Breaking the cycle of terrible social confidence

Hi guys, had an interesting experience today which I thought I’d share because I genuinely think it’s a potential fix to my addiction and self esteem issues and can help many people here.

Today I spoke to this girl I liked who I’d never spoken to before and doesn’t know me, almost randomly. Ik that really doesn’t sound like much to you but to me that’s fucking huge. I want to say that I’m a confident, sociable guy, but I’m really not. Like many people here I’ve got terrible self esteem, poor social confidence and see myself as a complete social reject.

It honestly felt great though. I was shaking lol and it was admittedly awkward starting off but I got past that. It genuinely just felt good to have the confidence in myself to just talk to someone without a clear reason and to be friendly with someone, regardless of whether I’m romantically interested in them if not.

I’m really non confrontational and I also suffer from maladaptive dreaming which is probably caused by my behavior of walking away from every problem in my life. At the same time I wasn’t also that aware of that because I get very little anxiety just through a general lack of not caring much and seeing many things as out of my region of control.

But I genuinely feel that for people like me who fall into addiction out of nonconfrontational behavior (altho may not realise it), this is the ultimate fix to restore faith in yourself and start doing things in life. Just forcing yourself into socially challenging situations relentlessly regardless of how awkward it is.

I’m ashamed to say that I’ve been on a large relapse for the past week but after the changes I made today and living in the now instead of “what ifs”, I think I can see a way out. I would’ve pmo if I hadn’t done this.