Social anxiety

[Keeley18]

Hi! I’m new here. I’ve always been really shy and find it hard opening up to people and being myself. I always think other people are talking about me and think I’m weird or something, even if they are really down to earth, nice people. In high school, I couldn’t eat around teachers as I would get really anxious. I would also get anxious when called on in class and display many physical symptoms such as blushing, sweating, shaky voice etc. With the eating thing, I was only comfortable eating in front of certain people. I could only eat in front of my family or my close friend at the time. Having to eat in front of others was difficult. Is this normal in social anxiety? Sorry if this is long but any help would be appreciated Thanks!

 

[triceps]

Hi Keeley. I can tell you from personal experience that everything you are describing are very typical symptoms of social anxiety. Or, it's possible that we are both weird.

 

[vanessa-1998]

Yeah, I have similar symptoms as well. When I experienced this when I was younger, I thought I was just crazy, turns out I just had a social anxiety disorder! Knowing that didn't really help with the severity of the symptoms but I felt a little better after knowing what it was that was causing me to feel so bad about failed social interactions.