Social Anxiety Blogs

I am a twenty four year old man who has struggled with social anxiety since I was in high school. I recently joined this particular forum because I have been searching for supportive communities of people that can empathize with my challenges and help me work through them. In reading some of the entries posted by various individuals I am struck by the courage and honesty that is reflected in your contributions. I support you all and want to encourage each of you to not give up and to keep persevering. My hope is that in this community I will find a group of people willing to share and support each other as we each struggle with our daily challenges of anxiety. In reading literature on the struggle of social anxiety I have found that many of the people who struggle with the symptoms are actually incredibly talented individuals with enormous gifts to offer the world. I am certain that all of you in this community have talents, skills, and gifts that have not yet been nurtured or offered to the world because anxiety has held you back from sharing them. This is certainly the way that I feel and it has driven me to make the decision to actively pursue coping strategies aimed at helping me reduce my anxiety.

I guess I should share a little of my own story and how social anxiety has affected my life. I am a twenty four year old college student nearing the completion of my undergraduate degree. I have always been rather shy, quiet and introverted, particularly around people that I don't know. However, this shyness was never really a terrible problem until I reached high school. When I first entered high school I didn't know any other students and felt quite isolated. This sense of isolation was compounded by the fact that I rejected opportunities to reach out, make friendships and develop relationships. While In high school I developed certain coping strategies and behaviors that really laid the groundwork for my social anxiety tendencies. I am certain that many of you can relate to the avoidant ways of coping with anxious situations like speeches, presentations, and being called upon in class. I became a quiet student, always keeping my head down, sitting in the back of the class, and constantly keeping a low profile. At lunch I would sit in the library and discreetly consume a sandwich rather than confronting the shame of sitting alone in the cafeteria. I sought ought any way possible to avoid speaking in class and experienced terrible anxiety when forced to actually deliver a presentation.

With all this being said I must also note that there were areas of my life in which anxiety did not debilitate me. I played basketball everyday during free periods at school. I had close friendships and relationships in my neighborhood with kids that I grew with and I participated in various basketball leagues and tournaments. However, despite the healthy behavior exhibited in those areas there still remained specific trigger situations that would produce enormous anxiety within me. Those trigger situations and the coping behaviors I developed still remain with me to this day and have negatively affected my subsequent collegiate experience.

Once I reached college I was determined to not repeat the mistakes that I had made in high school. I was desperate to create relationships and find meaningful groups with whom I could associate. I experienced some success with this mission but also had difficulty overcoming some of the ingrained patterns that I had developed. However, my first two years of school I developed some superficial relationships and remained relatively successful academically. Once I reached my third year of school, a pivotal time for making choices about your professional future, I began to struggle with depression, indecisiveness, loneliness, and low self-esteem. With the support and understanding of my parents they helped find me a therapist with whom I could discuss my feelings. Once I overcame my resistance to the stigma of therapy and began to really share in my sessions with this counselor I found it to be an extremely helpful practice. I gained insights, understandings, and experienced tremendous growth once I developed the courage to honestly share. During this time I was blessed to meet a girl whom I eventually fell in love with. We have been together as a couple for over two and a half years and she continues to be the love of my life and my best friend in the world.

Despite all this positive growth that I experienced during this time I still struggled with those specific situations that had caused me tremendous anxiety while in high school. I still was afraid to go and talk with professors, often going to extreme lengths to avoid any potential confrontations. I still was afraid to deliver presentations, often leading me to drop classes and even accept some failing grades after not building up the courage to attend class. I still was afraid to seek out assistance from counselors at school or solicit academic assistance from advisors. Often I would turn inwards and avoid the anxiety provoking situations by dropping certain classes or simply not attending once I fell behind, for fear of having to be the center of attention.

As many of you know this type of behavior tends to lead towards a negative spiral. Eventually the avoidance only leads to a lowered self-esteem, a sense of severe shame, and a growing depression. Because I have often resorted to avoidance when confronting these anxiety provoking situations I have created cyclical patterns of self-destructive behavior. Ultimately, the result has been poor performance in school, displeasure from my parents who are deeply committed to helping me succeed, intense guilt and shame, and a failure to move forward in my life. Recently, I feel a renewed sense of commitment to actively trying to control my anxiety so that I don’t allow it to control me and hold me back from reaching my potential.

Many times I have been too nervous to walk into the classroom. Many times I have simply sat in the darkness of my car rather than walking in and giving a presentation. Many times I have been too terrified to answer the phone from a professor or even a boss from work. Many times my palms have been sweaty, my stomach has been queasy, my heart has been racing, and my voice has been shaking when I have tried to speak in front of a group. Many times I have missed out on joining a group or calling up an old friend for fear of saying the wrong thing. Many times I have had a suggestion, idea, or constructive thought but been too afraid to offer up it in discussion at work or at school.

Currently, I am still struggling with these areas of anxiety in my life. Through reflection, prayer, and discussion with my parents I have truly come to see that so much of the anxiety is a self-created fear. When confronting the anxiety provoking situations my thoughts tend to become irrational as I become fixated on how I think others will perceive me. I tend to overestimate the importance and negativity with which people will respond to me. I also tend to devalue my own skills, appearance, and ability to communicate. Ultimately, as I give more power to these negative thoughts the anxiety increases and it manifests itself in terrifying physical symptoms—racing heart, sweaty palms, nausea, headache, dry throat.

These insights have really challenged me to think about deconstructing this thought pattern while working to minimize the overall power of the thoughts themselves. I also feel that part of this reflective process must involve sharing with others, who experience similar struggles, while becoming part of a community that is committed to developing individual coping strategies for controlling these anxieties. I feel that it is important to share my own story as well as listen to others who have experienced their own unique struggles with this form of anxiety.

With all that being said I want to thank you for allowing me to share. I support and encourage you all to keep working on your anxiety, keep seeking out people and communities interested in helping you, keep preserving in the struggle, and to ultimately never give up. I also look forward to reading some of your own stories and struggles as well as the insights and positive tools you have acquired for coping with your own anxiety. We all know that we have a lot to offer so let’s work to control our anxieties so that we can all reach our potentials and give back to the world in our own unique ways.

Peace.