I have some symptoms of Social Anxiety. The most obvious one being, I get nervous in social situations. I am very concerned with what people think of me and am obsessed with my own appearance. I have been depressed since I was a small child so maybe it stemmed from that.
I get nervous in stores and restaurants, right before it’s my turn to order something. When I’m really nervous, I tend to stutter. It just makes me so much more anxious, especially when I’m doing presentations at school. Sometimes I don’t turn in assignments or papers because I don’t want to burden my teachers with them. If I say something wrong at school, I’ll get very upset on the inside (I don’t think you can tell all that much), even if I just mispronounce something and people laugh, I’ll go home for the day and just lay in bed until the next school day. I never contribute to any conversations in class, even in English (I live in a country where they’re learning English as a second language, English is my first and I don’t speak the language here all that well). I’m so terrified of saying something stupid and everyone hating me and judging me. I also speak the language with a fake European accent because I don’t want to stand out.
I also don’t sleep sometimes because I feel like I have to look perfect for school. I spend an hour and a half in the shower sometimes because I am obsessed with being clean and I don’t want people to think I smell and to reject me because of that. I’ll spend over an hour, sometimes an hour and a half, on my hair. I hate people looking at me because I feel like they’re judging me and talking about how ugly I am. This upsets me greatly. I don’t leave my house if I know people are there and I don’t initiate things with people. I have no friends, it’s not that I don’t want them but it’s just that I don’t open up to people.
I also have kind of low self-esteem which may contribute to it but I am just very sensitive to everything everyone says. Like someone once mocked this kid’s laugh at school when I was in the 6th grade. My laugh sounded nothing like that but I felt like I didn’t want to become a target so I just don’t laugh anymore. I smile but I don’t laugh. I feel like I don’t know how to.
Does this sound like social anxiety or something else entirely? I’m 17, sorry if I sounded a bit immature and sorry about the length of this post.
Interesting Blogs
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Tags: "social anxiety" foreign language, appearance, conversations, english as a second language, european accent, hour and a half, language english, learning english as a second language, low self esteem, next school, restaurants, sleep, Social Anxiety, social situations, stutterTagged with: "social anxiety" foreign language • appearance • conversations • english as a second language • european accent • hour and a half • language english • learning english as a second language • low self esteem • next school • restaurants • sleep • Social Anxiety • social situations • stutter
Filed under: Anxiety attacks
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You sound like you do have a social anxiety but, more than that you are not allowing yourself to be yourself.
You are in school it’s a time to learn more than, what is in books. It’s a time to learn about becoming friends, accept rejection and accept friendship. This is one of the times in your life that you learn the most about "being yourself"
But you seem to be obsessed with what other people are thinking about you, when things get this bad it is time to talk to someone.
You should talk about this to your mom or dad or another trusted grown up. Ask them for help, ask them about seeing a mental health professional.
Social anxiety means you can’t wait to socialize, you are identifying social withdraw but yet to can talk (length of the message board) which you are not shy, are you out going type person, you are also lack confident which I diagnose that you are becoming stressful causing you to loose sleep, get some sleep aid
Social anxiety is one aspect of it. I suggest that you view the posts on it at http://your-mental-health.8m.com/blank_25.html and page e. See the posts on perfectionism, self esteem, self confidence, OCD, (obsessing) and anxiety, on pages g, 1, f, & i.
Teachers are paid to assess the material you submit; they like to be able to provide feedback to parents about the progress of their children, and by not putting in your work, you prevent this.
Hypnosis is merely a heightened state of suggestibility, in which you are better able to communicate with your subconscious mind. 85% of people are suggestible, to some degree, so you could either seek professional hypnotherapy, or hypnosisdownloads.com has ones on caring less about the opinions of others, anxiety dining out, and some others you may be interested in, so consider checking out their content, and hypnotictapes.com has one about overcoming fear of being negatively evaluated in a social situation.
View http://www.wikihow.com MAKING FRIENDS
It sounds like you are suffering from not only anxiety disorder, but a form of OCD and depression as well. These may all be brought on by stress, but also cause stress for you, so you end up being in a vicious cycle.
You must talk to your parents about taking you a doctor. There are anti-anxiety medications, and anti-depressive medications that may be of great benefit to you.
Do not wait for your problems to get better own their own. They will become worse with time, and this is a time in your life where your future lays before you, and you will want to have all your faculties available to you in planning for college, career and family decisions that will be coming up soon.
Good luck.
ya. your parents must be assholes. or you are actually very different somehow from other people. i dont know. i bet you smell good and look good all the time though. which is actually very iritating to people.
Most teenagers go through difficult times. I struggled socially for quite some time – I used to go home after a social outing and cry myself to sleep because I worried so much about what I said to people and the impression I gave. I used to say things that were really un-cool and just stupid and people would ignore me.
I was determined to not let it beat me, I went out as often as possible even though i felt uncomfortable. It took a couple of years, but now I can talk to anyone, anywhere and not worry about what people think of me.
I realise now that social skills are not really a natural thing that you just have, it depends on your upbringing, your confidence, what the people are like in your area and your experiences in life. Social skills are learnt, you need lots of practise – even though it may be painful at times.
Deep down you will find most teenagers are feeling similar to what you are, but they are just better at hiding it.
You seem to be suffering quite badly, so I would suggest to get some professional help, just to see if they can give you some techniques to relax and not worry so much. It is important to get help sooner rather than later, and if your parents won’t take you maybe a school counselor could help set up an appointment for you.
You sound like a sweet, Intelligent young woman, don’t be so hard on yourself!!!