How Social Anxiety Feels (And Why It Doesn't Have To Limit You)
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Health and Wellness

How Social Anxiety Feels (And Why It Doesn't Have To Limit You)

The Importance of Venturing Out of Your Comfort Zone

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How Social Anxiety Feels (And Why It Doesn't Have To Limit You)
SocialAnxietyDisorder.Org.UK

“You’re… off today.”

I look up from my dinner, the perfect picture of that “deer in headlights” cliché. My date, a stock-broker type named Greg that I’ve been going out with for about a month, leans back in his chair with a puzzled but easy smirk on his face and I take note of the fact that even though he’s sitting at an angle now his shirt is perfectly unwrinkled. He is always calm. Meanwhile, my composure has wrinkled. I am never calm. Three short words and I am Spider-Man without his mask. Peter Parker in an artsy paint-smear dress and heels. I can almost hear the camera clicking outside the window. All eyes on you, kid, say something!

“Off?”

“Yeah, off. Not regular.”

“Huh,” I posit with a shrug, going back to my salad. I’ve known the entire night that I’ve been “off,” but I don’t have a switch to flip back “on,” so I was really hoping I’d get away with being “off” for two hours. Two hours and I could be back home in my pajamas, where “off” is fine. Now that I know he knows I’m “off” I am extra “off.” I think carefully about every word coming out of my mouth for the duration of dinner and until he drops me off at my door.

I wonder throughout the meal if I am chewing too loudly or if my laugh sounds fake or if my ankles should be crossed instead of my knees. I forget literally every interesting thing about myself in the two seconds that that interaction took place.

I am a writer and an English student – words are my thing – and I have maybe a handful of banal phrases I can throw around until he realizes I don’t have an “on” switch and it’s time to take me home and leave. We don’t have another date for weeks. He doesn’t wind up staying in my future anyway for other reasons, but it sticks with me long afterward that for the first time, someone felt the need to directly say something about my behavior; it makes me, well, anxious.

My name is Morgan, and I have social anxiety.

In general, I am a very bubbly, extroverted, pleasant person to talk to. But being socially anxious sometimes conflicts with that outgoing personality. Even when I’m not having an “off” day, there’s a barely noticeable undercurrent of nervousness, something people might not notice just by looking at me, but that I can definitely feel.

It’s not that big of a deal, and at the same time, it is. It plays a pivotal role in every single interaction I have with other human beings throughout the day, and yet because it is so present, so constant, I can sort of just ignore it, unless I’m having an “off” day. When I’m “off,” I feel oddly asleep in my own body. I’m there, but not behind the wheel. I’ve found I can only really explain this with metaphors and similes…

Physically, it feels gross. Like being really tired and drinking a lot of coffee to wake yourself up, but it doesn’t work – you stay tired and fuzzy-brained, but your heart feels like a tiny hummingbird trying to escape its cage. Yes, I can hear you talking, but you sound just a little too far away, like maybe you’re a couple yards over calling me into a conversation, or speaking to someone just over my shoulder and not to me. There’s a slight, but noticeable disconnect.

My own thoughts are louder than whatever you’re trying to say, and at least 60% of those thoughts are things like "am I being interesting enough right now," and "I have no idea what my face looks like right now, do I look bored" and "I know I put on pants before I came here but oh my gosh what if I just THOUGHT I did and I’ve been walking around with no pants all day, I have to check or am I breathing too loud? Everyone can definitely hear me breathing, I sound like an emphysemic bulldog." The most prevalent thought running through my mind though is doubtlessly I am being a nervous, uninteresting vegetable right now and everyone here can TOTALLY SEE IT.

Managing it in public is hard; pretty much any time I am meeting someone for the first time (or first few times) I am going to be “off.” This makes it harder to meet people. Not impossible, because as I said earlier, I like meeting people, but it is an obstacle I have to overcome any time I engage in conversation with someone new.

The easiest way I can think to describe it is that you are going to a job interview every time you talk to someone. You know the jitters you get before you walk in to impress a potential employer? The way you feel like your suit doesn’t look like it’s yours so much as something you threw on just for this one occasion, the way you watch how you speak so that you come off as articulate and witty and pleasant, the way it’s entirely obvious to everyone in that room that you’re trying to prove something? Imagine that feeling, but a couple hundred times a day, and being aware the entire time that nothing is actually at stake but not being able to switch off. Or, I guess, “on.”

If anyone notices that I seem “off” or “not my usual self,” the feeling intensifies. Sort of like when your mind goes blank at the last second while presenting in front of the class, except that feeling lasts an entire conversation. You’re not really sure what words are falling out of your mouth exactly, until after you’ve said them, but you know you can hear yourself talking and it sounds artificial. All the while your brain is reminding you that you don’t know what you’re doing. Which sucks.

It’s not pleasant, not in the least, but it’s also not completely emotionally crippling in the way that I think mainstream culture portrays it nowadays. It doesn't render me helpless. I can function, socially, even if certain interactions are unpleasant or make me nervous, and I can do so with relative ease - most of the time, people aren't able to tell I'm uncomfortable.

From what I can see from viral posts on the matter, as well as people I've observed who also have social anxiety, there's this really toxic idea circulating around that social anxiety is entirely debilitating, and that it excuses unhealthy behaviors like isolation or treating friends poorly.

I've heard people use it as an argument to justify unhealthy behavior and claim that it's just who they are; The girl who throws a fit to her boyfriend because he invited her to come along to a party and manipulates him into staying in with her instead, the guy at the bar who is awkward and vaguely creepy and has been following you around all night but is “really nice” and “just too nervous to talk to you,” the passive-aggressive friend who isolates herself and then complains that her friends are awful “fake friends” who hate her because they stop inviting her to things or don’t give up monumental amounts of their free time to check up on her, the friend who asks you to perform some social task (talking to someone else for them, making a phone call) and cold-shoulders you all day if you ask them to do it themselves – all of them may be motivated by their social anxiety, but they’re responding in unhealthy ways and making it someone else’s problem.

And this fuels the very negative cultural fire surrounding social anxiety. There’s this preconception that if someone has social anxiety, they must be unusual, or awkward, or needy and manipulative. In reality, socially anxious people aren’t over-the-top or weird or hard to deal with unless they choose to engage in negative behaviors; having anxiety may not be a choice, but the way you conduct yourself when you’re anxious to some extent is.

Yes, there are times when I am so uncomfortable with a given social situation that I want to just check out of the conversation completely or go home instead. There are times when I walk out of a job interview or come home from some social obligation and just want to vomit. I still get irrationally stressed sometimes.

But I also recognize that I am a 23-year-old woman and that part of going through life as an adult means that I need to venture outside of my comfort zone. I’m gonna be nervous maybe the first two or three times I talk to someone new, unless we’re in a group, or they’re really friendly. I like to know at least one person at the party I’m going to but in general, I’ll go anyway because I always have fun and come out of my shell once I’m there. I’m a little more prone to zoning out or saying “uh” or telling a boring joke when I’m nervous. But I’m not going to make my anxiety a friend’s responsibility.

At most, if I’m comfortable enough with you, I’ll just say, “I’m sorry, I’m off today, don’t mind me,” and that will be that. If I don’t know you that well? I’ll suck it up, because if you’re bothering to make conversation with someone you don’t know, either, you must be pretty nice, and I can reciprocate that. The bottom line is that I realize that just because something makes me anxious doesn’t mean that facing it is bad for me; part of coming to terms with my anxiety and getting over it means learning to endure the moments I’m anxious and say to myself later, See? That wasn’t a big deal at all.

There was a part of me that was nervous to even write this. I thought to myself, what if people read this and they see me on campus and they avoid talking to me because they’ve read my article and they think I’ll be weird? (Hint: I won’t be, probably. I’m remarkably normal, it’s very unexciting).

I also worried that people wouldn't respond well to my comments about the aforementioned unhealthy behaviors, that I would be challenged because "not everyone deals with their anxiety the same way." Or that I'd be told my anxiety doesn't exist because I don't react the way I'm expected to, that people will think my attempts to be social in spite of my anxiety mean that there was never a barrier at all.

The truth is, it's not a one-size-fits-all disorder. I know some people have a harder time with it. I may choose to handle my being anxious by putting myself into situations that make me anxious and sort of "facing my fears." Other people may be uncomfortable with that, and that's fine. I do encourage those people, however, to try in little ways to manage their anxiety, and to never place responsibility for managing it onto someone else. Don't have someone else at your beck and call to handle situations for you.

Fortune favors the brave, so find opportunities to be brave. Reach out to friends when you need them instead of isolating yourself and wondering why they're not calling. Recognize that yeah, actively avoiding conversation with people is going to mean you don't meet or talk to those people. Keeping to yourself in the corner of the party isn't going to get you a date or new friends to hang out with, and no one is under obligation to come over and hand that social interaction to you, so psych yourself up a bit and go say "hi," even if that's all you say.

Realize when you're being "too much," when you're relying too heavily on someone else to manage your disorder for you; don't be the person who needs someone else to function. Don't miss out on great opportunities in life just because you are nervous - ask the girl out, take a leap and make that new friend, go to that party. In short, recognize that you have anxiety, but don't let anxiety become a crutch on which to lean when you could take some steps yourself, even if they're limping ones.

Anxiety may make things harder, but it should never make things impossible - that part rests on your shoulders. So take some risks, even if you're having an "off" kind of day. The joy of conquering even a small fear may surprise you.

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This article has not been reviewed by Odyssey HQ and solely reflects the ideas and opinions of the creator.
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