I saw this link up with a wonderful woman I met on twitter, and first off, I love reading her blogs, they’re very thought provoking and make you think about certain things in life.  Well, the link up is to write from the heart about something that’s important to us, something that makes us think, something that may possibly get our blood boiling.

Many people actually don’t know this about me, but I have social anxiety.  I was always a shy girl growing up, and for me, I never had the courage to go up to a complete stranger and start a conversation.  I never had the courage to randomly just start talking to someone, or had the courage to go up to someone I admire and say, “I really like your art, or your talent with your music, etc.”  It was hard for me.

I didn’t make friends easily because of this.  It was honestly hard for me to open up, but let alone, be comfortable enough in my own skin to come off as a great person to be around.

Today, I still have social anxiety, but with the things I’ve done in the last year you wouldn’t believe it.  Who, with social anxiety, would go out to meeting people at an event, not knowing a single soul, to do an interaction that forces you to talk to other people? Well, I would do it.  I did it because I knew no one in the city I moved to, and I did it to put myself out there.  I realized, over time, that yes, I have social anxiety, but I control it, it will not control me.

I realized just by recognizing I had it, I could start taking ownership of it, and do something about.  Making phone calls are still hard for me.  In my younger days, I hated going to sandwich shops where I would have to walk the other person through my order because that involved a constant interaction.  I would hate calling up the pizza delivery service and placing an order, and believe it or not, I avoided deli’s just because I had to talk to someone behind the counter.  It was through these things and my shyness that I realized I had social anxiety.

I also realized that the only way to get over my social anxiety was to start pushing myself outside my comfort zone.  I would attend events where I knew no one, I would go to a movie alone, I would start ordering food from deli’s, and I would eat at a restaurant alone.  And I got a job where I have to have daily interactions with people all day long which forces me to talk to people and overcome my social anxiety.

But…

I have my bad days.  The days where I was going to go to an event, but because of how I was feeling, the tiredness setting in, the mindset of, “it’s really far away” would set in.  Next thing I know, I’m cancelling.  It came too easy to cancel.  And I recognize it’s because of the mood I am.  If I can find a way to offset that mood and still go, that will be a real win for me.

I also recognize that my social anxiety gets out of control in really crowded places, but for some reasons, I still like going to these crowded places.  I recognize that when I go to a really crowded place, in order for my social anxiety to not get out of control, I need to be the one following and not leading. In those cases, I do great, but if I’m the one leading, I do not enjoy myself.  Something in my mind is constantly worrying about everyone else, where are we going, what are we doing, where do we go from here, and it’s the ongoing anxiety in my head.

But…

I must say, in the last year, I’ve taken great steps in recognizing my social anxiety and pushing myself outside my boundaries to learn to control it, and to eventually overcome it.  I know it can be done because I’ve seen it happen in certain situations.

And one thing I realized that helped me the other night, on Halloween, was just putting a costume on, I wasn’t recognizable to myself, so I came out of my shell.  Too bad I can’t disguise myself every day like that ;0