Avoidance Social Anxiety Disorder - How to Overcome It
People who suffer from avoidance social anxiety disorder usually consider themselves personally unappealing. For this reason alone, they avoid any form of social interaction due to a sheer fear of being disliked, humiliated, rejected or ridiculed. The first signs of avoidance social anxiety disorder are usually noticed in the early stage of adulthood which is linked with actual or apparent rejection by siblings, peers or parents during childhood.
Three Forms of Avoidance Social Anxiety Disorder
- Avoidance. Real social avoidance anxiety behaviours include total avoidance of dreaded social situations. Someone who is terrified of public speaking could possibly end up dropping a subject which requires him to give presentations, or refuse to show up in a gathering where he’s required to perform a public speech.
- Escape. This includes escaping and/or leaving various social gatherings or settings. If complete avoidance is not possible, the victim may use various escape behaviours to deal with dreaded situations. For instance, the victim would intentionally hide himself in a restroom or in the garden during a party, walk-out during a public speech or leave a social gathering ahead of time.
- Partial Avoidance. When escape or avoidance is not possible, safety behaviours or partial avoidance may be applied during social situations to alleviate anxiety. In general, partial avoidance controls or limits a person’s experience. Included in this behaviour are habits like drinking, taking drugs, staying in the back part of a classroom, crossing the arms to conceal shaking or avoiding every possible eye contact.
Signs & Symptoms
People with avoidance social anxiety disorder are very critical when it comes to their shortcomings. They only interact with individuals whom they feel safe with and would never reject them. People with this type of disorder would rather isolate themselves and be lonely instead of risking an attempt to connect with others because they can’t handle rejection and loss.
- Inferiority complex
- Extreme mistrust to other people
- Avoids relationships
- Self-imposed isolation
- Extreme sensitivity to rejection or criticism
- Extremely self-conscious
- Resorts to fantasies to interrupt and escape painful thoughts
- Extremely low self-esteem
- Highly anxious and extremely shy in social gatherings
- Eludes physical contact since it’s usually related to a painful and unpleasant stimulus
- Feeling inadequate
- Self-loathing
- Extremely critical to self
- Self-loathing
- Problems functioning at work
Therapy for avoidance social anxiety disorder
Among all existing treatments, cognitive-behavioral therapy is proven to be the most effective treatment pertaining to avoidance social anxiety disorder. The principle of cognitive-behavioral therapy is based on the theory that the way a person thinks greatly affects his feelings and the feelings in turn affects his actions. The therapy for avoidance social anxiety disorder usually involves the following.
- Challenging unhelpful and negative thoughts that fuel and cause anxiety by replacing them with healthy and balanced views.
- Learning different methods to manage physical symptoms of the anxiety by using various breathing exercises and relaxation methods.
- Facing feared social situations in a gradual and systematic way instead of avoiding them.