I guess life would be a lot easier if we all walked around with labels clearly announcing our shortcomings for all to see. It would surely ease the awkwardness involved in trying to just fit in when all you want to do is run and hide. Managing to muster up the courage to step outside of your comfort zone is an enormous accomplishment for those with social anxiety. It is a great leap of faith that can be both liberating and empowering or overwhelmingly frightening and debilitating.

Part of the fear stems from the fact that people that don’t know you, are not aware of your illness. Therefore, they see you at face value and determine their likes or dislikes accordingly. Unfortunately for people with social anxiety, meeting new people and being themselves is a difficult task. Thoughts begin to race even before introductions, and somehow our once fluent vocabulary suddenly turns to incoherent rambling. If we can speak at all, we then begin to worry about what we may have said, how we said it, or how others are reacting to it, and just how crazy we must seem to people. To say the least, it is relatively easy to give a completely different impression of yourself, rather than who you really are. It is an exhausting experience that more times than not leaves us obsessing for hours or even days as to how it was perceived. Most of the time we have overthought even the smallest scenario and turned it into a catastrophe, when ironically, others are not aware in the least. Specialists say that other people are generally oblivious to what is happening with us because they have their own here and now to focus on.

It is rare for someone to openly admit that they suffer from this type of anxiety, therefore they try their best to cope with it and manage their symptoms as best as they can in front of others. However, not everyone is open to the idea that people are individuals, and we all have our flaws. So, at face value, one could get the impression that a person with social anxiety is stuck up, angry, strange or anti-social because they keep to themselves. The truth is that we would like nothing more than to be able to have the confidence it takes to walk with the crowd, or join in on the conversation. Furthermore, not having to put ten times as much effort into what others seem to do so easily would be a godsend.

Still, we put on a brave face and hope that we can hold it all together as we go about our everyday.