re: Has anyone here experienced and then overcome social anxiety

yes, and yes. quitting nicotine, if that's something you do, helps tremendously. quit anything that adds stress to your life unnecessarily. That could be people, hobbies, situations you find yourself in that have a negative impact on your wellbeing. quit all that shite, man.

exercising and good sleeping and eating helps. but really, if you just quit the addictions and the bad shite, the rest is pretty easy to moderate.

Find a therapist that specializes in IFS (internal family systems).

intersting

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Has anyone here experienced and then overcome social anxiety

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In my case, overthinking can lead to negative inertia socially. If I go in to a social scenario with an agenda or thinking too much about what I might say, I'm more likely to not speak up and may end up too quiet. Same can happen if a couple of loud friends are bantering and I try to allow them more room to speak. With good friends, it's better to just blurt shite out without trying to pick my spots. With others, it's better to go into situations without worrying or putting any thoughts into what I might say.

This is part of being truly present in a conversation, and when you don't overthink or try to plan, it's easier to stay engaged.

Part of it is also authenticity... as people get older, it's somewhat normal for pretense to start falling by the wayside. They avoid things they don't care for, and speak up more freely when they feel like it... This is part of the joke in the Progressive "Don't become your parents" commercials. As you get older, some of the quirks that have always been you (whether instilled by your parents or not) start to come out, and you care less when they do... If you want to wear socks and sandals and chat people up on a park bench about their lunch, you're just more likely to be uninhibited and do it when you're older.

The message in both examples above speaks to learning to be spontaneous and genuine. Assuming you're generally decent and agreeable, the worst that'll happen is you'll flub a line or two, but if you stumble, make fun of yourself and carry on... hesitation or getting nervous over social mistakes backs your energy up / leads to anxiety.

Prozac..xanax..klonopin

59 years old and mine has only gotten worse. Didn’t affect me much when I ran my dental practice for years, but after my neck surgery/disability retirement, I had some depression and didn’t do much for years. Lost that daily interaction with people. Now if you ran into me and we had an interaction you’d swear that I’m borderline ruhtarded. So now I interact with snakes instead of people.

It's called alcohol

eta:

i really hate EVERYBODY

i hate the look on your face more than the stupid words that come out your mouth

It’s tough. Basically you spend a lot of ways trying to avoid certain situations, but when you can’t, you just deal and hope for the best.

I’ve spent a lot of money on therapy, and other things, and it just doesn’t go away, or at least I haven’t found the secret yet.

Lexapro and Klonopin while I keep searching for a way to fix it.

Are you an introvert by chance? I'm introvert AF but can socialize easy enough. I don't talk a whole lot in social interactions where there are more than 2 or 3 people around. I prefer to listen to people speak than to be the center of attention in almost all settings.

Could be you're just getting older and value listening to people you know more than getting to know strangers.

As a former bell captain, who was forced to socially interact with strangers or else starve…or now, communicating with patients & families as a nurse, I’ve always been in some form of the hospitality industry, so I’ve never really experienced social anxiety.

However, I could tell you you have to make the effort to engage in order to discover or refresh your lost skills. This is mandatory if you are serious about helping yourself. Get to a well-populated place (park, festival, mall, French Quarter, etc) and practice.

Start by approaching with a smile then maybe a genuine compliment (clothes, hairdo, looks, activity) or a generalized question that shows interest in their opinion of a certain subject or where they are from. Listen intently (people love to talk about themselves) and don’t forget their names or what they said. Have a related follow-up question or comment to what they just answered. Maybe a conversation will break out. Maybe you move on. Make sure you repeat their name during the convo or even if you are leaving.

There are plenty of You Tubers who challenge themselves with a set of goals to break their social anxiety. Some set a goal of taking selfies with 100 strangers, or complimenting 100 strangers, or just asking 100 strangers for advice on how to break the fear, silence and awkwardness. Here’s just one of countless influencers who suffer with social anxiety but are actively working on overcoming it: