You pack your bags for the next chapter ahead of you. You’re excited for the classes and the opportunity to study what you love at the college you love. It’s finally happening. You take a deep breath in and think about all of the people you are going to meet, all of the friends you will make. The thought in and of itself terrifies you. But before you get too deep in thought, you stop yourself. This is a new time in your life and a new you. This time it will be different, and this time you will make friends and join clubs. This time, you will not let anxiety ruin your experience. Not this time.
You finally made it to campus in your cutest unpacking outfit because that will give you the extra boost of confidence you need to meet a ton of new people. It’s time to head to your dorm and unpack. There are so many people, and they’re already making friends. How does this even happen? The campus hasn’t been open for twenty minutes!
You step out of your car and start to head to the dorm. Immediately a swarm of PAs and RAs surround you, excitedly telling you about orientation and asking various questions. They’re trying to make conversation but you feel this lump in your throat and you can barely get your name to come clearly out of your mouth. They walk you to your dorm and give you time to unpack. But instead of unpacking, you spend the entire time thinking of what an idiot you were for not even being able tell them your name. You want to cry, but you can’t because your door is wide open and if you shed a tear then you’d look weird in front of everyone. We can’t have that within the first twenty minutes of orientation.
You eventually meet your roommate. She seems sweet, but you probably seem like an idiot to her because you can barely speak without having your voice shake. Your first chance at making friends and you’re blowing it, and the worst part is she has to live with you! You realize that when you were unpacking, you left a complete mess of boxes and suitcases all over the room. You feel terrible that you put that burden on your roommate and now she thinks that you’re this extremely messy person and you bet she just wishes she was rooming with somebody else—anybody else—but you. These unspoken words, that she never even hinted at you, absolutely kill you.
Orientation continues and you continue to meet new people. You try to keep this confident persona that you know what you’re doing and you are amazing at making friends, just like everybody else. But with each conversation you have, you regret it immediately and think you completely messed up. You can’t stop thinking about all of the stupid things you said. They must hate you now.
Lunch rolls around and you see people in groups eating. Instead of going up to someone, asking if you can sit with them and looking like a complete idiot, you decide to just eat alone. An Orientation Leader sees you sitting alone and decides to sit with you and keep you company. She’s really sweet but what a loser you must look like. Like the kid that has to be partners with the teacher because no one else wanted to.
Orientation ends and you managed to avoid all of the social events because sitting in the dorm room alone and watching Netflix seemed like a much better option than going out and standing alone at a party because you didn’t know anyone. Things aren’t going as different as you hoped.
Eventually, classes begin and you start to make some friends. You find people to eat with and you find people to talk to. Despite the constant nagging thought that they’re only there because they feel bad for you or until they find better friends, you ignore it and enjoy your time at college. A few weeks go by and you slowly start to come out of your shell. You finally did it and it seems like you have a pretty solid group of friends. But you can’t shake the thought that they don’t really want to be your friend and you’re just burdening their time. You can’t help but think that they all hate you and it’d be best if you just locked yourself in your dorm and that was it.
But you fight these thoughts because you know they’re not true. You know your friends like you and you know that they don’t hate you.
These thoughts won’t stop coming and they control your state of mind. This isn’t happening anymore. This time it will be different and this time you will not be bullied by these demons. With much persistence you learn to ignore it and you learn to enjoy the moment. You have your good days and bad days, but you are learning to enjoy the college experience.
Social anxiety sucks, and there are days you wish you were back home at the community college. But you know you love college and you know love Vermont and if you stayed home, you would have been completely and utterly miserable. There are days when you feel happy and regret nothing, and there are days you feel low and unwanted. But I promise you, it will be ok.
Written by,
A girl with a lot of thoughts.
Social anxiety is often something not spoken about but something a lot of people struggle with. This is a perspective given to show what orientation was like for me and all of the inaccurate thoughts that constantly raced through my mind.
