r/socialanxiety

Imagine how your life ended, as a person with lifelong social anxiety. Is there someone beside you? A member of family, perhaps? Or ar you completely alone?

It could literally be anywhere. The thought of being a regular feels impossible for me. I can’t last a day and end up never going back. I used to feel extreme nerves where I couldn’t go but now I don’t even feel nerves anymore, just nothing. At least the nerves meant I cared about it. I feel like an alien. Is this social anxiety?

And why?

I hinted my therapist that I might have social anxiety problems but it feels like she brushed it off and she said that other people can also be anxious about social interactions and other people might also be scared to do something or to look stupid in front of others.

I feel so invalidated. I was always scared to tell someone that I’m afraid to do ordinary things that people do every day bc they might laugh at me or they can think that I lie.

And I was also scared to tell my therapist that I might have social anxiety because I was scared she can think I’m imagining things. And she knows that I’m scared of it.

Maybe she didn’t want bad for me but I still feel unheard. I feel not understood but I can’t complain about it to her.

It feels like everyone tells me “no you don’t have social anxiety. You’re a liar, you don’t have problems. You just don’t want to do anything”.

“Other people can also have fear of social interactions.” Then why can they do that and I can’t? Why can’t I do things I see people do every day even if they feel anxious?

As I watch the journey of a younger family member, I’m realising that social anxiety isn’t a part of their story- although it looks like that from the outside at times.

Instead, the psychologist they’re seeing (specialising in anxiety and neurodivergence) has shared that she believes this person has autism.

And the more I listen and hear their experiences in the raw form that only children can give… it makes me reflect on myself.

I struggled massively in late middle school and all of high school. I was constantly scanning for threats.

Loud sounds (like teachers smacking rulers on boards to ‘wake us up’) would put me in complete overwhelm for ages after.

I understood social dynamics but I didn’t ‘get’ them if you know what I mean. It seemed like an awful lot of effort for very little pay off to me. It made me incredibly nervous.

And humour has always been such a struggle. It simply does not translate a lot of times. I definitely take things literally as my default and it’s a hard gear shift to get down into that ‘other’ language.

I know the patterns of interactions well enough to predict and respond. I know how to show up in a typical way. I know how much of myself to share and which parts are socially generally accepted.

How am I supposed to know what parts of me were shaped by learned experiences and which are me?

I definitely struggle with eye contact. Still really don’t do well with loud sounds. I have a job that involves a mix of deep logic (I’m not a developer but I work alongside them in my role) and creativity/ data analysis to conceptualise user interfaces.

And now that I’m standing way back from it all and seeing how I learned to survive, I’m starting to wonder if I should get assessed for neurodivergence.

I know that’s a personal decision that only I can make… but I’m curious to hear how that went for other people.

Seeming how many people with SA are completely avoidant with people they like or those who like them, have you ever had to muster up courage just to look at them in a way they could notice? If so, how did it go?

It always seems to happen that whatever group I find where I feel comfortable enough to be myself, I end up annoying at least one person. I've already done my share of self reflecting and I don't wish to beat myself up over stuff I'm still improving on. A lot of life is just trial and error.

I guess what I'm stuck on is the nature of friendships. Are your friends really good friends if you have to water yourself down just to be acceptable to them? How much of the onus of being socially acceptable falls on ourselves in friendships? It's one thing to be yourself, but if you're an unapologetic idiot who pushes good people away because of your anti-social and cringy behavior, there needs to be some sort of way to reconcile your own authentic personality with being someone people want to be around.

I don't have the answers, and it makes me anxious to be myself because I don't want to push away people who I care about.

I started applying for jobs, and it’s funny how every listing always says things like “excellent communication skills,” “proactivity,” blah blah blah, all things that only normal people or people with some experience seem able to do. I don’t know how to do anything. I’m 26 years old and I’m afraid to look people in the eye, I stutter, I shake during any interaction. I overthink every interaction; it almost feels like some kind of cognitive problem. Sometimes people ask me open-ended questions and I genuinely don’t understand what they want to know.

I’ve never worked before, and that keeps me from being able to have a normal conversation with people. “What do you do for work?” Nothing. I’m nothing. “What about college?” I barely got through it. I studied something I hated and it took me seven years to finish, and in the end I couldn’t become a good professional or build any networking connections.

But beyond work, what even am I? I’m an empty person, with no hobbies. My greatest pleasure is sleeping. I wish I could sleep forever

I’m so deprived of a social life I genuinely have no idea how to talk to people my age and it’s so embarrassing to admit because I’m a literal adult. Not some 18 or 19yo I’m freaking 25 and have such low self esteem that I feel inferior to everyone I talk to 🤦🏼‍♀️ I haven’t had a true friendship since I was 17 :’( and it doesn’t help that I have a baby face

I think im getting better everyday trying tricks that ive thought maybe it will work..So im 30F and i used to be the name of "EMBARRASMENT" as ive been the most social anxious person in the planet..I coudnt walk normal in the street and my legs would mess up and i would walk in an unstraight line very slowly and my legs felt like someone had tighten them with a rope but they also felt like numb or frozen and i coudnt walk..So i used to walk like i was walking inside the water of a sea..Cars when i used to pass the street were a nightmare..I never dared to watch the driver in the eyes to get the signal to pass or not and some of them used to shout at me and offend me because they used to make signals for me to pass the street but i waited for them to pass and coudnt see them in the eye so i waisted their time🤣...And now finally ive taken the dare to watch them in the eye and pass..And also the trick that i found works for me in the street (so my legs dont get numb and frozen) is that now i keep my head up and i look very far away and time to time watch left or right and my focus is not "on the walking anymore". And now ive noticed my legs walk free and dont feel numb anymore..Also when i used to keep the eyes and head down for so many years,,that made me more focus on my legs and thats why my legs became numb..I'm happy im improving in some things..Remember:

Keep ur head up and look far away..Keeping ur head down makes things worse for anxiety and self concious..

I hope i help someone with this post 😊stay strong and believe in urself💪

Hey all, I don’t know if you saw a few of my other posts talking about doing little challenges- but I actually talked to a girl today and got her name!! She wasn’t freaked out or anything!!!
WOOO!!!

I have a subscription to the movies and my bf is away on a trip. I’m challenging myself to a movie by myself tonight. Seeing Mortal Kombat 2 lol. Gonna sneak in some food also. Kind of excited and nervous.

When you’re in a group setting and at the end of whatever they were talking about somebody says something like “Well, I think everyone spoke up, so moving on…”
Even though you were clearly there and didn’t say anything? I kinda feel like they do this because they KNOW I didn’t say anything. And I’m afraid that everyone else in the group is also gonna think of me, like “That’s not right, that person hasn’t said one word this whole time”.

First exanple was at a work meeting that I stayed quiet the whole time ( trying to find the courage to speak up, overthinking about everything I wanted to say, overthinking about what everyone else thought of me being there in dead silence…) This also happened at a book club that I was trying to participate in, in college group discussion (long time ago) etc.
Does anyone experience this a lot too?

tldr: Consistently run/exercise and meditate. Repeat positive affirmations to yourself. Journal down every positive social interactions.

With social anxiety I was suddenly just cured of it one day it seems like. However I do have some theories as to how it was cured.

First off, for anyone to feel good, being physically healthy is the bare necessity. I’ve personally been running and doing HIIT consistently for around 2 years. So I have good cardio, I’m physically capable.

Now that you are consistently running and exercising, you are physically fit and healthy. We can move on to the next thing I did. Which was a healthy diet. Eating a balanced and nutritious diet, helps you to be healthy.

Now, another thing which I’ve done was MEDITATING! All caps, because I have never done mediation before, but it seems my anxiety disappeared after I started meditating. I consistently meditated 25 minutes everyday for roughly 3 months. If 25 minutes is too much, start with 5 minutes, then move on to 10 minutes and so on.

Rid yourself of negative affirmations, before whenever I had some minor inconveniences, I’d think to myself, “I’m killing myself”, “I need a bullet in my skull”. Word for word, these were things I was saying to myself anytime a minor inconvenience happened in my life. Looking back now, that is NOT normal. You are most likely depressed and don’t even know it.

Now, to help with that. I made a conscious effort to stop saying those things to myself. Instead I started repeating things like, “I’m confident, I’m funny, I’m social, I’m interesting.” Whether you truly believe it or not, does not matter, just keep saying it to yourself.

Lastly, I started journaling, every time I had a positive social interaction I’d journal it down into my phone. And I would go over them every now and then to remind myself, people are actually very nice.

So, I have pretty severe social anxiety. That's on top of a bunch of other mental health stuff.

And, basically, for the time being it has prevented me from doing a job. I would like to find a way to earn money somehow though. But I have not been able to figure out how.

So, here I am, in what is probably a desperate move I'm asking here: Do you have any jobs that could work for me?

The job needs to be full remote permanently. Anything else is not going to be sustainable. That's basically a condition that cannot be removed.

It would be great if it were part time, since I doubt I'll be able to sustain a full time job at the moment. I could try, but I have my doubts. And I'd rather not suddenly be unable to work after being hired.

And ideally, though not strictly necessary, it would be nice if it didn't have a set schedule. So that it was about getting a certain amount of work done or delivering something rather than working between this hour and that hour.

The reason for that is mostly that I really struggle with sleep. And without using benzos every day, I cannot keep a schedule. So a job at set times would mean either taking benzos every weekday, which isn't exactly recommended, or probably a lot of 4 hour nights (if I'm lucky).

It would be great if it was something freelance, obviously. But my country's tax system does make this harder. I have to make minimum about 500 bucks every 3 months or I'll literally be paying the government for the right to work. So work that offers extremely small amounts at any point, including in a starting phase, is effectively out. At least unless I can have high confidence that the amount will get to over 500 bucks pretty quickly.

So, yeah, I realize that this is a lot of restrictions. And probably nothing reliable will fit this. But I thought I might as well ask. And this seemed like a place where someone might know. It would be nice to be able to be financially independent.

I feel so useless. I had all of class time to ask my professor in person about deciding to opt out of presenting or to at least present just to him during office hours. But everyone already reserved their time and I felt too anxious and honestly a bit nauseous to bring it up. He even came up to me as a check-in but I just couldn't say anything. Would it still be appropriate to ask now? The presentation is 5 minutes long which I am aware is not bad at ALL, but I haven't done presentations in literally years and I'm terrified. I've done my best to just try and avoid them even if it costed my grade. If I don't do this one, I'd pass with a C, that's if the final isn't some requirement to pass the entire class and if my other assignments my professor still has to grade are perfect scores (which so far, I'm doing great with a 97%). But I'm so scared to even type up an email to ask, especially when he was always so open to questions and concerns in-class. I feel stupid for so many reason right now, it's so overwhelming and I feel ridiculous... My friends were even trying to hype me up to ask but I genuinely couldn't.

Advice?

Has anyone else been in this position and been able to turn it around 😭😭 I hate that ppl know and talk about me struggling, and that’s just made it even worse.

I hope it's a right sub to finally write about it. Title explains part of the content but I will add more as I write it.

So, I'm afraid of getting a job, and always have been. I've been applying for various positions for the last 5 or-so months, but after any contact from the employer (it happened twice already) I decline the offer and any further employment process. Other than that I was on two interviews but didn't get accepted. My unemployment comes from the fact I dropped out of tech university, because I had to constantly work in groups with other people, and exercise in groups in the main PE class. I keep telling my family & friends the reason were bad hours (partially true) and my math class problems (also partially true, but I also purposely didn't come to exam).

I have a diploma in mechatronics (some sort of European technical high-school). This should theoretically mean I'm prepared and suitable for any kind of factory maintenance under pressure, but I'm really not. It doesn't matter what's the job, I just feel like I'm not competent enough (which is true, cuz I have no on-site experience in this field), and will f*ck up something really bad eventually. I'm also afraid of being laughed at by coworkers because of my lack of experience, while being judged all the time. Any other type of job in my area requires me to work with customers or other companies, which I feel like I will fail, because I'm not a good marketer, and I try to be honest with people to avoid further conflicts and problems. Amount of responsibilities in these jobs are just eating me alive, yet I can take responsibility for my own actions when I have to. I'm afraid of having to work with customers under pressure, while doing few other things at the same time.

I had two jobs already. One in the field where I had to build electrical circuits. Even though it wasn't hard or super demanding, I couldn't sleep at night and having to go to work stressed me incredibly everyday. From the end of shift to the very start I thought about possible failures all the time. Fortunately my coworker didn't speak to me and didn't want anything from me at all, which I'm really greatful for. My second job was just a miserable experience I don't know how to describe. I was extremely tired and afraid of things that will happen it the week, yet the job itself wasn't also super demanding.

I'm also avoid any people I know on purpose, either my friends or family(if they don't live close enough). Trying to socialise with other people doesn't help at all, because every interaction and conversation just feels forced for me, and I just don't like other people companion at all, either in job or any activity. It's not like I feel superior to them, I just don't like it. Any kind of a friendship also feels for me unnatural, like I have to constantly entertain someone, or the contact is going to fade. I'm not completely awkward though, and I answer pretty naturally during a small-talk or any other interaction, but they feel unnecessary for me and I avoid them as much as I can without presenting myself as rude.

As I'm writing this it doesn't seem like a big deal at all, but I don't know any other words to describe this feeling I've been facing for the past few years. I may delete this later

I only go to movies 4-5 weeks after the debut to (hopefully) be in a less crowded theatre, but I still get so anxious eating popcorn. I love the taste of theatre popcorn so on the rare chance I go to a movie, I'm usually buying some. But I only want to eat during super loud action scenes because I am very afraid to be too loud chewing or too annoying reaching into my bag :(

I have an event with a decent amount of people I have to go to tomorrow and my mind just keeps racing. I have no idea how I can get through it in one piece. I’m not a drinker at all but people keep saying to me to have some alcohol beforehand to loosen up. Is alcohol actually helpful for dealing with stress and social situations? I have no idea what else to do