this is what social anxiety looks like

Age six. I’m in the car with my mum, having been to the shops or something, when she gets the idea to go to her friend’s house. I completely freak out at the thought of having to talk to her friend and play with her friend’s kids on a day I thought I could just relax. I become hysterical, crying and begging her to take me home until she gives in. I feel relieved. Reprieved.

Age nine. We’re on holiday at a campground/caravan park in France. Our caravan shares a field with one other, and the family staying there has a daughter around my age. I expect we’ll start chatting at some point during the week (probably after I pluck up the courage to smile at her and she comes up and starts a conversation).

But my Dad bounds over and starts talking to her parents before we’ve even unpacked. I’m in the tiny caravan bathroom, composing myself after throwing up 14 times on the journey from Plymouth, when my Dad calls through the plastic window, “Diane, there’s someone out here who wants to meet you.”

“Oh no,” I think. I look in the mirror and take deep breaths. “It’ll be over soon,” I tell myself, faking a smile as I walk outside.

Age 29. My stepsister tells me she’s going to have a big reception when she gets back from her wedding abroad. I dread it for a year, can hardly sleep for a week beforehand and keep crying from dread. On the day, I don’t introduce myself to anyone, hide out in the toilets for a long time, gulp down vodka, and sneak out as soon as the cake is cut.

Later, my stepsister decides to cut off contact with most of her family, including me. Then her mum and my dad divorce and I know for sure that she and l will never speak again. My hurt feelings are undercut by indignation. I mean, this couldn’t all have happened BEFORE the big party?

Age 31. My friend invites me to her book launch. I’m thrilled for her and excited to be invited. I love the invitation. I adore the book. But as the launch gets closer, I start to metaphorically shit myself at the thought of having to meet a ton of people I only know from the internet.

I spend months trying to calm myself down and tell myself it will be OK. I plan to hide behind my mum, leave after an hour, and drink heavily. I literally worry myself sick: two days before the launch, I get a virus that makes me sneezy and wheezy and more lethargic than usual. I’m not faking, I’m really too ill to go. But I’m ashamed to realise it’s a relief.

It’s not about “shy”

Let’s get this out of the way early on. It’s not about me being an introvert. A lot of introverts feel nervous before parties; they don’t all hyperventilate. It’s not that I have Asperger’s, either: I don’t find it hard to read other people — more like I read them too well.

And it’s not that I’m shy. Social anxiety is something I suffer from, not part of my personality. I’ve had brief moments (seconds, a minute or two) where I’ve escaped it, and it felt like returning to the real me: someone who enjoys connecting with others.

It’s not a conspiracy

There are lots of people who think that making social anxiety a disorder is “medicalising shyness”: a triumph for big pharma; a codename for not feeling confident. That’s the equivalent of saying a diagnosis of depression “medicalises sadness”: ignorant, uninformed, inaccurate.

What the H-E-double hockeysticks is it, then?

It feels like constant dread. It feels hard to breathe. It feels like shame that I can’t do things. It feels like I’m missing out. It feels like I’m making a big deal about nothing and I just need to get a grip. It feels like I want to cry. It’s a constant low-level anxiety about everything and nothing that becomes stratospheric when I have to do something I feel I can’t cope with, like make a phone call, or have some kind of appointment, or meet new people. When I have to do those things, I literally picture them as hurdles laid out in front of me, and I can’t relax until I’ve jumped over them all then collapsed in a heap.

The main cause of the anxiety is how anxious I’ll feel in the future when I do those things, which sounds ridiculous, feels ridiculous, but can’t be calmed down by telling myself it will all be OK. Past experience has taught me it won’t be.

What’s it all about?

My theory: stupid old low self-esteem. I fear rejection and feel bad about myself ‘cos of stuff that happened a long time ago that made me feel rejected and bad about myself. I’m sure I was born with depressive-prone brain chemistry that makes it harder to shrug things off.

I even think part of me wants to have M.E/CFS because it lets me hide out from the rest of the world. (I know: messed up.) But it also perpetuates the problem. When you go days without speaking to anyone apart from your mum and your cat and can count a year’s social engagements on one hand, you don’t exactly become accustomed to mixing with people.

Plus, there’s my thyroid. I can’t tolerate any of the available orthodox treatments (yes, even Armour, in case the woman who wrote in to tell me I “HAD!” to take it is still reading) so I’m taking a holistic (read: slow) approach to re-balancing my hormones. In the meantime, hypothyroidism is hell on the nerves.

How “feeling the fear and doing it anyway” has worked for me:

October 2008: After 10 months of trying to earn a decent living from freelance journalism despite complete exhaustion and raging social anxiety that means I can’t relax enough to eat until I’ve finished a day’s interviews (especially rough when they don’t start ‘til early evening), I give in; fall apart. I curl up on the carpet, crying, shaking, and saying I can’t go on.

My mum tells me to give myself a break, cancel the feature I have lined up, and rest. I do, but it’s too late. Panic has weakened my immune system and a couple of days later, I get Bell’s palsy. The right side of my face collapses and I can’t close my eye or move that half of my mouth. I’m hit with neurological pain which stops me sleeping and bothers me to this day.

Since at least the mid-’00s, I’ve forced myself to do stuff I was scared of, Eleanor Roosevelt-style.
But instead of feeling a sense of triumph from conquering a fear and going on to do more great stuff, I always ended up traumatised from the effort, vowing to never do that thing again — and really pissed off with myself.

I might be the only person with a smaller comfort zone than when she started.

So what do you do?

I’m doing some stuff, therapy-wise, that I’m not ready to talk about yet. I can say it’s on the woo-woo side and may be more helpful than anything more conventional I’ve tried. I have hope that one day I’ll feel free.

In the meantime, I’m learning how to be kind to myself. Reading Havi Brooks’ post Give me back my comfort zone! made me realise it’s OK to not bully myself into stuff anymore. In fact, it’s really better not to.

I’m trying to get back into meditation, because when I manage a few seconds of peace, it’s wonderful. (I just hate having to be still with my thoughts the rest of the time. My thoughts are MEAN).

And I’m trying to socialise a little in ways that don’t make me freak out (one friend every now and then, no big groups, no short notice).

I’m also being more honest about all of this. It never seemed like it would be acceptable for me to tell anyone how anxious I felt. (I’ve made a lot of excuses for a lot of years.) But bloggers like Jenny Lawson and Alice Bradley being so open about their social anxiety has helped me feel a little less ashamed. It’s also made me see that it’s possible to be honest about it and for the world to keep turning.

Fingers crossed.

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I’d love comments, so long as they’re not of the “Have you ever tried…?”, “You really need to…” , or “You’re so weird!” variety. but they’re not working for me right now and I can’t figure out why. Is there anything more infuriating than good tech gone bad?