Another brilliant piece from a GUNNAS WRITING MASTERCLASS writer.
Social anxiety has been a problem for me for all of my life, or at least all of the life I can remember. But I only really recognised about three years ago when my doctor described it as a social phobia, when I looked this up on Wikipedia it redirected to social anxiety, so it turns out they’re the same thing. I had never thought about it that way until that point and anxiety had seemed like a foreign concept.
When I was little I was a fussy eater, to some extent I still am. Once my mother tried to force me to eat something I didn’t want to, I gagged and threw it up, she didn’t try again. In hindsight that was anxiety as well, I was scared of these foods. I worried constantly, I hated eating at other people’s houses because of the trouble my refusal to eat would cause. I really didn’t do it deliberately, I had this anxiety and if I tried to eat these things I’d gag. Eventually in my teens my social anxiety overwhelmed my eating anxiety and I managed to force myself to stop thinking about the food just to avoid any drama my refusal to eat might cause. It worked, but I think I’d rather my eating problem than my social problem.
I think the main thing that scares me about my interactions with people is that someone will be angry with me. Being yelled at is particularly painful, when somebody yells at me I can usually maintain composure while it’s happening, but I find myself “running away” as soon as I can. Typically this means finding a way to casually leave the room and then sneaking out the back and going home to hide.
What I experience at its worst is kind of how I imagine vertigo; you get so scared that you lose your sense of balance and have to get down to the ground and hold on to something even though the risk of falling is really no different to when you are standing on the ground. When I am anxious I can’t focus, it is like my mind is overloaded with fear and is unable to process anything else.
I have seen a number of psychiatrists, for most of them I have stopped attending once I sense them becoming frustrated with me. I don’t blame them as I can see how trying to help me can be frustrating; even in these sessions my anxiety limits my interactions despite knowing that the psychiatrist is only there to help me. But once they become frustrated with me it tends to cause me so much distress that I am often unable to will myself out of bed to go to the appointments and psychiatrists for the most part don’t put up with missed appointments.
My most recent psychiatrist was helpful, while all we really did for the most part was talk about varying unrelated things for an hour a week; I was gradually able to talk more about the things that worried me as I became more comfortable with him. Unfortunately he has since retired and I’m unsure about looking for a new one after my previous experiences. I need someone who will be exceptionally patient with me (also bulk billing would be nice).
At the moment I think I am doing better than I have for many years, I’ve been attending university for two years now, first studying Information Technology at Latrobe Bendigo, and then transferring to Computer Science at the Latrobe Bundoora campus. The move to Melbourne is a fairly big step and so far I seem to have taken well to my studies.
However, my social life is still virtually non-existent. The few friends I have are back in Bendigo and I find myself unable to make friends or engage with people casually as I worry a lot about coming across as strange or “creepy”. I know rationally that I don’t really have much to lose, but I still find myself unable to act. I try to attend various events when I can, but I generally sit by myself and then leave as soon as it’s over. I worry that my body language is screaming “leave me alone!” which fits perfectly with how I’m feeling most of the time, but it doesn’t exactly win friends.