Social Anxiety and the pain it inflicts. But also the victory when you overcome…

I was certain that every encounter would lead to bullying.

These strangers all had a plan, and they would turn their backs on me. I would be burnt like sienna if they rejected me. I would never leave the house again because of it, my body and mind would be like an open wound.

If there was a gathering, I would throw tantrums. Everyone needed to know that I was going to reign dolorous. No one was going to protect me from making a fool out of myself.

No one was going to put a cloak of invisibility around me.

Just don’t say anything stupid, they will think you’re smarter than them, then they won’t bully or hate you.

Everyone became a code I could not crack.

Eureka!

If I appear cold and distant, they might even feel the way I do on the inside. Then I would have the upper hand.

But no. I needed to smile because I am also a nice person, I don’t want anyone to feel ill of ease because of me. Why did I need to roll a dice to survive every social interaction?

One day I decided to wear the ‘relax’ armour. I thought it was a lousy fit and my patience wore thin, I needed to feel not like a ghost but someone who was alive.

So I shrugged on ‘be frightened by all’ armour, and eye contact became an invasive disease, until I relaxed into nothing. I wanted peace. I wanted to feel at home in my body and feel like a natural around people I actually wanted to interact with. Why the heck was that so hard to achieve?

Why do I froth when I try to talk?

Using the simplest of words, because I suddenly forgot all that I once knew.

I did the last thing on the list. I had to believe I was not the main character. I had to want nothing out of an interaction, besides being there inside my quiet walls. I am a quiet person. Then I was approachable. Many came to talk to me.

Some had small foreheads, some big. I paid attention to their hair length and their smiles and I was warmed and welcomed into their space. The space just around the form of their bodies. I chose to interpret nothing, to be genial in my demeanour. I chose the thing that took no effort.

What did take a lot out of me, was acting like someone I was not.

Then when I was away from them. I had the world in my hand, and I controlled it’s orbit. I could turn my life from storms to spring, until the bullet thoughts came piercing in.

Then all of a sudden, you didn’t say that right and you forgot to respond to this part of what that person had said. I thought I failed the mission.

But I needed to walk through the brambles and be pricked a few times to breathe in a steady rhythm again. That was how I came to write this.

My second mission is to finish the story I am currently writing without feeling too stupid to stand up to my own mind. Without setting fire to my own tongue. I need to remember that I am a writer, that it is not a badge that is removable. That it is my skin, it is me.

It is hard feeling like there’s always a new battle to fight on every new day.

That even though I am kind, I can’t be kind to everyone because there are limits to my mind and limits to time.

I suffer when I don’t keep my promises.

I need to remember that I should laugh in the rain and secure a gaze on the shiny pebbles. They were once dry, but they became like diamonds under my feet. How precious it is to beg them for peace than to beg, from myself.

I should remember that there are sounds out there in nature, like the sound of a waterfall. That it could blend the noise of rain to make you unaware or aware of the coming rain.

I remember laughing and screaming with my husband when we got caught eating a sandwich. Hood down behind our necks , we got caught in the rain.

Just like that, there is peace when I am not the main character.

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A story I’ve read and loved from this community:

A story of mine that didn’t win the challenge but still haunts me. Not because it didn’t win the challenge, but because I saw someone recently who was a part of this memory. They came all the way down to where I live, close anyway, and I thought that was weird. So I am linking it here to remind myself, but you can read it if you haven’t already. 👇🏾

A/N: Thank you so much for reading if you got this far 🤗♥️🙏🏽