Three years ago, I was diagnosed with anxiety — specifically social anxiety disorder. For those of you who are not familiar with social anxiety, it is when someone fears social interaction. For example, when I have a conversation with someone who I am not comfortable with, I get nervous, my voice gets shaky, my hands tremble, I stumble over words, my heart feels like it is going to beat out of my chest, and I feel like that person is judging everything I say and do.
Before I was diagnosed with the disorder, I just assumed that it was normal and it was just a phase. However, as time passed it only got worse. I went to a therapist and they told me that I had social anxiety disorder or social phobia.
At first, I was ashamed of having this condition but over the years, I have grown to accept my fear of socializing.
The first step of accepting my anxiety was really understanding what it was. I thought that I was the only person to have this fear and that people wouldn’t get why I was so scared to talk to them. As it turns out, I am not alone. According to Mayo Clinic, there are over 200,000 cases per year of social anxiety disorder in the U.S. When I found this out, I was super relieved to know that other people know what I am going through.
The second step of accepting my disorder was talking about it to other people and letting others know about my disorder. I would tell my friends that talking to other people terrifies me, especially starting conversations. And when I do initiate a conversation, I have to prep and memorize what I am going to say hours, and sometimes days, beforehand. I even began warning the person that I was conversing with that talking to them makes me anxious, and they would need to bear with me. They understood and accepted it, which made my personal acceptance of my anxiety a lot easier.
The third step of social anxiety acceptance is facing the fear itself. I would try to avoid interaction as much as possible. One day, I came to the realization that if I keep on avoiding social interaction, it would only become scarier, and my social anxiety will only get worse. So I began to set weekly goals for myself. I started out talking to someone who I was too scared to talk to before. Then the next week I would speak up more during a conversation with a group of friends. Something that always made me anxious. Setting these little goals helped me a lot, and it decreased my anxiety levels.
The fourth and final step was full acceptance of social phobia. When I acknowledged that this is something that I will have to deal with for probably the rest of my life, I felt liberated. When I completed the final step in the acceptance process, it felt like my anxiety was cured, even though I know it isn’t. Full acceptance of social phobia definitely took the anxiety of having anxiety away.
