You guys ever get Social Anxiety?

@acidbrandon18

I used to have pretty severe anxiety that would lead to depression. It really started in elementary school, I developed a kind of goofy personality after puberty and it was not taken very well by my good fiends at the time, I quickly became the scape goat for jokes and teasing alike. Years later and a couple solid woman in my life (including my wife) I have really turned it around, I still deal with it from time to time (it comes and goes), but I find its very directed to what the closest people in my life think of me, not in strange/new social situations anymore.

One of the biggest things I have learned about social anxiety is that often times It tends to be an unconscious projection of how you think of your self and how others will perceive you. for example, if you're nerdy and in a new social situation, you may feel that others will judge you for being nerdy, even though they have no idea about what you do in your personal life etc. There's a lot of people in the world and sometimes it's never a bad idea to limit how much you expose various parts of yourself etc, I find this especially useful in career and professional situations.

at the end of the day, I don't think it's something that can be cured 110%, you just have to look in and try to understand why you feel the way you do and reflect on how you can deal with it or help your self with it.

I haven't left my flat unaccompanied in 5 years, so yeah, I guess you could say that I do.

Only when it's pepole I know, if I'm surrounded by a group of strangers I don't give a fuck.

Quite the opposite, I often fell way to comfortable around strangers and forget that some jokes/language shouldn't be used with certain people.

Count me in the, "I never don't have social anxiety," category.

When I'm around other people I'm a gibbering anxious mess & when I'm alone the thought of having to go to work/grocery store/post office/bank/etc. gives me anticipatory anxiety.

I quit drinking years ago and the anxiety got worse. I recently stopped smoking (tobacco and jazz cigarettes), hoping it would alleviate the rebound anxiety, but - nope! - anxiety is still terrible.

I'm quite fine in terms of anxiety online/talking on the phone/skype and getting better and better with dealing with it in the "real world". It's all about giving off an illusion of confidence, which in turn actually does give you confidence. Also learning not to care about what other people think, since they're just as worried about what other people think, really helps too.

Pretty much everyday. Although it is getting easier while I've been going through college. For me personally, I'm probably always going to be working in a group for my major/career so I've come to accept that I need to be able to talk to people and I'm not gonna let anxiety get in my way towards my goals. Maybe realizing that and actually finding something I care about is what has helped me, there are also plenty of people in my classes that are waaaaaay more shy/anxious than I am, and in a weird way I feel like that's kinda helping me out. I don't know if it makes me feel like I'm not alone or if I'm unconsciously thinking "at least I'm not that bad" or something, but it helps, does that make me a jerk?