]

Ditto what Teartracks said. Except in the past I have been very rarely labelled as shy, usually by manipulative people who put it to me as a part-accusation, part-pitying tactic. I assumed that this was because they wanted to discover my potential threat level to them. Stupid people are like that; they give themselves away, all you have to do is listen.

[sKePTiKal]

Well, perhaps....

for some of us, we carry around this unconscious toxic shame about who we are or what happened to us and what is perceived by others as social anxiety, or shyness, or even aloofness... is simply the way we attempt to protect others from being "contaminated" by our shameful selves - and thereby - protect ourselves from rejection.

I know that's been the case with me, quite a lot. Stepping out of that; doing something different than the old strategy - is frightfully difficult and the intensity of actually doing it rates right up there with stepping out in front of a large crowd, with cameras, stark naked with no ability to hold any secrets of mind or emotion, either. So there's huge adrenalin pushes of anxiety and fear and the whole fight/flight brain reaction to deal with... push through... and the times I've been able to do juggle all this at this at once and just close my eyes and jump...

nothing bad happened; I proved to myself that "the worst" I could imagine and fear didn't happen "this time"... giving me confidence to try it one more time... finding those kinds of boundaries and practicing... practicing... practicing. Which means I deliberately engage in social situations nowadays... as a form of exercise and reminder that I can do this... and the rejection doesn't happen nor am I totally exposed for the fraud or pathetic creature that part of me, still thinks I am. I do make mistakes; I've embarrassed myself; taken risks that didn't turn out as I anticipated... and life goes on. I haven't been surrounded and pointed at, by laughing or mean people, you know?

Like tt mentioned, social fatigue sets in quicker for me too. It's exhausting to try to cope with intense emotions like that while intentionally taking risks. I end up feeling totally emotionally drained and needing to be "taken care of", which for me consists of withdrawing from everyone for awhile. (Such is my "attachment style" - sigh - this just isn't understood well, by a lot of people though).

[Guest]

PR
I too make mistakes, embarrass myself, take risks that don't turn out as I anticipated (even today)... and yes indeed life goes on!

But the idea of being surrounded and pointed at, by laughing or mean people - well no, I don't know. That sounds an awful idea to have. To me protection is more straightforward, since there have been quite a number of sick people in my life, and continue to be. If anything I have to protect them from my sanity! Who knows what would happen in their heads if they could have some of my sanity? Seriously.