There are people all over the world living with mental illnesses; some more severe than others, however each with their own challenges. Social anxiety is a mental illness that destroys a person's social life. Following the destruction of their social life, comes low self-esteem and little confidence. Everyone with social anxiety has experiences unique to their being, but some experiences are universal. Daily feelings include fear, avoidance, and pain. Living with social anxiety is living in constant fear of being judged, disapproved, or seen as stupid among others. This disorder takes a large toll on the person and causes normal situations to be blown out of proportion. No one battling this disorder is alone, and people with social anxiety experience a lot of similar situations.
Feeling uncomfortable and awkward in almost every social situation.
No matter what you try to do to make the conversations and interactions flow, it always seems like time is dragging on. You're always asking yourself why conversations seem so awkward and impossible. Even when the conversation ends you can't help but keep thinking everything you said was stupid, and that you made a fool of yourself.
Replaying every conversation in your head for hours after it happened.
Even the smallest conversations are run through your mind twenty times too many. You constantly review every little detail, completely overthinking each conversation. This replaying lets you pick apart the conversations and eventually decide them all bad and embarrassing.
Being categorized as shy, or the "bitch" because you rarely talk.
We all wish we could just tell people we have social anxiety, but it isn't that easy. At every social gathering, you are the quiet one or the shy one because you just don't have the energy to battle your disorder. No matter how badly you want to talk you continually talk yourself out of it. One minute you're telling yourself great, encouraging things and then the next you're tearing yourself down. People start to see you as shy or come to the conclusion that you are a bitch. Hearing that people think that of you really kills you inside because you are not one at all. Knowing that people have this presumption about you then makes it even harder to force yourself into conversation.
Constantly wondering what horrible, judgmental things people are thinking when you're talking to them.
You never have stress free conversations. Even when you are talking to family members you are censoring your words and monitoring your behavior. Each conversation is a battle within itself as you tell yourself that the person you are talking to is thinking negative things about you. Furthermore, a conversation with someone you like, say a crush, is SO INCREDIBLY DIFFICULT. You want nothing more than to be free and talk to them with ease, but your disorder decides they think what you are saying is irrelevant. After conversations you find yourself telling yourself that you are weird, an outcast, and nobody likes you.
Having this never-ending fear that people are always watching you, and shaming you for everything you do.
Walking down the street is a simple task for people without social anxiety, but for people with the disorder, they can kiss that ease of everyday tasks goodbye. Daily activities like grocery shopping, talking on the telephone, or walking down the street are major stressors for people with social anxiety. You are always worrying about what other people think when they look at you, so you can't even perform your daily tasks without self-doubt. You are constantly afraid of what others think of you. People with social anxiety are never comfortable in public, they always see others reviewing them and being critical of their every move.
Avoiding social situations altogether because you just can't take another embarrassing interaction.
Instead of dealing with all this pressure and stress, you just avoid interactions with other people to control your disorder. You cancel plans with your friends, you make-up excuses for not being able to attend specific events, and you always choose staying in by yourself over going out with friends. You decide the easiest way to deal with your social anxiety is by avoiding situations that surface it all together. This sometimes makes you feel even worse about yourself because now you have made yourself the "outcast", and you feel bad when you see everyone having fun without you.
So basically, social anxiety sucks. Living in constant fear of being judged and thought negatively of by others drains a person. Here's the thing, you can do something about it. You have the ability to change who you are, but you have to...and I know this sounds cliche...but you have to believe you can change. Stop throwing yourself a pity party and go do something about your social anxiety. It sucks, but it does not have to. You can learn to be confident and positive in social situations. Conversations can become easy. You can surprise your crush and talk his/her ears off. You can be the outgoing one instead of the shy one. You can be a new, better you and totally throw your social anxiety to the curb. Your suffering from social anxiety, but you have the opportunity to completely flip your life around for the better, all you have to do is seize it. Believe you can and you're halfway there.
