Dealing with Social Anxiety...
- lydiaeatsfish
- Mar 1, 2023
- 5 min read
Who's ready for day 2 of 30 days of truth babyyyyy?!?!?! I certainly am so I hope you are too. Today's topic is social anxiety but I just want to preface really quick that I am not a therapist or in any way qualified professionally to give advice. I only speak from my experience and the small amount of research I've done so take my advice as a grain of sand. My main point I'm trying to get across is that you're not alone in this and that there are ways to improve and I'll be sharing with you what helped me personally in hopes that it might help you as well. Alright now that that's been cleared up, lets jump right on into it.
My story with social anxiety starts when I was about ten. That's when my problems with obsessing over my weight started as well and I believe the two of them go hand in hand. When you start nit picking yourself and finding your insecurities and things you don't like about yourself, you think that everybody else sees them too which makes you feel self conscious around others and lose all your confidence. Have you ever wanted to go back to your younger days? When all you cared about was playing pet shops, exploring the woods and putting on plays for your parents? When you didn't give a crap about what you looked like or what people thought about you. You could go weeks on end without feeling anxious about anything because you lived in the moment and embraced whatever situation you were in and made the most out of it because that was all you knew. I know not all people have been blessed enough to have a family like mine but that was what my childhood was like. And for so long I desperately wished I could go back and experience that again.
Things were really hard for me from the ages of 10-15, I refused to play sports in front of my friends because I thought I was too fat for that and didn't like the way my body looked when I ran, I thought out what I was going to say at work at least a full 2 hours before I'd say it, I walked on tippy toes around my friends because they didn't understand where I was at and judged me for working out so much and spending all my time planning. Constantly anxious, worrying if I was pretty enough, smart enough, funny enough. My anxiety made my hands shake so badly before I went to hangout with my friends and I overanalyzed how I acted whenever I was in public making sure I didn't do anything that looked stupid but all of this completely drained me so I'd get terrible migraines after almost every hangout. I wasted so much of my time wishing I could go back to when it was easier to be myself and to not care, I'd beat myself up after each day I'd pretend to be someone I wasn't, just trying to fit in and be accepted. I desperately wanted out but didn't know how to switch my mindset so instead I switched my workouts, routines and eating habits, thinking that if I got to a certain weight I'd find it easier to be myself because I'd actually like who I was. But that couldn't be further from the truth, if you can't be happy with who you are now and the way you look now, you'll never be happy with yourself and it will never be enough. You have to learn to accept your body how it is now and take care of it because you deserve to be taken care of not because you think you need to look a certain way to fit in and be accepted.
It's going to take time, lots of time. But trust me, you don't want to waste a single moment more than you have to in that anxious mindset of comparison. Because life is short and this moment right here and now is all we have. There is no going back to change how to spent yesterday and if we're always waiting for a future moment, one where we aren't as anxious or scared of failure and looking stupid, one where its easier to socialize or go after our dream career, we will continue wasting our lives away until the times up. It's not going to get easier unless you put in the effort and make small steps to grow your comfort zone. If you aren't continuously pushing your comfort zone to expand, it will shrink on you and those things will only become harder. I've stopped wishing I could go back to my past self when it was easier and embraced the struggle I have to go through each day to keep growing. It is so much more satisfying as those things become easier when you know for a fact you worked your butt off to get there.
For me personally, what helped me get past this crippling anxiety is constant efforts, day after day, pushing myself to talk to new people at work, opening up to my dad when I felt like I couldn't go on, purposely doing something in front of people that made me look a little bit stupid just so I could realize that nobody even notices those things that feel like such a huge deal to me. It's not easy, in fact it is one of the hardest things to get over. And the thing is even when you improve you'll still struggle here and there but you have to be okay with that because it's part of the life we live. You're going to feel the anxiety and that's okay but when you do, take a step back and put into perspective what really matters. I have a phrase I repeat to myself whenever I start feeling anxious, do some breathing techniques and pray about whatever the situation is. I've found what really helps is reminding myself that we're all going to die and no one is going to remember those silly things I might mess-up on today or the way I looked while doing them. I repeat to myself "Here then gone, make an impact." and think about what positive impact I could have on someones life today. Focusing on other people and what small things I can do to help them instead of what they're thinking about me is a huge thing that helped me overcome my anxiety. The smallest things like a compliment or asking how their day was can go a long way. And if we all take the focus off of ourselves and instead use that energy to try to build each other up, we could literally change the world.
So if you're dealing with social anxiety...
Take a deep breath.
Remember you are not alone in this and that there are so many other people who have to push themselves daily to improve in this as well.
Repeat whatever phrase you've chosen that you think will help remind you of the bigger picture.
Remind yourself that if you push yourself now, next time it will be slightly easier.
Surrender the situation to God.
And lastly, stop thinking and put it into action.
I hope this helped in some shape of form, even if it just reminded you that you aren't alone in this fight. In this day and age nearly one out of three teens will suffer from social anxiety which goes to show how prevalent anxiety is right now. And the only way we'll get through this is if we help each other out and stick together through it all. I hope you all have a fantastic day and push yourselves in some way today to grow that comfort zone of yours:)
Love you all, and see you tomorrow for day 3 of 30 Days Of Truth.
-Lydia Johnson
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