Getting discouraged

I started to feel less social anxiety after a couple of weeks of not PMO ing. It was still there but not as intense as before. I've relapsed recently and it has intensified the anxiety again.
I do find it strange how Pmo ing seems to have a a direct influence on anxiety

 

I don't want to discourage you in your PMO fight, but I think it probably is a bit simplistic to think that PMO directly causes social anxiety and so therefore quitting the one will help automatically help with the other.

I really think PMO is one way that self-absorption reveals itself and is reinforced. So PMOing naturally leads to more and more of a focus on yourself. It's all about you. It's happening all in your head. You are reinforcing again and again every time you PMO that you have to take care of yourself, you need to serve yourself. And social anxiety is also a self-absorption cycle too. And no doubt PMO reinforces the social anxiety, because its more and more a focus on yourself. With social anxiety you are thinking always about what people are going to think about you about what you do, about how you are doing, about your performance, about whether you will measure up or not, and on and on it goes. Around and around you go.

You've taken a great first step in not PMOing. Keep it up. Going back is not going to help you at all. It's not going to help you at all, but maybe just maybe what you need to do is take another step.

It might really help if you start taking some steps to serve and help people. To unselfishly seek to take care of and love some other people...as a way to get out of yourself, as a way to say okay I'm not even going to worry about me for a moment. I'm going to care for them. Do some extra housework for somebody. Mow your parents lawn. Call your grandma or grandpa up and talk on the phone for awhile. Simple things where you are loving someone and caring about someone and not thinking about you and will this help you.

Love is the opposite of fear. Perfect love drives out fear. Perhaps that sounds weird to you, but when you are actively loving someone there isn't fear. I'm not talking about the feeling of love. I'm talking about the attitude and action of love. When you are determined to love and care for someone, fear, anxiety, doesn't really have room to live.

I really am sorry that you are struggling with the anxiety. It can be so crippling. Just want you to know that I care, and if I was there I would put an arm around you.

 

I agree with everything you wrote there but it appears to me that PMOing does seem to have a dirrect effect on anxiety. Maybe after a couple of weeks of abstaining from Pmo ing I feel better about my self and carry less guilt and shame. This could be the reason anxiety Gets relieved a little