Anxiety and loneliness

[Patrycjator]

Hi, my name Patricia. I'm writing this post because I've been having a hard time with my social anxiety. I had it for the last six years and it doesn't seem to get any better, and when it does it usually doesn't last long. I can't even remember how to function without it. I tried a therapist but it didn't go well, they said I'm delusional, and my family isn't much help either my parents are ignorant and don't believe that it's a real issue they'd rather brush it off then actually help, and as much as I love my sister she's very insensitive and brash, and very often hurts my feeling without meaning to which makes me even more withdrawn with sharing my problems with them and the only few other people I know. Because of all this school was and still is torture, I made zero friends for the past six years and even got bullied for my inability to normally talk with people, I even changed schools but it didn't do much since there it started all over again, even one of the teachers joined in. If anything like a presentation or just answering questions came up I usually said I either didn't do it or I don't know the answer because I couldn't stand the thought of saying a wrong answer or just something stupid in general I even skipped classes or days altogether. All that amounted to me having bad grades and a lot of skipped days which made me feel even more anxious since I didn't want to make teachers upset at me. When that school finally ended I hoped the next one will be better and in some sense it is, no one bullies me here but no one interacts with me either and I can't find it in myself to reach out, but I was content either way since I was so done with people messing with me at the time. Now three years later I'm beginning to think that the isolation made my anxiety even worse and made me feel lonelier than ever, all the friends I had before this time stopped talking to me in the first year after we finished that school together and the only friend I have now is someone I met through one of those classmates. Every try at human interaction always makes me feel awkward, unwanted and embarrassed I can't seem to get the right words sorted in my brain they always come out jumbled and weird I feel like I don't even know how to talk to other people anymore. My only friend I have right now is great but also comes with a lot of emotional baggage that I try to help with when I can, but I still don't talk to him in-depth about mine since I don't want to make him feel worse and even then It's not something that he has any experience on so I don't think talking about it would help much. He makes me feel better and keeps my mind off of things when I need it, but even after knowing him so long I still sometimes see myself as a bad friend whenever I do anything slightly wrong even though I know he won't be upset about it. I recently am trying to put myself out there and joined a forum game and a sports team I thought it will make my socializing skills better but the only thing I managed to do was to feel like an outcast again, even the other new people that join around the same time are already close friends to some of the people from the group but I had never felt so alone, the feeling of loneliness when surrounded by other people is something that is currently dragging me down. This post was a hard thing to do, I never wrote or shared my problems with other people from fear of rejection or some kind of mockery but I'm hoping this won't be the case even when my whole brain is screaming exactly that.

If anyone knows anything that could help me with any of that I'll be forever grateful, and I'm sorry if this was a lot to read.

 

[LittleMissCatastrophe]

Hi Patricia. I know it took a lot of courage to write all this down, and I applaud you. It's not easy putting all this out there while suffering from social anxiety.
My story is your story, and I know exactly how you feel. Unfortunately I can only offer you understanding, and support, since I am pretty much in the same boat as you.
I don't know how to make friends, keep friendships or make new friends, and I am awkward in every situation IRL and online. I see people making friends on my yoga classes, I see people making friends in my old gym, I see people making friends in all sorts of situations..and I can't figure out what the hell am I doing wrong .
As far as therapist go, you're not delusional he is.That's one bad therapist. And parents and sister..sometimes they are not the best people to talk to, unfortunately. And share stuff with your friend, I encourage you, just so you can see it's not that big of a deal.

 

[Joshua1]

Invest in your friendships with other people. Nervousness and insecurities are extremely common. Everybody at one point had insecurities and/or felt lonely. Start by saying hello to random people and take it from there, confidence is not given, it is earned. You earn confidence through overcoming hardships and meeting new people. Its a form of self esteem, one of the different ways we activate self esteem.