I’m 24 and still struggle with the social anxiety does anyone have any tips they used to over come it?

It got worse at 18 after a hard summer at home and getting off my concerta script. It went from being Uncomfortable taking to peers to uncomfortable if they are in the same room as me. Thanks everyone for taking the time to get back to me! It affect my everyday life and can’t phantom how much my life would be different if I didn’t have it.. It’s strong where people around me can feel and some people arent patient enough to deal with it. Yesterday a person physically cringed and said something really rude and it hurt but I can’t really blame her cause she doesn’t owe me Patience and it isn’t her fault I’m off putting. Would really like to get rid of it.

Taking acting lessons can help. I know for me it has helped me loosen up and become more confident in front of people. With acting you develop ways to vocalize your thoughts better and be expressive with your body language. You also learn ways to improvise in social settings. There's a lot of benefits to it.

Honestly, great idea - it’s like immersion therapy. I took 2 years (4 ‘sessions’) of improv classes and it really contributed a lot to my overall confidence, ability to consistently track people’s faces and running conversations, staying on my toes with people, and has even helped a lot with my now-developing education in the field of counseling/peer mental health support.

Also, I found my overall level of anxiety dropped while my self-confidence increased in the last few years because I’ve been taking magic mushrooms at least 3-4 times a year. I use some basic meditation techniques to kill the come-up anxiety, which carries me through the first 30-45 minutes, and I just chill and enjoy the rest of the time with music or cartoons. I swear I consistently get a better and more positive sense of my own competence and appeal, I really think they’re a massive boon for those suffering from anxiety/depression. Good luck OP!

Completely second this, shrooms are medicinal asf if used occasionally and use Wim Hof breathing exercises, get into a good exercise routine, and think “progress not perfection”, always desensitizing yourself to what you’re afraid of and viewing every little step forward as progress. You have to love yourself and compare yourself to who you were yesterday, not other people who have been dealt a different hand (life circumstances, personality traits, etc.)

I used to get very anxious talking to new people bc I used to think very highly of everyone but me, at one point an exchange student asked me upfront if I was scared of him lol. Then a friend of mine told me that nobody is as cool as they say they are lol not to put anyone down, there’s pretty nice people everywhere but I think she meant that we are all highlighting our best features around people and we are all trying to be liked, it eased my anxiety a little. Hope it helps.

Understand this: I’m almost at 30 and I didn’t do anything about it because people would tell me “it gets better over time”. But the truth is, it doesn’t. It only gets better once you put effort to make it better. I joined toast masters and made it a goal to talk to someone once per weekday. Start small and build up. Something to be aware of to is that you have to keep practicing or the anxiety will come back. Take it from my experience.

I worked on my looks, which worked its way through my confidence over the years. I started doing stuff that I find interesting and just focused on me. That could be anything, but I chose Dungeons & Dragons and music. Idk, I just learned random shit as well. How to solve a Rubik's cube in a minute, how to spin a pen around my finger and do tricks with it, small things like that. Things like that build personality, and give you things to talk about, and make conversation take less effort. They're great little "fun facts" you can show off about yourself, and it makes you more unique.

Before I turned 20, I did nothing but watch TV and play video games. No wonder I was struggling socially. I had nothing to talk about that seemed interesting. I didn't really like myself. And that made my SA 10x worse.

DnD was a really great social outlet where I could hide behind a character while technically socializing. It is a fantastic exposure therapy. A lot of people who play DnD are familiar with people who struggle socially, so they totally get it and respect it. You might even meet someone with an experience very similar to yours.

And with music, it's just a great creative outlet. I did it for myself at first, and took lessons, but as my confidence with it grew, I spontaneously decided to join an upstarting band. Best thing I ever did. I made much more progress learning to play, much more than I did by myself, and after some months of practice, we bonded pretty well and started playing at bars and stuff. The crowds were usually too drunk to notice if we messed up, and would cheer regardless, so that helped my anxiety when performing. They wouldn't really remember me. But it was such a great confidence booster, and an incredible exposure therapy as well, and the rush you get playing is amazing.

And idk, doing all these things in my life that I find interesting, did make me more interesting. Conversation became more effortless, people could see it on my face when I was talking about it that I really loved talking about it, and people like to see when people have passion for themselves. People seemed engaged when talking to me, and instead of feeling anxious, I was engaged myself. I had a passion for the conversation. And after so many positive experiences in conversation, I realized eventually that I really loved talking to people. I could never do that if I kept doing nothing, didn't expose myself, stayed in my comfort zone, and didn't love myself.

I'm 24 now, and started working on myself when I was around 20-21. You've probably heard this a lot, but you're still young, you have a lot ahead of you