Life as an anxious scientist
dynamicecology.wordpress.com
dynamicecology.wordpress.com
I never get this anymore - I'm no longer afraid of creating tension and having heated arguments with people - I even enjoy it when someone disagrees with me. Sometimes I make bold statements (without thinking through too much) just to trigger a debate.
If you want to fix anxiety, you just have to create a very long-term goal (like 6 years) for yourself and start doing things outside of your comfort zone. If you're afraid of failure, your should expose yourself to failure.
When it comes to success, we usually don't have that much control of our lives (too many external competing interests). But when it comes to failure, you have almost complete control over that (nobody will try to stop you) - So you should use that freedom to experiment with failure.
In my case, getting fired were some of the most useful (and memorable) experiences in my life - I don't think someone can be a whole person without being fired a couple of times - If you get fired, it means you took a risk (and it didn't work out in that particular case).
There is a growing body of research which suggests for many people anxiety never goes away - it is a product of certain people's physiology, which causes the amygdala to react much more strongly to external stimuli. This is the highly sensitive person classification. In such a person, social anxiety never really goes away. So how do you treat that? You can use exposure therapy to learn to manage the anxiety (as you have done), but constantly exposing yourself to it will cause burn out, and probably depression if you expect the anxiety to disappear. Usually self-acceptance and lifestyle choices are a more appropriate approach - choosing jobs and friends such that you can keep the anxiety levels manageable.
Physiologically, it seems to boil down to one of the following problems:
- Malnutrition. Yes, even in the developed world, people suffer from malnutrition. If you are on a special diet, you may be at risk. For instance, iodine deficiency is linked to mental illnesses (anxiety and depression, but also autism). I can recommend [1], as it helped me beat anxiety (the book has a somewhat alarmist tone, which you will have to ignore).
- Genetic mutations. These correspond to enzymes being broken, and hence obstructing biological pathways. If you can figure out which enzymes are responsible, you can try to fix the particular pathway by supplementation. I can highly recommend taking a close look at [2], if you are willing to explore this route.
[1] https://www.amazon.com/Iodine-Crisis-What-About-Wreck/dp/098...
Also, if you wake up every morning with a racing heart, then probably your anxiety is not environment-induced.
People need a healthy dose of success to maintain their self-esteem and confidence and if you expose yourself to failure a bit too often, you might just start to avoid any interactions at all and regress back into the same loop of anxiety over anything.
> Sometimes I make bold statements (without thinking through too much) just to trigger a debate.
That sounds like a recipe for disaster if you're not attractive or are a minority.
That's an important point. A long time ago I decided to follow the usual advice to expose myself to social situations and went to tons of networking meetings. You are supposed to ask questions and so on and over time things get better. I forced myself to do this for quite a while but never got better. It was a totally demoralizing experience.
In many ways, I feel like a different person - Not entirely in a positive way.
I completely agree with you that confidence is key - And unfortunately, confidence just doesn't come from within - It has to come from outside validation.
Most people in our society suffer from a perpetual lack of confidence and low self-esteem. Unfortunately, as is the case with money and power, the 'lucky few' in our society seem to have an oligopoly on 'confidence' - They tend to 'suffer' from self-perpetuating overconfidence and an inflated sense of self-importance.
Bodybuilders generally report a huge boost of self-confidence after taking testosterone increasing substances.
So for people naturally high in testosterone, self-confidence actually comes from within, I suppose.
Not trying to minimize what you've gone through, but by your description alone, this could even be something completely normal (i.e. not a mental illness). Most people go through a social anxiety phase at some point. And they usually overcome on their own.
By contrast, the poster would vomit before going to soccer camp, every day! This may not be something treatable by "just" creating a long term goal.
Anxiety disorder is something more widespread. It's constant worry about every little thing that might possibly go wrong. Or even right. In many aspects of life, not just social interactions.
> If you want to fix anxiety, you just have to...
Much like depression, Crohn's, and a broken leg, all you have to do to cure your anxiety is try really hard.
At that time, I didn't know it has to do with anxiety and even less that it could treated. Later on, I dated a medical student that noticed my issues and suggested me to try benzodiazepines. I know they get sometimes bad press because they may be addictive and they're not really a cure, but for me they were extremely helpful.