When I was much younger, I remember not being so afraid to talk to people and make new friends. I have always been very talkative and to this day, I consider myself to have pretty excellent conversational skills. Socialization always seemed to come easy to me, at least until I faced the roadblock of social anxiety.

It was probably around early middle school when I first realized I was facing some severe issues with anxiety, and not long after that I was diagnosed with both generalized and social anxiety disorders. Being in really crowded areas for longer than I can tolerate is what especially sets this off, and I begin to get really uptight. Making eye contact and responding to store associates in malls starts to become a challenge. Immersing myself in new social situations where everyone already seems to know each other also leads me to feeling reluctant about approaching anyone. Obviously, I've noticed a hindrance in my ability to form new friendships for the last several years because of this.

I only recently came to the realization a few days ago that hey, maybe I am a natural extrovert...however, the social anxiety is what's making me feel so introverted. There's times where you wouldn't even guess that I have an anxiety disorder. For example, a few weeks ago I finished up my senior year of high school with my (first ever) solo oral presentation about my plans for college and career life.

The “judges” labeled me as confident, prepared, and told me I am very articulate. Perhaps I'm just good at covering my anxiety up and allowing my "extrovertedness" shine through, but who knows. Little did everyone know, I was basically on the verge of a breakdown a couple weeks prior about how on earth I would be able to memorize my speech for the presentation and not screw anything up.

When it comes to making friends, it's like I have this feeling where I genuinely want to make friends, but sometimes I just don't have the motivation and all my efforts seem to fall short of success. I am not the type of person who feels very confident approaching someone new in public, so most of my friendship-making attempts have taken place on the internet.

I believe it is harder to make friends over the internet, but at least it saves me some of the anxious feelings I get when I try to make friends in person. Beyond that, I also have not been exposed to the right environments to make lasting friendships. I have been in online charter school all throughout high school and when I used to go to dance studios, everyone was a good 4-5 years younger than me. So I do have to consider that the environmental circumstances are not much in my favor, either.

To conclude my thoughts, I want to wrap this up on a positive note by introducing some of my goals for when I attend college in the fall and actually have a more ideal environment to work with. I'm also doing this to inspire others who struggle with socialization. One goal is to strike up a conversation with at least one person in each class that I'm in. Even if everyone already seems to know each other, or if there aren't many opportunities for socialization, I want to at least try to say hi to someone.

I also want to join a club of some sort as that would not only look good on my college applications for when I transfer to a university, but because clubs provide even more of an opportunity for making friends. Sometimes I don't even feel like I have the time for friends between work, especially when school is added to the mix.

However, I know how important it is to at least have casual friendships because we as humans truly thrive off of social interaction. We need to be surrounded by others so we can learn about ourselves and others, and grow as people. So with that, I hope the best for myself and everyone else who struggles with social anxiety.