Social anxiety and social input - part 1
If you think about the amount of input we receive on a daily basis, it is truly fortunate that we have our automatic systems to deal with most of it – otherwise, there is no way that we could consciously handle the sheer volume. I would say that, for the most part, these systems handle things pretty well for me. They keep me safe and, generally, the instant decisions work well. Well, that is for everything except social input.
I used to fear any kind of social interaction. Everything from passing people on the street, to participating in group discussions. The face-to-face interactions with others on a daily basis just sent me into a panic. I did not have a proper way to deal with it. Sure, I had a set of auto-responses, but they actually did more harm than good. They dealt with things in an ugly manner, and made me feel terrible most of the time.
I was like two different people. At home, I was just fine. I could relax and be myself. I was somewhat confident and comfortable around my family. I could think clearly and took each bit of input at face value. I didn’t obsess about each interaction and turn it into something that it wasn’t. I could be myself and it felt great. In fact, I would never think about social anxiety here - because here, it didn’t exist.
However, once I was out in public, my entire outlook changed into something ugly. People seemed cruel, and the whole world seemed to be against me. Every look from a stranger would seem sinister. I felt as though I was under a microscope and everyone in the world was having a peek for their own amusement. I felt less attractive, less intelligent, and very much an outcast.
Conversations were forced and people smiled a whole lot less – if at all. I felt as though I were the source of this misery. I was boring and weird, and I only managed to depress those around me. If I heard laughter, I automatically assumed that I was the object of their amusement. I simply could not handle input from the rest of society – good or bad.
Within the last few years, I have learned two very important things about social input.
First, I had little control over the kind of input I received. I couldn’t sugar-coat it - and although it would have been nice to have “textbook” responses for each “textbook” encounter, I knew that the real world didn’t work that way.
Secondly, the “real world” input consisted of equally positive and negative components (for the most part) - the law of averages ensured that. For everything that went great and was positive, there was likely to be something equally negative around the corner. That’s just the way life is, and it took me a long time to get this. There was no sinister force driving me to failure, people were not going out of their way to make my life miserable - I simply thought obsessively about every *perceived* disappointment, while overlooking everything positive. The result was a distorted outlook on life and a belief system that thrived on negativity.
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