Deleted User said 10 years, 10 months ago:

How does having social anxiety affect your ability to socialize with friends, family, and strangers? What types of symptoms do you experience? What situations are the most difficult for you?

Deleted User said 10 years, 10 months ago:

I think the shortest answer I could give is how doesn’t it affect me! Though that isn’t the question, and I think I’ll follow Kirstin’s lead and tell my story as best as I can. By nature I’m a fairly anxious person, so even though I have it under control now it’s always going to be a part of my life, but in answer to those questions:

How does having social anxiety affect your ability to socialize with friends, family, and strangers?
I think it probably goes without saying that I’m awkward. That’s sort of in my nature and also because of having suffered from social anxiety as growing up I’d avoid any social situation that I could. I didn’t go to school dances, I didn’t really hang out with anybody outside of school. For the entire time I was at school I must’ve hung out with my group of then friends maybe 4 times outside of school? I tried to fight it, and I went to the two sleepovers I was invited to because they were for their 16th birthdays but each time wasn’t a great experience. So I guess you could say having social anxiety has affected me because while the majority of people learnt how to interact and know what was acceptable to say, or how to deal with situations I am only really just beginning to learn those skills now that I have control. It’s lost me a lot of people. In the beginning of getting to know somebody it’s great, and then my anxiety starts to creep in. While I don’t have the physical symptoms the mentality is still an issue and often gets in the way.

I’m not so bad with family, because I don’t have the biggest so there wasn’t really the issue of big family get-togethers, and also we’re fairly distant so there hasn’t really been any reason to feel anxious around them. With friends and strangers? Well it’s a little difficult for me to form a strong bond with someone, and I find it frustrating. I’m shy around strangers which is often misunderstood as ‘She doesn’t want to talk to me’ so people will be distant and turn to the life and soul of the group. It’s difficult for me to maintain friendships as well as generally I only have a few at a time and I suffer that age-old jealousy of realising that I’m not the only one they speak to. It’s ridiculous, but it’s an insecurity of mine that’s related to my anxiety. A lot of people at school didn’t understand my behaviour in high school and so socialising with them was never a possibility as they’d choose to exclude me and of course I was bullied.

What types of symptoms do you experience?
As I mentioned, I have my anxiety under control now but that doesn’t mean the thoughts have completely vanished. My anxiety really started to take hold ten years ago, and that’s a long time of faulty thinking. Physically it got pretty bad. It started with a twisting feeling in my gut, I’d feel like I really needed the toilet even when I didn’t, I’d feel nauseated, and the more I tried to contain it (so that people wouldn’t realise that something was wrong) the worse the symptoms got, if I wasn’t able to escape it would lead on to a panic attack which involved hyperventilating (usually to the point I’d begin to get pins and needles, or my skin would change colour) and my vision would blur, and I was just completely weak. On a good day it would be restricted to my heart racing, clammy palms, fidgeting and when I’m anxious I tend to rub my nose or touch my neck, forehead and I pick at my skin. Another thing I often did was more trying to focus on something else by digging my nails into my skin as hard as I could.

What situations are the most difficult for you?
It sounds strange but I find it most difficult to go out and about in my hometown. I can manage to go to cities and to gigs and shows on my own and it’s a huge confident boost but for whatever reason going around my hometown still causes me anxiety. I’d say that’s probably the most difficult, as it’s the one place I wish I felt the most comfortable and yet I can’t. Travelling used to be one of the worst for me. I wouldn’t even be able to manage a 15 minute bus journey without having a panic attack, I’d end up spending most of the time on a train hanging nearby or hiding myself away in the toilet, I couldn’t go on coach journeys and I’d panic if they stated there wasn’t a toilet on-board simply because they weren’t able to stop and left me off at any given moment so I needed to know I could escape somewhere. I couldn’t even manage long car journeys either without throwing up and I’m not one for being travel sick. Right now there isn’t a situation which is really difficult for me but those? Those were.

Deleted User said 10 years, 10 months ago:

social anxiety literally halts your life, alcohol helps to kill it, so does marijuana and some drugs but the long term effects are so not worth it, having social masks to act like someone who would be accepted also helped kill my anxiety to a point, I believe my social anxiety comes from the way i was raised, identifying what caused it and changing certain behavior traits helps reverse the damage done in childhood for me. My social anxiety was so bad, i couldnt sit in an exam hall unless i was high enough not to feel anxiety so i could concentrate, but moment ive started therapy, im slowly fixing this, become more aware, and more i get informed and via research, im becoming more comfortable with it instead of just coping,,i still get anxiety but not as much as before, but im looking forward to the day when i can completely outgrow it!!
edit
i should mention ive no anxiety when it come to presentations/speeches, im usually prepared enough and have confidence in myself for that, its just when it comes to interpersonal relationship or someone i dont know who i feel is judging me, is when it becomes too much, if i had to describe it, like its hard for me to be real about myself or open up to people in real life, i only give them enough to accept me, but obv thats never enough and this is due to my anxiety i guess.

Deleted User said 10 years, 10 months ago:

For me, my social anxiety is its worst at school, especially during classes where I have to give presentations or speeches. My heart races, my hands and voice shake, and I talk really fast. Something about a room full of people with their eyes and attention on me just really gets to me.