Social Anxiety - How can I make friends?

[Teagsy1993]

I moved to the other end of the country (almost 3 months ago) and even though I have family here I am starting to feel lonely. I haven't made friends as quickly as I wanted/ expected to and it's starting to bring me down. As I have social anxiety, I find it hard to meet new people and put myself out there. Also having depression makes me not want to leave the house. Apart from coming to work on a daily basis and having to communicate with people, I don't socialise.

How can I start meeting new people and building relationships, as well as feeling comfortable at getting out of my comfort zone?

[Jigsaw9]

Teagsy

We all feel alienated and alone. It is quite okay te feel this way. We need not feel this way all the time however. There are many places you can go to connect with people and make friends. Work is a good start although that doesnt always work. I want you to try an experiment. Go to the shopping centre and do some shopping. Bit of retail therapy. Put an X on a list each time you have any kind of communication with someone whether it be a conversation or asking for directions or paying at the till. You will be surprised how many people you actually spoke to that day!

[Jigsaw9]

Keep posting us on here and we will hopefully see you through. Sometimes moving to another part of the world can be the best thing that has happen to you. You also have neighbours you can make friends with?

[romantic_thi3f]

Hi Teagsy1993,

Moving to the other side of the country, starting a new job - not knowing anyone except your family; that sounds like a massive job! Anxiety or no anxiety, it sounds like an incredible feat! That is not an easy thing to do.

I’m sorry that you are struggling with this though - I can understand how difficult it would be. I wonder though, what would it look like if you just started to get out of your comfort zone? If your zone was a circle, what could it look like if you stepped just a little outside of it?

As someone with an anxiety disorder, for me that might look like striking up more conversations at work (often colleagues socialise outside of work or I could meet people through them) or if I’m buying something from a store I might start chatting with them too. For others it might look like signing up to the gym or finding a group on meetup. It’s all about finding out what works for you.

Hope this helps!

[Jigsaw9]

Teags

Checking up on you to see how things are going? Hope your'e feeling less alienated and more at ease.