I asked
somewhat jokingly on twitter: ‘Shame that my social anxiety won’t leave me
alone. What is the worst that could happen?’. Of course, as someone also
pointed out, the worst that could happen is EVERYTHING. There are just too many possibilities to
consider. I could fall over or accidentally injure someone. I could say something
ridiculous and be laughed at. Someone might say something I strongly disagree
with and we end up arguing. I could be exposed for the fraud that I am. People
could judge how I am acting and reject me, or worse, see the real me and not
want to ever see me again.
Too much
imagination together with excessive rumination really is disabling. I think
that this is the root of all anxiety. If you can think of every single thing
that could happen you are bound to come up with the worst possible scenario and
then worry about it materialising. Once you have that worst case scenario in
your head it is hard to get rid of it and pretend it is not a very real
possibility.
I think
that social scenarios are one of the most anxiety provoking situations just
because they are so complex and so there are many bad possibilities that could
happen. You just never know how the conversation is going to flow and how
someone will react to what you are saying. Combine this unpredictability with
an almost pathological desire to be accepted and you end up with a social
anxiety disorder. You spend your whole time trying to imagine what someone will
do and say just to make sure that they will accept and like you. In the end you
can’t enjoy socialising anymore because you are too paralysed by fear.
I think
that one of the worst things that can happen in a social situation is the
dreaded awkward silence. I know this sounds daft, because silence can’t exactly
kill you. However, the level of discomfort that I feel with this is intense. It
may be because I take it as a sign that I am boring and they don’t want to talk
to me anymore. Or that maybe they don’t feel like they have anything in common
with me. I used to try and fill the
silence with incessant chatter but with hindsight this probably annoyed people
more. However, the last couple of years, since I became really ill and withdrew
from social contact for a while, I lost the ability to fill the silence with
gibberish. I ran out of stuff to say and lost all my confidence. Unfortunately
this means that the dreaded awkward silence has become more dreaded than ever.
I take it as confirmation that I have nothing interesting to say.
In
addition if you suffer from some sort of breakdown like I did, your whole world
becomes focused on your mental illness and so you end up not really thinking
about much else. When you socialise you talk to people about what you have been
up to. As all I have been up to usually revolves around my mental health and
mental health is a taboo subject, this further paralyses my ability to talk and
fill up those silences.
I know
that awkward silences shouldn’t be that big of a deal but I am filled with fear
when I think of them. This fear prevents me going out and being like a ‘normal’
person. As socialising is something we are expected to do for prolonged periods
every day, having a social anxiety disorder is really disabling. It means that
the simplest tasks which most people find easy become impossible. And it doesn’t
help is someone asks: what is the worst thing that can happen? After all, I can
think of EVERYTHING.
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