Social Anxiety Is My Worst Enemy

I am often amazed at just how good my brain is at convincing me -- often without any evidence whatsoever -- that the people around me Do Not Like Me. It’s a regular occurrence, even with people I’ve known and been close with for years. I’ll wake up one day and suddenly think that the friends I talk to every day want nothing to do with me or that my family only tolerates me out of obligation. Friends will make plans that don’t involve me and almost immediately I am convinced it means they are trying to get rid of me. I’m aware of how absolutely irrational this all is, but that never seems to stop the powerful intrusive thoughts from forcing their way to the front of my mind.

This social anxiety has been my enemy for years and, unfortunately, has probably blocked me off from some good friendships throughout my life. The fear of being rejected or abandoned or facing up to the reality that someone might not like me is so powerful that it can force me to close myself off from getting closer to people or to turn them down when they reach out to me. Recently, I’ve become aware of another fault it gives me: I can be friends with someone and not even realize it.

Some examples:

I was a part of a lot of tumblr roleplay communities throughout my teens and early to mid-20s. I met a lot of people through this and many have remained good friends, but there’s one in particular that I talk and hang out with a lot now that almost surprises me at times. We met as part of a private group and while we were both in it for years, I spent probably about half that time thinking she didn’t like me. There was never anything specific that gave me this impression of our relationship. She was never mean to me and nothing to suggest she didn’t like me was ever said, but I was convinced it was true all the same. The only thing I really had was that we didn’t really talk to each other much, but in all honesty I never really tried to talk to her. The belief that I was disliked was so powerful that I never really made an effort to actually find out if it was true. I don’t really remember how things changed, but at some point we did actually start talking to each other more. Looking back now, it’s honestly hard to believe that I ever thought we couldn’t be friends.

More recently, I found myself in a similar position with some “friends of friends”. We shared many mutual friends and had been talking with each other regularly for a while, but I still only thought of them as being “friends of friends”. Even though I wanted to feel more like a part of the circle, something had convinced me that was as much as I was allowed to be (and even sometimes irrationally convinced me that our mutual friends liked their other friends more than me). I’m now coming to realize that not only was I wrong about not being welcome in the circle, I may have already been a part of it. These same people I thought didn’t want me around have been referring to me as a friend and talking to me as if I’m already included. I’m not even sure how long this has been the case without me realizing it.

Social anxiety is my worst enemy. It convinces me I am unwanted and unloved. That I am unworthy of any of the people around me. In the past year, I’ve been making progress in learning how to manage my mental health better. I received coaching on how to deal with anxiety symptoms and was able to find my way into a situation where a lot of stressors have been removed from my life. In that process, I think I’ve also become more aware of just how much my own thoughts have cut me off from people. It’s still an ongoing process and there are a lot of days where I struggle to accept the love I already have in my life, but I’m learning to recognize when those thoughts have no basis in reality. I might not be there yet, but maybe if I can recognize how often my social anxiety is wrong I can also find more to take away its power over me. Not everyone is going to like me, but so many people already do. I don’t want to let anyone take that away from me, not even myself.

But if we are friends, I still may need you to explicitly tell me so. Apparently, I’m not always great at noticing.