About six years ago I was diagnosed with social anxiety and put on meds after a single visit with a college counselor in which I confided in her that I was suddenly unable to walk out of my apartment to get the mail unless it was dark outside. I took my pills for over a year, and then flushed them after I woke up one day and realized that I had become fat as hell and lost all impulse control.
Now that it has become somewhat “cool” to be awkward, I hide behind a hoodie and a set of dark framed glasses so that people just assume I’m a music fan or something, and not the boiling pot of sweaty nerves that I really am. Because in reality, I wear hoodies because it’s the socially acceptable form of wrapping myself in a blanket, and I wear thick glasses because I’m not allowed to go about my daily business with a Halloween mask on, although I’d very much like to. You know the character in Hotel New Hampshire who wears the bear costume? Yeah, I’d love that.
Some days, just walking down the street to go wherever, I will start to feel like my walking pattern is becoming comically exaggerated. I will start to tell myself that my butt is bopping up and down to some unheard rhythm, or that my legs are high stepping like the leader of a marching band. Then my eyes will start to water, and to comfort myself, I will do a series of fake yawns. The fake yawns happen pretty much all throughout the day as a way to disguise that I’m hyperventilating.
I also never know what to do with my arms, so I just shove them into my pockets. During T-shirt weather, I’m fucked, so I always make sure to wear a bag that I can clutch on to for dear life. Oddly enough, I like to be outside quite a bit because I love the smell of dirt and fresh air. I also love to go places in the hopes of seeing something really weird happen. If I am at a party or social gathering, I will try very hard to get drunk so that I can talk. If I talk to strangers and am completely sober, chances are I will pick a great topic like how being zapped with a police taser will make you pee, or I will just make out with you. Because we all know that it’s easier to be physically intimate with someone than verbally intimate.
If I say something funny, which I am apt to do, and more than three people turn to look at me to share in the laughter, my eyes will water and my neck will turn red. Talking on the phone is an impossibility because the idea of bad reception, or the worry that the person I’m talking to will also be talking to other people in the background, is mortifying to me. I have had people ask me if I was raped by a telephone in my past, and I can only assume that it is a logical explanation. As a journalist, this phone thing becomes problematic because I conduct phone interviews on a frequent basis. To combat this, I set the interview for as far into the future as I can, and then worry about it daily until it happens. On the day of the interview, I will smoke a cigarette for each hour up till the interview is set to take place. This makes for good interviews. And now typing all of this makes me want to take a nap. Bye.
Reader Comments
February 27th, 2009
10:28 am
May I suggest that theres fuck all ‘wrong’ with you?
Your clearly self aware so I don’t get how hiding behind meds and the ’social anxiety’ label will help your head any more than say, getting on with yr life and allowing yrself bits of pride and confidence. repeat after me: ‘FUCK IT.’ Peace
February 27th, 2009
12:39 pm
to the first post, you have absolutely no fucking clue about social anxiety, it is clearly not just a ‘label’. self awareness does not necessarily make it any less of an issue, and it certainly doesnt make it any easier. for me, it even makes it worse.
February 27th, 2009
12:58 pm
Mmm, I go diagnosed with g.a.d. about a year and a half ago. And i mean i was really bad, like, i couldn’t stay at college because being in a room of people would make me freak out. I had kinda a lot of friends too, but i couldn’t even see most of them, I just hid with a few. Most of this description is pretty accurate, espcially the walking thing thats a classic, and well described.
But i’m not as bad as i use to be at all, i mean for about 6 months i could hardly do anything, i was nearly a vegetable in paranoia of my own head losing it if i were to listen to music or feel the pressure of a conversation. I ended up going pretty crazy. I shouting out loud at my own head when i started getting anxious. Eventually i learned that yes, you need to say Fuck It. It doesn’t taking saying it once, it takes saying it every day for at least a few months. Find some dumb shit to occupy yourself with and realise, it’s all just a fucking ride.
February 27th, 2009
1:28 pm
yes yes, we all have this, lets just get on with our lifes
February 27th, 2009
6:16 pm
I had a mild-er version of that up to 3 years ago. i got over it by moving country, social context, dancing a lot and alcohol. start fresh.
what helped the most was this one thing though, someone told me to stop thinking everyone was looking at me for the wrong reason. and it’s true, how can you know ? you’re just making an assumption.
so what if you change your assumption and start deciding that they look at you because they desire you, look up to you or admire you ?
it’s probably just as accurate, if not more. but it sure fucking changes your outlook on things.
February 27th, 2009
9:44 pm
In response to Celia: I didn’t intend for that message to be as discourteous as you seem to have found it. Nice of you to decide what I do/do not know about social anxiety based on that message tho.
Also, What is a label if not ‘An item used to identify something’ or ‘A descriptive term’? AND, I was suggesting kelly take her self awareness as something to take positives from. Thanks to Josha for not jumping to the defensive. Glad that kind of approach works for you. (it sure fucking helps me)
February 27th, 2009
10:51 pm
What is it with Kelly and getting the mail that triggers a bad thing happening? isn’t that how she found out her neighbor died
February 27th, 2009
10:51 pm
convert to islam. you can wear all kinds of blankets and shit and hide your arms as much as you damn well please. cover your face, too. plus, it comes with the best built-in excuse possible. you might get decapitated if you expose yourself. voila!
February 27th, 2009
10:52 pm
Well at least you don’t work at Walmart.
February 27th, 2009
10:52 pm
what were you on?
do social anxiety drugs make you feel drunk all the time, without being incoherent? that’s sort of what my experience with xanax is like, which is beautifully enough available for purchase in the mexican airport–and basically anywhere else not the US
February 27th, 2009
10:52 pm
i think guys can get away with being awkward and shy. girls have tried to compensate for this by being all smiley and aggressive, which usually doesn’t work. not to turn this into a gender thing, but why are most men such pussies? is it 2009 or is it just new york?
February 27th, 2009
10:53 pm
can you do another blog post trying to explain this? did someone, like, verbally abuse you and every other boy you know so that you had to revert into the world of video games and then forget how to be human?
February 27th, 2009
10:53 pm
What??
February 27th, 2009
10:53 pm
I was raped my a telephone tooooooooooooo
February 27th, 2009
10:54 pm
look, has it not come across your little pea brain that just MAYBE her anxiety disorder could be something that just occurred over time? possibly hereditary from introvert parents?
February 27th, 2009
10:54 pm
my phone finger fucked me. I have a hard time picking up my phone.
February 28th, 2009
11:15 pm
who gives a fuck about ur heart warming stories..not
..what a rip off..thought this was going 2 be funny, that picture of the gorilla suit is sooo misleading
March 2nd, 2009
10:16 am
i want to start abusing drugs like social anxiety ones… what do you think would happen if i snorted or smoked some?
March 2nd, 2009
2:36 pm
This is really cool. I keep toying with the idea of going to the doctor for some kind of anxiety drugs…but mine isn’t as severe as yours and i’m worried they’ll tell me to fuck off
March 3rd, 2009
2:45 pm
Fuck this. Since when was shoving your hands in your pockets a sign of mental illness. This girl needs to get over herself.
March 11th, 2009
2:19 am
get some confidence bitches