Social anxiety - the bigger picture
I’m going to take a break from talking about conversation techniques to address an issue that has been nagging me for some time. It has to do with happiness, basically.
Now, I wouldn’t know happiness if it bit me in the…well, you know. Furthermore, I wouldn’t really know how to handle it should it ever make an appearance. Yes, I know it’s hard to believe, but I can’t imagine ever being truly happy.
I envy people that are able to simply enjoy life, walk around with a smile for everyone they meet, and engage people with a genuine sincerity and warmth that can do nothing but put everyone else in a good mood.
People are naturally attracted to this – and why wouldn’t they be?
Am I being too hard on myself? Maybe - but the truth is undeniable. I have spent many hours watching people and the way they interact, and my conclusion is that those who can lift the spirit of others with little more than a friendly smile and their zest for life are more common than you might think.
Ok, yes, not everyone is wired that way – and that’s fine - but the majority of people I have observed seem to have a contentment and joy that I will likely never experience.
Even if I were, somehow, able to totally eliminate my social anxiety tomorrow, I doubt that I would be happy and content. Something would still be missing. Unfortunately, I have no idea what that something is.
Because of this, I am convinced that my “condition” might be a little more serious than I suspect. Yes, I suffer from social anxiety, but it seems entirely likely that it is but a part of a bigger picture.
I’ve dedicated this entire blog to the subject of social anxiety because I was convinced that it was a single entity – well, certainly the most noticeable. The notion that it could be simply a part of something more powerful scares me.
What are some of the other parts? Well, OCD, depression, and generalized anxiety are certainly part of it.
Is it possible that there is an all encompassing illness that can be defined given these “symptoms?” Or am I simply a multi-phobic personality who thinks that social anxiety is my only problem?
Anyway, enough of that – I’ll continue writing about my progress in conversation techniques in my next post. I also hope to increase my posting rate now that summer is over.
5 Responses to “Social anxiety - the bigger picture”
I’ve been struggling with this question for a long time. I think, as you said, that some people are just built to enjoy life and that some people (like me, and maybe you) are built to be constantly searching for something (happiness or meaning?). I’m trying to get to a point where I find meaning in the search itself, and where I can accept that I may not even know what I’m searching for.
I know what you mean. I used to suffer from social anxiety disorder and assumed that once I could escape from worrying about the blushing and the sweating I would be fine and be able to live a normal life doing things I wanted to do.
Now that I don’t have panic attacks anymore, I feel kind of… I don’t know… melancholic I suppose.
I do feel more comfortable in social situations, but at the same time try and avoid them more - I get annoyed at the pointlessness of flippant social interaction and laugh less.
I think it may be something to do with fighting the anxiety constantly, trying to not care about what others think or what you actually want in life other than to be free from your crippling anxiety.
Maybe constantly being preoccupied by social anxiety distracts from the meaningless of everyday life, or, when no longer preoccupied, it feels like theres something missing.
(btw i have a website: http://phobiafree.org that documents how I escaped from social anxiety).
sorry if this posted twice i don’t know if it worked the first time
I used to feel that way too. I suffered with panic and anxiety attacks for years that spiraled into self-imposed exile from society. (Agoraphobia).
It took me several years to escape from that prison but I did… and I found happiness again.
Don’t give up!
-Bill
For me, I’ve had sa since I was 15 and I’m 31 now. Happiness is hard to experience when you have no one. I’ve had my husband and he was the only thing that made me laugh and be silly. Now that he is less a part of my life, I’m extremely unhappy most of the time. And I think it is mostly the sa. Besides that, after having it for so long, even just the first year or two), I’ve defined who I was based on my embarrassing encounters with sa, you know? Like, how inadequate I was, how idiotic and incompetent I acted or sounded. At 15, 16, and so on, I had no choice but to go out into the world and go through the motions of a teenager, so I have countless memories of embarrassing moments around others, and now I’m 31 and the embarrassing moments continue. Intellectually, and when I force myself to take a moment to think about it, I know my sa isn’t representing me accurately. But, the rest of the time, I feel I believe I see myself and that others will/do see me as wierd, mean, airheaded, stupid, …
That’s what SA has done to me. I just have learned that it’s something I’m going to have to live around and to just try my best, anyway, to be the best person I can. Happiness? Never going to happen for me. Fortunately, a person doesn’t have to be happy to be a good person in this world, right?
Hi,
Adam
I’ve had (social anxiety) since about 15 yrs old an then from a lot of traumas in my life I had my first panic attack at 18 yrs old. I thought I was dying years have past an its gotten much worse there has been times I’ve thought I was just crazy ! So on the multi phobic level I have thought that my anxiety an panic attacks were b.s. I started to be afraid of almost everything ! So maybe it is or not multi phobias idk ! But for a little over a year now I’ve been seeking therapy an I admit I’ve been a bit resistant to the help to great fear of what has happend to me an I try to put the pieces together but answers are slow an I keep going though ! I don’t knw if I’m completly on topic or what buthope it helps in anyway
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