My Teenage Social Anxiety

Author: Meow

A bit of an embarrassing confession.

I’ve had social anxiety ever since… well, for as long as I can remember. Probably like 15 years now. It’s not just moderate, it’s severe. Atleast when I was a teen I had the excuse of being a teen, so I wouldn’t be forced or heavily pressured to face reality. Yeah, my mum kinda sheltered me, lol. But she only sheltered me from certain things. The weird things. Isolating myself actually helped for a while, but I did it for too long. I ended up being isolated for like 6 years. My only social contact was with my mum and the occasional dentist visits or other small things like birthdays and Christmas. I actually asked to start anti anxiety meds, but for some reason my GP was very against it. Before you say, “oh that’s just lazy thinking”, I’d tried pretty much everything (including the one everyone talks about, exposure therapy) and it seemed my anxiety was only getting worse and worse. My anxiety was severe. My hands would shake like a fucking meth addicts would, my pupils dilated like crazy, I stuttered, my head would do this weird twitch thing (my least favourite symptom) and my heart rate would go all the way up to 120. From what, you may ask? Oh, who knows. Talking to the fucking cashier. Getting a bus. I didn’t mind being so insanely isolated. I even had access to the internet, completely unrestricted. I could’ve made online friends. I chose not to. My routine was simple. I just hated and dreaded the very few social events that were inevitable. I hated phone calls too. Jesus, I literally just hated ANYTHING social. I would basically have full blown panic attacks in every social interaction. I had all the symptoms. I don’t know if this is even possible, but I must’ve just been masking/attempting to hide my panic attacks whenever I talked to anyone. What did I do during my isolation? I actually read a lot, surprisingly. On the internet, I barely interacted with people. Instead, I browsed the latest posts on a slightly popular website community. I would say the name but that’s probably give away my age lol. Why was I like this… I’m still not 100% sure. Well, my mum did run away from strangers in front of me when I was younger, and she’s always had bad social anxiety. So, I think I do know where I got it from. My social anxiety has improved. Of course, my heart rate elevates and my hands get slightly shaky during some social moments, but I can still speak up a lot better. My point in making this post is… I miss being a hermit. I now have to do adult things. Ugh. It’s not the worst, I’ve gotten over stuff in the past years, but I still wish I could just live as a hermit. No forced interactions, no job, just peace. Thankfully the business I’m in requires me to work only 2-5 hours every 1-4 times a week, and the money I receive has been increasing a LOT. But yeah. As you can tell, my teens was weird. I’d say my childhood (not my teens) was arguably worse, though. Cause as a teen I at least had the brain capacity to understand (somewhat) what was happening around me. I was never beat or anything like that, most of it was just emotional abuse. It wasn’t even that severe, I think. But what probably fucked me up the most is how fast my mum could go from so loving and funny to someone who hates my fucking guts. Yes, she thankfully stopped as I grew up. I’ve mentioned that before. I think maybe it’s because I ‘toughened’ up and a few other things that are just too embarrassing to mention. I still love my mum, I always have. But FUCK, my mood changes so fast nowadays. No amount of therapy or any bs can help with my mood swings. It’s infuriating. One sigh from someone and I misinterpret it as them suddenly hating me and I get all moody. JFC. Don’t take this as me being vulnerable, don’t feel pity. I know all of you have your own issues, you all have trauma, and I’m sure some of you may even have trauma worse than mine. Most my bad childhood memories were very weird, not very traumatic, if that makes sense. It was the goddamn mood swings in everyone around me! Literally everyone seemed to have BPD or something, holy shit. Anyways… yeah, I just wanted to get this bs off my chest. My teens were pretty boring. I did kinda go a little crazy at 13, but that’s it. But jeez, it’s hard not to think about what a SOCIALLY REPRESSED hermit I was a teen. In case you’re wondering how I ‘fixed’ my social anxiety… well, honey, it’s not what you wanna hear. It got so bad that at one point I started getting drunk before every, yes, EVERY, social interaction. As I’ve already said, I need a LOT of alcohol to get drunk. So as crazy it may sound, I wasn’t truly addicted. Now hear me out. I was using it to cope, yeah, but deep down I knew I could stop at any moment. And I did pretty much that. One day I decided to stop. See how I was without it. Weeks later of no alcohol, I’d become surprisingly less anxious. That’s all. I was bullied when I was 5 years old and that’s probably why I’m a masochist now. I even became friends with my bullies. RANT DONE.