I bombed a presentation in college at 23. That day set a fire in my heart to confront this issue that had been controlling me since 13. I couldn’t stomach the shame of standing in front of 25 classmates, frozen, helpless, just completely vulnerable and exposed for everybody to witness.

It made me realize just how bad things had gotten. How messed up I was that I, as an adult who was about to graduate, couldn’t speak publicly without breaking down.

Fuck me.

The fury with which I attacked my social anxiety was honestly insane. I did things I never thought I’d do, like hold a job waiting tables and survive 5 hours of talking to people every night. Or consistently train 3x/week in the gym and add 20lbs of muscle to my skinny frame. Or completely change my critical self-talk and think much more positive.

I did so much in those first 2 years, including moving out of the house and the most scariest thing of all – leaving behind my old life in Arizona and moving to Texas where I knew no one. I quit my job, packed my car, and drove 1000 miles without any job lined up, no place to stay, just a will to figure it out and push myself to reach my potential.

See, 2 years had passed and I was now 25. And though a big change had taken place in this time in me becoming a way more functional person, I was still behind.

Behind in my social ability, my comfort level, my life in general.

Social anxiety whether I liked it or not was still the ruling force in my life. It was keeping me away from women, from connecting with people, from just making friends. It made me feel uncomfortable still pretty much all the time, even if I could mask it by smiling a lot.

And that’s what had made me feel the need to make this move. I was stagnant and I couldn’t force myself to change. So I thought moving cities might force it out of me. I’d be around new people. I’d have a clean slate. No one would know me as the shy/awkward/insecure guy that I’d been.

Scary doesn’t begin to describe that new foray.

I cried that first night at a Motel 6 in Austin. I felt like I had just completely thrown away everything and there was no getting it back. All the people I’d known, my family. I felt so alone and like I had made a terrible choice.

But this was it in my mind. If I didn’t make it here, I wouldn’t make it anywhere.

I eventually found an apartment to rent. I tried my hand at commission sales (made $0) selling credit card processing payment systems for a few months (terrifying cold approaching businesses). And finally I landed on a job serving tables again because I didn’t know what else to do. And oh yeah, in this whole time I had basically been doing the same thing I did back in Arizona, only talk to people when I absolutely had to, just to avoid the discomfort and buildup of stress in my body.

Ah. I looked into some pickup stuff. I tried to go out and cold approach women. But nothing ever came of it. I rarely did a single approach. And it made me feel more defeated the more I did it.

There was a wall still in my way and for the life of me I couldn’t figure out how to get around it.

Not even this scary leap of moving cities could get me to break the ice with women and just people in general…

So it came to that point again. It was Christmas and I’d been in Austin for 9 months. And I just couldn’t do it anymore. I couldn’t do another year here with nothing happening.

So I caved.

One month before my lease ended I moved back in with my parents in Arizona. The only question on my mind… what the hell was it going to take for me to fix my life?

The answer came not long later. At my old job serving tables which I had resumed once again, I saw her. A girl who worked there who stopped all time. Holy fuck. Something caught in my chest and I couldn’t run from it. The feelings were electric. And I knew in my soul I couldn’t fuck this opportunity up.

I’d never forgive myself.

Some things in life are too deep of a betrayal. You do it, and you can’t ever go back. You make the mistake, and it haunts you forever.

I still think of her to this day, the life that could have been if I wasn’t terrified out of my mind to talk to her and start something up. The saddest thing is that she tried. She held eye contact. She had the gaze where she clearly wanted me to make a move. She was waiting for me to do something and I just couldn’t. The panic it set off in my body was overpowering. The sheer fear I felt at putting myself out there made me just go completely mute and shut off.

And as I went home that night, the last night where I had given myself the ultimatum it was now or never, I got hit by shock. Shock at what I had done, what I had just let happen. The opportunity of a lifetime, of a hundred lifetimes, and I blew it.

Two strikes. Two failed efforts to fix my life. And if this third didn’t fix me, I saw putting a bullet in my brain. That’s the level of desperation I was now at in life. 26 years old. Lost out on my crush. And doing the only thing I could think of – travel the world and do some serious soul searching to figure out my situation once and for all.

Put this fear behind me.

And I really thought I’d have the proper motivation now. With her face in my mind, I thought I’d have the fuel to finally propel myself to the life I should have always been living. I thought it would take me out there, to these new cities and places in Europe where I could meet women, approach the cute girls I saw on the street, and just build a full life for myself where I was in control and not my fear.

I had another thing coming. I didn’t know it, but these 8 months backpacking and pushing myself harder than I ever had would result in the deepest spiral into depression and suicidal thinking I had ever experienced. What had started off so full of hope at 23 to fight and win against this fear, was turning into my worst nightmare.

The reality I was unfixable.

Flawed at my core.

My Story

Severely anxious, awkward around family, uncomfortable in all of life. I only felt safe in my room, on my computer. I had spent 10 years, from 13-23, like this. I had watched a lot of painful moments happen. Embarrassment. Regret. Feeling like an alien every time I talked to another person.

And I had finally reached my breaking point. I was a senior in college and the most humiliating experience of my life had just gone down. I had bombed a presentation in front of 25 classmates. I had totally lost my train of thought and stuttered for 2 whole minutes, an eternity. And I had walked out of class that day so ashamed and barely assembled. In a haze of dissociation. And on the walk back to my car, that dissociation lifted and I just had the strongest sense…

Something had to be done about this fear.

Or it would destroy me.

I went into a frenzied action that was basically 10 years of pent-up energy and deep dissatisfaction at this life I was living. I poured all that into the top advice for treating social anxiety I found on reddit. People said the only way out is through. To overcome social anxiety you must attack it head on, face what you’re afraid of, keep putting yourself into situations. And it helps to improve yourself in other areas like the gym, diet, sleep, habits and lifestyle, mindset.

Okay.

Buckle in.

A job waiting tables, probably the most frightening thing I signed myself up for. Talking to people non-stop for 5 hours every night and blasting into the fear. But I didn’t see another choice. It was face this fear or else.

A LOT of painful and awkward moments. Sheer embarrassment. A steep learning curve. But through consistent and repeated exposure I started to get more used to the pressure of standing in front of people, taking their order, engaging in some talk. I actually assembled a somewhat confident front, acted like I knew what I was doing.

Which made a huge difference. Just knowing I could keep it together and not break down. It felt like everything, considering I’d been so fucking awkward for so long. It gave me hope that I could translate this success to other areas, branch out to making friends and dating and getting a social life, etc.

Only I found something in the way…

A cold hand squeezing my insides every time I even THOUGHT about it. It felt paralyzing, seeing an attractive girl, trying to get myself to speak to her. It couldn’t be done. Willpower couldn’t get me past it. And years passed like this, basically just going to my job and “getting along”… then going back home and rotting.

I was 20lbs more muscular from the gym. I had read over a 100 self-help books. I had been meditating every day for 20 minutes. I had tried going out to bars and clubs. I had moved out of the house and gotten my own place. And after 2 years of all this, I quit my job and moved cities because I still hadn’t “made it”.

I had faked it, but I hadn’t actually internalized it.

And in this lied all the importance.

***

A new city. A new place. All new faces where no one knew me as the shy and awkward guy. I thought surely this would solve it; help me break out of the mold and create a better life.

One of substance and not just show.

Austin, Texas was a nice city. A social scene. Vibrant and full of activity. All I could possibly want or need. But I couldn’t get myself to go out. And the rare times I did, I couldn’t break the ice. I couldn’t make any kind of meaningful progress. I made a few acquaintances at my new job waiting tables. But literally nothing else happened. I spent a whole year mostly alone, trying to convince myself I was getting somewhere but deep down I knew I was full of shit.

And a month before my one-year apartment lease was up, I drove back to Arizona and moved back in with my parents, marking the whole thing as a failure, wondering what the hell it would take to actually fix my life. I got my old job serving tables. And not very long later is when it happened…

I saw the most beautiful girl. She made me feel a way I never had. It was the only thing I could think of, when I’d see her next (we worked together). It consumed me completely.

And I couldn’t do it.

I couldn’t strike when the iron had never been hotter. Every hint in the world, brazenly holding eye contact, even going as far to try and start a conversation with me and say hello. And I just sat there, inert and helpless, watching as it slipped away, the opportunity of a lifetime, something that might never come again.

My chance for redemption… fumbled.

Something I felt like I could never forgive myself for. It crushed my soul. It sent me into a tailspin…

Where I found myself a few months later in Europe, backpacking. Vowing to FINALLY fix it on this trip, talk to as many girls as it took to break out and reach my potential. Saying to myself I’d stay as long as it took. I would travel until it was handled.

She was the one picture on my mind, the motivation I tried to harness to get myself to approach women I saw walking through the city. But even with the knowledge of what was on the line – my life – I couldn’t get myself to do it. It felt absolutely terrifying.

So I got help. I signed up for a dating bootcamp, 10 days of going out and talking to girls and being shown exactly what to do / how to proceed / how to make things happen. To which I saw a little success: my first ever date. And then I got another in those 10 days. No, they didn’t go anywhere, but it gave me hope that once I was alone again I could build on this and gain momentum.

It took 1.5 months to see the futility, to realize my life was at a standstill and there was basically nothing I could do about it. I just couldn’t break past the emotional terror of speaking to women and being seen. Something in my body fought like hell to avoid it. It was completely beyond my power to control.

And that’s when it clicked. It was over. All this effort of nearly 5 years had amounted to nothing. At heart I was still the same and nothing in this world could change it.

And I honestly thought to myself it was better to kill myself.

It was so lonely. I was practically already dead from losing out on my crush back in America. I had nothing else left to try. I had exhausted all possible avenues.

And it simply didn’t work.

It didn’t change me.

***

As a last-ditch resort I signed up for a 10 day silent Vipassana meditation retreat. I followed up on this clue, this thing I had heard about now for the third time in these years I’d been trying to overcome social anxiety. I had never given it any thought though. It seemed purposeless to go and meditate for that long. Felt like a total waste of time.

But earlier this year on that dating bootcamp, one of the instructors, James, had told me how Vipassana had helped him. He’d done 6 of these retreats, 60 days of meditating, which said something. It made me think there might be something to it. So I filed it away as something to possibly try “one day”.

Well that day had arrived.

There was nothing else for it but to put my trust in this radical process, which nothing could have prepared me for. Not even the fact I had meditated pretty consistently in these years, a little every day.

It was the hardest thing I’d ever done, getting myself to sit for up to an hour (sometimes longer) at a time. 10-12 hours of meditating every day. Brutal on my body and my mind. I hated James with a passion for ever recommending me this. I thought really hard about leaving in the first few days. They’d warned me about this in the video discourse we’d seen on the first day, how the urge to leave the retreat will be strong but you need to stay the whole duration to see the results.

That warning helped.

But mainly it was my other circumstances that kept me there. The fact that the only thing that waited for me if I left now was a ticket out of this world. A sad and unfulfilling thought. For my whole life to have been for nothing and for all this effort to have gone to waste.

So I kept myself there. I stayed with the practice. I treated it like life-or-death.

And something happened. On day 6 I broke through. I felt tension begin to break up on my body. I felt a ball of dark and negative emotion begin to come up in the center of my chest.

The practice of Vipassana is to observe your bodily sensations without any reactivity, with equanimity. The first 3 days train you to observe your breath as it comes in and out of your nose. To simply observe this passage, in and out, and not try to change it or manipulate it or control it in any way. Just observe it. This prepares you for day 4, when you learn the technique called Vipassana, which is to scan your whole body up and down and observe the sensations along your whole body. You start at your head or your feet, and you methodically move your attention from part to part. You simply observe whatever sensation is there, tension, heat, cold, tingling, vibration, whatever it is, and you don’t get attached to it; you simply observe it for a few seconds and move on. You rinse and repeat and keep doing this.

Well, something in this practice of scanning my body in this nonjudgmental and unreactive way started a change in me. It surfaced old traumas, old feeling and emotions, it brought things up in me I didn’t know were there. It allowed me to shed so much tension I was holding in my body. I had NO idea how much was down there, how total areas of my body I had so little sensation or feeling of. Almost all awareness had been withdrawn from this area. Almost no sense. But with Vipassana I started to bring sense to it, to these areas where I had lost sensation. I started to bring these areas back online and into my conscious mind, into conscious recognition. Now you might think “big deal”. But something about holding conscious awareness on these “offline parts” of myself… changed me. It brought such a deeper sense of myself. It made me feel more real and human again. It made being around people feel fundamentally easier. It’s as if I wasn’t fighting myself so hard. It’s as if I could breathe easy and actually be present in my body and not resist with every fiber. I don’t know what it was. It just felt better though. Lighter. Like I was myself. Like I had lifted the weight of a lifetime. No, not all my fear was gone; I could still sense it on the edges. But enough of it had disappeared, fundamentally transformed, that it didn’t matter anymore.

I had finally made real progress against my social anxiety. I had taken a MAJOR STEP to dissolve what were my actual issues. I always looked at my social anxiety as an isolated issue, as something that had no basis in reality. But on this retreat I learned it had roots. Roots in my body. Roots in my emotional health. Roots in my past and the traumas that had happened to me. Yes, I was a socially traumatized person. I finally acknowledged how I had been deeply hurt by my parents and other people and that a lot of these things were affecting my view of others, the fear I felt around them. I knew that because so much of the fear was just gone. As I had digested this emotion and released this tension in my body, it gave me such a lighter feeling and thus view of people and life.

Vipassana didn’t solve everything. I still had to learn other things about myself. But it provided a major stepping stone to actually beginning to process and WORK OUT my deep anxiety of people. In resolving the past hurts that were stored inside my body, so much of my anxiety lifted. So much of the fear was just gone. And I found it much easier to be myself. Conversations flowed better. I actually felt like I could connect with people past a superficial level.

To this day I’m still on the healing journey. But I’ve come such a far way. I feel like a different person; like my 27 year old self is a past life. At 36 I am someone completely different. I’m still who I was, the same person at the core. But the insecurities that were clogging so much up are now mostly cleared away. I can actually take action confidently and approach women, strike up conversations, effortlessly exist and live my life for the most part. That’s not to say there’s never problems. But far fewer. In spirit I’m so much lighter.

I feel normal, something I never thought I’d say.

I write all this to provide, hopefully, a clearer light on your own situation, the problems you struggle with. I don’t know if you’re like me but I’m sure there are similarities. I write this to hopefully help you connect some of the dots and see your own situation better so you can move forward with clarity on what to do and not just “hope for the best” like I spent so many years doing. Those actions were, for the most part, fruitless. They changed nothing substantive. I had to go deeper inside and unlock what were actually my problems. That’s where I saw a real change happen. My social anxiety actually dissolving and going away, the way being cleared to be and express myself.

Ultimately I can’t do it for you. You have to come to it for yourself. You have to make the decision right for you.