The REAL Truth Behind Growing Up With Social Anxiety

If you were to scroll to the first thing I ever uploaded to Vocal, you'd probably look at this and go.. "Didn't you already write this article before?". The answer is yes. I did. Four years ago, when I first discovered Vocal's existence, I made some crappy article about having social anxiety that somehow did pretty well (surprisingly). I recently reread the article and realized just how much I wish I was able to change with this article if I was able. I won't lie.. I've actually considered deleting the article all together (sadly vocal doesn't allow you to delete articles though.. although I'm thankful for that, because I wouldn't want to erase my old work from existence). So instead.. I've decided that if I wasn't a fan of the article before.. why not just reedit it into an article I actually would be proud of. So that's what I did.

Growing Up With Social Anxiety

Anxiety: a feeling of worry, nervousness, or unease, typically about an imminent event or something with an uncertain outcome.

Being twenty three now, I've learned to realize that having social anxiety isn't a curse that only I had. I've not only met, but talked to, many different people who have also struggled with this. It actually helped me in coming to terms with the fact that having social anxiety is nothing to worry about. It may make doing certain things that someone else would have no problem doing so much harder, but it's not impossible.

But it didn't used to be all like this.

It all started when I turned thirteen. Of course, this wasn't when anxiety first came up to my mind and said "knock knock, I live here now", but it was the first time people started to look towards it as what it was. Growing up, I endured a lot from mental illness to traumatic experiences. It's kind of surprising that I've actually made it to where I am now after what I've been through in life, but I made it far enough to tell my story.

Anyways. The main issues started up when I was thirteen. Thirteen is the age when kids become teenagers. They start to go out, party, and hang with their friends. It's a whole ordeal. They come to school after bragging about all the fun they shared at so and so's party, or they come in talking about the date they went on over the weekend with that hot guy from their English class. But not me. Nope. For me, being thirteen was the start of what would soon be a lifelong nightmare with no cure in sight. I would see all these kids around me talking about everything they did outside of school and would actually begin to feel bad. Why wasn't I able to have all that fun? Why did I have to convince myself every night that I'd much rather spend my teenage years locked up in my bedroom till the end of time?

My mind would jot down thought after thought of reasons why I wasn't "good enough" to have the same type of fun all those kids at school were having:

• "They're just cooler than you'll ever be."
• "Of course they have lives.. people actually like them."
• "Why would anyone like someone like you?"

I would begin to panic over the tiniest of things like whenever the teacher would ask the class to present a project, or when the teacher would ask for the class to pair up into groups.

Being only thirteen, I was so confused as to what was going on with my mind. Was this normal? It didn't seem that anyone else was having the same problem as me. Was I just a freak? A weirdo? Soon enough, just thinking about it began to make the feelings worse. It all just soon started to mash together in my brain as one giant thought to the point where I couldn't even understand the words being spoken to me anymore. I just wanted to sink to the ground and die. I used to believe that dying would fix the problem. I'd tell myself that unaliving myself would make all the thoughts stop, and people wouldn't have to watch as I made a fool of myself while living on this planet.

Thinking back to this time in my life, I just wish I actually worked up the courage to go out and tell someone about what I was thinking. I mean, even my own mother suffered from her own case of anxiety. If I was to confide in her about what was going on, she would have most definitely tried her hardest to get me the help I needed.

But I just let fear get the best of me.

I let my mind control my thoughts. I let my own mind be the one to tell me how everyone else was thinking, rather than going up to them to ask them myself how they truly felt about me. I chose to let the fear consume me rather than try and break the walls I was building up around myself, locking me inside.

I had grown terrified of my own self.

By the time I was fifteen, I had gotten used to having this constant, on-going battle inside my head. Of course I still had to find a way to fight through it, but I at least had learned ways to help cope with the fact that, although I'll never be able to remove it, I can still go out and live a decent life while also having this "problem". After years of isolating myself from anyone who tried to get close to me, I finally learned how to confide in others to help me whenever I needed help. I finally learned exactly how I shouldn't let my anxiety stop me from doing the things that I love.

Of course, social anxiety did have some negative impacts on me.

My anxiety definitely did not do me any favors when it came to my depression or PTSD. I've had to deal with the facts that I could never be "popular" among my peers due to isolating myself. My anxiety is the main reason why I've never been to a single school dance, or even my senior prom. People begged me to go but I just couldn't bear the thought of spending the night fighting with my own mind.

Plus, let's be real.. nobody wants to have to deal with the idea of having a panic attack at any time of day over just about anything.

Thank you for reading my story.