I'm paranoid of the things I say, wonderin' what's the penalty from day to day

[gwalla]

The Social Anxiety Disorder group met for the second time today. We talked about what our goals were for the class, and then discussed ways we could think of to accomplish them. The woman leading the group talked about ways of dealing with physical symptoms of anxiety for a little bit (deep breathing from the diaphragm, tensing and relaxing muscle groups in order). Finally, we talked about maladaptive automatic thoughts and beliefs: people would give examples of negative thoughts they had in social situations, and then the rest of us would try to poke holes in the logic supporting them. For example, "If I make a mistake, everybody will think I'm incompetent" presumes that (1) everybody is watching, (2) you can read everybody's mind, (3) you can see the future (the result is inevitable), and (4) competence is synonymous with perfection.

I'm feeling pretty optimistic about this group.

Oh yes, I talked to the psychiatric medicine advice nurse, and she recommended that I step back up to 3/4 pills for a few days, then move up to whole pills. She said that my yawning and chest pain were probably due to stepping up the dosage too early (actually, I was a day later than my prescription said, but apparently that was still too fast for my body). Since going up to 3/4, I haven't felt the pain or needed to yawn so much, so it seems okay so far.