Dude, so true. I already posted mine, but the 'bonding' part is just absolutely soul-crushing. I just can't loosen up around most people, and it's been years since I've felt close with anyone.
I know right! I want to have friends but at the same time when it starts happening and they text me “we should hang out,” all I can think about is how much I rather not.
oh my god for realll idk why i never want to hang out with people even though i crave human connection. I think its because all the anxious thoughts that came from just reading “wanna hang out?” already exhausted me because im never this way when its with someone that my anxiety is non-existent with
This is the most accurate one sentence description of social anxiety I've seen. I've been working on myself for 20 years and making lots of progress but I feel this exact thing all the time.
oh i've got adhd as well so I never actually know how to respond to that.
like, am i supposed to be the one to initiate? is there something i'm supposed to say?
If I had to pick from that list of physical id say probably the sweating but off the list, my beet red face. The second anyone pays me any ounce of attention my face is red as a tomato.
Cognitive is a bit harder to choose, because there’s so many lol but probably the excessive worrying. The worrying about NOTHING is what leads me to avoid absolutely any social situation
I’d 100% say the redness as well, on top of the hyper-awareness of being perceived for cognitive. Because of these two things it’s very obvious when I’m uncomfortable and it puts people off. If the redness specifically didn’t happen I feel like I could at least pretend to be more comfortable than I am.
Physical: I would fix my weak, quiet voice. People can’t hear me no matter how much I speak up. If I resort to yelling I get shamed for raising my voice. If I pronounce more, just so people can hear/understand me, people think I’m a foreigner with a foreign accent. Sometimes I want to tell people to “get a hearing aid”.
Cognitive: I would choose to just be oblivious to people’s reaction to me. As of now I’m hyper-aware of body language, tone of voice, etc., and it just emotionally breaks me that I can’t seem to be able to portray a normal person no matter which “role” I choose to play in a specific interaction. No one seems to like my presence, either, and that’s equally sad to think about.
Poor memory. (The fact I can’t remember while I’m speaking makes others think I’m incapable of having a convo) which makes every other symptom soo much worse. Restlessness, when I worked in fast food customers said I act like I’m on drugs, I’ve been accused of that a few time because i fidget a lot and that really hurts.
The poor memory sucks. I swear I’m an intelligent human, but speak to me in person and I’m a washing machine of garbled nonsense. I genuinely understand why people think I’m younger and stupider than I am. And then they lose trust in your ability to work… miss out on promotions… etc. In the space of a month, THREE people forgot they’d already met me. In front of my boss. Great impression! Luckily, I’ve been hiding in my house for the past 4 weeks and haven’t spoken to a soul. Ahhhh
Shakiness and difficulty concentrating
I hate it when my fingers and legs start wiggling. And I hate it that I find myself not being able to focus on simple information like I'm mentally broke.
I'll give you my answer : it's my mind going blank.
But don't you think this kind of questions transform anxiety into some sort of fatality that you can't change ?
How much time have you been ruminating on this ?
Does wanting to answer this question makes you feel better or worse ?
The shakiness and my mind going blank. If I could think of something to say, I think I could push myself to say it. But if there's nothing there to say, I'm kinda stuck!
I rarely have much trouble with physical symptoms other than sweating, but that's just annoying. When I'm forced into a social interaction I can get very shaky which affects my voice. As if not being able to think wasn't embarrassing enough! 🙄
I really struggle with this. I feel like everyone is listening to what I'm saying and as a result I stumble over my words or overthink what I'm saying.
The self-debasement that follows every interaction.
Being an extravert I love talking to people and making them laugh. But the aftermath of intrusive thoughts is always hard and lasts days after the interaction.
I'd love to not have those feelings. But these are the cards we're dealt.
Tense muscles 100%. Sometimes people notice how stiff I am and it ofc makes things worse. And my legs sometimes get sore for no reason and I imagine that’s why.
Also that feeling of avoidance before you do whatever the scary thing is, or like when you want to talk to someone (who you do like!) but also want to avoid it at the same time
My hyper awareness of myself and everyone else around me makes me gwt the tense muscles. I do everything more awkwardly because I'm so tense, and feel like everyone notices how awkward and tense I am lol.
The inability to go to parties. I get terrified and get cold feet even if I want to go to the celebration/party/event.
The inability to accept help even when it is freely and unconditionally offered.
Including the aforementioned symptoms, does anyone have trouble making /holding eye contact? I always tend to look else where or the floor, never on person’s face.
Yes. I have to force myself to make eye contact.
I had a last eye as a child that was fixed surgically.
As a child when I would talk to someone making eye contact, they would look behind themselves and ask ‘who are you talking to/looking at’ because my eye would seem unfocused on them.
Now as an adult, I struggle with eye contact because I fear my eye will drift off. This has amplified my social anxiety quite a bit.
All of it, tbh, but I guess that's cheating. The hypervigilance part really gets me. I'm hyperaware of everything, and it drains every little ounce of energy I had. After that, would probably go for cognitive/poor memory.
I just want to share what worked for me - CBD.
I’ve had ALL of these symptoms working at my job and got to a point where I couldn’t focus or complete tasks at all. I was getting so tired of feeling like this. Tried CBD oil for the first time and i have not felt heavy anxiety for weeks, and it used to be a daily 24/7 issue for me. Even when I’m not at work, I’d be reflecting on my day and freaking out in my head at home, to the point my body would randomly spaz like I’m cringing at myself that badly. Well no more of that. Now my mind is clear, I feel like I can FOCUS and I’m getting many tasks done. I’m able to ask questions and speak to people without being overridden by anxiety. One of the greatest things is that my heart hasn’t raced like it used to when anxious. Just for that alone I would continue to take CBD daily. (Dosage: I am 90lbs and take 0.7ml per day under the tongue every morning, another 0.4-0.5ml if needed for the evening)
I would remove involuntary movement, i move my hands and arms very much which makes me wildly uncomfortable.
And the hyper vigilance. I am so aware of myself and it makes me want to cry.
Symptom one would be my social skills instantly worsening compared to how I act around the few people I know well
Number two would be the tensed up body
Poor concentration and fear of going crazy, sometimes it’s like I black out and when I snap back to reality I’m hiding in the bathroom without knowing how I got there lol
Blushing. Holy fuck, if I had a dollar for every time someone pointed out that I’m blushing… I hate it. It makes me so much more anxious and embarrassed.
That and hyper vigilance. I just end up overthinking every single small interaction.
I would eliminate the worrying & the crying hysterically in front of people.
Happens everytime. My mind races & is playing out conversations in my head, making me so upset, so by the time I arrive somewhere & am so tightly wound, someone asks me how I've been & I break down crying & have verbal diarrhoea.
It's humiliating & reinforces the thought that I can't go anywhere because I will publicly humiliate myself. It's like a self fulfilling prophecy. Awful.
The ability to talk (not entirely related to social anxiety, but that's the part that makes me sound awkward as hell) and the self-destructive thought that everyone hates me everytime they talk to me or walk by me or look at me or exist around me. Even if they're really nice to me, my mind goes "they're just a nice person, but they hate me - I know it."
Heart-racing and excessive worrying. Honestly social anxiety would be a lot more manageable if there weren’t physical symptoms. I can self-help myself with the cognitive factors, but I can’t stop how my body will react.
sweating and hyper awareness. I start to sweat very noticeably and im super aware of it which makes me sweat even more. If I didn't sweat I think exposure therapy would be way easier but I sweat so much that I have sweat rolling down my face that I have to wipe. Shits crazy. And I live somewhere thats not hot so I can't play it off as being hot.
If I didn't sweat I think I have enough social skills to be able to fake it til I make it, but the sweating throws me off and whoever i'm talking to.
The speech part and the shakiness. It'd 100x better if I could speak well, I sound like a non native speaker, always forgetting words and pronouncing them wrong
Difficulty concentrating and restlessness. If my mind didn’t go blank, and by blank I mean shut down seemingly all executive function and just pump me full of pure panic I feel like I could still function with everything else. The erasure of my mind and the reduction to feeling like a caged wounded animal prevents me from employing any effective countering techniques. I can do the motions and mouth the words but the problem is that when I get anxious I’m hardly there anymore. I become something other than myself. I’m just back in trauma land.
Shakiness and poor memory
Can't remember how many times I stood there in front of a class completely forgetting what I had to say and shaking like leaf
For the physical, I’d say quivering voice. I can cope with the sweating and the red face. I’ve been in a room full of people and been asked to speak. As soon as they heard my quivering voice, sixteen people all snapped their heads towards me like they’d witnessed a car crash. Ironically, they had.
For the cognitive: Excessive worrying, definitely.
Sweating and hyper awareness. Sweating makes me more insecure and insecurities make me get more and more triggered and hyper aware. Hyper awareness make me not think straight and real even if i try to calm myself and think "hey, I'm okay and not everyone is looking at me" but it never works.
Being super distrustful of people and the cringeness I feel after doing something that might have been weird. Or can I take the feeling of constant fear? Because that one is the worst
Physical: Loss of Appetite/upset stomach. Cognitive: Excessive worrying. I always have this constant feeling of my heart dropping/sinking and it hurts so bad. I can feel it in my stomach and it affects my appetite whenever I’m trying to eat before I go out. I also always worry about what people think of me. It’s probably hyper awareness cause I’m just so aware of every little thing I do and worrying about what people will think of me because of those little things.
Oh that’s not what I meant by mind going blank. I get soo nervous that I blank out and suddenly I can’t answer simple questions. It has to be one of the worse symptoms for me. 😭 but anyway I feel you and I hope we get through this🙏🏽
Not on the list but shaking voice is the biggest issue for me. And also hyper awareness because I feel like everybody is staring at me when they aren't.
The part that keeps me from bonding
Dude, so true. I already posted mine, but the 'bonding' part is just absolutely soul-crushing. I just can't loosen up around most people, and it's been years since I've felt close with anyone.
I know right! I want to have friends but at the same time when it starts happening and they text me “we should hang out,” all I can think about is how much I rather not.
oh my god for realll idk why i never want to hang out with people even though i crave human connection. I think its because all the anxious thoughts that came from just reading “wanna hang out?” already exhausted me because im never this way when its with someone that my anxiety is non-existent with
This is the most accurate one sentence description of social anxiety I've seen. I've been working on myself for 20 years and making lots of progress but I feel this exact thing all the time.
oh i've got adhd as well so I never actually know how to respond to that. like, am i supposed to be the one to initiate? is there something i'm supposed to say?
Ouff you hit that right on the nail
I felt that right in my feels
Damn, wasn’t expecting this..
Yes. It makes making new friends and dating extremely difficult.
Yeah, this… I crave connection and then I’m terrified all at once.
Oof. Yeah my life is full of perma-acquaintances.
Yea. The part where we can have long term relationships that just work. Brutal.
Agreed:(
If I had to pick from that list of physical id say probably the sweating but off the list, my beet red face. The second anyone pays me any ounce of attention my face is red as a tomato. Cognitive is a bit harder to choose, because there’s so many lol but probably the excessive worrying. The worrying about NOTHING is what leads me to avoid absolutely any social situation
I’d 100% say the redness as well, on top of the hyper-awareness of being perceived for cognitive. Because of these two things it’s very obvious when I’m uncomfortable and it puts people off. If the redness specifically didn’t happen I feel like I could at least pretend to be more comfortable than I am.
Oh 100%. I think you could kind of portray more of being shy rather than socially anxious if there was no redness.
Physical: I would fix my weak, quiet voice. People can’t hear me no matter how much I speak up. If I resort to yelling I get shamed for raising my voice. If I pronounce more, just so people can hear/understand me, people think I’m a foreigner with a foreign accent. Sometimes I want to tell people to “get a hearing aid”. Cognitive: I would choose to just be oblivious to people’s reaction to me. As of now I’m hyper-aware of body language, tone of voice, etc., and it just emotionally breaks me that I can’t seem to be able to portray a normal person no matter which “role” I choose to play in a specific interaction. No one seems to like my presence, either, and that’s equally sad to think about.
100% the same for me with both
Turning red and visibly nervousness
Poor memory. (The fact I can’t remember while I’m speaking makes others think I’m incapable of having a convo) which makes every other symptom soo much worse. Restlessness, when I worked in fast food customers said I act like I’m on drugs, I’ve been accused of that a few time because i fidget a lot and that really hurts.
The poor memory sucks. I swear I’m an intelligent human, but speak to me in person and I’m a washing machine of garbled nonsense. I genuinely understand why people think I’m younger and stupider than I am. And then they lose trust in your ability to work… miss out on promotions… etc. In the space of a month, THREE people forgot they’d already met me. In front of my boss. Great impression! Luckily, I’ve been hiding in my house for the past 4 weeks and haven’t spoken to a soul. Ahhhh
Shaky voice. Not talking/being quiet
BLUSHING
1. the anxiety 2. the social part of it
Restlessness and Hyper-Awareness
I feel like everyone is watching me
Yeah that's really frustrating as well.
Blushing and over analyzing.
Shakiness and difficulty concentrating I hate it when my fingers and legs start wiggling. And I hate it that I find myself not being able to focus on simple information like I'm mentally broke.
I'll give you my answer : it's my mind going blank. But don't you think this kind of questions transform anxiety into some sort of fatality that you can't change ? How much time have you been ruminating on this ? Does wanting to answer this question makes you feel better or worse ?
Idk why ur making this deeper than it is. It was just a random question I thought of an hour ago
If that's how you feel, it's cool then
Tension/Freeze response.
Stumbling over words and fear of eye contact
The shakiness and my mind going blank. If I could think of something to say, I think I could push myself to say it. But if there's nothing there to say, I'm kinda stuck! I rarely have much trouble with physical symptoms other than sweating, but that's just annoying. When I'm forced into a social interaction I can get very shaky which affects my voice. As if not being able to think wasn't embarrassing enough! 🙄
The difficulty it causes in finding and keeping a job, and talking on the phone in a work environment.
I really struggle with this. I feel like everyone is listening to what I'm saying and as a result I stumble over my words or overthink what I'm saying.
Listening and judging :/
Excessive Worrying / Fear of Going Crazy / Hyper Awareness. I dont like being paranoid 😵💫
Tension and avoidance
Blushing and my submissiveness/agreeablesness. Those two things without a second thought.
Avoidance and self criticism
The excessive worrying for sure. Days of worrying over a 3 hour event. I would be euphoric if I managed not to worry ahead of time.
The self-debasement that follows every interaction. Being an extravert I love talking to people and making them laugh. But the aftermath of intrusive thoughts is always hard and lasts days after the interaction. I'd love to not have those feelings. But these are the cards we're dealt.
Your an extrovert?
Yep. Something I've learned about myself through therapy. I used to think I was an introvert. Turns out it was sever social anxiety.
Tense muscles 100%. Sometimes people notice how stiff I am and it ofc makes things worse. And my legs sometimes get sore for no reason and I imagine that’s why. Also that feeling of avoidance before you do whatever the scary thing is, or like when you want to talk to someone (who you do like!) but also want to avoid it at the same time
changing my answer, shortness of breath* 😭
My hyper awareness of myself and everyone else around me makes me gwt the tense muscles. I do everything more awkwardly because I'm so tense, and feel like everyone notices how awkward and tense I am lol.
The inability to go to parties. I get terrified and get cold feet even if I want to go to the celebration/party/event. The inability to accept help even when it is freely and unconditionally offered.
Worrying and concentration, I can deal with physical symptoms just fine but it’s my mind that I can’t control
I’d remove rumination and how anxiety gives me self doubt
Paranoid that someone is talking about me or if I have said something wrong and I. The wrong tone
Blushing and verbalizing my thoughts better
Including the aforementioned symptoms, does anyone have trouble making /holding eye contact? I always tend to look else where or the floor, never on person’s face.
Yes. I have to force myself to make eye contact. I had a last eye as a child that was fixed surgically. As a child when I would talk to someone making eye contact, they would look behind themselves and ask ‘who are you talking to/looking at’ because my eye would seem unfocused on them. Now as an adult, I struggle with eye contact because I fear my eye will drift off. This has amplified my social anxiety quite a bit.
Thanks for sharing, yes maintaining eye contact is an arduous task, I get you on being unfocused. Hope it gets better with time!
All of it, tbh, but I guess that's cheating. The hypervigilance part really gets me. I'm hyperaware of everything, and it drains every little ounce of energy I had. After that, would probably go for cognitive/poor memory.
When I get anxious I get a rash on my neck/face. If I could get rid of one thing it would be that, it’s an immediate give away that I’m horrified lol
I just want to share what worked for me - CBD. I’ve had ALL of these symptoms working at my job and got to a point where I couldn’t focus or complete tasks at all. I was getting so tired of feeling like this. Tried CBD oil for the first time and i have not felt heavy anxiety for weeks, and it used to be a daily 24/7 issue for me. Even when I’m not at work, I’d be reflecting on my day and freaking out in my head at home, to the point my body would randomly spaz like I’m cringing at myself that badly. Well no more of that. Now my mind is clear, I feel like I can FOCUS and I’m getting many tasks done. I’m able to ask questions and speak to people without being overridden by anxiety. One of the greatest things is that my heart hasn’t raced like it used to when anxious. Just for that alone I would continue to take CBD daily. (Dosage: I am 90lbs and take 0.7ml per day under the tongue every morning, another 0.4-0.5ml if needed for the evening)
Nausea/acid reflux and hyper-awareness 👍🏼
I would remove involuntary movement, i move my hands and arms very much which makes me wildly uncomfortable. And the hyper vigilance. I am so aware of myself and it makes me want to cry.
hypervigilance for sure and probably rapid heartbeat, or that physical tension.that feeling of wanting to cry and leave..
Stuttering or stumbling over my words. Second one would be over thinking everything or going blank.
Self-consciousness and awkwardness
Symptom one would be my social skills instantly worsening compared to how I act around the few people I know well Number two would be the tensed up body
Sweating and Excessive worrying
my mind not going blank bc of my hyper awareness
Poor concentration and fear of going crazy, sometimes it’s like I black out and when I snap back to reality I’m hiding in the bathroom without knowing how I got there lol
Blushing. Holy fuck, if I had a dollar for every time someone pointed out that I’m blushing… I hate it. It makes me so much more anxious and embarrassed. That and hyper vigilance. I just end up overthinking every single small interaction.
I would eliminate the worrying & the crying hysterically in front of people. Happens everytime. My mind races & is playing out conversations in my head, making me so upset, so by the time I arrive somewhere & am so tightly wound, someone asks me how I've been & I break down crying & have verbal diarrhoea. It's humiliating & reinforces the thought that I can't go anywhere because I will publicly humiliate myself. It's like a self fulfilling prophecy. Awful.
the shaking and the masking
The tension/“constant vigilance!” and mutism :(
Definitely shakiness and excessive worrying
shaking and overthinking
The ability to talk (not entirely related to social anxiety, but that's the part that makes me sound awkward as hell) and the self-destructive thought that everyone hates me everytime they talk to me or walk by me or look at me or exist around me. Even if they're really nice to me, my mind goes "they're just a nice person, but they hate me - I know it."
My dissociation. I just want to feel something. I fake a lot of my emotions, but in the inside I’m very much blank/empty.
racing heart beat and excessive worrying!!!!!
the part that makes me want to shit myself before an event.
I take medication that works for physical symptoms so I’d say mind racing and either poor memory or concentration.
Shaking and blushing
Heart-racing and excessive worrying. Honestly social anxiety would be a lot more manageable if there weren’t physical symptoms. I can self-help myself with the cognitive factors, but I can’t stop how my body will react.
worring and insomnia
Tense muscles. Difficulty concentrating
fear of “going crazy” it’s so real
Racing heartbeat and I'd add shaking/tight voice. Even if my heartbeat was racing, if my voice was calm, as far as anyone is concerned I'm fine
racing heart beat and hypervigilance
sweating and hyper awareness. I start to sweat very noticeably and im super aware of it which makes me sweat even more. If I didn't sweat I think exposure therapy would be way easier but I sweat so much that I have sweat rolling down my face that I have to wipe. Shits crazy. And I live somewhere thats not hot so I can't play it off as being hot. If I didn't sweat I think I have enough social skills to be able to fake it til I make it, but the sweating throws me off and whoever i'm talking to.
The speech part and the shakiness. It'd 100x better if I could speak well, I sound like a non native speaker, always forgetting words and pronouncing them wrong
The hyper-awareness and the replaying of things I said for days/weeks after
Physical , racing heart Cognitive Self consciousness
Difficulty concentrating and restlessness. If my mind didn’t go blank, and by blank I mean shut down seemingly all executive function and just pump me full of pure panic I feel like I could still function with everything else. The erasure of my mind and the reduction to feeling like a caged wounded animal prevents me from employing any effective countering techniques. I can do the motions and mouth the words but the problem is that when I get anxious I’m hardly there anymore. I become something other than myself. I’m just back in trauma land.
Hyper awareness and tense muscles. I feel like these negatively affect me the most.
Mine is cognitive
Aw man, only one of each? If so, then I suppose I'd choose to remove Restlessness and Hyper-Awareness 😥
The heart racing and feeling of doom/worrying. I’m so tired.
Avoiding eye contact and figiding with my arms and hands.
Restlessness and Excessive Worrying
overthinking everything i said or about to say and isolation
Always thinking people are looking at me and or saying negative things about me
Shakiness and poor memory Can't remember how many times I stood there in front of a class completely forgetting what I had to say and shaking like leaf
Shakiness (voice specifically) and excessive worrying
For the physical, I’d say quivering voice. I can cope with the sweating and the red face. I’ve been in a room full of people and been asked to speak. As soon as they heard my quivering voice, sixteen people all snapped their heads towards me like they’d witnessed a car crash. Ironically, they had. For the cognitive: Excessive worrying, definitely.
The hyper awareness and difficulty concentrating, it makes it hard to remember and apply things that could help in the moment.
Sweating and hyper awareness. Sweating makes me more insecure and insecurities make me get more and more triggered and hyper aware. Hyper awareness make me not think straight and real even if i try to calm myself and think "hey, I'm okay and not everyone is looking at me" but it never works.
Physical: Red face Cognitive: difficulty in concentration
Restlessness and hyper vigilance
Physical: the immediate need to gag and throw up whenever I start to feel anxious Cognitive: dissociation
You know how Griffith in men in black 3 sees the future and every possible situation that could or could not happen? Yea that
Being super distrustful of people and the cringeness I feel after doing something that might have been weird. Or can I take the feeling of constant fear? Because that one is the worst
I’d take my red face away and excessive worrying.
Physical: Loss of Appetite/upset stomach. Cognitive: Excessive worrying. I always have this constant feeling of my heart dropping/sinking and it hurts so bad. I can feel it in my stomach and it affects my appetite whenever I’m trying to eat before I go out. I also always worry about what people think of me. It’s probably hyper awareness cause I’m just so aware of every little thing I do and worrying about what people will think of me because of those little things.
The loss of appetite thing has been affecting me a lot lately. I only eat like once a day and have a little drink.
My mind going blank & hyper awareness, I’m tooo focused on my self
At times like this I wish my mind could go blank lmao
LOOOL wdym, why would you wish that😭
No cause I mean i ruminate a lot and have negative thoughts every few seconds so it would be nice to have my mind go blank and not think for a while
Oh that’s not what I meant by mind going blank. I get soo nervous that I blank out and suddenly I can’t answer simple questions. It has to be one of the worse symptoms for me. 😭 but anyway I feel you and I hope we get through this🙏🏽
Oh my bad lol. But yea hopefully we can get through this
When people look at me walking I losevall muscle coordination and trip. Can be the most ugly person on earth.
Fast and pounding heartbeats.
Depersonalization, sweating, shaking and lightheaded. I can’t pick two 😭
Feeling all eyes on me
Shakiness and difficult concentrating
Throat tightening and kind of spacing out or my mind going fuzzy.
The blushing. It can get really bothersome
Flushing and poor memory for sure
I would remove the overthinking and the inability to verbalize my thoughts.
the mind set that ppl think im annoying and i should just go away and it would be best if im quiet
Not on the list but shaking voice is the biggest issue for me. And also hyper awareness because I feel like everybody is staring at me when they aren't.
Blushing and the embarrassment I get after I say literally anything to anyone
Hyper awareness and excessive worrying
Excessive sweating and nervousness
Hyper-awareness is fucking exhausting
the dizziness and the heat
mine is the uncontrollable sweating (so embarassing and disgusting too) and the leaving every situation i can't handle (i literally left school)
Restlessness, excessive worrying
Feeling judged by strangers on the street and feeling less awkward walking outside
Dry mouth and sweating
Restlessness and excessive worrying for sure!