Social phobia
Sep. 29th, 2004 11:10 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
gwallaWent to the social phobia group again yesterday. We went over the homework (keeping a log of negative automatic thoughts and coming up with counterarguments to them) and talked about what we'd done in the last week to try to socialize more.
The oldest guy there mentioned that the rest of the participants seemed really articulate, while he felt like he wasn't. The rest of us denied this, and said that we didn't feel particularly articulate. I mentioned that every "umm" and "uhh" I utter is like somebody hitting a gong in my head, as is every awkward pause. "...like that one", I said after what felt like a point in which I'd run out of words. The others said that they didn't even notice a pause, let alone an awkward one. We came to the conclusion that we beat upon ourselves while letting other people slide for the same "mistakes" because we can't hear what they intend to say, so we have no way of knowing when they fail to say something exactly how they intended. This may seem obvious, but the idea that the "errors" I make while speaking are only noticeable by myself, and aren't even something I'd notice other people doing, is something of a revelation.
I'm glad I'm doing this.
The oldest guy there mentioned that the rest of the participants seemed really articulate, while he felt like he wasn't. The rest of us denied this, and said that we didn't feel particularly articulate. I mentioned that every "umm" and "uhh" I utter is like somebody hitting a gong in my head, as is every awkward pause. "...like that one", I said after what felt like a point in which I'd run out of words. The others said that they didn't even notice a pause, let alone an awkward one. We came to the conclusion that we beat upon ourselves while letting other people slide for the same "mistakes" because we can't hear what they intend to say, so we have no way of knowing when they fail to say something exactly how they intended. This may seem obvious, but the idea that the "errors" I make while speaking are only noticeable by myself, and aren't even something I'd notice other people doing, is something of a revelation.
I'm glad I'm doing this.
