Help! I am nervous all my life in every part of my life!

[Funlife]

Hi all,

This is my first post. Recently found this site through a friend and loving it!

I will first give you some personal background:
Age: 25
Location: New to Bay Area, California (2.5 months ago from LA)
Background: Born and raised in Hong Kong for 18 years, then moved to the US for college (over 7 years in US)
Currently work as a Business Development Associate for a major video game publisher
Never have a girlfriend in my life

For over a year I have been working on meeting girls and finding a GF. However, both my friends and I realize that one big obstacle is I am always nervous! It has been a chronic issue. Not just girls...I am nervous pretty much about everything in my life. Work (I nearly went into a depression when I couldn't find my junior year college internship), job interviews, school (my scalp will start itching real bad before major exams), playing poker, even video games (one of my major interests)!

Sometimes I am nervous and freak out about situations out of proportion. It's like it is in my genes I couldn't control (even my parents told me to relax when I was a kid). Maybe I should smoke weed (not a long term solution though)? Why am I nervous all the time about everything? Anyone here has similar problems? I wanna pick up a DNA gun and shoot my nervous gene to death but HOW?

[ar81]

The trick to meet girls is not to scare them.
If you feel nervous, she will see you and she will feel nervous too, and game over. Rejected.

I was very shy when I was a kid.
I felt fear of rejection.
I was rejected 9 times before one girl said "yes" when I asked her to be my gf.

You are not nervous when posting here.
You are not a nervous person.
You are you, not that nervous character you play when meeting girls.
The nervous person is just a character, so try to stop the theatrics and be yourself.
The worst thing that could happen is to be rejected.
I was rejected 9 times, but it could have been 15 or 30 if I had not learned about being me.

[Funlife]

ar81,

Thanks for the reply but I think you are missing the picture. It is not just the girls. If you see my header it is "I am nervous all my life in every part of my life", and anxiety comes from interviews, finding work, hobbies, and all other areas of my life! It is something much more fundamental...If I feel nervous about all these areas, then girls should not be the main cause...

[Angelos]

Hey Funlife,
This is my first post too..I LOVE the Steve and Erin sites, and have gained SO much from them!!
I joined tonight when I was browsing the forum, so that I could message you. I hope you get it ok..I'm not very comp literate...YET!!
I TOO live with anxiety EVERY day, and the site I'd like to point you towards is the Social Anxiety Forum (SAF for short!!) My name on there is Linda_gx
PLEASE feel free to send me a message if you do decide to join there also!(... I learned about THIS site here through one of the MANY wonderful members on that one!)
It's easy, free, friendly membership, with many welcoming members, all with anxiety issues of some form or another. Maybe that would help you with your nerves...it has done SO MUCH for me!!
Also from what I've listened to on the Steve Pavlina site, the podcast (FREE) on overcoming fear may be helpful to you!
I'd love to hear from you!
I'm away now, to try and set up my profile on here...It's been GREAT to talk to you! Angelos x

[ar81]

Funlife.
See How do you explore your anxiety?

Look for the post by Holistic Star.
You will find it very interesting.

[Alison Jenkins]

When you feel nervous what is your mind telling you? That is often the root of the problem what your core beliefs are.

Try to ask yourself what is the worst case scenario, then ask yourself how realistic is it that the worst case scenario would happen. This helps you to put things into perspective.

Alison

[jtracy]

I too have been nervous my whole life. I realize that this comes from having a disorder in which I had seizures and hallucinations when I was very little, and I can't imagine a more effective way to become anxious than that.
It has helped me to learn that there are actually two kinds of fear. One is true fear, which is when something is actually happening or is about to happen very soon. This doesn't often happen to us. The other is psychological fear, in other words it is something that our minds just invented.

Eckhart Tolle explains that it happens because the mind takes bad things that have happened in the past and projects them out into the future. But we can't possibly know what is going to happen sometime in the future, and we can't deal with future events for that reason. Thinking something bad is going to happen (because it has happened in the past) and then not being able to do anything about it, is a recipe for fear. There are two ways of dealing with this kind of fear.

The first is to realize that the past and the future are both just something our minds made up, and the only thing that is real is the present. If we just make sure that we do our best with what is going on right now, then our future will be a good one.

The second is to realize that all our ideas about what is going to happen in the future are just stories we made up. We can choose to make up a different story, one in which everything turns out well. Since we're just making up stories anyway, we might as well make up a positive one.

[ZHereford]

Originally Posted by Funlife

It's like it is in my genes I couldn't control (even my parents told me to relax when I was a kid).

Hi Funlife,

Maybe it's a medical condition. Have you had yourself checked out?

It could be a gene that causes a certain vitamin deficiency or something along those lines. What you describe certainly doesn't sound normal so I would look into it. Maybe you need more exercise, sleep or a healthier diet.

If it's not physical, then you have some serious cognitive work to do. If you've been this anxious since childhood, then for whatever reason you haven't developed strategies to deal with life's typical challenges. As helpful as everyone is on these forums, you may need some professional attention.
I wish you the best!

[Froztwolf]

Hia.
Have you explored why you feel anxious? Is it the same for everything or does it feel different in different contexts?
The anxiety may very well be cause because of a traumatic memory or a series of negative beliefs.
I'd recommend you try out Emotional Freedom Technique EFT Provides Impressive Health and Emotional Freedom--New Discovery Often Works Where Nothing Else
At first this will look and sound like some new age hippy nonsense but I and many others on this forums absolutely swear by it. Give it a whirl.

[ar81]

You can program yourself.
You can program your future.
Or you may let world to program you.
I see that past events and brain biochemistry are pushing hard to program you.
Are you hardware only that run an external program, or are you the programmer that codes the rules of your life?
Will anxiety program you? Or will you understand that you are stronger than a biochemical brain reaction?

[Cuddles444]

Have you had a health check up. You might have a vitamin deficiency. You could talk to your doctor who might recommend something on temporary base to help you keep calm. At the same time you should learn to relax. It seems that you take life too seriously. When put all our efforts into one single thing it causes an imbalance. See yourself comfortable and happy with a girlfriend - and acting appropriately. You may have a few before you find someone that is totally right for you.
Take time out every day 20 -30 minutes to just relax and get yourself used to feeling relaxed and comfortable with yourself and you'll soon be doing that when in company. There are lots of relaxation exercises you can do for example laying down or sitting in your favourite chair and let your thoughts flow through. Create peaceful scenes in your mind and bask in them till you become more used to that state.

[roxyruby]

Originally Posted by Funlife

Hi all,

This is my first post. Recently found this site through a friend and loving it!

I will first give you some personal background:
Age: 25
Location: New to Bay Area, California (2.5 months ago from LA)
Background: Born and raised in Hong Kong for 18 years, then moved to the US for college (over 7 years in US)
Currently work as a Business Development Associate for a major video game publisher
Never have a girlfriend in my life

For over a year I have been working on meeting girls and finding a GF. However, both my friends and I realize that one big obstacle is I am always nervous! It has been a chronic issue. Not just girls...I am nervous pretty much about everything in my life. Work (I nearly went into a depression when I couldn't find my junior year college internship), job interviews, school (my scalp will start itching real bad before major exams), playing poker, even video games (one of my major interests)!

Sometimes I am nervous and freak out about situations out of proportion. It's like it is in my genes I couldn't control (even my parents told me to relax when I was a kid). Maybe I should smoke weed (not a long term solution though)? Why am I nervous all the time about everything? Anyone here has similar problems? I wanna pick up a DNA gun and shoot my nervous gene to death but HOW?

List several reasons why you can feel confident and relaxed when meeting girls.
e.g "cause in the end it doesn't matter what they think"
"I'm only human and so are they" "I'm a nice guy, I've been told a few times I'm talented at...." etc etc etc

Also list several reasons why your attitude about meeting girls is a bad attitude.

"This attitude causes me to not have what I want in life" "This thought is bad for me and other people" etc

[PKF]

Hi all,

This is my first post. Recently found this site via Google.

I'm 46 female in NYC. Work full-time and finishing a psych degree part-time. In addition to that I belong to a type of spiritual school. All of this keeps me very busy. Oftentimes too busy, and too stressed.

My emotional history is complicated. I survived a very abusive childhood, early alcoholism and drug abuse. At 24 I got sober and removed myself from a hetero relationship I had no business being in (also abusive). Things were going pretty well for me. I had a good job, friends, was sober, had stability in my life. I had a wonderful apartment with ample resources to keep me afloat. Around 1992 I started taking Prozac for depression and OCD. About a year and a half later I stopped working. My stress level skyrocketed to unmanageable levels and my coping skills could not keep pace.

Since that time, I switched from Prozac to Cymbalta. Big mistake. Worst drug possible. I stopped taking Cymbalta last May due to a bad drug interaction with meds prescribed for an injury. I'm still recovering. I'm taking 10mg of Prozac again to help with the side effects. In conjunction with that, I take .25 mg. Xanax to help ward off the anxiety and panic attacks that occur. This doesn't always work, but it's also not a long-term answer.

I meditate, work out, eat pretty well, and maintain an active life. I do all this in spite of the fact that my anxiety, self-esteem, and self-image constantly barrage me with negative portrayals of myself. I have a tremendous sense of inadequacy, inferiority, and lack of entitlement to my own happiness in life. I feel as though I do not deserve the good things that I have been blessed with. I combat these voices using many tools but they are so incredibly persistent. I do feel like I am making a positive but slight dent in my self-perception. Yet there are days when I am in such self-doubt that I feel like I could collapse. Then the anxiety chimes in and churns up the trauma from the past. I'm able to see that this is a habitual pattern I'm reacting to. I also notice that because the situation feels slightly new due to new circumstances, I know that my reaction to the situations is due to my conditioning, and not due to some real, immediate danger. But it isn't very helpful to know all this without internalizing this and knowing it for myself. That is my quandry. That is the hard part for me--putting all my head knowledge in to my heart and emotional knowing -- ie: living and manifesting this in all aspects of my life.

So here I am, perusing this site. Looking for support and experience, strength and hope all your posts have to offer.

Thanks.
PKF

[jacknick]

Hey funlife, not sure if you remember me. My names Jack on the forum you would know me on. We met at Joe's house for a bbq one time with the rest of the crew way back in the day. Hope SF is treating you well. And as far as advice wise, I don't know what to say- but posting here is a good first step.

[IamAlsoThat]

Some of the people on this site have attempted to semi diagnose you with something called Panic Disorder which typically accompanies General Anxiety Disorder. (As one person claimed Eckhart Tolle describes it) Panic Disorder is when someone has, out of the blue, extreme shocks possibly seizures fainting extremely raised heart rate and perspiration. The first time a person gets these it might be extremely embarrasing for them and they will receive a sense of no control over their lives and as a result they will be constantly fearing that this will happen yet again. Unfortunately this fear, nervousness or panic results in an increased liklihood for a Panic Attack. The more often a person gets panic attacks the more nervous they get about them you can see where this is going.

Pure GAD sounds more like what you have. I would strongly suggest you see a therapist if you go to a university I know at least in my university they had discounted programs for students or recent graduates who were willing to participate in surveys about their treatment. For example, my professor for abnormal psychology who had practiced clinically for 40+ years and looked like/acted like santa claus (he was really cool) charged only 25/h for these cases as opposed to 100s in the normal practice.

This type of problem I would say could be more easily fixed by a Cognitive Behavioral Therapist. (If I remember correctly from class.) Essentially CBT is good for treating specific problems, for instance agoraphobia which also typically occurs concurrently to Panic Disorder (people who are afraid of places where a lot of people agragate-because they are afraid to have the embarrasing panic disorder in front of all those people).

CBT will probably tell you something like taking small steps towards your fears one at a time. For example if you have a fear of talking to people, they would give u a homework assignment to go and approach 5 people until the next session and just say hi. The therapist will then ask you to explain the 5 instances and how you felt during the experience. Maybe in the next meeting you would be instructed to make a small talk conversation with 3 coworkers. ask them how their day was? do they have plans for vacation? it could be only a minute long. Then discuss feelings+log the conversations and feeling in a journal. This process is called systematic desensytization. Essentially face your fears. Confucious say long journey begins with first step. Maybe since you also have a fear of losing your job they might ask you to imagine losing your job for a few moments. And after several times of imagining losing your job and your subsequent survival you might feel confident enough to watch a video in which someone loses their job. Perhaps next you could simulate it.

Either way I suggest you make larger goals that are positive and within those goals have smaller goals that you can break down into smaller steps. By positive I mean rather than saying "I want to get over my fear of public speaking" say "I will be able to speak in public confidently"
then break down that goal into subgoals
"I will be able to speak to a complete stranger in one day"
"I will be able to speak to 5 complete strangers in one day"
"I will be able to have a full conversation with a complete stranger"
etc.

Also you may want to keep in mind steve's and a lot of other spirtual leader's notion that we are all one and that every person you meet is really only an extension of yourself. A different embodiment.

Perhaps you can try Steve's strange negative thought reduction method: Imagine your worst fears, exaggerate them completely in your mind
Imagine the exact opposite occuring.
Combine the two in a mental movie. (Article is called how to squash negative thoughts)

Good luck