Let’s play a game.
You Know You Have Social Anxiety When…
You remember something embarrassing that happened 6 years ago and have a panic attack.
You practice a social scenario in your head for weeks before it’s even going to happen.
You’re glad when you get the flu.
You arrive everywhere super early.
The Friday feeling for everyone else is just like a Sunday night feeling to you.
You hate public bathrooms and not because they’re gross.
You suddenly burn up and your throat goes dry as soon as someone asks you for the time or for directions.
You feel relieved when your friends cancel plans.
You feel sick when logging into facebook or your email.
You think way too hard about what position your sitting in or where in the room you should look.
AÂ 5 second exchange of “good morning’s” with a stranger makes your whole entire day and makes you feel like a conversational wizard!
You invite more than 60 people to your birthday party and only 8 show up, and two of those are your parents, and one of them is you.
You go running and stop every time someone cycles past, then start again when they’re gone.
You don’t have any references.
You have no one to sign your passport photo.
You can’t eat crisps on a train, because you don’t want to be that douchebag eating crisps on a train.
You are always bloated and in pain because you can’t fart around people and you can’t fart on the toilet if someone is on the same floor as you.
Someone asks you what you like to do for fun and you freak out and can’t think of anything that’s socially accepted as fun.
You let people call you Kerry for a year when your name is actually Kelly.
You don’t correct someone when you tell them your name is Kel and they call you Carl!
You have to introduce yourself to someone you were best friends with for 8 years!!
You feel sad because you’re left out of everything, but when someone asks you to hang out you make an excuse not to.
You never return to a shop or place you used to work or anywhere you think your old colleagues might hang out.
You get excited when you get a text only to realise you only ever get a text from your service provider.
You procrastinate because of anxiety but you get anxious about procrastinating.
You never go out on weekends, only on weekdays, during school/work hours.
‘You have 1 new voicemail’ is the worst thing ever because now you have to call a person back.
Your hands shake because you’re anxious, then you shake even more because you’re anxious people will think you’re on drugs.
You don’t buy the cake you want because you don’t want people thinking you’re fat because you eat a lot of cake, even though you are fat because you eat a lot of cake.
You never get your hair cut.
The facebook ‘seen message‘ feature is the worst thing to happen to your anxiety in years.
Your therapist has to refer you to another therapist because she cannot help you.
I know I’m your mother but omg. I haven’t laughed so hard in ages. Kel, (or shall I call you Carl) this is brilliant!!
Well, Carl is my name at the weekends.
Also, thanks for laughing at my pain…. Mum.
p.s. love ya.
You know I think your amazing 🙂 thought I knew everything about you. The cross dressing explains a lot.. often accused the washing machine for the odd missing sock, underpants etc. Didn’t know you were building up ya secret wardrobe !! Ha
You know I don’t need to steal clothes from the washing machine, I’ve been buying from the mens section since I was 13 years old haha
I have shed tears because of the disappointment of service provider texts! Everything on this list I relate to.
I cry even more when I get texts from Domino’s Pizza!
Oh yeah, that would be hard. I just got an email from con edison that had me all excited and then disappointed and I don’t even use con edison anymore. The worst is the companies send you birthday messages, so depressing!
This is the first time I’ve seen somebody even mention the e-mail thing. I thought I was so alone with that one. I have ten different e-mail addresses so when I don’t want to talk to someone I’ll just not bother checking whatever e-mail I gave them. Brilliant list.
You are so not alone, and if I wasn’t lazy and forgetful I’d probably do the 10 email addresses thing too!
Glad to know I am not alone in this. I relate to them all, but in an American kind of way… you know, chips not crisps and all that. 🙂
“you feel sad because you’re left out of everything, but when someone asks you to hang out you make an excuse not to” I think is the worst one of all for me. Brilliant list!
So relatable thanks! Especially the part about your name. Then some point afterwards, they find you via social media or a friend/relative says something about you involving your actual name and it gets awkward and they’re like why didn’t you tell me I was saying your name wrong? And I don’t have an answer that makes sense to common-folk that don’t understand S.A.D and then I go home and cry. But that’s just me.
Aww bless you! That is an awkward situation for sure.
I once worked at a place for a year with everyone calling me the wrong name, I let my boss put it on my name badge and everything and it was just super awkward when people told my boss that wasn’t my name hahaha
Hey, this is a nice help here. It reminds me of a eBook i´ve read in the past called “Blushung Breakthorugh”, you can find here a review about it: http://theebookreviewer.net/blushing-breakthrough-how-to-stop-blushing-and-conquer-social-anxiety/
I relate to most of these, but thought I was the only one who saw the Facebook thumbs-up icon as sarcastic!
Apparently a lot of people feel that the facebook thumb comes across as sarcastic, so you’re definitely not alone there 🙂 I hate it when people put the facebook thumb, especially after writing them a long paragraph :’)
Oh em gee… All of this is so me?I think I definitely need the Anxiety Guide? Subscribing to the blog as well. These are things I SO need.
Aww thank you <3 your comment makes me so happy!