I think we all had these annoying situations where an uninformed people doesn’t know what they are talking about. Do you have any particular one that grinds your gears?
“You don’t seem like an introvert!”
“but you’re always so good at talking to others!”
Thanks, it took several public speaking and performance classes, an institutionalized-isolation style leadership seminar, 20 years of public speaking and livestreaming, a degree in psychology, and countless books on self actualization, positivity training, etc. to be able to hide it and keep it from negatively effecting my life most days.
Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’ll be sitting alone in my room. Tell my wife I said, “Hello.”
I’ll go first (since i forgot to add mine in the post) I dislike it very much when someone thinks they can “cure” my shyness/anxiety by putting a spotlight on me or putting me in a cringy situation. It just makes me wish the earth would swallow me whole.
At school we where forced to have a lesson in “spoken word”. We did not have our usual teacher but instead a spoken word artist as substitute for these lessons.
I don’t know what their plan was but they put me specially on the spot twice. Once when reading a poem we had to write. Mine was more of a tongue twister then a poem, had me perform it in front of the class.
Then there was one class about improv. Where you guessed it, I was chosen to improv with some other students… I did not get better. I got worse from that experience.
im so sorry to hear that. forcing people to be social or performative is pretty ableist and often does more harm than good. i always find it nice if i am allowed to participate. but not forced. schools often get that wrong in my personal experience.
The amount of presentations in front of the class I’d have to do. Even up into university.
I think the only presentation I was not utterly terrified for was my master thesis presentation, which is also the only presentation that ever mattered. I had plenty of time to prepare, it was fully online (pandemic time), I talked about something I cared about and I did it from home ^^
I don’t get particularly annoyed at it, but it does come up a lot: the idea that social anxiety and introversion are the same thing. While I do need a certain amount of “me time”, I’m primarily an extrovert. However, when I talk about social anxiety, people almost always assume that I’m an introvert.
I tend to prefer gatherings with small groups of friends, or events in familiar environments in order to get my fill of “people time” without triggering my anxiety too badly. I also enjoy meeting and talking to new people, even though it’s a bit nerve-wracking.
First when someone tells me everything is fine mid panic attack… noitsnotfuckingfine.jpg
From the other side…. That it can’t get better. It’s hard and it takes a lot of work but does get better!
yes. for me acceptance was so imprtant. and that means accepting panic attacks. accepting that they are bad. and accepting that it can and will become better :)
“you just need some time outside”
I lived for a long time with other students in a shared house we rented. Did not talk about my social anxiety much but it came up once or twice.
The comment I always got was “But you are not bad at socializing!”, so I guess a common misconception is that people with social anxiety might be bad at it. But that is separate from the issue. Might be that we have not gotten as much training due to avoiding social interaction. But if I’m with people like my roommates, that I have extensively gotten used to, I don’t feel the anxiety and it does not hinder me.
yeah. its one of these invisble issues. some people can mask their anxiety also super well on the costs of their mental well beeing. You can have high charisma and be fine in many situations and still struggle in others. im glad to hear you have a save space tho :)
I got my degree and moved now though, but I’m extremely thankful for my roommates. Also learned that I can find my calm as long as I get the time I need with others ^^ Important lesson for me.
Therapist: “Well you seem fine talking to me right now, so…”
and when i am unable to talk they say i am uncooperative -.-
That I was stuck up and unapproachable. This was told to me after I attended a large event with a crowd of strangers and all I could do was stand by a wall and semi-hide from everyone. I was having a really bad anxiety moment, and this person took the opportunity to point out how shitty I was…
it confuses me so much how some people just expect everyone to just accept all circumstances. like if i see someone doing bad or stuggeling in an enviroument then i would rather change the enviourment then expect the person to change. some people really struggle to change perspectives it seems.
for what it’s worth, this person was an abusive a-hole and is no longer in my life. Unfortunately though, I think there are a lot of people with this type of pre-disposition, who do not understand social anxiety, and don’t really have any desire to try to understand or accommodate it either.
it gets better with time. no it won’t
I can only imagine the spot your in. i can emphathise with that, since my anxiety was so bad for nearly a decate with daily panic attacks at my worst. and i can assure you i lost all hope in it ever getting better. but i was shown otherwise. i mean my anxiety is still there. but i learned to handle it better and have a mich healthier and more supportive enviourment. i think our surroundings can help a lot, and i know its so impossibly hard to change these on your own. and ofc noone can promise it gets better. but from my own experience, going from 24/7 laying bed to actually shop on my own, i can say there is the possibility. I wish you all the best :) you are a nice person who deserves good things
“it gets better with time”, quite the opposite
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