Question for those of you that have social anxiety?

GemstoneofHeart

What do you think caused your social anxiety? Was it something that happened in your past? An over all way you were treated at some point in your life? An issue with how you perceive yourself or with your self confidence?
Just curious what everyone's thoughts on this are.

cowsanddogsarecute

No idea what caused it. I was a very shy child. When I was a teenager I realised I wasn't just shy but had anxiety around social situations. I was bullied as a teenager which made my social anxiety worse. My self conference has been up and down for years which affected how bad my social anxiety was. These days i care less what people think. I've had some therapy but not sure if that helped or what. Sometimes I just don't give a damn what people think and at that stage my self confidence is high. Self confidence still varies though. Still get very anxious in social situations but usually better able to deal these days.

magicaldryope

For me, I’m on the autism spectrum and the anxiety is comorbid so hooray!! Lucky me! Anxiety also runs in the family but mine is a bit more debilitating and I think that’s partly because social situations are more difficult for me to parse even without the anxiety. If we had a discussion on this forum about how to react in any given social situation I could give an answer, but when in person my processing doesn’t keep up very well with changes in body language and tone so I’m always lagging a bit behind where I should be and it stresses me out, which causes processing to slow down further (or in the worst cases, I shut down into panic mode and can’t react at all beyond crying). The end result is I keep my socializing to a minimum outside of the internet, because I can function better with written communication.

This has gotten a little better the older I get, because I have more previous experiences to draw from to speed the processing up. None of this is a scientific description, of course; this is simply how it feels from my perspective.

Are you struggling with anxiety? It really is a beast to deal with, isn’t it?

GemstoneofHeart

Thanks for your insight! I do have a little bit of social anxiety but it has mostly gone away in the past year. I ask because a loved one has a lot of social anxiety and was looking for some insight on how to talk to them about it lovingly.

Lounmoun

GemstoneofHeart wrote: »

Thanks for your insight! I do have a little bit of social anxiety but it has mostly gone away in the past year. I ask because a loved one has a lot of social anxiety and was looking for some insight on how to talk to them about it lovingly.

My dd has a ton of anxiety- social and otherwise. I think it grew out of traumatic life events not how she was treated by others in the past. I think anxiety can spread and grow if you don't have the tools to manage it. My dd has started medication and is in therapy.
I would suggest to your friend that they speak to a doctor or therapist if their anxiety is pretty severe.

WickAndArtoo

Severe GAD and social anxiety here, and although we can guess at what causes these things, in reality anyone can have these issues even if they have a very loving and apparently wonderful life.

Most of the time just listening and trying to understand and realize it’s a real thing is the best way to talk about it. I second the recommendation to get professional help, it never just magically goes away from my experience and understanding.

Anxiety is a very painful and frustrating thing to experience, your friend is very lucky that you are making an effort to help and understand, having friends I can talk to openly about it is really helpful.

ButterflyFarmer

Hi there!

I have had depression and anxiety for most of my life (I'm 35 now). There were definitely traumas in my past, but nothing I'm certain many people haven't experienced without developing anxiety.

Mine tends to run in cycles. I get home bound from time to time, and the mere thought of leaving my house makes me panicky. It sounds cliche, but it really is a 'one day at a time' sort of thing for me.

It is partially the reason I so badly want to get healthy again, at least physically. I know that losing weight won't solve all of my problems, but I'm sure it can help. I'm hopeful it will help anyway.

I'm not sure if I answered your question or just rambled lol either way, I think it's good to hear that we aren't alone.