Social Anxiety

Hi. My name is Kelsi and I suffer from social anxiety.

Yes, talking about my issues with social anxiety is uncomfortable and by presenting it here in my blog it makes me feel vulnerable. Talking about my struggle with alcohol and the nerves I felt opening up about that, compare to the nerves I am feeling now. For those of you who are lucky enough to not know what social anxiety is or how it feels, I will gladly help you understand. 

When I enter new social situations, such as going to a family gathering or a party of some kind, I immediately start panicking. For most people, giving a presentation or going on a date might cause a few butterflies, but for those of us with social anxiety, these situations bring a sense of panic. My thoughts usually go something like this: 

"Everyone is staring at me." 

"They can all notice how nervous I am." 

"I never have anything to add to the conversation." 

"I must not fit in.

"This nervous giggle is so lame." 

"What is wrong with me?!"

Before I know it, I am ready to leave before I even begin a conversation. This fear of social situations also begins to build before I even leave the house, which often makes me bail on plans last second. This is difficult for me to write about because I know these fears are irrational. My obsessive worse case scenario thoughts prevent me from enjoying my life and to be honest, it's starting to piss me off.

While I was actively participating in my eating disorder, I thought my social anxiety was all food related. If a social event had food, I knew it would make me uncomfortable to eat in front of others and that was my "perfect" excuse to isolate. Now that I am eating somewhat normally, however, that excuse no longer works. 

Right now my social anxiety feels worse than it ever has in my entire life and I think it's because I am finally being forced to deal with it. After crying in my therapist's office yesterday, I decided a certain social situation this week was too much to face and I resorted back to my old isolating ways. I really should know better than this by now. Isolation does not solve anything. Ever.

After doing a little reading on social anxiety, I found that it is most common among individuals with low self-esteem, poor assertiveness skills, negative self talk, and overly self critical thoughts. Being female and having a genetic predisposition to social anxiety can also increase its development. Other factors, such as upbringing, traumatic life experiences (e.g. bullying, abuse), and certain personality traits (e.g. shyness), can greatly impact social anxiety.

So, I am left questioning whether or not social anxiety is my fault and why it is so difficult to get over. Unfortunately, I would test positive for all of the risk factors listed above and many of those things are not my fault. Like many things in my life, in order for me to overcome my social anxiety, it is going to take a lot of time and patience, even if it is frustrating. My therapist says it's best to start slowly when beginning new social activities, so I will need to develop a starting point and over time work my way up.

For some reason, I think of my social anxiety as an ugly personality flaw and I would much rather avoid discussing it. However, there are serious consequences involved if I choose not to deal with it. Recovery from my eating disorder has opened my eyes to how bad my social anxiety really is and even though it's no fun to deal with, without recovery, I would not have this chance to work on it.

Progress.