Shyness and Social Anxiety Workbook for Teens (7 page)

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Imagine you are looking at yourself in a funhouse mirror at a carnival or fair. Yes, that is you, but your face is not that long, your stomach is not that fat, and your legs are not that skinny. The mirror is distorting the reality of what is there.

When we are anxious, our thoughts get reflected in a funhouse mirror. Worse still, we are unaware of the distortion and take those thoughts at face value, making us even more scared.

This chapter explains six thinking mistakes, or distortions, that people with social anxiety commonly make. When you recognize the distortion in your thoughts, it becomes easier to take them less seriously.

Catastrophic Thinking

You’ve probably heard people ask, “What’s the worst that can happen?” When a trigger situation occurs, and your mind jumps to the worst possible outcome—even though there are a hundred other possible outcomes—you are using catastrophic thinking.

When this teen is turned down for a date, he assumes it is so newsworthy that the whole school will soon know and be laughing at him. That might qualify as a catastrophe, but is it likely to happen?

Describe a situation in your own life where you used catastrophic thinking.

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What was the worst possible outcome that you assumed would happen?

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Discounting the Positive

When something good happens to you, do you chalk it up to luck? When somebody praises you, do you assume the person was just trying to be nice? Say you were talking to someone and, instead of getting all tongue-tied, you actually enjoyed the conversation. Instead of feeling good that sometimes you really do have something to talk about, you conclude, “Well, she’s really nice, and that’s why I felt comfortable, but most people aren’t like that and I’d totally freeze up talking with them.”

It is difficult to develop confidence when you ignore your successes, when you discount the positive.

Here’s Cyndi, who has a nice voice, yet doubts her abilities in her choral class.

Have you ever been given a compliment you didn’t feel you deserved? Write it down.

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How did you discount the compliment?

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People who see the good in everything are sometimes said to be wearing rose-colored glasses. A socially anxious teen in a trigger situation could be said to be wearing gray-colored glasses. All her senses are working and she is taking everything in, but she discounts all the information that is positive, leaving only the negative.

In what situations do you seem able to see only what isn’t working?

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Labeling

Sticks and stones may break your bones, but words can really harm you. By calling someone else names, you are degrading that person. Calling yourself names degrades you. For example, you drop your books in the hall, and you tell yourself you are lame. But we have all made clumsy mistakes. Are we all lame?

Losing a game of chess doesn’t make you a loser. Blurting out a silly idea doesn’t make you an idiot. Words like “lame” and “loser” and “idiot” are labels that don’t really explain who you are.