Experts estimate that over 83 million people suffer from some form of diagnosable mental illness. Some generalize it as anxiety. Some generalize it as depression. Some generalize it as bulls**t. The media romanticizes suicide attempts and self-harm because they make a touching story about someone overcoming struggles by finding “the one” or through some feat of their own strength. But the very real truth is that these conditions are not fun. They are not sexy. They do not come with a tearful confession at just the right moment or a swell of dramatic music when you make a breakthrough. They wound those who have the resources and support to get through them, and they cripple or kill those who don’t. Many people don’t know what mental illness is, or what it looks like. So I guess I’ll have to try to explain it. Listen up.
Social anxiety is a phenomenon in which a person has extreme difficulty interacting in social situations. It may manifest itself in an inability to talk to strangers, a discomfort in public places, an inability to speak publically, or difficulty conversing with friends. Some study that we assume we can extrapolate to the general public says that up to 15 million Americans are affected by social anxiety.
When I was younger, I used to be afraid of public performance. The drama teacher in elementary school used to try to get me to participate in the plays the school put on. I declined, out of fear that the pressure would cause me to forget my lines on stage, and my elementary school friends would laugh at me. This April, I’ll be playing the lead in the spring musical for the second year in a row.
Irony can be cruel.
I don’t like using drive-thrus. Something about being stuck in a line that you can’t back out of if you mess something up or misunderstand the directions is stressful. God forbid the employees take too long to get the food and whoever is behind me starts honking. But even a drive-thru is preferable to ordering over the phone. Whoever it was that invented online ordering needs to be canonized.
Whenever I need to cross a street (especially in parking lots) and a car is driving down said street, I walk down the sidewalk until they pass me. I’ll take the extra twelve seconds instead of doing the dance of “will-they-stop-won’t-they-oh-s**t-she’s-waving-me-across-I-gotta-go.”
While at the doctor’s once, he asked me if I worked out. I told him that I hated working out. He said that I don’t necessarily need to go to the gym, but do something active with people that I like. I chuckled. I’m at college. I don’t have time to go out and find something I love.
This is one of the deadly aspects of social anxiety. It is such a struggle to find something I love and to “have a good time.” To go out and socialize is such a chore because I am so easily bored by so many things. I hang out with friends at their houses so I can make up an excuse to leave whenever I want. I decline their offers to pick me up so I can always leave when I get bored. It’s such a battle to do the things I need to do in my life, why does it have to be such a battle to relax too?
One of my therapists once asked me “well what do you do for fun?” I responded with “Who has time for that?”
Whenever I need to call someone on the phone, I sit around and rehearse what I’m going to say for each of the people that could pick up, each personality that could be on the other end of that line. It’s a small victory every time I call and somebody who speaks clearly and loudly picks up.
I have a wealth of friends between college and home. I am blessed with a multitude of people that like and care about me. I reciprocate those feelings in kind, but the reality is that there are very few of them that I can actually hang out with and talk to for an extended period of time. That is the curse of social anxiety and introversion. It requires energy to socialize. And so more often than not I refuse.
Once I was in a movie theater and as the attendant handed me my ticket stub and said “enjoy the movie” I said “you too.” I wondered if a fall from the second story would be enough to kill me.
