Why Do I Replay Conversations in My Head? The Hidden Cycle of Social Anxiety

As you walk away from a social gathering with potential new friends, you can’t stop judging yourself for how you spoke and acted. You didn’t talk much and you don’t recall saying anything interesting. You’re left with the uncomfortable conclusion that you blew an opportunity to make new friends and you’re certain that they think of you as boring or weird. The mental torture continues later that evening as you repeatedly replay the conversation in your head, exhausting yourself with rounds of mental review, each one confirming that you messed it all up.

If this is your typical way of processing social gatherings, then you’re likely to be grappling with significant social anxiety (also called social phobia). Why does this happen? Why can’t you stop the thought loop? How come you can’t be kind to yourself in your post-mortem assessment of a date, a networking event or a social meetup?

I’ve witnessed firsthand as a psychologist how the tendency to ruminate after social events can lead to so much mental distress and subsequent avoidance. Obsessing about your post-event social performance is the mental glue that keeps the social anxiety from improving.

What is the hidden cycle of social anxiety and rumination?

To understand the way rumination promotes future social anxiety, let’s go over a brief explanation of the cycle of social anxiety.

First, a social interaction occurs. Your mind then searches for mistakes. Negative ideas about yourself are repeated as you replay conversations and choices. Your anxiety increases.

You encode the memory in a biased way as a negative event, including all of the self-judgment and errors. Positive angles of the event are minimized or forgotten.

Social confidence decreases and self-judgment remains and fuels a standing pool of pre-existing negative ideas about yourself.

Anxiety spikes in anticipation of a potential social interaction, known or imagined. Avoidance tactics are reinforced as an option for handling a pending social engagement.

If thoughts of avoidance compel you to skip the event, immediate relief is experienced and it feels like danger was successfully averted. After a brief period of relief, the rumination begins…negative thoughts against the self increase. Self-judgment taints all of your thoughts about your avoidance and personal value. Regrets might further enhance mental discomfort. A sense of defeat and helplessness flood your thoughts.

If thoughts of avoidance don’t stop you from attending a social interaction, then your anxiety might spike prior to the event and obsessive thinking could make the lead up time very uncomfortable. At the event you’re in your own head and not so present. Things don’t feel natural. You question every choice you make. You hyper-attend to other people’s thoughts of you, wondering what they’re thinking. Since you’re not fully present, you might avoid or keep sharing about yourself to a minimum. You avoid vulnerability and self-expression, which limits your sense of belonging and of being seen, heard and validated.

If you do manage to fully engage in the social activity, the intense self-judgment following the event cancels out positive aspects of the experience. The ruminative cycle continues.

It doesn’t have to be this way. CBT therapy can interrupt this cycle. I sincerely enjoy the work I do with clients who are seeking relief from their social anxiety. 

But why do I replay events in my head?

The cycle of social anxiety reinforces the idea that you are not ____ enough. You fill in the blank. Smart? Interesting? Exciting? A fast thinker? Worthy? Desirable? Wealthy? Charismatic?

When you’re operating from the base hypothesis that you’re not ____ enough, then there’s very little room for you to interpret your behavior in a social situation as “enough” or “better than enough”. Think of it as a thought addiction. Without a way to push back on the idea that you’re not ____ enough, then you’re bound to confirm this painful belief.

Rumination/ self-evaluation (and avoidance) serve an evolutionary function of keeping you safe. A threat must be avoided. The problem is that your assessment of the threat is quite biased toward the negative. You’re likely to interpret positive outcomes through a very strong filter of negativity and minimization.

One way to think of rumination is that it’s your attempt at mastery over difficult thoughts, things you don’t want to, but fear you have to accept are true about you. The more you circle around painful ideas, the more you maintain the illusion of gaining control over such difficult thoughts.

Another way to understand rumination is that the cycle of social anxiety and post-event, obsessive thinking simply creates balance between the way you just interpreted your social performance/how you think others think of you and core beliefs about yourself (e.g., “I am unlovable” or “I am defective.”) These core assumptions are like files in your mind that are waiting to be filled with new data, and you’re on a hunt to fill up the files to the brim.

Why Does New York City tend make a mental habit of rumination worse?

In New York City, people are competing for resources. It’s so easy to slip into the mentality that other people have it together much more than you. (Please see my detailed post on how NYC worsens social anxiety for much more on this topic.) We all fall for outward appearances, that other people are doing better/ more ____ than us. You insert the adjective that suits your self-conscious concerns. Social media reinforces this bias exponentially.

There’s a sense in NYC as though people are on the hunt for achieving social credit. This makes socializing feel even more risky. You’re likely to be comparing yourself to some uber-idealized version of what you think of others are relative to your own value. So many social interactions can feel high stakes in New York when you leave your apartment.

What if my habit of ruminating after social interactions is worsened by my  perfectionistic tendencies?

Perfectionists may have higher standards for performance and an intolerance for small mistakes. When you’re comparing yourself to an idealized version of how you’re supposed to act or the reaction you’re meant to get from others, you have to literally thread the needle to leave a social interaction feeling like you’ve succeeded.

One problem with perfectionistic tendencies is that at school or work, these habits may have led you to be highly successful. Based on past success, your mind is at risk for generalizing to the social realm in terms of believing your performance around others should be nothing short of perfect.

I work with perfectionists (and non-perfectionists) in therapy to alter irrational belief systems around social performance while opening the mental pathway toward self-acceptance and curiosity instead of biased self-evaluation. Of course, you can never shut down ALL post-event self-evaluative thoughts, but they can be limited and new habits of thought can be learned.

There are thought-stopping techniques for reducing rumination, as well as strategies for promoting social confidence, which tend to short circuit the cycle of social anxiety, rumination and avoidance.

Breaking the Cycle of Social Anxiety

Judgment-laden, obsessive thoughts around social events hold the key to breaking the cycle of avoidance that often accompanies social anxiety. When you learn to restructure thought patterns associated with social performance and perceived judgment (occurring inward and from others), it becomes easier to take social chances. Reduced rumination makes room for thoughts of self-acceptance and a more realistic assessment of social risk. Perfectionistic ideas amplify self-judgment and therefore must be altered so you don’t hold yourself to impossible standards that doom you to conclude that you failed and aren’t good enough. You can learn to see social events as less high stakes, even with room for error on your part.

Some people do well with a stepwise exposure approach to building social confidence. Therapy offers a safe space to discuss social outcomes and avoidance. Anticipatory social anxiety, anxiety during socialization and post-event, social evaluation can all be improved when you’re working in therapy with an experienced psychotherapist.

Please feel free to reach out with any questions or to schedule an initial consulation.

I wish you all the best in your social endeavors!

Gregory Kushnick, Psy.D.

Licensed Psychologist in New York City

Tel. 917-566-7312

Chelsea/Flatiron Office

138 West 25th St.

Suite 802-B4

New York, NY 10001

FiDi/Wall St. Office

30 Broad St.

Suite 1433

New York, NY 10004

 

 

 

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The Coping Styles Behind Social Anxiety in New York City

In New York City, social anxiety remains hidden behind behaviors that serve to prevent mental discomfort. The self consciousness that accompanies social anxiety can make you feel like you’re on stage. However, the way people cope doesn’t always manifest as shyness or avoidance. Often, social discomfort hides behind hyper-competence, busyness, humor, ambition, profound attention to detail, dismissiveness or emotional distance. The city seems to reward people who can perform, adapt and keep it moving, but the truth is that social success is not as common people think.

In a place where you’re constantly surrounded by people yet rarely known by them, social interactions can feel unusually intense. Whether or not you’re grappling with social anxiety, comparison feels like it’s everywhere. It shows up on subway platforms, at dinner parties, on LinkedIn, on dating apps and even while waiting for coffee. There is constant pressure to appear interesting, confident and successful without trying too hard. For someone with social anxiety, this constant sense of evaluation can feel incredibly exhausting, as though everything you do is being judged by the harshest of critics.

To survive in this environment, people adapt by developing strategies that reduce mental discomfort, protect against rejection or preserve a sense of control. These strategies often work, at least in the beginning. Your style of social adaptation comes in handy. You build your career, maintain important and superficial relationships while trying to exude social ease. Over time, however, the same strategies can become rigid, draining and isolating.

Rather than viewing social anxiety as one single experience, it can be more helpful to think in terms of coping styles. Each style represents a different way of managing pressure, fear, shame or self consciousness in social situations. None of these styles are signs of weakness or failure. They are intelligent responses to a socially demanding city. The challenge is that what once kept someone safe can quietly begin to limit their sense of protection, connection, and belonging.

Please note that most people rely on a combination coping styles to manage their social anxiety. I am distinguishing the characteristics of each style to help you better understand your social tendencies and the way anxiety compels you to react. We can also call these avoidance strategies, given that people who grapple with significant social nervousness tend to hide parts of themselves from others and develop predictable patters to elude what they perceive as social risk.

Styles of Social Anxiety Management

I’m going to share with you four styles of coping with social anxiety, as well as a bit about what needs to be included in therapy for successful treatment of each social style.

1. The Avoidant Style

When you tend to stay away from social settings to avoid real or imagined judgment from others, this is the classic avoidant style that people often think of when they imagine someone with social anxiety. (Please note that I’m not referring to an avoidant attachment style, which is a different concept.)

The logic is that if you just stay away, you won’t be anxious. You just make yourself disappear and no one gets hurt. This can also apply to the person who stays to the side of the room in a social gathering and observes from a distance. However, this approach just reinforces fear and leads to the unfortunate missing of opportunities to build confidence and tolerance. The avoidant style is the least engaged of all styles and it may be correlated with depression, panic attacks, agoraphobia and other challenging mental health issues because people with this inclination are denied the opportunity to disprove a global and fixed set of negative beliefs through positive or even neutral social interaction. The comfort zone is kept narrow and there’s little to no mental health boost associated with feeling connected, wanted and belonging to people.

People who avoid most social opportunities may be more likely to rely on AI chatbots to gain the illusion of connection, safety and approval. The rapid development of AI will certainly bring new challenges in terms of powerful addiction to pseudo-socialization and the fake experience of being an a romantic relationship.

Therapy for Socially Avoidant New Yorkers

Success with CBT therapy for this avoidant style involves stepwise exposure therapy that allows you to gradually test reality. In other words, you learn to first engage in mild social situations that let you test your negative theories about yourself or other people. CBT psychotherapy for people who avoid incorporates a component of disputing irrational beliefs, identifying core beliefs about oneself that serve to maintain social avoidance, and the tracking of episodes of anxiety to better understand triggers. Panic Disorder is an extremely distressing phenomenon that requires special attention in therapy to reduce the frequency of panic attacks and minimize avoidance of certain settings that have become associated with a panic attack. Panic attacks can be especially hard to manage in New York City because personal space is limited, people gather in large, potentially overwhelming venues and the pressure to appear socially successful is omnipresent. In more severe cases, panic attacks also lead to agoraphobia, or the avoidance of places that might lead to panic and a sense of being trapped, helpless or embarrassed. Please know that there is help for this. Therapy can bring welcomed relief to these symptoms.

2. The Appeaser / People Pleaser Style

The appeaser is the people pleaser who gives up their opinions, preferences and sense of self-expression to accommodate others and avoid social risk. Guided by a strong fear of judgment but compelled to be socially connected through sacrifice, appeasers develop the ability to mold themselves to fit a social situation. Social appeasers operate under the basic assumption: “If I’m liked, I won’t be judged or rejected.” This accommodating style often involves a lot of letting other people talk, but it can be a struggle to fully concentrate on conversations and feel socially comfortable because of the fear of not knowing what to say, of being judged for saying the wrong thing or for looking anxious given how quiet the appeaser can appear relative to the speaker.

This can be a very adaptive style of social engagement. If done properly, you can make other people feel seen and heard through your active listening. Conversations can become an echo chamber of other people’s ideas, making them feel felt and more justified in their convictions based on your agreement. Some people have achieved success with this way of managing social anxiety, especially when it feels like the only other alternative is to be completely socially avoidant.

Over time, however, this style of pleasing people comes with serious risks to one’s mental health. Over-appeasing others can lead to long-lasting feelings of resentment and bitterness. If it feels like you have to cancel yourself around others, especially when you disagree with people’s ideas or they act in a disrespectful or dismissive way, there’s a good chance that anger will build. You might eat the anger and stay silent when in the social moment, but in your post-mortem assessment of your social performance, you’re likely to feel foolish and taken advantage of. In a painstaking evaluation of one’s social performance, an appeaser might toil over such questions as “Why didn’t I say something when the other person insulted me (or my partner, behavior, family, interests, occupation, beliefs, ethnic background, etc.)?” People pleasers might rely on passive aggressive tactics to handle their self-loathing, anger and resentment. That could show up in their texting behavior because they don’t have to be as socially accountable and vulnerable while messaging on their phone.

Therapy for Socially Appeasing New Yorkers

My clients with social appeasement tendencies often have a strong fear of being seen as awkward, unintelligent or anxious. In therapy appeasers report pondering troubling questions in social settings such as, “What if they notice how anxious I am?” or “What if I say the wrong thing?” Successful therapy of a tendency to socially over-please involves examining resistance to establishing personal boundaries, both internal and external, identifying and manifesting personal values as a roadmap for committing to choices, opinions and behaviors, building the muscle of self-acceptance and compassion to combat shame and overly punitive self-judgment, as well as altering distorted beliefs related to perfectionism, performance and family experiences of having to give up something major to accommodate other people’s mental health issues. Therapy must address any past trauma that locked in this coping style at an early age as a way to deal with a complicated attachment to a caregiver, such as an overly punitive or neglectful parent.

3. The Dismissive Style

Dismissers find reasons why social connection is unimportant and a waste of time. They develop over time a bitter and detached stance toward others. They may appear aloof, sarcastic ironic, hyper-independent or emotionally cool. Underneath, however, distance protects them from exposure, rejection or shame. Dismissers operate under the basic assumption: “If I don’t need you, then you can’t hurt me.”

Dismissers over-index on judgment and keep relationships superficial in order to find social comfort or justify being alone. Their strong social armor of judgment and minimization keeps them protected, but they lose the true benefit of feeling deeply seen, felt, heard and understood. They skim the surface when it comes to topics that make them feel vulnerable, but they will dive in deep and share rather harsh opinions if the conversation leads to an opportunity. Similar to the performing type, some people with this style of managing the fear of judgment and rejection have lots of friends, but few friends who know them very well.

They might avoid people who see through their armor and make them feel vulnerable because there is too high a risk of being judged or rejected. Dismissers essentially do the rejecting before anyone else can do it to them. They have an investment in conveying to others that they don’t need them. 

Interestingly, I’ve noticed that many New Yorkers will employ dismissive logic to justify working remotely. They suppress their need to connect with others in order to make remote work seem like the best option, given all of its other convenient benefits. They ignore their social deprivation until it catches up to them. Please note that I’m not referring to everyone who works remotely.

Therapy for Socially Dismissive New Yorkers

Therapy with Dismissers involves a deep examination of their resistance to vulnerability and the perceived risks of letting go of control. A restructuring of belief systems related to rejection and needing people, as well as tuning in to other people’s needs is necessary for becoming less dismissive. I help clients slowly shed the protective layers to detachment and judgment to connect with others on a deeper and more fulfilling level. Any past pain or trauma is addressed to free the client from a fixed stance of self-protection.

4. The Performer / Over-Prepared Style

Another way to cope with social anxiety is to take on the role of the performer in the group. The Performer garners attention by remaining at the center of the conversation. Some performers are prepared and highly polished, while others who have achieved more mental freedom in groups are improvisational yet charismatic and entertaining. In its extreme form, the performative social style involves a strong effort to remain at the center of the group dynamic, while controlling the tone and content of conversations.

Some Performers over-prepare and practice to feel more in control and reduce the risk of people seeing the mental discomfort, self-doubt and fear of judgment beneath outward appearances. They memorize jokes and reference culturally relevant events in a unique way that brings admiration. They make sure they sound smart by recycling lines in new conversations that make people laugh or marvel.

They wait patiently for their turn and only speak when they feel certain that it’s safe to deliver their curated response. Similar to the Dismissive style, Performers avoid feeling vulnerable or they can share personal information because they know exactly what they’re going to say.

Some Over-preparers will only share with the group when the conversation is steered in a safe direction that relates to a passion, hobby, career social or political issue that is well within their area of expertise and comfort zone. In an effort to control their social anxiety, some Preparers have dedicated themselves to becoming a subject expert, which allows for social ease in a limited but potentially satisfying manner.  Social adaptation and fulfillment for the Preparer depends on the extent to which they are sharing a genuine side of their personality AND feel some level of vulnerability. If they only share what is totally comfortable and it has a superficial, performative quality, then social interactions will be less fulfilling.

Therapy for Over-Performing / Over-Preparing New Yorkers

It’s certainly rewarding to get a reaction from the crowd, but how much is the performer really letting people in? Therapy aims to help clients audition various social approaches to find one that incorporates more vulnerability and authenticity. Any underlying pain or trauma is addressed to soften the perceived risks involved in socializing. We engage in cognitive restructuring so that beliefs about showing imperfections doesn’t obstruct social sharing and showing up for others.

Working in Therapy to Alter Your Social Coping Style

You must know that there is help for social anxiety. Some people will avoid therapy as an extension of avoiding other social engagements. After all, sharing one on one with a therapist can be initially intimidating. I strive to offer New Yorkers a safe and comfortable space to work on their social anxiety, even if it brings up tons of shame, regret, embarrassment and anxiety. We work together to develop social flexibility, even incorporating part of the above-mentioned styles to manage social engagement.

I find this type of work with my clients to be highly rewarding because I get to witness the gradual gaining of confidence that comes with achieving new levels of social success over the course of therapy. As my clients learn new tools for of social anxiety management and for preventing and coping with panic, there is an amazing sense of relief that sets in, as well as a new appreciation for how good social connection and belonging feels.

Please feel free to reach out with any questions or to schedule an initial consulation for help with social anxiety.

Sincerely,

Gregory Kushnick, Psy.D.

Licensed Psychologist in New York City

Tel. 917-566-7312

Chelsea/Flatiron Office

138 West 25th St.

Suite 802-B4

New York, NY 10001

FiDi/Wall St. Office

30 Broad St.

Suite 1433

New York, NY 10004

 

Learn More