Ramble : How Social Anxiety Feels

I have extreme social anxiety. I have a social disorder. And no-one ever seems to understand why I don’t like leaving my home. So I’m going to write this post.

Imagine you’re standing in a pool. When you’re at home, by yourself, you can sit at the bottom of this pool and not worry about everything. Every person near you adds just a little water to the pool. Some people a lot more than others. When you go to big events, where there’s lots and lots of people, the pool will fill up. It will go up past your head, and you can’t swim, so you’ll be gasping for air and terrified and trying to paddle to the surface, but more people just keep coming and coming so more water will go into your metaphorical pool until you can’t breathe. And that’s the part of social functions where I retreat into the bathroom to have a panic attack. This happens about 99.999% of the time I go to social functions.

Any other socially anxious people who can relate?

Ramble : The End of The World

Sometimes things happen and people change when you don’t want them to, and two words(it’s over) might make you feel like your whole world has imploded and nothing will ever be the same.

This happened to me.

Two months ago, a former best friend decided she had had enough with my social anxiety, and that she had better best friend candidates. She told me I should never speak to her, and that if I did I would just make it harder for her. She then went out of her way to post overtly happy statuses on every single social media site we saw each other on saying, just moments after she sent me those messages,(yes, she told me that over a Skype message) that she was so happy with her new bestie.

And that hurt. It hurt so much I could barely feel anything but that aching hurt.

I felt, for the next few days, a peculiar kind of loneliness. I felt like a part of me was incomplete, I would be laughing about something and, if I was alone when I was laughing, I would suddenly start crying, because I realized that I would have normally then shared it with her.

I have always cared too much, too easily, and too quickly. I am one of the most sensitive people you will ever meet, I get really sad over the simplest things, but I pretend to be so nonchalant that people think I don’t care about anything. But, back to the end of the world.

I went through life like a ghost, on auto-pilot. I tried not to think of her during the day, but she would enter my dreams at night, and it was terrible.

For a teenager, this can honestly seem like the worst thing that could ever happen.

It did for me.

I felt like nothing would ever be the same. Like I had just lost the best part of my life.

This month, I’m doing a writing thing, to write a novel in a month.

Just a week or a week and a half ago, I posted a thread on our local forum : teens from (where I live). Where I live is right outside a relatively big city which encompasses an area that would take about an hour to drive through if you’re driving about 40 MPH, so I didn’t expect to find many other teens near me, considering my dad is the only person who can drive me, and he’s a busy single dad, so anything over fifteen minutes away is a bit long to ask him to drive.

A girl posted, just a couple of sentences, but I had to check her username a couple of times to make sure it wasn’t me who had posted it. It was so like me. I have never clicked something as fast as I did her profile in my life.

She lives a mile from me, 3 minutes at most.

We have everything in common but our height – even our favorite drink, our favorite podcast, and being born exactly the same amount of days before our due date. We knew just two days after we met we were soul sisters.

And now we get together every couple of days to write, and watch old movies, and laugh. And I don’t feel lonely.

I already know her better than I knew my ex-best friend, and it’s only been 7-10 days since I met her.

The message in this ramble?

I read a quote by Winston Churchill, I think, ‘If you’re going through hell, keep going.’

I want to remind all of you, going through a terrible breakup, either with a best friend or someone you love, there is a light at the end of the tunnel. It may take months, it may take years, and you may feel so so lonely right now that you feel like you will never feel like you did again, but you will find someone. You will find someone so much better, and it will work out.

The reason I posted that thread was because of my loneliness, and look what happened.

I’m sorry, this was rambly, but you were forewarned by the blog name. Your regularly scheduled (who am I kidding? I have the most irregular blog schedule of any blogger I know) blog posts about mostly happy things will return after this one, probably.

Keep going, guys. It will get better. I promise.

I love you.

Reflection : An Extrovert With Crippling Anxiety

I have a confession to make.

I call myself an introvert in defense when my family asks why I only have one or two friends, and that’s partly true, I don’t mind keeping myself company for a long time, but I love making friends and talking to people.

Which is why it’s so hard to have terrible anxiety.

I have an anxiety/social disorder, which contributes, but like last week, I went to a book club, and I was so nervous my stomach knotted up and I could barely say two words there in fear of being judged, of saying the wrong thing. I picked at the webbing of my fingers until it turned raw and inflamed red, because I was so nervous. When I got home and was lying in bed that night, I replayed every. single. word I said and told myself how stupid they were, how I could have phrased that so much better, how everyone is going to think I’m some dumb dork.

All I really want are friends, people I can talk to, but it’s so hard to have those, to make those, when I can barely speak to people without picking my skin raw and feeling like I’m going to vomit. I almost had a panic attack when I had to make small talk a few weeks ago. I can’t even call people on the phone because I’m so terrified of awkward silences, of saying something stupid. This all sounds dumb, now that I’m typing it out, but it’s anything but when I’m standing there, picking at my skin, hyperventilating, feeling like I’m going to vomit, just because I have to talk to strangers.

I wish I could just post an ad for a friend. ‘Wanted : someone with an interest in books/writing to be the friend of a socially awkward teenager. Preferably random, not minding awkward silences, and not a serial killer. Apply today!’ Oh, that would be wonderful. Although with my luck, serial killers would disregard the ‘not a serial killer’ bit, and I’d end up dead because of my need for communication. I tend to think the worst of things.

So, I’m a pessimistic extrovert with crippling anxiety, what are you?

Reflection : Loving Myself

Wow, I seem like I’m conceited, both this and the last post have to do with me, but this one’s more interesting(although there aren’t any mentions of capybaras so that makes it a bit lamer).

I’ve struggled with my self-esteem for years, I was bullied a bit in elementary school and I think that contributed to it, although my own dad calling me fat when I was a healthy BMI and I was, at the most, eleven years old surely didn’t help at all. As a result of this self-esteem issue, I’ve avoided looking into mirrors because I’m ashamed of what I see, I hated buying clothes because it reminds me how I’m not a size 0, and it’s made me even more antisocial. If I don’t talk to anyone, no-one can judge me, right?

Well, in retrospect, when I’m typing it out like this, it all seems quite stupid, I should have taken more to heart that saying, ‘those who mind don’t matter, and those who matter don’t mind’, but I really did hate myself for a long time there, and thought myself fat and ugly, even though I was never more than at the most 5 pounds overweight, and really don’t look hideous.

A couple of weeks ago, though, this changed. I woke up one morning and decided to love myself. It was a conscious decision, I decided that if I don’t love myself, how can I expect anyone else to, and that I’m really not as ugly as I tell myself I am. I made a list of pros and cons about myself, and found, to my surprise, that the pros outweighed the cons. I spent a long time looking in the mirror, and for the first time I was actually happy about what I saw. Now, I really don’t mind looking in mirrors, and I feel happy. I feel weightless. Because I finally realized that I really am not ugly, and I need to stop telling myself that I am.

This sounds like a simple thing, but it’s the best thing that’s happened to me this year. I feel so so happy and it seems to have helped with my social anxiety just a smidge. Sorry for the long, boring post, I just needed to put that out there.

In summary, please do something for me, OK? Admit to yourself you are beautiful(or handsome, if you feel like beautiful is too feminine), your soul and your appearance, and that you need to love yourself before others can love you. You might not believe yourself, and if you don’t, keep doing it until you do. It’s worth it. Because you’re wonderful and amazing, and you really need to learn to love yourself, because the most wonderful feeling is when you realize you are worth something.

Great bloggers that also talk about this, probably better than I do:

• Love Yourself (anglismortes.wordpress.com)
• “Fat “ (fireflydance.net)
• Down with Mirrors (luciustheninja.wordpress.com)

Reflection : Small Talk

My family always thinks that my anxiety, my social disorder which I have been officially diagnosed with for years, is just something I’ll grow out of, a phase I’m going through because I’m stubborn. They think if me shove me outside of my comfort zone enough times, it will somehow miraculously expand.

They don’t know how it feels to panic when you’re calling someone on the phone and have trouble breathing because you’re terrified of not knowing what to say, to go out of your way to avoid talking to people because, again, you’re terrified of not knowing what to say and offending people and you suck at conversation.

You know what, though, me? Your version of a conversation 99% of the time with people you don’t know is a smile, nod, and occasional awkward laugh as you try to figure out the best way to get out of this conversation. And that’s fine. There’s nothing wrong with sucking at small talk, you’re still horribly outspoken with people you’re comfortable around and had no problem defending your autistic brother when some stupid kid made fun of him, and that’s what matters, or at least that’s what should matter. Society shouldn’t force you to make friendly conversation about the weather or sports or life with people you really don’t care about when you’d much rather think about the meaning of life and your existential crisis. And you’re not broken, or weird, or stupid, or some sort of weirdo for this, despite what those kids in elementary school said. It’s just the way you are. And that’s fine.