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Social Anxiety is a shorthand term that describes the fear, nervousness
and apprehension most people at times experience in their relationships
with other people. Some people who suffer from social anxiety would say
they were shy, and may have been shy all their lives, but some people who
are not shy also suffer from social anxiety. So shyness is not the whole
story.
Social anxiety strikes people when they think that they might do something
that will be humiliating or embarrassing. Social anxiety makes you think
that other people are judging you, and doing so in a negative way, because
of something you said or did. Of course, the fear that you will do
something humiliating or embarrassing is inhibiting, and it also makes you
self-aware: conscious of the possibility that you might indeed do such a
thing. Who would want to get into conversation if they thought that doing
so would only reveal their clumsiness, or inadequacy, or tendency to blush?
Socially anxious people tend to assume that their interactions with others
will be painfully revealing: that others will notice their weaknesses or
awkwardness; that they will be dismissed, ignored, criticised or rejected
for not behaving more acceptably.
Seeing things in this way makes it hard to interact naturally with people,
and difficult to talk, listen or make friends. Often it leads to isolation
and loneliness, and for many people one of the sadnesses of suffering from
this problem is that it prevents them becoming intimate with other people,
or finding a partner with whom to share their lives.
Socially anxious people usually feel friendly towards others and certainly
have their fair share of the positive characteristics that other people
appreciate. They may have a sense of fun, be energetic and generous, kind
and understanding, serious, amusing, quiet or lively, and they spontaneously
behave in these ways when they feel at ease. But feeling at ease in company
is so hard for them, and makes them so anxious, that these qualities are
often hidden from view. The anxiety interferes with their expression, and
the ability to display them may have gone rusty from lack of use. Indeed,
socially anxious people may have altogether lost belief in their likeable
qualities together with their self-confidence.
One of the rewards of learning to overcome social anxiety is that it enables
you to express aspects of yourself that may previously have been stifled, and
allows you to enjoy, rather than to fear, being yourself. It allows you to
discover, or to rediscover, yourself.
Gillian Butler, Overcoming Social Anxiety and Shyness
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