Robert F. Mullen, PhD
Director/ReChanneling

Subscriber numbers generate contributions that support scholarships for workshops.

The distinction between social anxiety disorder and social anxiety is a matter of severity; reference to one includes the other. The recovery tools and techniques provided are applicable to most emotional malfunctions including depression, substance abuse, ADHD, PTSD, generalized anxiety, and issues of self-esteem and motivation. These malfunctions originate homogeneously, their trajectories differentiated by environment, experience, and the diversity of human thought and behavior. 

The distinction between social anxiety disorder and social anxiety is a matter of severity; reference to one includes the other. The recovery tools and techniques provided are applicable to most emotional malfunctions including depression, substance abuse, ADHD, PTSD, generalized anxiety, and issues of self-esteem and motivation. These malfunctions originate homogeneously, their trajectories differentiated by environment, experience, and the diversity of human thought and behavior. 

“Dr. Mullen is doing impressive work helping the world. He is the pioneer of proactive neuroplasticity utilizing DRNI – deliberate, repetitive, neural information.” – WeVoice (Madrid, Málaga)

It’s Not Your Fault!

“If you know the enemy and know yourself, you need not fear the result of a hundred battles. If you know yourself but not the enemy, for every victory gained you will also suffer a defeat. If you know neither the enemy nor yourself, you will succumb in every battle.” Part Deux
– Sun Tzu, The Art of War

Social anxiety is not behavior caused. We did not make it happen; it happened to us. Emotional malfunction is the consequence of childhood disturbance. Social anxiety sensed our vulnerability and infected us during adolescence. We did not ask for or encourage it. It is not retribution for immortal conduct or disagreeable habits. It is indiscriminate and ubiquitous and afflicts at least one in four adults and adolescents.

Attributions

We have examined the multiple reasons we resist recovery. Public opinion, the media, the pathographic focus of psychology, stigma, and even our families deter us from revealing our social anxiety. These external attributions to our resistance are the tip of the iceberg, however.

We contribute our baggage as well. Many of us choose to remain ignorant of SAD’s destructive capabilities. Some go to enormous lengths to remain oblivious to its symptoms as if, by ignoring them, they do not exist or will somehow go away.

We cling to irrational and misguided assumptions due to our willful pursuit of ignorance or fears of revelation. We avoid confrontation due to unjustifiable shame and guilt.

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It’s Not Our Fault.

Cumulative evidence that a toxic childhood is a primary causal factor in emotional instability or insecurity has been well established. During the development of our core beliefs, we are subject to a childhood disturbance – a broad and generic term for anything that interferes with our optimal physical, cognitive, emotional, or social development. SAD senses our vulnerability and swoops in, negatively impacting our emotional well-being and quality of life.

When we research its origins, we uncover the likelihood no one is responsible. The disturbance may be accidental or intentional, real or perceptual. The suggestibility of a child is legendary. A toddler whose parental quality time is disrupted by a phone call may develop a sense of abandonment. Nonetheless, as I’ve said before, while not liable for the cards we have been dealt, we are responsible for how we play the hand we hold. 

The negative cycle we find ourselves in has convinced us that there is something wrong with us when the only thing we are doing is viewing ourselves and the world inaccurately. That is a natural reaction to our symptoms. SAD sustains itself by feeding us irrational thoughts and behaviors. 

If you know the enemy and know yourself, you need not fear the result of a hundred battles. 

We are Not Alone

Roughly, 124 million U.S. adults and adolescents experience anxiety disorders. 60% of those have depression, and far too many resort to substance abuse. Anxiety and depression are the primary causes of the notable increase in adolescent suicide over the last decade. An estimated 40 million U.S. adults experience social anxiety disorder and roughly one-in-three college students have a lifetime anxiety disorder diagnosis. So, when you start to sweat and hyperventilate at a social event, remember, you are in good company. Social anxiety is common, universal, and indiscriminate.

It is Not the Consequence of Our Behaviors 

Combined statistics reveal that the vast majority of emotional malfunction onsets at adolescence or earlier. Excepting conditions like PTSD or clinical narcissism that impact later in life, the susceptibility to disorders originates in childhood. Emotional malfunction is hereditary, environmental, or the result of trauma. Perhaps parents are controlling or do not provide emotional validation. Maybe we were subjected to bullying or from a broken home. Behaviors later in life may impact the severity but are not responsible for the condition itself. While our lifetime behavior can impact the severity, the origins of our malfunction happen in childhood. This disputes moral models that we are to blame for our disorder, or that it is God’s punishment for sin.  

We are Not Mental

Not only is the description inaccurate, but it promotes hostile perceptions of incompetence and derangement. It is the dominant source of stigma, guilt, and self-loathing. The word mental defines a person or their behavior as extreme or illogical. In adolescence, anyone unpopular or different was a mental case or a retard. The urban dictionary defines mental as someone silly or simpleminded. It is often associated with violent or divisive behavior. Add the words illness or disorder and we have the public stereotype of the dangerous and unpredictable individual who cannot fend for themselves and should be isolated. Emotional malfunction is not ‘mental,’ biologic, hygienic, neurochemical, or psychogenic, but all of these things.

To the early civilizations, mental illnesses were the domain of supernatural forces and demonic possession. Hippocrates and diagnosticians of the 19th century favored the humours (bodily liquids). Lunar influence, sorcery, and witchcraft are timeless culprits. In the early 20th century, it was somatogenic. The biological approach argues that disorder is due to our brain’s physical structure and functioning. The pharmacological approach promotes it as a brain chemistry imbalance. The first Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (1952) leaned heavily on environmental and biological causes. Social anxiety sustains itself through the simultaneous mutual interaction of mind, body, spirit, and emotions.

If you know the enemy and know yourself, you need not fear the result of a hundred battles.

We are Hopeful, Powerful, Desirable, and Worthwhile

In his extensive examination of anxiety and depression, Aaron Beck, the pioneer of cognitive-behavioral therapy, asserted that social anxiety generates feelings of helplessness, hopelessness, and unworthiness. The concept of undesirability revealed itself in my SAD recovery workshops. Until we commit to recovery, we continue to be guided by these destructive self-beliefs. 

We are not helpless unless we choose to be. Multiple resources are available to anyone with the motivation and commitment to recover.

Likewise, we are not hopeless. Once we recognize the irrationality of our fears, we see them for what they are: powerless abstractions.

We are not undesirable. SAD compels us to view ourselves inaccurately. It reinforces or justifies our negative self-image, convincing us our cognitive distortions are the truths of a situation instead of emotional interpretations. Our fears and anxieties manifest in how we think about ourselves, how we think others think about us, and how we process that information. Any assumption of undesirability is self-centered and irrational.

We are not worthless but integral and consequential to all things. We are unique in every aspect; there is no one like us. We are the totality of our experiences, beliefs, perceptions, demands, and desires with unique DNA, fingerprints, and outer ears. There is and never has been a single human being with our sensibilities, our memories, our motivations, and our dreams.

If you know the enemy and know yourself, you need not fear the result of a hundred battles.

Yet, we continue to beat ourselves up for our perceptual inadequacies. We blame ourselves for our defects as if they are the pervading forces of our true being, rather than symptoms of our dysfunction.

We are not defined by our social anxiety disorder but by our character strengths, virtues, and achievements. When we break our leg do we become that injured limb or are we simply an Individual with a broken leg? 

To moderate our social anxiety, we identify the situations that provoke them. Further self-examination unpacks the associated fears and corresponding negative thoughts and behaviors. We need to know the enemy to conquer it. We cannot fix the complexity of our emotional malfunction unless we know what is broken. SAD is the most underrated, misunderstood, and misdiagnosed disorder. Nicknamed the neglected anxiety disorder, few professionals understand it, and fewer know how to challenge it. One has to experience it to know it.

We dread situations that provoke our fears of criticism and ridicule. We anticipate being judged negatively. We reject overtures anticipating rejection. Unless we are fortune tellers or mind-readers, assuming to know what another person is thinking or planning is irrational. It is a symptom of our condition.

We worry we might do or say something foolish. Fretting about something that may or may not happen is illogical. If it happens, it happens. We learn from it and move on. Avoiding doing things or speaking to people out of fear of embarrassment eliminates opportunities and diminishes possibilities.

Once we know ourselves and know the enemy, nothing is standing in the way of recovery. The process is theoretically simple, albeit time-consuming, repetitive, and personally revealing. However, the rewards dramatically outweigh the commitment.

SAD sustains itself by inflicting anxiety and fear, but they have no power on their own. We fuel them; we give them strength and power. We control our emotional well-being and quality of life, and only we can compel change. The onus of recovery is on us.

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