/lit/ - Literature

[Anonymous No.20175236]

Are there any books which help overcome social isolation/anxiety/extreme introversion?

[Anonymous No.20175290]

>>20175236
Do steroids (test-e)
Lift
Eat clean
Go to the gym
Buy a gun
Read "The Culture of Critique"

[Anonymous No.20175296]

>>20175236
Talk to people and realize they don’t dwell on you, including your embarrassments

[Anonymous No.20175298]

>>20175236
Stirner and schopenhauer

[Anonymous No.20175313]

>>20175290
I lift and attend a boxing gym. Still a nervous wreck talking to anyone, especially females.
>>20175296
Last time I tried going out with someone I met online I had an anxiety attack and left her alone in the cafe cause I couldn't bear it anymore. Couldn't even look in her eyes.

[Anonymous No.20175318]

>>20175236
Self therapy by Jay Earely

[Anonymous No.20175323]

>>20175318
Could you elaborate? Did it help you?

[Anonymous No.20175339]

>>20175313
>nervous wreck talking to anyone, especially females
Then don't, females are worthless anyway.

[Anonymous No.20175346]

>>20175236
>Step 1
Don't be a troon.
>Step 2
Don't be ugly.
>Step 3
Give up anyway.

[Anonymous No.20175354]

unironically just read more books (good ones)

[Anonymous No.20175361]

>>20175339
I haven't for like 7 years and it's completely destructive because I'm lonely and all I can do is have a simulacrum of friendship by going on 4chan and talking to you people. I can't even hold down a normal job, last time I worked was in an Italian restaurant and I quit after the first day cause I was too anxious.

[Anonymous No.20175370]

>>20175323
It can help you resolve the core issues causing the anxiety

[Anonymous No.20175371]

>>20175361
So we aren't good enough for you, is that what you're saying?

[Anonymous No.20175375]

>>20175236
Read the ultramind solution, a diet change can help anxiety.

[Anonymous No.20175383]

>>20175371
You're my best friends

[Anonymous No.20175396]

>>20175383

[Anonymous No.20175407]

>>20175236
Social anxiety and depression is really just narcissism.

[Anonymous No.20175409]

>>20175375
My diet is basically:
>Breakfast: eggs or cereal
>Lunch: meat (beef or chicken), brocolli, potatoes
>Dinner: meat, brocolli, potatoes
Then some snacks inbetween. That's what I eat every day.

[Anonymous No.20175430]

>>20175290
>Do steroids
not if you don't want to grow tits some day, get bald within months and behave like a sub saharan african

[Anonymous No.20175466]

>>20175361
how about therapy? Try to get your shit together, you deserve happiness.

[Anonymous No.20175477]

>>20175466
Nobody deserves anything, actually.

[Anonymous No.20175481]

>>20175466
I signed up for therapy and they put me on some faggy "social anxiety group" online that will be held on a zoom meeting in June. I doubt it's going to change anything. I just wish I had a friend. Like, if I want to kiss a girl tonight (It's 8pm) what should I do? What course of action should I take to make this happen?

[Anonymous No.20175496]

>>20175481
hmmmm, it sounds like you get really anxious because you want the interaction and friends really badly so it just sort of weighs really heavy on you? does that sound right? read How to Win Friends & Influence People, unironically a good book that helped me make friends. It's really simple ideas but it helps for someone to reiterate them.

[Anonymous No.20175510]

>>20175466
I’ve thought about doing this myself but I feel like it’d be a big waste of money if the therapists just wants to push their weirdo mental health ideology on me instead of actually helping me t. Religious socialist

[Anonymous No.20175511]

>>20175481
also, forgot to mention that you should take the /fit/ pill, and develop some hobbies, makes you a more intersting person. Most of all be honest with yourself, this way you attract good people

[Anonymous No.20175518]

>>20175496
I actually don't know what the cause is. It's like a physiological reaction of extreme anxiety that makes me incapable of bearing myself with grace and dignity. Then afterwards the memories of every social interaction I have haunt me and make me feel terrible.
Thanks I'll read that book. A lot of people seem to recommend that one.

[Anonymous No.20175560]

>>20175481
Dude, it really sounds like its not going to happen for you and im sorry about that. But nobody comes to an internet board known for racism and incels and says "if i want to kiss a girl tonight (its8pm) what do i do?" theres no answer for you. You just dont have it in you. Refer to that copypasta where it says people like you have to spend an eternity to achieve what a normal person does without thinking about. You already lost.

[Anonymous No.20175573]

>>20175236
I have no book but experience. Anxiety derives from conflict unresolved. Ideally it's used to grow whenever you resolve the conflict but a lot of people are remaining in perpetual anxiety for different reasons. Here's a good example: "I do not want to die" conflicts with "I will die," causing death anxiety. If you remove one component, the anxiety goes away. If you accept death, you stop being anxious. If you find a way to deny death, you stop being anxious. Most religions use a combination of the two.
I'm having anxiety about the future since I just realized after graduation I have no home to return to now that my parents are splitting. I had assumed I would be able to return, but the situation changed while I was gone. For a few days I felt like shit with the stress, but recently I started telling myself "I don't want to deal with this, but I will," essentially opening the door for feeling my emotions and thinking about it while accepting the risks. Denial would come from avoiding the thought out of fear of the risks. I'm accepting the risk that I have no answer to my home situation, and the reasoning is that the risk is there if I deny or accept, so I may as well accept, since accepting the situation increases my ability to solve it.
I also used to get cyclical anxiety, if you will, where I felt anxiety about getting anxiety. By telling myself "I will be anxious," I forced myself to accept it. During a panic attack this is hard since the default thought is "I don't want to go through this" so I'd modify the thought by saying "I don't want to go through this, but I will," recognizing I can still go through it even if it sucks and I don't want to.

[Anonymous No.20175582]

>>20175573
This is essentially Cognitive-Behavioral Therapy. I only have panic attacks on a monthly basis at this point, having, at my worst, as many as three or four per day.

[Anonymous No.20175584]

>>20175481
>I doubt it's going to change anything
You don't deserve help with this attitude anon, be grateful and hope for the best

[Anonymous No.20175585]

>>20175560
I know but I just want to know what people who actually kiss girls whenever they want do to make that happen. If chad is sitting at home at 8pm and thinks “I think I’ll go on a date tonight” what process does he go through? Does he simply go to a nightclub? Does he wander around the streets asking girls out? Does he go on Tinder?

[Anonymous No.20175589]

So this is going to be another thread where OP dismisses every suggestion for reasons. If you really want change, then you’ll have to deal with discomfort

[Anonymous No.20175599]

>>20175585
Any combination of the three. All of them or none of them. Thats the entire point. It is not a process they think out. They just have networks of friends or lovers and things happen spontaneously. Rarely do people stop and think to themselves "i want this" because in their average semi fulfilling life, most of what they need is taken care of. Or so they think. (feel).

[Anonymous No.20175601]

I use to struggle with this until one day it sort of clicked for me. The anxiety is basically the result of this little implicit, automatic habit in your head. For example, maybe you have the thought that someone is judging you or that you look weird or something "negative" like that and maybe you've tried to suppress or get rid of these thoughts or even argue with them, but they're not the thing that's causing you to feel bad. It's entirely possible to have those kind of thoughts and feel neutral about them, and most people do without it creating anxiety.

The mechanism, as far as I can tell, is this small gap between having the thought and then deciding how you should feel about it. It's really difficult to describe, but if you're aware of it, you can pay attention and dissolve it in the moment. You're not conscious of doing this, but for any given thing, you decide very quickly in the moment how good or bad it is and this becomes an automatic reaction. At some point in your past, you "decided" that certain parts of the social experience are "bad" and then you fell into the trap of avoiding those things, or rather, the thoughts of those things happening.

Basically, observe the sequence of events in your mind that happen when you become anxious. There's an initial thought or image of a situation, then an automatic negative reaction. You can practice getting in between and changing how you feel about it. Imagine embarrassing yourself in some way in front of a group of people, probably immediately gave you the sweats, then you stay in that imaginary situation and practice making it feel neutral, not by changing the situation but just your judgement of it, the split second moment when you decide that it's bad.

The intriguing part is that your conscious thoughts can be separate from this. You can think rationally, oh I just embarrassed myself in front of a lot of people, probably will never invite me out again, but then not feel disturbed by it. So you could decide to do something about it, like apologize instead of feeling like needing to run away.

[Anonymous No.20175606]

>>20175296
>realize
Social anxiety generally isn't something that people have thought themselves into.
All the thinking in the world don't change the fact that my mind goes blank, my throat tightens up, and I can't bring myself to meet other people's gazes when they try to talk to me.

[Anonymous No.20175631]

>>20175466
>therapy
How did people become convinced that paying ~$100 to spend an hour every few weeks to speak with a 35-year-old woman who's only claim to fame is having a masters in psychology will at all help them overcome the problems they face in life? It's literally just comoditized emotional labour.

[Anonymous No.20175736]

>>20175481
You must kill the needy little bitch inside you. That's the only way, men won't respect you and women won't even look at you if you're this deeply uncomfortable in your own skin. You can either introspect or perish, you should begin the process immediately

[Anonymous No.20175744]

>>20175236
It's called emotional resilience.
Try meditation. The Mind Illuminated for example.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mechanisms_of_mindfulness_meditation#Emotion_regulation
The brain is very adaptive even in adulthood. It changes with your actions. If you keep giving in to the emotional impulses you keep strengthening those neural pathways. The next time when you're overwhelmed by your emotions or impulsive reflexes try to focus on something else really hard. Focus on your body or your hands such that you start to feel your pulse and some cribbling. This will drown out the emotion a bit. This is hard at first but after a few months of training, you can detach from emotions and thoughts at will.
----
Sometimes those thoughts and emotions are backed up by rational justification. In this case, it helps to broaden your perspective a bit on the human condition.
The Wisdom of Psychopaths. The Happiness Hypothesis.
----
Go to your doc and ask for propranolol. This will shut down your body's stress response and help you focus on the mental aspects without being distracted by sweaty, shaking hands and a pounding heart.

[Anonymous No.20175775]

>>20175430
Literally all male senators, billionaires, and actors are on some form of test

[Anonymous No.20175779]

>>20175606
But you have thought yourself into it. In fact you’re overthinking situations I bet

[Anonymous No.20175786]

>>20175631
The main benefit of therapy is physically letting it out. Like a release.

[Anonymous No.20175940]

>>20175631
>It's literally just comoditized emotional labour.
So is sex, and reading.
If there's anyone in the world who can do good by you, and make a truly good impact on your life,
does it not make more than a decent bit of sense that that person will have that uniquely capability on account of several years of specialized training?

[Anonymous No.20175961]

>>20175236
Talk to a doctor and take some low dose anxiety meds. Trust me it helps. Then practice talking your mind to people and do the other things, but the meds help when your brain isn't willing to cooperate with your will.

[Anonymous No.20176028]

>>20175466
>deserving happiness

[Anonymous No.20176048]

>>20175744
>>20175961
I’m very skeptical of psychiatry medication. I’m scared it will change me.

[Anonymous No.20176059]

>>20176048
>OP post : Help. I wanna change
>I’m scared it will change me.
???

[Anonymous No.20176114]

>>20176059
Yeah but you know what I mean. The side effects and shit. I don’t 100% trust the psychiatry industry.

[Anonymous No.20176153]

>>20175236
This picture is the set up to a joke.
>A jew and a tranny walk into a bar. The tranny suddenly realizes it hasn’t dilated yet and starts to get upset, threatening to kill itself……

[Anonymous No.20176171]

I'm 26 and have been in and out of therapy for over a decade. I'm still a virgin with a crippling anxiety problem and I feel like crying constantly.

[Anonymous No.20176233]

>>20176114
how much do you trust yourself?

[Anonymous No.20176277]

i´m the same as you, in fact last week, i try to flirt with a girl and i end up telling her about my life in a very consecutive manner and most of the normies in class noticed it, it was very hummilliating for me, but after day or two i started to lose the shame, you know how? because i know that my intention with this girl was to get her to know me and viceversa, i´m still struggling trying to speak with this girl because most of my classmates hates me but eventually you should only focus on your aim

what´s my aim in college? finish my degree and flirt with girls i´m attracted to

[Anonymous No.20176442]

>>20176171
Why are you so upset? None of us are getting out of life alive, it's not like anything you're doing is going to change the outcome so sitting around worrying about things isn't going to improve your life. Just stop doing it.

[Anonymous No.20176447]

Go into a dive bar during slow hours. Bartenders usually try to initiate conversations for better tips.

[Anonymous No.20176525]

OP, it's not over for you because it never even began.

I'm the same way. :(

[Anonymous No.20176564]

>>20175383
>>20175361
>>20175313
If you enjoying expressing yourself online in text format, but become anxious talking to people (particularly the opposite sex) in real life - it almost certainly means that you're insecure about your physical appearance or voice. 99% odds that your problem is not some nebulous "social anxiety", but rather issues with bodily self-perception.

[Anonymous No.20176570]

>>20176564
Yes I’m insecure about those things but also I just find it hard to express myself in person. In writing it’s a lot easier to think about what you should say.

[Anonymous No.20176586]

>>20176570
It's normal to be slower to express yourself in fine ways when you're in-person. That's not weird or wrong. Normal conversations are more stilted and slower than you might expect from online messages, books, or from movies. No one is expecting you to orate like Cicero.

[Anonymous No.20176661]

>>20176570
I don't know what exactly makes you insecure about your body (and I don't care), but if it's something that you can reasonably fix, then you should fix it, and if it's something that you can't fix, then it's not your fault and you shouldn't feel bad for it.
Yes, I know it sounds like a platitude, but it's also the reality, and the sooner you internalize it the better for you.

[Anonymous No.20176696]

lads, you should stop referring to them as "females", they're not animals
if you consider them like so, they are right in avoiding your presence

[Anonymous No.20176728]

>>20175775
>senators
Yes, but where did they play college ball?

[Anonymous No.20176765]

>>20175236
Nah, sorry. Zoomers are just basket cases. See, your generation was the proper timing for a revolt so they literally psyop-ed y'all into being fags, pharmaceutical dependent, and heavy drug addicts. I have a much younger accident sister and the stories she tells me of her peers' behavior is insane. Boys openly weeping in public, everybody having panic attacks, and over 20% of the population gay or some level of ascended turbo gay into the pronoun frontier. You're incapable of revolt and that was the only goal. Sorry the means fucked you up this bad, it was just bad timing that you were the scheduled revolt generation.

[Anonymous No.20177182]

>>20176525
The refutation to this is the study where they took a few dozen “chad”-type children from different schools and put them in groups in a summer camp. They all immediately developed social hierarchies and “losers” in the group that had no apparent relation to any physical or social characteristics. It’s mostly random, and the game resets every time you enter a new group.

[Anonymous No.20177203]

>>20177182
Sounds like it's only random when all the members in the group are at the same level. Throw a chad in a group of losers, and he'll always come out on top.

[Anonymous No.20177230]

>>20175589
The answer lies here.

[Anonymous No.20177258]

>>20175236
It's phenibut.

[Anonymous No.20177345]

>>20175236
Try wearing an onyx or carnelian gem. Do a bit of research about it and just try it. It works but I don't know how. Before, I couldn't look people in the eye.

[Anonymous No.20177529]

>>20177203
There’s nothing to hold that up. The most doomer answer isn’t necessarily the right one.

[Anonymous No.20177532]

>>20177203
That is only if the group of losers don't catalogue the chad as a loser by their standards first.
The collective consciousness dictates the societal rules and taboos.

[Anonymous No.20177583]

>>20177230
Yeah that’s why these threads are a waste. If you want to overcome something, you have to face it. That brings discomfort followed by relief. Almost every shy guy kicks himself for being so passive the first time he asks a girl out and gets rejected, “I have a boyfriend” is usually the answer and no guy gets laughed at who doesn’t deserve it. Imagine being scared for years of hearing those words. Honestly it sounds like a lot of people here need to start very small and just say “hi” to people

[Anonymous No.20177589]

>>20175779
>But you have thought yourself into it.
Have I? That's news to me.

[Anonymous No.20177608]

>>20175940
>that person will have that uniquely capability on account of several years of specialized training
It's doubtful that such training is possible and it's doubly doubtful that universities of all places would be the place to go to get that training. As far as I'm concerned, the best policy is to ignore what so-called "experts" in the human sciences say.

[Anonymous No.20177624]

>>20177182
How old were the kids in the study you're referring to? I feel like things are less random when you're dealing with adolescents.
My experience is that I was always sorted as a loser no matter the group because I was always scared of everyone which made me an easy target for bullying.

[Anonymous No.20177632]

>>20177589
Well it’s not other people. You’re the defective one. Social ANXIETY. Anxiety is simplified in worrying about the future. When you worry you think. Do you just want to hear that your situation is hopeless so you can stew in your misery?

[Anonymous No.20177642]

>>20177589
Anxiety can also develop from lack of thinking or inmediate response training, in other words, dealing with a situation or feeling the same way over and over makes you prone to eventually just automatically repeat the same situation in the bad or worst way because you have already done it once and is your most trained or default response to the stimuli.
In other words, if you are about to deal with a situation and you feel like about to commit the same fuckup, try to stop yourself dead on your tracks and answer differently, doesn't matter what the response is, it will train your will and overall perception of the situation.
I also recommend the material suggested in this thread, the entire point of dealing with anxiety is that, for better or worse, it is a part of you, and like your hands, it can be trained for maximum efficiency, this case being able to manage your own amounts of anxiety to deal consciously with various situations by asigning them certain bits of your attention and worry.
The thing is, don't give up, anxiety doesn't want to kill you, it NEEDS YOU, because without you it can't thrive anymore.

[Anonymous No.20177646]

>>20177624
Middle school age IIRC, around 12-14.
Sure submissive behavior is a disadvantage, but the point is that the game resets every time it’s played. As long as you fix the behavior and whatever else is wrong you can win the next round.
Your behavior is shaped by earlier rounds, but those are mostly random chance since it’s a bunch of kids, and once you’re an adult you can consciously change your behavior and appearance.

[Anonymous No.20177656]

>>20177642
>The thing is, don't give up, anxiety doesn't want to kill you, it NEEDS YOU, because without you it can't thrive anymore.

so anxiety is like a really hot girl with bpd?

[Anonymous No.20177682]

>>20177656
>"Anxiety is a hot girl with BPD"
That means anxiety is the female part of yourself which makes sense, it is needy, stubborn and doesn't go away when you dismiss it and will hurt when you try to ignore it.

[Anonymous No.20177695]

>>20175236
everything you read is going to be a combination of learning to do small talk which won't help you because it's something you need to experience.

[Anonymous No.20177699]

>>20177695
In other words, don't touch grass, talk to people.

[Anonymous No.20177705]

>>20177682
she´s a hot girl, she´s an ANIMA

imagine pic related as your anxiety incarnated as a human being, HOLY SHIT

[Anonymous No.20177720]

>>20175236
Fucking Practice Talking To People When You Don't Want To by >>>/adv/
New foreword by scholar Buhk Zhar Gey

[Anonymous No.20177735]

what would guys do if their anxiety looked like pic related?

[Anonymous No.20177740]

>>20177705
TBF there is no point in having a hot girl as a partner if you still can't achieve happiness even with her at your side too.

[Anonymous No.20177741]

>>20175481
>literally has the thought process of a nic addict trying to get a smoke by 8pm
Ngmi. Ramp up gradually and learn patience or stay as your petty fatalistic self, the choice is yours, and it's one you make every day. Social butterflies don't magically transform from caterpillar without the slow inner work.

[Anonymous No.20177749]

>>20177740
>YOU´RE TOOOO BLUEPILLED!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[Anonymous No.20177758]

>>20177705
>>20177735
>Not a single draw-anon to make Anxiety-chan
>Not a draw-anon myself
Fug, this was the perfect opportunity.

[Anonymous No.20177763]

>>20177758
i only go for aesthetics baby

[Anonymous No.20177810]

>>20176765
>being such a ginormous pussy that you want to be a war-stock boomer and send 15 year olds to do the dirty work against horrors they are blind to.
Doesn't make any sense - you see the problem: you see the solution.
man up.

[Anonymous No.20177987]

>>20175477
Everyone deserves nothing, actually.

[Anonymous No.20178052]

>>20177624
>I was always sorted as a loser no matter the group because I was always scared of everyone which made me an easy target for bullying.
That just sounds like a self-fulfilling cycle. If you started to act more confidently you would likely feel more confident.

[Anonymous No.20178106]

>>20175775
coincidentally they all eat and fuck children IN THAT ORDER

[Anonymous No.20178129]

>>20178106
The theory goes that the U.S. higher ups let them do illegal shit nearly scott free so if they try to do something that goes agains the state goals then suddenly "someone" leaks all the dirt which got piled up over time.
It's basically a failsafe so everyone keeps being in-line, other countries have similar non-spoken and non-writen systems like these because tardwrangling thousands of politicians is hard.

[Anonymous No.20178211]

>>20176728
Kek

[Anonymous No.20178286]

>>20176728
At some cushy Ivy League school.

[Anonymous No.20179189]

>>20175236
my only advice: It's not going to be easy

[Anonymous No.20179193]

>>20175466
>you deserve happiness
Nobody deserves anything buddy

[Anonymous No.20179198]

>>20175290
>Read "The Culture of Critique"
Required reading for all white people.

[Anonymous No.20179202]

>>20175383

[Anonymous No.20179208]

>>20175290
Based, but buy a gun after reading The Culture of Critique so you know what to get.

[Anonymous No.20179213]

Fix your posture. All psychological states a product of your stance and gait.

[Anonymous No.20179216]

>>20175585
Don't listen to this defeatist cunt: >>20175560
Anybody can find a gf. Join a group activity that interests you. Doesn't matter what it is, be it cooking or martial arts or dancing, ANYTHING. Make friends with the people there simply by being around them often and doing that activity together. Even if you don't find a girl in that group, those friends will come with more friends of their own, among which there will be single girls.

The ONLY requirement for getting girls is to be social. That's it. Be social. Be around people often. And remember that everything is harder at the beginning, then it becomes easier.

Face your fears or you're already dead in every sense but the most irrelevant.

[Anonymous No.20179251]

>>20175744
Second this.
Try meditation like Vipassana and actually use what you learn from meditation when you feel like you have anxiety.
I swear most retards expect meditation to remove any trace of anxiety for them.

[Anonymous No.20179756]

>>20175236
>help overcome social isolation/anxiety/extreme introversion?
Just know that that is not you, but only a part of you. Compare yourself to when you're with friends or family you're comfortable with. You are capable. You're probably not even an "extreme" introvert (nothing wrong with being an introvert anyway). And social isolation is the consequence of anxiety.

So get to the root of what type of social anxiety you have and why/when it happens. Yours sounds similar to mine. I went to a psychologist for it, and it somewhat helped because I wasn't aware of what I was going through physically/mentally during anxiety. But after a while I just sat there laughing at myself when the psychologist would ask me things, because I find anxiety so ridiculous to the point where it's hilarious. Talking made me aware, but it hasn't helped changing how my body reacts.

I haven't found a solution yet and haven't actively looked for one either. The anxiety is still there every time I leave the apartment or enter a shop or restaurant. I can talk fine with people once I'm talking, but that initial bridge from nothing to talking to a stranger, that moment, I get so anxious about.

[Anonymous No.20179806]

>>20179756
>I haven't found a solution yet and haven't actively looked for one either.

see this >>20177682 and >>20177705

[Anonymous No.20179887]

>>20175409
You’re missing out on nutrients by eating the same three meals everyday. If cooking is a burden to you then start by just switching up broccoli and potatoes with other vegetables (sprouts, sweet potatoes, asparagus, squash…) and try turkey or fish instead of chicken and beef. Same goes for your reading diet. If you read imageboards every day, stop. If you mostly read books of a certain type, switch it up more often. What I’m saying is put yourself out of your normal routine more often in ways you can easily control and eventually you’ll feel empowered to do so spontaneously in ways that will counter social anxiety.

[Anonymous No.20180736]

>>20179887
Also, eating the same thing over and over can get some people stressed if they notice the routine and it starts bothering them.

[Anonymous No.20182353]

>>20179198
I'm not even white and I'm the one who recommended it

[Anonymous No.20182421]

>>20175236
Awful thread but pic rel helped me out quite a bit to understand what was going on inside my head. I read it all in one night, and I couldn't help grinning at some passages thinking about me being in the situations described in the book .It's not an easy journey, but I'm glad you are going through it.