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It's Good to Be Back

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Hello fellow social anxiety sufferers - it is good to be back and writing articles on this site once again. If you have not already read it in the forum, I decided to put the website on the backburner because other things in life - work, school, interning, and my wife's struggles with her health just became a lot to handle and something had to go to the backburner, and that is what happened with this website.

However, after additional poor experiences in the world of work, I have decided that beyond the shadow of a doubt that my primary reason for existence is to become an entrepreneur. The Anxiety Support Network combines my passion for helping people with my passion for entrepreneurship - what could be better? Unfortunately, this website does have to remain a part-time endeavor because I am unable to make a living off it as of yet, and therefore am forced to search for a job. In my time off, however, I have been able to learn a few things that I hope will help some of the readers of this website.

  1. Even in the world of non-profit work, people are not always focused primarily on helping others. Most of my nonprofit experiences had been quite good ones, and this previous one was going well, until the organization I was interning for underwent a merger. To keep it short, it really became a takeover, and it turns out that the administration of the antagonizing organization is primarily concerned with money. They treated the current executive director like dirt by demoting that person to an entry-level position and salary. They are in the business of firing anyone and everyone who does not fit with their bottom-line focus. There were also some irritating and unpleasant people to work with there, which contradicted past nonprofit experience for me. I guess that I like to have control and be able to fire people if they are out of line, and I like to be able to direct an organization and know that I can do it, but right now no one is willing to hire me to do that. So, in a nutshell, the quickest path to attaining my goals to help people and run my own organization is this website.
  2. Confrontation and conflict are a part of life and cannot be avoided. While becoming an entrepreneur is my personal goal, in the meantime I have to have some way of supporting myself. My current potential career paths are non-profit management, human resources, or becoming an executive director (if I'm lucky!). All these positions entail confronting misbehaving employees or having disagreements with coworkers, and prior to this experience, I was trying to find positions where that either did not exist or was minimized, and that is really hard to find. Somehow, through repetition and a strong spirituality, I have come to learn that conflict, disagreement, and confrontation are a part of life and that it is okay for me to disagree. In the past, I always felt extreme guilt or shame for disagreeing and usually gave in to others. Of course, the caveat to all of this is that some workplaces are more confrontational than others, and even though I have more skills in dealing with those kinds of workplaces, I would much prefer to work in a collaborative rather than competitive and confrontational atmosphere.
  3. My responses to situations are different than others, and that is okay. People are all so different in their attitudes and thoughts that it is impossible to have them all agree. Some of my thoughts and attitudes are much different than those of others, and there is no reason for me to get bothered if they disagree and want me to think their way. Take guns for example. The word "gun" is a cause for alarm on most of our ultra-liberal university campuses these days. However, the word "gun" for me is associated with fun. While I have not shot a gun in a few years now, I enjoyed shooting targets when I used to live at home with my parents in the country. Many people in the more urban area where I live now would get upset or concerned if I started talking about buying guns. However, eventually what I learned is that people in urban areas come from an entirely different experience with guns. Guns in urban areas are reserved strictly for police or criminals and more often are used by the latter. Especially in Milwaukee, which has a high crime crate, guns are a symbol of danger to most people. The key now is that I have understanding. Of course, guns in an urban area are generally used for criminal purposes, and now it is clear why others are so concerned about them, while guns are more synonymous with a hobby or fun for me. Both backgrounds are valid, but now that I understand the differences between the two, I do not get nearly as bothered or embarrassed about disagreeing with others as I used to.
  4. While I feel like I have made a ton of progress, there is always more to learn, and when it comes right down to it, I know only a little. When working on this website in 2009 to early 2010, I thought that I could find a solution to every problem and that I had seen just about every social anxiety difficulty there could be. However, since then, I have had a couple of eye-opening experiences. One is that I have a friend with social anxiety who works in customer service. To me, that is amazing because I know that I would get way too stressed out about it. His reason for being able to do it is that he says he has taken so much of other people's "crap" over time that it comes naturally to him now. Another friend that I have made works successfully in sales. I know that in most cases I cannot sell anything to a person, and there would be so much meeting of people that I would get way too stressed out and burn out from the job. He says the social anxiety works such that he is able to meet people, but when it comes to actually revealing parts of himself and getting to know people, he puts up a wall. Prior to making this friend, I had no concept of social anxiety working this way, but it evidently does work that way for some people.

In sum, I am going to try different things with the website and see how it works out. After a period of time, I am going to think about it and make some decisions. I really believe in this site’s potential to help and connect people who struggle with social anxiety disorder. Anyone can live a life that is successful despite whatever struggles they may have. I wish all the readers of the site well as they go through their journey of life. And of course, if there is any way I can help, please let me know – helping people is part of who I am!



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