Social Phobia Quotes

Everybody else possessed the key to popularity and happiness, and his clumsy attempts to find his own key always ended with other children looking at him funny, or calling him names. ~ Belinda Bauer

A phobia is an excessive or unreasonable fear of an object, situation or place. Phobias are quite common and often take root in childhood for no apparent reason. Other times they spring from traumatic events or develop from an attempt to make sense of unexpected and intense feelings of anxiety or panic.

Simple phobias are fears of specific things such as insects, infections, or even flying. Agoraphobia is a fear of being in places where one feels trapped or unable to get help, such as in crowds, on a bus or in a car, or standing in a line. It is basically an anxiety that ignites from being in places or situations from which escape might be difficult (or embarrassing). A social phobia is a marked fear of social or performance situations.

When the phobic person actually encounters, or even anticipates, being in the presence of the feared object or situation, immediate anxiety can be triggered. The physical symptoms of anxiety may include shortness of breath, sweating, a racing heart, chest or abdominal discomfort, trembling, and similar reactions. The emotional component involves an intense fear and may include feelings of losing control, embarrassing oneself, or passing out.

Most people who experience phobias try to escape or avoid the feared situation wherever possible. This may be fairly easy if the feared object is rarely encountered (such as snakes) and avoidance will not greatly restrict the person's life. At other times, avoiding the fear ~ Sahar Abdulaziz

Therefore, while social phobics and patients with AvPD both avoid out of fear, the social phobic's fears mainly arise in the clinical context of feeling, or actually being called upon to perform in ways ranging from giving a speech to urinating in a public washroom. In contrast the avoidant's fears generally arise in the context of interpersonal relationships, the main marker I look for in making the diagnosis of AvPD. ~ Martin Kantor

We have nothing against playing video games; they have many good features and benefits. Our concern is that when they are played to excess, especially in social isolation, they can hinder a young man's ability and interest in developing his face-to-face social skills. Multiple problems, including obesity, violence, anxiety, lower school performance, social phobia and shyness, greater impulsivity and depression, have all been associated with excessive gaming. The variety and intensity of video game action makes other parts of life, like school, seem comparatively boring, and that creates a problem with their academic performance, which in turn might require medication to deal with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), which then leads to other problems down the road in a disastrous negative cycle ... ~ Philip G. Zimbardo

Who Suffers?

If you have social anxiety, you are not alone. The National Comorbidity Study found social phobia to be the third most common psychiatric disorder, after major depression and alcohol dependence. Experts believe that millions of people suffer from it. It is difficult to get exact numbers because the nature of social anxiety often makes it difficult for people to seek help. Many people who appear confident and strong suffer silently for years before telling anyone how they feel.
In the general population, social anxiety appears to affect more women than men. This may be due in part to the social norms that determine that women should be less aggressive and more reserved than men. However, more men seek treatment, possibly because social anxiety has more of an impact on the jobs traditionally held by men. As gender roles in society continue to shift, these statistics will probably change. ~ Heather Moehn

I'm afraid of them and they don't like me
because I'm afraid. ~ Ray Bradbury

If a child stays quiet in the context of extroverted friends, or even prefers time alone, a parent may worry and even send her to therapy. She might be thrilled - she'll finally get to talk about the stuff she cares about, and without interruption! But if the therapist concludes that the child has a social phobia, the treatment of choice is to increasingly expose her to the situations she fears. This behavioral treatment is effective for treating phobias - if that is truly the problem. If it's not the problem, and the child just likes hanging out inside better than chatting, she'll have a problem soon. Her "illness" now will be an internalized self-reproach: "Why don't I enjoy this like everyone else?" The otherwise carefree child learns that something is wrong with her. She not only is pulled away from her home, she is supposed to like it. Now she is anxious and unhappy, confirming the suspicion that she has a problem. ~ Laurie A. Helgoe

I would gladly do it but I am suffering from social phobia. I cannot manage being in a crowd of people. ~ Elfriede Jelinek

The separation of religion from the practical affairs of society is a convenient doctrine for those who fear that social change would threaten of modify their own political and social self-interest. ~ William Stringfellow

Applause should be an emotional response to the music, rather than a regulated social duty. ~ Emanuel Ax

The question is whether they can find a way out and remain what they are. To adapt themselves to real life, they borrow from each other. Christianity , which has become a church, began to talk about work, wealth, power, education, science, marriage, laws, social justice, and so forth. And materialism , on the other hand, which became socialism or an order, a state, speaks about humanism , morality, art, creation, justice, responsibility, freedom and so forth. ~ Alija Izetbegovic

The tourists had money and we needed it; they only asked in return to be lied to and deceived and told that single most important thing, that they were safe, that their sense of security - national, individual, spiritual - wasn't a bad joke being played on them by a bored and capricious destiny. To be told that there was no connection between then and now, that they didn't need to wear a black armband or have a bad conscience about their power and their wealth and everybody else's lack of it; to feel rotten that no-one could or would explain why the wealth of a few seemed so curiously dependent on the misery of the many. We kindly pretended that it was about buying and selling chairs, about them asking questions about price and heritage, and us replying in like manner.

But it wasn't about price and heritage, it wasn't about that at all.

The tourists had insistent, unspoken questions and we just had to answer as best we could, with forged furniture. They were really asking, 'Are we safe?' and we were really replying, 'No, but a barricade of useless goods may help block the view.' And because hubris is not just an ancient Greek word but a human sense so deep-seated we might better regard it as an unerring instinct, they were also wanting to know, 'If it is our fault, then will we suffer?' and we were really replying, 'Yes, and slowly, but a fake chair may make us both feel better about it. ~ Richard Flanagan

As social animals, we need to exchange juicy tales about someone - to connect with one another. For millions of years our forebears must have sat around the campfire, whispering about everyone they knew. ~ Helen Fisher

A good organizer is a social arsonist who goes around setting people on fire. ~ Fred Ross

There is one and only one social responsibility of business–to use it resources and engage in activities designed to increase its profits so long as it stays within the rules of the game, which is to say, engages in open and free competition without deception or fraud ~ Milton Friedman

Truth must be the foundation stone, the cement to solidify the entire social edifice. ~ Pope John Paul II

Bad schools, crime, drugs, high taxes, the social security mess, racism, the health care ? crisis? unemployment, welfare state dependency, illegitimacy, the gap between rich and poor. What do these issues have in common? Politicians, the media, and our so-called leaders lie to us about them. They lie about the cause. They lie about the effect. They lie about the solutions. ~ Larry Elder

It is hard to think of the history of the twentieth century, including its large social movements, without bringing in the role of Hitler, Stalin, and Mao Zedong. But there was a moment in time, just before an egg was fertilized, when there was a fifty-fifty chance that the embryo that became Hitler could have been a female. Compounding ~ Daniel Kahneman

Adam Smith was not the proponent of any one class. He was a slave to his system. His whole economic philosophy stemmed from his unquestioning faith in the ability of the market to guide the system to its point of highest return. The market-that wonderful social machine-would take care of society's needs if it was left alone. Don't try to do good, says Smith. Let good emerge as the by-product of selfishness. ~ Robert Heilbroner

Social media is like a zillion radios all playing at the same time...... but who is listening? ~ D.M. Jarrett

I have Social Disease. I have to go out every night. If I stay home one night I start spreading rumours to my dogs. ~ Andy Warhol

There must be some point, at which the lawyer's own personal and social morality will rebel against his traditional allegiance to his client. ~ Harry Jones

The corruption at the heart of Communist ideology lay in the means. Social justice, greater freedom and equality, an end to exploitation and alienation are noble, humane ends. What compromised them fatally was the inhuman methods employed to achieve them. This was as true of Lenin and Trotsky as of Stalin. ~ Alan Bullock

In the fancy spectacle of life, aspire to find a joy that does not need an audience. ~ Joyce Rachelle

Many people see technology as the problem behind the so-called digital divide. Others see it as the solution. Technology is neither. It must operate in conjunction with business, economic, political and social system. ~ Carly Fiorina

recent events compel us to raise anew. From the beginning, the
most serious and systematic attempts to write Universal Histories saw the central issue in history as the development of Freedom. History was not a blind concatenation of events, but a meaningful whole in which human ideas concerning the nature of a just political and social order developed and played themselves out. And if we are now at a point where we cannot imagine a world substantially different from our own, in which there is no apparent or obvious way in which the future will represent a fundamental improvement over our current order, then we must also take into consideration the possibility that History itself might be at an end. ~ Francis Fukuyama

Under weak government, in a wide, thinly populated country, in the struggle against the raw natural environment and with the freeplay of economic forces, unified social groups become the transmitters of culture. ~ Johan Huizinga

The most troublesome problem which confronts social engineering is how to provide for the untalented and, what is equally important, how to provide against them. ~ Eric Hoffer

Within each such social group, a feeling of solidarity prevails, a compelling need to work together and a joy in doing so that represent a high moral value. ~ Christian Lous Lange

The spirit of social computing is the concept of leaving value in your wake. ~ Bradley Horowitz

Practically every violent conflict or social change has proved that violence unleashes violence in return. ~ Petra Kelly

People always say that Glasgow has had umpteen social problems but keeps finding ways of getting over its difficulties and transforming itself. Maybe, belonging to the city I'm able to renew myself too, and keep extending out into some new area. ~ Edwin Morgan

Finally, remember that we cannot give what we do not have. If we do not love ourselves, we will be hard pressed to love others. If we are not just with ourselves, we will find it very difficult to look for justice with others. In order to become and remain a social justice advocate, you must live a healthy life. Take care of yourself as well as others. Invest in yourself as well as in others. No one can build a house of justice on a foundation of injustice. Love yourself and be just to yourself and do the same with others. As you become a social justice advocate, you will experience joy, inspiration and love in abundant measure. I look forward to standing by your side at some point. ~ William P. Quigley

The truth is that the angels of anxiety - those overpowering forces for change in politics, economics, science, morals, and social policy - were at the same time agents for self-confidence. ~ Peter Gay

Schools serve the same social functions as prisons and mental institutions- to define, classify, control, and regulate people. ~ Michel Foucault

The State, completely in its genesis, essentially and almost completely during the first stages of its existence, is a social institution, forced by a victorious group of men on a defeated group, with the sole purpose of regulating the dominion of the victorious group over the vanquished, and securing itself against revolt from within and attacks from abroad. Teleologically, this dominion had no other purpose than the economic exploitation of the vanquished by the victors. ~ Franz Oppenheimer

Images of him continued to plague me, unbidden and cruelly tantalising: the mesmerizing blue eyes that compelled me to share with him my most private fears; the feel of his thick, untidy hair as the sunlight split it into myriad shades of gold; the soft laugh that touched my soul; his aloof but unpretentious manner; his confident assurance that I could make my own choices. I shuddered at the thought of Steldor's attitude toward me, for he saw me as only a woman, relegated to supervising that household, planning and executing social events and raising the children. All he really wanted was my presence in his bed, which made me all the more unwilling to comply. Steldor's glance made me uncomfortable, his patronising laugh made me cringe, his condescension frequently led to my humiliation. In Narians arms, I had felt extraordinary happiness; in Steldor's I felt trapped. ~ Cayla Kluver

I don't want people to write programmatic environmental poems, but I think sustainability should become deeply a part of the consciousness of poetry - an impulse toward compassion, empathy, and social justice. ~ Alison Hawthorne Deming

The same wind blows on us all. The economic wind, the social wind, the political wind. The same wind blows on everybody. The difference in where you arrive in one year, three years, five years, the difference in arrival is not the blowing of the wind but the set of the sail. ~ Jim Rohn

Quite often the social doctors become part of the disease. ~ Eric Hoffer

We are deceiving ourselves if we believe that a literary work written and published in a country where 70 per cent of the population is illiterate, can change the political and social life of the country..it is up to political organization..and not to romantic literature.. to change the present situation. ~ Zakaria Tamer

A human rights activist is the worst type of person to mess with. If I can choose an enemy between the worst finance CEO, or the worst human rights violating dictator, and a human rights activist, I would choose the former. A human rights activist doesn't let go; doesn't have a peace of mind till responsibility for a wrongful act is finally reached. That's the uncomfortable type of person that cannot stand injustice, the type of person that doesn't fear "social desirability" sanctions for confronting wrongdoers directly, upsetting the silence and the status quo, and for screaming loud. That's the person that dares to stand up -- for themselves, for others. That's the type of person who doesn't lay low, doesn't fear being perceived as uncomfortable, the type of person that doesn't just "go along". I do not want as an enemy a person who cannot let go and forget injustice, but who instead will plug away till the very end, till justice is reached. I do not want that man or woman as an enemy. ~ Iveta Cherneva

Our nation's Social Security Trust Fund is depleting at an alarming rate, and failure to implement immediate reforms endangers the ability of Americans to plan for their retirement with the options and certainty they deserve. ~ Pete Sessions

The widespread inability to understand technological artifacts as fabricated entities, as social and cultural phenomena, derives from the fact that in retrospect only those technologies that prove functional for a culture and can be integrated into everyday life are 'left over.' However, the perception of what is functional, successful and useful is itself the product of social and cultural
and last but not least
political and economic processes. Selection processes and abandoned products and product forms are usually not discussed. ~ Johannes Grenzfurthner

What is wanted is men of principle, who recognize a higher law than the decision of the majority. The marines and the militia whose bodies were used lately were not men of sense nor of principle; in a high moral sense they were not men at all. ~ Henry David Thoreau

All the men's clothes she wore just called attention to how much of a girl she was. ~ Rainbow Rowell

She was perfectly sane in streets unknown. She loved conversing with people tagged as strangers. She was social, amiable & all that is her. Yet, with known people she felt unknown, she choked words and fought inside. And indeed she tripped insane while traversing those streets known. She stared at others and consumed their happiness through senses cold. And so she waits for Winter's warmth to touch her in streets of distant shore, in her own world of simple happiness. ~ Debatrayee Banerjee

As social secretary, I was responsible for putting together all the events that the President and the First Lady host. ~ Desiree Rogers