Anxiety and relationships are complicated. I am not only talking about romantic relationships, I am talking about all relationships that we have in life. Relationships of any kind are hard for anxious people like myself. I feel like I sometimes have to force myself to do things that aren’t me. There are some things that I also wish came more natural to me as an anxious person when it came to socializing and growing my relationships with other. Sometimes I will try to act fine but I won’t be all the time, especially before or after an event takes place. Anxiety is sometimes something that isn’t there at the moment, but it can affect relationships with anyone for the worse if the person doesn’t understand that a person is anxious.
For an anxious person like me, it takes me a long time to get comfortable around people for the most part, with a few exceptions that I can’t explain. For someone like me, it takes me a while to get to trust somebody enough to be myself. I sometimes won’t even make contact with somebody first for the most part if I am really anxious, unless I’ve been around them enough in my life. If I reach out to you, tell you a personal story first, or do anything like hug you, you’re somebody that I’ve probably known or have been exposed to enough for about a year or year and a half. Sometimes it’s hard for anxious people like myself to express vulnerability around people, so I can be guarded and quiet if I am uncomfortable. I also can become loud with word vomit too. This is something that most people don’t see as anxiety at times, because they can’t see my heart racing. They can’t tell that I feel like somebody ripped my heart out of my chest and is squeezing it.
Some things an anxious person like myself can do when trying to let people in their lives is blushing. If you’re talking in a new big crowd or in a group with people you don’t know too well, you may see somebody blush a lot. I blush all the time, and if you see somebody blushing when talking to you, don’t say anything to them, because they will internalize it for almost a whole day, then they will have even more anxiety around you. Blushing, sweating, tremors, stuttering, and eye contact avoidance happen a lot to people when they start to build any type relationship with anyone that they aren’t fully comfortable with sometimes, and I know this happens for myself a lot, especially when I start to get to know anyone. This can make the anxious person have an even harder time getting to know somebody new.
Getting to know somebody new is a tough thing for most people, but when somebody has anxiety, it can disrupt the rhythm in their life. Sometimes people like myself will dwell on the smallest thing, like saying a name wrong. This will go through our head like a hamster on a wheel for three hours or more. We will remember things and get stiff and anxious the next time we see you, afraid you’re thinking about the thing we are dwelling on, despite the fact that we know logically that life moves forward for everyone and the earth keeps spinning round and round. After that, we will sometimes be irrational and think that you’re thinking we are “weird” because we are just so anxious about everything.
The thing about being anxious about everything when it comes to any relationship is that it takes us a long time to be comfortable around you so we don’t second guess ourselves. It takes us a long time to trust you enough to hug you or show appreciation or even reach out first, so if we do, you’re a lucky one. Anxious people want love, friendships, closeness with family, and friendliness with their peers and co-workers, but it just takes a lot of work for us to get comfortable enough to be able to show who we are and be calm. We are not broken, and we do have close friends, family, and relationships of all sorts. We are capable of any relationship, and we are also more lovable, loyal, and empathetic than most people. It takes us a lot of work to adjust and let you in, so when somebody that is anxious tries to let you in, don’t take it for granted because it took a lot of courage for them to do so.
