A Note About Social Anxiety
Recently, I thought I'd been making strides, but then something happened that made me realize I hadn't come nearly as far as I'd believed. I received a very nice message from a book group, asking me if I'd like to add my book to their list, which was fine, but then the woman went on to talk about a possible opportunity to organize and lead book discussions. And I froze . That was it, that was all that happened. I thought about talking to a group of people and my heart was in my throat, my stomach twisted up in the most gods awful knot, and I had to remind myself to breathe. Social anxiety is not just shyness, it's not "oh, you're just introverted, lots of people are." I've spent my life with people telling me to get over it, or that it's in my head, it's not a real thing . In fact, when I didn't know what it was called, I used to try to explain it away as shyness, myself, but my friends (the people who really knew me) didn't ...