One of the prevailing beliefs in the field is that in order to overcome Social Anxiety, we just need to expose ourselves to PEOPLE... and then our "fear of people" will fade away... This is a similar to the logic of what might help with the fear of spiders. (See picture below. 😂) However, social anxiety is not as SIMPLE as the fear of spiders. Human interactions are so much more COMPLICATED than that. . When I had crippling social anxiety, no matter how much I exposed mys

I used to have a little angel-type creature on my shoulder called "Time Machine Marni". She believed that I could travel back in time and give my "former self" shit. "Time Machine Marni" was a real tight-ass perfectionist because she had the wisdom of hindsight. . 🔸 If I used the wrong word... "Time Machine Marni" told me to go back in time and correct it... 🔸 If I SAID something... "Time Machine Marni" told me that I shouldn't have said it... 🔸 If I DIDN'T SAY something..

When I had severe, crippling anxiety in my 20's... it seemed that NOTHING was going to work... I had tried CBT, Psychoanalysis, Exposure Therapy, Beta-Blocker Meds, SSRIs... But all these things just MADE IT WORSE... :( Since these "normal solutions" hadn't worked... maybe I had to find a way to "shake myself up" in a different way?! So, one day in the end of August 2001, when I was 25 years old, I postponed my last year of University, and I bought an impulse plane ticket t

Yesterday someone said to me, "I read your last post in the Google Translate format, and it sounded REALLY RUDE in Hungarian." I was like, "Google Translate?!!! How could I possibly prevent THIS from happening in the future?!" God... Then I realized, THIS is why I had writer's block all those years! . WRITER'S BLOCK is when we worry about what the most obscure groups of people might think... (for example, "Google translate readers", Uncle Barry, old classmates, trolls, that e

Since going online, I have had a lot of "firsts"... My first VULNERABLE post... My first post that provoked a lot of "UNFRIENDING"... The first time I got "BLOCKED" by an individual and a group... My first online "HATER" who tore me to threads... . Every time I had a "first", I was filled with so many emotions... shame, fear, overwhelm, dread, self-doubt, etc... At times the emotions would get so strong that I was barely hanging on... trying to keep posting... keep conne

When I had SOCIAL ANXIETY... I thought the problem was ME... - "I was a social failure." When I had DATING ANXIETY... I thought the problem was ME... - "I wasn't beautiful enough." When I had POSTPARTUM ANXIETY... I thought the problem was ME... - "I wasn't a good enough mother.' When I had INTERNET ANXIETY... I thought the problem was ME... - "I wasn't good enough to be online." . With EVERY SINGLE ANXIETY I have ever had... I thought the problem was ME... I was 100% convinc

Are you an intense person who is mainly interested in deep topics? Have you been shamed for this? Do you try to make your conversation topics LIGHTER... more APPROPRIATE... more SUPERFICIAL... so that the majority will approve? Has this been making you feel socially exhausted? . I see our personalities as lying on a SPECTRUM. - On the ONE SIDE of the spectrum are people who prefer to talk about LIGHT topics and the details of their day... - On the OTHER SIDE of the spectrum

Since I found my solution to Social Anxiety... I have been passionate about everything to do with close friendship... However, whenever I would try to read up on close friendship... all I could really find were articles on ROMANTIC relationships... I thought to myself... Does NO ONE care about friendship the way I do?!! Where were the helpful articles on... 👬 How to make friends? 👬 How to deepen friendships? 👬 How to be a good close friend? 👬 How to handle emotional prob

I was 21 years old... And suddenly one day... I was scared of my best friend... I had scary thoughts fill my head making me so nervous... I couldn't talk couldn't focus... I was absolutely terrified... And then I became scared of other people... Until I was terrified of everyone... Everyone... My life as I had known it was gone... I lived in a bubble... Unable to connect Unable to make friends... Unable to do the easiest of tasks... And it lasted for years and years... Until

Yesterday someone asked me for an example of how "Our Strengths are the same as our Weaknesses". I looked down at my skirt and saw the perfect example. I realized that I had been walking around Budapest with a huge "CHICKEN WING STAIN" on my skirt all morning. We had had chicken wings for dinner the night before... and... Oops... At that moment, I could have thought... . A) "I am such an absent-minded fool. I don't even have the awareness to look at the clothes I am putting

Every once in a while, I encounter a disconnect between how I live my life and what appears to be the societal norm... One of these areas is "talking about our problems... I do it all the time! :) . I meet with a friend and I tell her what's on my mind... my joys, my struggles, the problems I cannot solve... She helps me feel less alone... She gives me perspective... New solutions come into view... She tells me about her problems, and we do the same for her too! <3 . So, I am

The fact of the matter is that I found my solution to social anxiety... by NOT talking about social anxiety at all... After my terrible experiences with psychologists... I REFUSED to say the words "social anxiety" to anyone... I refused to be pathologized... I refused to obsess over my symptoms... I refused to think about this one problem I could NOT control... . My solution 5 years later in Hungary involved focusing on everything else: 1. HONESTY... I focused on being as hon

It is human nature to be preoccupied with what other people think of us. "Do other people like me?" "Do other people think I am okay?" This preoccupation can be so strong that it can make us FEAR other people, AVOID them, try to IMPRESS them, or feel extremely ANXIOUS around them. But the thing is... Those people we are trying to impress... also want people to like THEM. They are preoccupied with exactly the same thing! . After suffering with severe social anxiety for 5 yea

When I was growing up, all I ever heard was... "We feel LOVE towards our romantic partner, and we LIKE our friends". Well... by the time I was 20, I was having very intense friendships, and I LOVED my friends so much!! My friends and I were so close... so honest... so present in the conversation... and we lost ourselves in each other's eyes as we talked. Well, this experience was way too intense for me... Wasn't this intensity supposed to be reserved for romantic love?!! . T

There is a whole category of people that the internet never mentions... SOCIAL INTROVERTS Social introverts are NOT the "typical introverts" who are always going on about wanting to be alone. They are not extroverts either. Social introverts crave meaningful, intense, close 1-on-1 connections more than anything else. They crave the kind of friendship that our society rarely acknowledges exists. When they meet a potential friend, they want a REAL connection... an INTEN

We often spend our whole lives... wishing that we LOOKED differently than we do... wishing that our PERSONALITY was different than it is... wishing that our LIFE CIRCUMSTANCES were different than they are... or wishing that our PAST had gone differently than it went... . We never talk about how common this is... to have this alternate reality haunting us... harassing us... causing way too much guilt and shame... We believe that we SHOULD be that person in our mind... When r

My solution to Social Anxiety was "Honesty, Love, and Acceptance". However, really should rename it: "Honesty, Love, Acceptance & THE BATHROOM BREAK" 😆 And this is why... My solution to social anxiety was learning to alternate between Honesty, Love, and Acceptance... Here is how it worked with close friends... 1. LOVE I met up with my friend and told myself "LOVE HER". This prevented me from going into fear. <3 2. HONESTY Whenever I had a feeling or thought that was getting

Someone wrote me saying, "But social anxiety can not be overcome, just managed". From my experience, it CAN be overcome. There are often basic traits that make us more prone to having social anxiety that DO have to be accepted and embraced... such as being... 1. highly sensitive 2. empathic 3. highly intelligent 4. highly creative 5. introverted 6. intuitive But in my opinion, social anxiety is NOT an in-born trait. It is an ACQUIRED trait in a disconnected society where peo

I would like to announce that I "wasted" the first 40 years of my life... believing that I was butt ugly... when I wasn't. You see... there were certain parts of my body that I believed were SO UGLY that no man could ever love me... I magnified these flaws to the 100th extreme... ignoring all the areas that I found to be acceptable in myself. Those areas didn't matter... I believed that my worth in men's eyes was determined by my WORST traits... I thought the problem lied in

There is a societal belief that being "average" is unacceptable... We have to be "special" and "stand out" in some way... And Facebook is no exception! If we post something "special"... then Facebook will exponentially show this post to more and more people... However, if we post something "average"... then Facebook might not even show it to our closest of friends... "Special" is given exposure... "Average" is wiped right off the page... . However... becoming "average" was su

Anxiety is often caused and perpetuated by a domino effect of shames. One shame led to the next shame, which led to the next shame, which led to the next shame... This makes us feel so incredibly FLAWED in every way...which makes it feel impossible that we will ever overcome either our shame or anxiety. . This is why I have developed a UNIQUE PROCESS to help my clients overcome every single shame in their "shame domino effect". . STEP 1: To begin, my clients fill out my

Both my client and I were traumatized by the system... I was traumatized through the use of the label "Social Anxiety"... One of my clients was traumatized through the use of the label "Agoraphobia"... The Exposure Therapy my client received was probably some of the worst abuse I have ever heard of... even worse than mine. :( . This week, I said the phrase "Overcome your Agoraphobia", and my client said to me, "Do you think we could not use that word? I have received so

I would write a simple post... about nothing... I would click the blue "Post" button... And in 5 second's time, I would feel excruciating pain... Like someone was going to burst into the room and start screaming at me, Criticizing at me... Giving me royal shit... There was nothing WRONG with the post itself. I felt that it was ME who was flawed... And by posting, I was exposing these flaws to the world... . And then I finally realized... this too is a form of SOCIAL ANXIETY!

We often look at the current "evidence"... and believe that it determines our WORTH... - "I have NO FRIENDS... so I am not worthy of friendship." - "I have NO ROMANTIC PARTNER... so I am not worthy of love." - "I have NO JOB... so I am not worthy of work." - "I have NO MONEY... so I am not worthy of success." . We look at the current evidence, and believe that it determines our WORTH and our FUTURE... When in reality... Our WORTH is a constant... and our FUTURE can be whatev