Hello, guys. My name is Alex, im 22 and i think my social phobia started at the age 15. I literally spent all my time after school at home playing pc games. Since 15 i've been contacting the most time with parents and to find new friends or stay in contact with old was some Kubik Rubiks game for me.
Well, to the age 20 i've found only one good friend at college and from then we spend time together. When i just step new life joining college, i thought that it's gonna be okay to find friends for me and i was pretty positive and led away thoughts that i was at home almost all time before.
Well, people at first started talking with me, but i couldn't get to chat with them for long as they were too "active" for me in talking. Then our "relationships" were decreasing and decreasing each day and then i was alone again. Of course, as stated in some book, that i will talk about later, my thoughts were like "if he doesnt want to contact with me, then he feel negative to me", or "nobody else want to contact with me" and then after some time my thoughts were so darkful that i started to thinking something like "screw this world, everyones against me, what the hell, it so not fair, everybody have friends but not me. I WANT FRIENDS TOO!" and since then my mind was everyday full of that thoughts and i had feelings of agression, anxiety and helplessness than ever before in my life.
So, my trust about everyone is danger in this world and against me was so big and screaming, that through the life my anxiety was getting worser and worser.
Also, now im feeling pretty comfortable, i live with girl but still i dont work, because 2 years ago i started to have OCD and when im doing it i feel that it protects me from SOMETHING that i dont know, i guess it protects me from having bad thoughs or something else, but if i dont do my OCD my uncontrollable anxiety gets me.
And when im at home alone for a long time, im starting to have anxiety too and i dont know where it comes from.
On the last month i found a book called "Overcoming socialphobia steps by steps" by Thomas Richards and i decided to get over my SP. The frist thing that he's advicing as strategie is using slow speech and read therapy materials that will change my thoughts and get rid of authomatic negative irrational thoughts that i before believed in.
So, i decided to use slow speech and give it a try, but im, first of all, tried it when i was at home alone for a long time and it worked pretty good. I decided before to get rid of social anxiety, i should try to get control over my "home alone" anxiety and i was reading C++ books, news on the internet, forums aloud in a veeeeeryyyyy slooooow pace. I was reading syllable from each word and to read 2-3 pages of text it took me 30 minutes but i felt comfortable with no anxiety and even my mind was "cleared".
But, honestly, im aware to continue to use slow speech, because i feel somehow strange. Maybe someone could help me with advice about this and tell me that im wrong with my awareness. Could using slow speech aware those paragraphs:
-Using slow speech too much will make me like unemotional cyborg and im not going to feel some
kind emotions to other?
-Could slow speech affect my previous model of "thinking" and will i able be to have "good and useful" thoughs for me?
-Could using slow speech make my memory worse?
-Is it good at all to always read very slow?
Or maybe im just too panic about this? Thanks.
