Let’s Talk About Social Anxiety

Apr 18

For years, I thought I was too shy of a person. An overdramatic over-thinker.

When I was in fifth grade, I went almost every day to the nurse’s office because I felt “sick,” when really I just wanted to avoid socializing with classmates and be sent home.

Although I felt warm and had frequent stomach aches, these symptoms seemed to be mostly in my head: I never had a temperature of more than 99 degrees, I never threw up and I was never genuinely sick enough to go home.

Still, the nurse was kind and would let me sit in her office for roughly 30 minutes. Sometimes we’d talk, but most of the time we didn’t. I just sat there, avoiding other people and calming myself down.

Years after that, in high school, I was walking with a friend to go to a meeting about joining the school’s bowling team. I was nervous before even walking into the meeting, as crowds of more than three people were never my forte, but I wanted to play and knew attending this meeting was part of the process of joining.

As we were walking towards the door, I panicked and ran away saying “I can’t do this.” I said it with laughter at the time — a nervous behavior that I have to make light of a situation — but my heart was racing and my palms were sweaty. I kept imagining walking into the meeting and having everyone turn their head to look at me. I could not even handle the thought of attention, and I felt ashamed because of it.

Then, when I was a freshman in college, I had gone to a friend’s family party at their cousin’s house. Their family was people I had known for a few months and was friendly with, but because I had only met them a few times and was not totally comfortable around them yet, I always had an increased sense of anxiety with them.

At first, the party was fairly normal. I was quiet but could manage small talk here and there with the handful of people that were in the house.

But as the night progressed, more and more people who I didn’t know arrived, and I felt increasingly, uncontrollably overwhelmed. I remember sitting at the dinner table with people all around me when I started to have an anxiety attack.

As they were talking and laughing, I sat there with racing thoughts, slightly shaking, staring at the center of the table without saying a word and experiencing shortness of breath. I could not stop thinking about how everyone must be looking at me and thinking I was weird. And when someone next to me had made a comment along the lines of “Are we boring you?” I didn’t say anything back. I couldn’t.

Throughout my life, situations like these occurred all of the time, which led to a series of beliefs— I was weak, weird, overdramatic and would be nothing more than that. How could I get a job? How could I make new friends? How could I pursue my dreams? And would I ever be “normal?”

The worst of it was I couldn’t understand why this kept happening. I mean, they were just people. What’s so scary about talking to another person? Other people seemed to do it with ease all of the time, so why couldn’t I?

But what I didn’t know then was that it wasn’t just shyness — I had social anxiety.

The hot flashes I experienced in fifth grade, the racing heart and sweaty palms in high school, the anxiety attack in college — these weren’t “all in my head.” They were symptoms of social anxiety, physical and mental reactions to extreme discomfort in social settings. I wasn’t crazy, weak, overdramatic or alone after all. Instead, I was part of the millions of people on the social anxiety scale.

And with that identification came a bit of comfort. I no longer saw myself as shy but rather as an ambivert with social anxiety. I found that as years passed, socializing became a tad easier, which was something I saw as major progress.

Still, social anxiety is something I’ve not totally accepted to this day, something I continue to struggle a lot with and blame myself for.

Similar to that night during freshman year of college, when I’m socially overwhelmed, I shut down. On the outside, I am more quiet than usual, I avoid eye contact by looking around or staring at something, and I fiddle with my hands and hair or scratch at my arms and legs. On the inside, my heart is racing and I either have a lot of thoughts bouncing around or my mind is numb, empty, gone — but this is only when I’m physically in the social setting.

Most the time, I do not even put myself in that position. I avoid it altogether, knowing that that’s how I’ll react. When a friend asks to hang out with a few people that I’m only acquaintances with, my heart starts to beat faster. I picture myself standing with a group of people, which could be as small as two other people, and feeling figuratively small.

Then there’s the one-on-one social anxiety.

While I tend to be “more myself” in these intimate settings, that is not always the case. I sometimes avoid even the simplest of social interaction, such as crossing the street when I see someone walking on the same side as me and procrastinating on calling a doctor or dentist to make a much-needed appointment, which I have found to be something that a lot of people do. Sometimes, even having a conversation with one other person can be nerve-wracking as heck. It sucks a lot, since these are day-to-day anxieties, but it’s one of those things where you kind of just have to learn how to cope with it.

But social anxiety is the thing I dislike the most about myself. Because even though it’s a common mental condition, there is a stigma surrounding it, as if people are faking it just to avoid responsibilities, as if people who have it struggle to socialize all of the time.

There is also that personal guilt when cancelling plans because of social anxiety that makes me feel ashamed for having it. I could be in the middle of an anxiety attack just from thinking about the social event, but whenever I “bail,” I feel horrible for letting the other person down. Like I am disappointing them. Like I don’t care about them. And because of that, I beat myself up a lot for feeling like a “flake,” which can trigger a boatload of mental health struggles.

All in all, it’s not fun.

Still, there is a bit of a silver lining in all of this. While I have social anxiety and can be overwhelmed a lot, there’s comfort in knowing that I’m not alone, that we’re not alone. Whenever I talk to friends about it, they’re understanding and supportive, because they, too, have experienced at least a degree of social anxiety. I mean, who hasn’t been nervous at least once when calling or answering the phone? It’s kind of nice to know that we’re all just figuring things out as we go along.

It’s also important to know that it’s okay to take self-care breaks from people when it all becomes too much. Yes, we’re people and people need to socialize. And yes, I 100% support pushing yourself out of your comfort zone. But this doesn’t mean we should feel guilty when we choose not to socialize. We can’t expect ourselves to give it our all all of the time when it comes to anything, socialization included. Everyone is different which means that everyone has certain thoughts, emotions and capabilities, and no one is less of a person because it takes a little more energy and preparation for them to socialize.

Of course, social anxiety will always be part of me. Some days it will be better, some days it will be much worse.

But for now, I will cheer for the little victories. Even if I attend a club meeting but don’t talk, that’s a victory. If the only small talk I make with a stranger is saying “good morning,” that’s a victory.

And some day, I will look back at these little inches of progress and realize that I’ve come much farther than I thought. That all along, I was growing into a better and better person. And so will you.

Your friend,
Jane