Social anxiety: the sneaky b*tch.
However it does not creep on you out of the shadows! No, no!
Your untrained, uncontrolled, immature mind gives this rather unpleasant gift to you.
You don't believe me? Just go on reading.
It was my last year at college (in 2000 to be accurate) when I finally decided to ask someone out on a date.
(I mean it wasn't the first time in my life obviously.)
I had been checking this guy for a long time, for months but for more than a year for sure.
Finally I muscled myself up and asked him.
He said something like: 'yes, I find you attractive either, but I have my girlfriend for 11 years and I do not want to screw it.'
I don't know what he actually said, because the only thing my mind 'heard' was:
You are friggin' rejected!
And my mind flipped totally and listed me the following things as FACTS:
- you are not lovable
- you are not a good girlfriend material
- you are a loser
- you are not acceptable!
- you are useless!!
- people don't want you!!!
- they see that you are only a waste of space!!!!
Good God!
The only thing that mattered I didn't hear: he had a girlfriend and he wanted to stay with her.
PERIOD!
I was not even mentioned in this, it was all about him and his decision.
He did not say that I was useless or unlovable or anything about me.
But my mind fixated itself on this message and it did not let me go for a very long time!
My mind had this habit to look for the reasons of failure within me. That if things went wrong, it needed to blame someone, and that someone was me.
My mind could not accept that things could happen outside of me, through no fault of mine. I'm from such a family where we always needed to have someone to blame, and then we could vent our frustration, anger, emotions towards the guilty one.
Was I really guilty?
Of course I wasn't.
But I didn't know this, and social anxiety started slowly creeping in. Because my mind... well, lost its mind.
I had absolute no control over my mind, it controlled me big time.
Something broke in me - my mind, I know now - but back then I didn't know this. And it unleashed hell on me.
I questioned everything about myself. My fragile, shaky and weak self-confidence and identity just broke into pieces.
My mind treated me with the following thoughts and questions:
- what if other people see how useless I am?
- what if they see the truth - that I'm unlovable?
- what if they know me better than I know myself?
- what if THEY KNOW who I am an I am wrong about myself?
- what if what I know about myself is a lie?
- and what if people know that too?
- what if they know what I think?
- what if they can read my mind?
- what if they criticize me?
- they criticize me, for sure!
- they think nasty things about me.
- they reject me either.
- they don't want me around them, I'm completely unwanted.
- how could I be so stupid to think that I was lovable?!
- they keep talking about me and judging me.
I felt completely rejected. Not only as a woman, but my whole existence. I questioned the reason and legitimacy of my existence. My mind suggested that this guy's rejection equaled to the rejection of me as a whole. I did not believe that me being here was making any sense.
And the effects on my everyday life? DEVASTATING!
I was in my last (exam) year at college. I could not sit at the lectures with 100 other students, because my mind kept giving me thoughts that the people around me were only busy with me. They were reading my thoughts and judging me. The space was closing in on me. My only focus was my body, and it's unexpected reactions. It went into a huge spasm many times, my stomach was upset all the time. I did not know when and how will I experience a sudden physical reaction to my thoughts. I was exposed to my mind, I was its toy.
When I tried to use public transport, sometimes I had to take off a crowded bus or tram, because it was too crowded for my mind. I walked many kilometers, sometimes 1,5 hours just to get to my student hostel.
My stomach made unexpected and unfamiliar sounds at any moment. I thought I was hungry, so I was feeding myself all the time. That made the whole situation even more embarrassing for me. I never left my hostel without something to nibble on.
I was afraid of people, I was afraid of being with people in spaces, they didn't have to be small places. I hated sitting in the silence with people. I was afraid of any kind of social interactions, I felt very uncomfortable all the time, not only mentally, but physically either. And all of this was paired with a gigantic amount of shame I felt all the damn time.
What happened in reality?
This guy told me that he wanted to stay with his girlfriend. Some would accept it without thinking that there is something wrong with them.
But I was raised in a family where I did not learn to deal with rejection. I did not learn not to look for the guilty, because there is not necessarily one. I did not learn to accept other people's decision and opinion without thinking that I generated it. I was many times the reason of my parents' upset or anger, so I was the cause and it was followed by an effect. I did not learn to soothe myself. I did not develop a strong self confidence and self-esteem. I did not develop a loving and supporting relationship where I could have said:
Girl! You are amazing! There is nothing wrong with you! He has other plans and that's pretty much it. You are okay and I love you!
BAMMMM! This is when you interpret what is as what is. And not what you THINK it is.
But that was not the communication in my family. So how would I have known that this is how I should talk to myself in my head when I'm rejected? When I'm frustrated? When things are not running smoothly around me? When I feel sad? Hurt?
When things are going sh*t, exactly that is the moment when you need a friendly inner voice.
But I was taught the other way. Anyways, I struggled with social anxiety for approximately 8 years. Social anxiety was nothing else but my mind tuned me against people and social situations. It's over.
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