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What's a CAD designer? Can you market that skill, and eventually find a job that uses those skills? It might be good for you to have a job on your own and not feel dependent on your step-dad.
I am using the skill now, sort of. As a CAD Designer (computer aided drafting) I've designed multiple parts and drawings. In this job, I'm not designing any parts for anything serious, I'm designing toys. It's like; your a sous chef working at Taco Bell but not making food for a ton of people, but a single taco that you put on TV for a commercial.
The prospects are good. I live in Michigan, so there are a lot of jobs around that use CAD designers. However, I don't have a degree, but I have around 5 years experience in the field.
I don't understand the anxiety myself. I read books, I read the newspaper or news, weekly. I educate myself almost everyday and find things to talk about, but then fear and anxiety step in. My head fills in with disbelief. I should of talked to that girl down the hall already but fear takes me down, easily. It came to my knowledge a few weeks ago that my step-dad helped me get this job because he thought that that girl and I would click very well. It's not solely for that reason of course, but a perk.
Yes, I am one of those guys that lack confidence. I have too many fears, for example; fear of talking people, even my immediate family members. They initiate most of the conversation and I can't seem to jump out into my own starter conversation.
. . .
I watch him daily. He has no problem talking to the women in the office. In which I can't talk to one without flinching, or turning my head thinking, "She doesn't want to talk to me anyways." These anxieties kill me. I always come in thinking, "OK, today I'm going to talk to that girl down the hallway." Then, before she even comes in, my head is filed with negative thoughts leading to doing nothing at all.
Now, please, give me some advice. On the weekends, I'm hoping to go volunteer some of my lonely hours somewhere. I'm also hoping to be able to talk to a doctor, soon, as it did help me in the past. Anything I'm doing right now is not helping.
Try hypnosis, visualizing, meditation, prayer, Tony Robbins tapes. Be committed to it for at least 2-3 months, 2x30mins/day.
You must reprogram yourself and start buidling new patterns of behavior, habits, and expanding your confort zone.
You are sound like a boy trapped in a mans body. Time for your "coming of age" experience. Think about joining the military, learning some athletic/risky sport, or something else where you can prove to youself that you can face fear, handle the unknown, or break new personal barriors. Read books on overcoming fear.
Be committed to transforming your life for the next 2-3 years. It isn't going to happen without you charting the waters to your new destination. Yes, to boldly go where you have never gone before. Otherwise, you will remain hopeless and helpless. The blue pill or the red pill Neo. The choice is yours grasshopper.
There appears to be no escape for you except for talking to people...however havoc you may wreak with such an act...
Quote:
Originally Posted by mitopcat
Yes, I am one of those guys that lack confidence. I have too many fears, for example; fear of talking people, even my immediate family members. They initiate most of the conversation and I can't seem to jump out into my own starter conversation.
I'm also a little jealous..., OK, very jealous of my brother-in-law. My step-dad helped us both get into this job we're working at. I'm a CAD designer by trade, but I am doing little jobs for them here and there. He, on the other hand, is the marketing department. As soon as he entered, he claimed ownership of our User Conference going on this week.
I've been trying to show the people around me, the ones that really matter anyways, what I can do. These little jobs seem tedious and lack of any credit. I'll do them anyways because the pay is good.
I watch him daily. He has no problem talking to the women in the office. In which I can't talk to one without flinching, or turning my head thinking, "She doesn't want to talk to me anyways." These anxieties kill me. I always come in thinking, "OK, today I'm going to talk to that girl down the hallway." Then, before she even comes in, my head is filed with negative thoughts leading to doing nothing at all.
Now, please, give me some advice. On the weekends, I'm hoping to go volunteer some of my lonely hours somewhere. I'm also hoping to be able to talk to a doctor, soon, as it did help me in the past. Anything I'm doing right now is not helping.
Hi I am Clintone! Former Lord of the Creepers! I am 26. In high school, I had no friends and women found me disturbing. Women I met outside of high school probably usually insta-thought I planned on raping them. Now I am extroardinarily un-intimidating and people like me.
I noticed your title, "Building confidence." It doesn't sound like you need confidence. It sounds like you need knowledge and practice. Confidence doesn't do a whole lot other than get you to talk to others. You can still be confidently unpleasant to talk to.
Practice will enhance your oratory skills, which will then enhance your confidence. I recommend gaining multiple, but preferably at least one, female friends, if you do not have any. Male friends will work to a lesser degree to improve your social skills, because men focus more on establishing a hierarchy with their companions, in which the goal is to outperform their companions. Women, however, focus on building a more supportive and nurturing environment. If you want to be impressive, you might talk to men, but if you want to be a people-person, women would be the better sex to practice on.
There might be medication for social anxiety disorder you might take. Social anxiety disorder could be making it more difficult to think effectively during conversations, and therefore make you less skilled at having them, which probably adds to your innate nervousness. I grew up with social anxiety disorder and never took medication. I can think of no negatives to taking medication for it. Like I said, my high school experience was fairly miserable. In college I joined a coed community service group which provided practice talking to others, and worked as a cashier, which provided more practice. Practice solved it, lots of practice. I still don't have much of a social life, but that's largely by choice. I like to be alone in my cave most of the time.
Congralutions. You probably have a long and excruciating journey ahead of you...lots and lots of growing pains. They won't be permenant though, if you can talk to enough people Your volunteering idea sounds like a wonderful beginning.
I am using the skill now, sort of. As a CAD Designer (computer aided drafting) I've designed multiple parts and drawings. In this job, I'm not designing any parts for anything serious, I'm designing toys. It's like; your a sous chef working at Taco Bell but not making food for a ton of people, but a single taco that you put on TV for a commercial.
The prospects are good. I live in Michigan, so there are a lot of jobs around that use CAD designers. However, I don't have a degree, but I have around 5 years experience in the field.
I don't understand the anxiety myself. I read books, I read the newspaper or news, weekly. I educate myself almost everyday and find things to talk about, but then fear and anxiety step in. My head fills in with disbelief. I should of talked to that girl down the hall already but fear takes me down, easily. It came to my knowledge a few weeks ago that my step-dad helped me get this job because he thought that that girl and I would click very well. It's not solely for that reason of course, but a perk.
Correction...evidently you have the knowledge, judging from how much time you've spent trying to educate yourself, but I still expect you need practice. Here's some advice that worked for me. It may assist you, I don't know. The reason I didn't take medication was because I wanted to sort of, experiment on my brain, introspectively. I don't recommend anyone else not take medication, unless they also curious about how their brains work....Here's some possible assistances that helped:
I had a female friend was in a serious relationship with a boyfriend...they became engaged a year later, and I felt nervous talking to her out of fear of breaching some rule I didn't understand about social interaction. I worried I might offend her or her boyfriend somehow, perhaps by accidently hitting on her. Nevertheless, in the community service group we were both in, we both volunteered to work at a haunted house, and were left for six hours alone in the dark together. We became pals. This will not be so applicable around family or on the job...social customs are important in those areas...but anywhere else, I'd recommend that you ignore all social customs that you don't think should exist in a pleasant place to live. Your anxiety might be making you have inaccurate views about them, so your intincts might not be trustworthy. Modern culture is made for people without your levels of anxiety. Sometimes culture seeks to instill that anxiety...as with a male's probable protectiveness towards his girlfriend...but this culture doesn't count on you already having that nervousness. I realistically might have hit on my now engaged frien a few times...later...while she was engaged...but nothing serious. I don't care, and I don't think she did either. The benefits were worth it.
I used to be able to put myself into two possible states when around people. In state #1, I would be extremely nervous and notice everything that could go wrong. In the state #2, I would totally ignore all my instincts, assume everyone loved me and I was extremely entertaining. State #2 actually proved the most useful most of the time. My instincts were thoroughly useles, so it was usually best to completely ignore most of them. The problem was that I didn't know which instincts to ignore, and which to pay attention to. I think the only solution to this is practice. That was the only solution for me...(although remember, I never took medication).
Don't feel pressured by society to do things you don't want to do. If you have social anxiety disorder, you're different from most people, so their advice on how to relax will usually be useless. For them, nervousness is not such a consistent factor. Don't try to date anyone you don't want to date. While not on the job or around family, don't try to consistently appear impressive if you don't feel like it. Such things can add to your nervousness. Avoid making promises, period. Promises made when excessively nervous, you may regret later. I still avoid making promises. This can be useful for everyone.
Seek all ways possible to reduce nervousness, while off the job and not around family. Again, around job and family, depending on your family and job, there are certain traditions and social rules which are important...and it's probably safer to remain nervous at times...although in the case of your family nervousness being assistful is probably rarer, but in mine anyway there are certain important traditions which nervousness helped me pay attention to. For instance: I'm not religious, and my extended family members are all Catholics and Methodists. My aunt and her family are also fond of a sort of class-grouped society. They're not bigoted...they merely recognize the difficulties of dating when people are of different religions, or ages, or races, etc. and discourage one another from seeking romantic relationships with such groups. I'm more of a hippie-type. I will attempt to form social bonds with everything I see, and worry about the repercussions later. I don't discuss my differing of opinions with them.
The effects of nervousness were, for me, the following: 1. I could ease my nervousness by totally ignoring my instincts...but that would result in becomming oblivious to other's potential nervousness...which can be a very bad thing on the job. 2. The nervousness would never go away, regardless of how many tricks I tried (remember...no medication for me though)...until my brain had grown through enough practice. I probably still have whatever chemical imbalance causes social anxiety disorder, but I know enough about people that I'm able to create relaxing enough situations, that for non-serious social interactions, the anxiety disorder becomes countered to the point of probably being irrelevant. I still have problems during situations where a little nervousness helps...but I'm getting better at those. Even practice talking in non-serious discussions seems to help with those. Again, I was never able to keep the nervousness at bay until I'd had lots of practice. Tricks such as trying to be more confident never worked, but I spent lots of time seeing if they would work. If you're like me, which you may or may not be, you might save time and effort by ignoring those type of tricks...ignore all that garbage about saying "I'm a wonderful person," and such...that's meant for the people with nervousness that goes away easily....It never did anything. Only practice helped.
It could potentially be hazerdous to give you advice about how to act around your family or on the job...that depends on the family and the job. However, regarding other situations....you seem to worry about making mistakes. I would recommend being greedily, aggresively, social. Yes, some people may not like you. Who cares? Learn from your mistakes though. In my experience, introspectively trying to predict how to be pleasant to talk to doesn't work, because people are irrational...but their feelings still have value, and I don't think there's a way to learn the typical emotional states of others, other than through practice.
There are books on body language. They might be somewhat assistful. I read "How to Read a Person Like a Book," by Gerard I. Nierenberg, Henry H. Calero, and Gabriel Grayson. It was pretty much useless due to inconsistent reliability of the accuracy of body language...but was well-written enough that it did no harm. One invaluable piece of information in it though, was that people tend to mirror one another's emotions. If you are angry, others will be more likely to become angry. If you are relaxed, others will be more likely to become relaxed. If you are nervous, others will be more likely to become nervous.
I'm not sure how to counter any chemical imbalance that causes social anxiety disorder...other than potentially through medication...which I haven't even bothered to research anything about...but I did learn over time that my level of nervousness was not so constant as I'd wondered about. It was merely higher than everyone else's. I probably have to do more to remain relaxed than most people, but after introducing enough variables which reduce anxiety...none of which involve telling myself "I'm a great person," and such baloney, it does seem to negate whatever social anxiety I have left, and I've become pretty good at it. One of these helpful variables is ignoring anxiety-causing worries about impressing others. Another is ignoring unpleasant social institutions that seem...overly nitpicky (as with talking to my engaged friend...and not so soon before that, being alone in the dark with her for six hours). Another is to assume that you've done something wrong, until proven otherwise, when someone you'd like to talk to won't talk to you, won't make eye contact, etc. Don't feel any guilt for this...I don't think there's any way to discover what pleases others without practice anyway. I once asked a strange girl sitting next to me in the library "Would you like a root beer from a vending machine?" That was the extent of our conversation. We'd never met before. It was perfectly logical to ask such a question. I was attempting to create a new social bond, and most people enjoy root beer from vending machines. Naturally, she looked at me like I was a three-headed methamphetamine addict. I did discover not to do that again, though, and I tried to learn why she thought I was a three-headed methamphetamine addict. Sometimes it is possible, through reason, to discover why others do certain things. I wouldn't advise allowing logic to provide reasons for you to not talk to people though, because people aren't logical, so logic will be unreliable, and practice for you is probably like vitamins are to many people. Your neurons may need to make connections and grow, and they need the sustenance that excessive communication provides to do that. However, logic is useful for changing ways you talk to people, after experiencing negative feedback. I don't think logic is reliable before experiencing the negative feedback which provides you with a direction, in terms of determining what people do and do not like. There are too many useless pathways logic could send you down...and that may or may not be what it is doing now, which might be resulting in you being so hesitant to talk to people. I would say, try to be greedy in ignoring worries about other people's feelings in non-work and non-family oriented environments, until you experience specific negative feedback, but remember that negative feedback and modify your behavior accordingly afterwards.
The reality is that the world is a darker, more uncaring place for some people than for others, but you can outsmart it. I think people are usually good, but their instincts drive them to sort of, disembowel the weak and spread resources that otherwise might go to them amongst the strong. Most people are better than such instincts...but such instincts do control some of culture. Congralutations. You have the better side of humanity allied with you, but the monster wants to devour you. Your job is to outsmart the monster. Have fun
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There appears to be no escape for you except for talking to people...however havoc you may wreak with such an act...
I am Clintone! Former Lord of the Creepers! I am 26. In high school, I had no friends and women found me disturbing. Women I met outside of high school probably usually insta-thought I planned on raping them. Now I am extroardinarily un-intimidating and people like me. 
