How I turned my SAD (Socially Anxious) life around in 12 weeks (+12 years)

I recall peeping through the curtains at my house. I wanted to ensure “the coast was clear” of neighbors, before darting into my car to go to the store.

My heart would beat faster as I approached the checkout counter. I feared the clerk would ask me “how’re you doing?”

How do you even respond to “How’re you doing”? Am I actually expected to describe my day?

Perplexed, I once asked an American friend who said — you say “Hi”, or you can say whatever you’re thinking. I understood this explanation about 5 years after my therapy for Social Anxiety. But I’m getting ahead of my story

One night, like many nights before, I lay in bed, wide awake. I was re-living mortifying moments from the past evening, over and over. I went downstairs and googled “embarrassment at dinner”.

A trail of links lead to the discovery that I had a “condition” called “Social Anxiety Disorder”: SAD. I had been shy all my life and never realized that it was a “disorder”.

I had assumed it was my personality & I was stuck with it. “Labels” can be helpful because they separate the condition from you.

In India, where I grew up, “shyness” is a desirable trait in a female. In my teen years, this provided a welcome approved label that I could hide under.

I had lived in the US for 20 years. I held a job, had friends, and few people thought I was shy. I pushed myself to interact with people & appeared normal on the surface. But every anticipated interaction with strangers, acquaintances or groups of people, was agonizing.

I was going to find the means to “cure” this disorder. Google surfaced a 12-week study on Cognitive Behavior Therapy for Social Anxiety. This was at Boston University’s CARD — Center for Anxiety & Related Disorders.

I sent an email right then and there, or I would not have done it.

I completed a stack of questionnaires and a phone interview. I scored 80 on the Liebowitz scale of social anxiety. This was somewhere between “marked” and “severe” social phobia. I could join the study.

I could hardly contain my excitement. I would be getting rid of this shackle that had only grown heavier over the four decades I’d worn it.

The First 5 Sessions

In the first 5 sessions, I learned I was overestimating negative reactions to me & underestimating positive ones.

Although I understood this & believed the therapist, I could not “feel” it. But it did set me up for the next stage of treatment.

The Exposure Sessions

These were the key to “feeling” the explanations from the first 5 sessions.

The therapist helped me set up “anxiety-provoking” tasks for myself. I would do the task (under distant supervision). Then I discussed the interaction with the therapist & try to understand what happened.

In the first session, I had to speak on a topic I knew nothing about. It was in front of strangers, with no preparation.

The most important part of the session was actually after I had run out of things to say. I had to keep standing in front of that audience. Every 3–4 minutes, the therapist would ask me to assess my anxiety on a scale of 1–10. 

I assessed my anxiety at 10 a couple of times, then at 8 and 7, and finally at 2. Because by then, I felt bored and tired. 

I was finally allowed to sit down. 

I learned that no matter how anxious I got, if I stood there, and did nothing, the anxiety would dissipate.

Other sessions I remember -

• Making a phone call to Iceland air & asking for the details of a flight my sister was on, from Dublin. The airline did not fly from Dublin. The therapist asked me to insist on speaking to the supervisor.
• Asking for directions to Kenmore Square, while standing in Kenmore Square.
• Stand in a coffee shop line with 5–6 people behind me. Take out a handful of change to pay and take my time counting each coin out.
• Ask a random couple at an outdoor restaurant, how their food is while wearing a tall Dr. Zeus hat. This did not go so well, because the couple concluded I was insane and they completely ignored me. The observing therapist had to adjust the task to repeat, this time minus the Dr. Zeus hat.
• Buy a book on “addiction to sex”. Exit the bookshop. Then go back in and return it.

These sessions were not easy, but I felt a thrill after completing each task. 

I was a bit better by the end of 12 weeks, but was nowhere near “cured”. It felt as if a deep wound inside of me had cleaned out. It still hurt, when touched, but now it stood a chance of getting better with time.

12+ Years

What I did not realize was “how much better” and “how much time”. The process that started after those 12 weeks, continued for the next 12 years.

Each year, I was able to push outward with a little more ease. I could feel the changes. The shy shackles were starting to lose their grip.

After about 7–8 years, I noticed I was already more outgoing & comfortable than most of the people I met.

 I still enjoyed deep conversations more than surface ones and preferred get-togethers with a few people rather than large gatherings. 

But the reasons now were different. It wasn’t fear anymore. I just preferred conversations that dug deeply into a topic.

Some other changes had taken place inside me. I believe these changes were core to my overcoming Social Anxiety. 

Deeper changes 

The experiences over the 13 years distill down into 6 changes below. 

#1 was the most important and the hardest.

Closing Off the Meta Chatter in my Head 

“Meta” thoughts are when I would spend considerable effort, thinking about what I was saying and how others were reacting to what I just said.

This occupied a very large portion of my brain. Shutting this down freed up energy and spontaneous responses I never realized I had inside me.

It took years of effort. It was a little similar to learning to meditate. I don’t think I could have advanced to #2, without mastering this.

Step Aboard a Strangers Train

When I had a conversation with anyone, I learned to “step aboard their train” & share their journey with them. 

What they were describing would turn into a movie where I was an observer. The visual in my head was “Harry Potter” inside the crystal bowl, silently observing happenings in the past. 

I would ask questions when I needed to fill in the blanks in the movie. This made people’s conversations much more enjoyable, for the person telling the story, as well as for me.

Express Unfiltered Thoughts

At points when the other person’s movie “pauses”, and a thought occurred in my head, whatever it was, I did my best to express the thought unfiltered. 

This was not easy. I would normally be very concerned about what the other person would think & feel. 

I had to work to get past this. As I practiced, I realized that being honest and transparent made for much more interesting conversations.

Comfort with Silence & Pauses

I grew comfortable with pauses and silences, where my thoughts (and my conversational partner’s thoughts) had both drifted off for a few moments. 

I had to get past the initial unease & realize that the silence meant I could be completely comfortable while another person was nearby.

Talking with Shy People

It’s hard to put other shy people at ease (yes, very ironic).

When I was shy, I sometimes talked a lot to avoid an awkward silence. But the silence was awkward because of all that meta chatter in my head. 

Once the meta chatter was gone, real thoughts came to my head. I had the option of sharing the thought if I wanted to. The awkwardness melted away because my mind was focused on my real thoughts.

With shy people, I would chatter for a few minutes, about whatever I happened to be thinking of, just to try and put them at ease.

The issue was that (like I used to when my head was full of meta chatter) they would be listening with half an ear.

What would usually work, was to get them to talk about something they cared about.

Other shy people are the reason I feel the need to describe my journey.

Custodian of my Body & Mind

This last one was rather important but is a little difficult to convey. It helped me to “become myself”, so I’ll give it a shot.

I started thinking of my inner core as a person separate from “me”. This person inside me was the true hero of the story & my job was to allow them to be true to themselves. I was simply the custodian of this person, as a caring parent.

I had to do whatever I could to allow them the utmost freedom. For instance, the only reason I needed to make money, was so this person inside me was not enslaved in service of the need to survive.

In Conclusion

Those 12 short weeks, with a 2-hour commitment to go in every week, were probably the best investment I’ve ever made in my life. 

If you decide to try it, your experience could be better or worse, or different. But I know that I’m very very glad I took that step, the results (after 12 years), far exceeded my expectations.