SOCIAL ANXIETY: Demystifying the DSM - Mentally STRONG with Dr. B

Do you think you have social anxiety? Does one of your best friends or someone you really care about have lots of anxiety or anticipation about going out into social settings? Listen to this video. All right Dr. B here with our series on demystifying the DSM and the next one is social anxiety. I often hear people say, “Oh, I have social anxiety.” But to have social anxiety, remember anything in the DSM, the first criteria is that there's an impairment in function, like you're not doing things that you want to do because of these symptoms, and it's based on feeling a fear of scrutiny, feeling a fear, fear of being embarrassed socially that somebody will judge you that somebody won't like you, that there will be some sort of social catastrophe that goes on if you're in these social situations. This is not an introvert who prefers to process internally and then does social things, but they might feel drained after those social things. Oftentimes, we see a combination of that. We see an introvert who also has social anxiety, so then it becomes very difficult to face those fears of social situations. Again, if these things are impairing your ability to do what you want to do, let's say when we do the Mentally STRONG Method, we talk about our Personal Vision. Let's say your Personal Vision is to have good relationships with friends, and maybe an intimate partner. And you won't go out socially and you won't go meet people. Then you are actually blocking yourself from your Personal Vision. You know we can kind of joke, oh, what do you think these people are going to come knocking at your door? But reality is, and this is why in the Mentally STRONG Method we always talk about Personal Vision. What do you want for your relationships? And is this social anxiety holding you back? Anxiety can be treated. Social anxiety can be treated, but probably with a combination. If you really have this deep embedded fear, you cannot face it, you have anxiety symptoms when you try to face it, then we could do an antidepressant. That's the first line treatment for anxiety, to kind of balance out those neurochemicals, but you still have to make a choice to face that fear. Because the fear is not going to go away with a pill. But it does, if you are prone to anxiety and you truly have social anxiety disorder, medication can increase those neurotransmitters give you the ability to kind of face those fears and handle whatever happens because something could happen, and you could be ultimately horribly embarrassed in that in the social situation.  But we would challenge you here to keep going into those social situations, continue to challenge yourself, so that we can reach those Personal Visions. We can meet people that we can trust. You don't have to be an extrovert who loves social situations right, but we all need human connection. We all need to have a tribe of people that we trust. In those outer circles where we don't know those people, don't trust those people. We still need to be able to interact with them at the grocery store, and COVID has been the worst thing for people with social anxiety because they didn't have to go in. They did not have to challenge themselves for almost 3 solid years, they did not have to challenge themselves. And now we're coming out of that, and it's really hard because you've gone these three years you were able to work from home, you weren't expected to go to social situations. But challenge yourself in most social situations and challenge yourself as we slowly open up. I know a lot of people are choosing to stay at home for work long term. If that's you and you have social anxiety, you have to challenge yourself in a different social situation. OK, so a combination here of the treatment of social anxiety. Medication can be helpful, but you have to challenge yourself. You have to choose to face your fear. OK, you can do it.