How to Overcome Social Anxiety After Narcissistic Abuse

This is “How to Overcome Social Anxiety After Narcissistic Abuse.” 

Read carefully because overcoming social anxiety can move you from isolation to connection.

But it can also make things worse if you go about it the wrong way. 

So how do you overcome social anxiety the right way? 

To find out, I spent 24 days interviewing mental health professionals and speaking to people inside our community who are working on this too. 

16 pages of notes later, I discovered there’s no single “right” or “wrong” way, but every approach that works has three things in common. 

So, I’ve broken them down into simple steps and this episode will walk you through each of them.

If we’re just meeting — my name is Juliana Akin. I’m a founder of Unfilteredd, and we help you overcome the effects of narcissistic abuse so you can heal and move forward with your life.

Step 1: Assess

The first step is to assess.

This means identifying all of the social skills you struggle with.

The woman we’re working with started doing this by creating a list of social skills.

There isn’t a fixed number of social skills because they can be broken down in different ways.

So I recommend spending 10–20 minutes researching to come up with your own list.

But the core building blocks she came up with were:

1) Communication

Things like verbal communication, nonverbal communication, and active listening.

2) Emotional Intelligence

Things like self-awareness, self-regulation, empathy, and social awareness.

3) Interpersonal Skills

Things like respect, conflict resolution, assertiveness, teamwork, and accountability.

Then, she went down the list and asked herself:

“Which of these come easy to me, and which ones do I struggle with?”

She put the ones that came easy in one list and the ones she struggled with in another.

This gave her a better understanding of her strengths and weaknesses in the social skill department.

Step 2: Prioritize

The second step is to prioritize.

This means taking the list of social skills you struggle with from Step One.

Then organizing them based on the impact they’re having on your life.

Now, when I say “impact,” this can be positive or negative.

So it could be the skills that are holding you back the most, or the ones that, if you improved them, would have the biggest positive effect on your life.

It’s really up to you, both lead to the same outcome.

The woman we’re working with chose to focus on the negative impact.

So she rated each skill on a simple scale from 1 to 10.

One meant it barely affected her life, and ten meant it was having a huge impact on her life.

Step 3: Practice

The third step is to practice.

This means going out into the real world and practicing the skill that’s having the biggest negative impact — or the one that would have the biggest positive impact if you improved it.

For the woman we’re working with, that skill was eye contact.

So every day, she practiced it in low-risk settings — at the grocery store, at the gas station, in interactions with neighbors, at the fast-food drive-through, even at the bank.

After each interaction, she’d reflect by asking herself three simple questions:

• What went well?
• What didn’t go well?
• What can I do better next time?

She just kept repeating that process until eye contact started to feel natural.

Then she moved on to the next skill on her list and did the same thing.

Oh, and here’s a little tip for when you try this yourself: 

You’re going to have some quote-unquote “failures” when practicing social skills. 

That’s completely normal.

When that happens, go back to the list of skills you’re already good at from Step One and practice those for a bit.

Because the truth is, nobody is good at all of the social skills.

Getting some reps in with the ones you’re strong in is a great reminder that you’re human, it’s okay not to be perfect, and you already have strengths to build on.

Final Thoughts

What we talked about today is a super practical and effective way to overcome social anxiety.

But after experiencing narcissistic abuse, there’s likely one thing that will be standing in your way: a negative inner critic.

This is a harsh, judgmental voice in your head that constantly tells you you’re not good enough, picks apart your flaws, puts you down, and makes you doubt yourself.

It’s a common effect of narcissistic abuse and it’s important to address it as quickly as possible because it can really hold you back from healing.

So, in the next episode, I’m going to teach you everything my team and I know about overcoming a negative inner critic, and I’ll link to it here once it’s posted.

Read Now: How to Overcome a Negative Inner Critic

Thank you for reading today’s episode of the Unfilteredd: Narcissistic Abuse podcast.

If this was helpful and you’d like to read the next one, please subscribe to our newsletter — we’ll let you know as soon as the next episode is released.

My name is Juliana Akin — your guide to overcoming the effects of narcissistic abuse — and I can’t wait to connect with you in a future episode.

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