What is social anxiety? It is a fear of social interactions. It's more than that but in the end that is what it boils down to. Social anxiety is a crippling phobia that affects every aspect of my life. There is hardly anything I do that social anxiety doesn't ruin. It's very overpowering.
How does social anxiety affect me? Like I said in the above paragraph it's very overpowering. It controls my thoughts and actions. It lives in my head and won't let go. Talking to people is the hardest thing. I want to talk to people. I want to be social. But, the actual talking part is very hard. Sometimes it's impossible.
Social situations are really hard. This does not mean I have agoraphobia. Agoraphobia is a fear of the world. It's a fear of places and situations. Social interactions scare the crap out of me but that doesn't mean I don't want to go out into the world. I want to be a part of the world (as I say this I think about how God says we aren't to be of the world, but you know what I mean). I want to have friends. I don't want to be a hermit holed in my house never to come out.
The plans I have for this blog are to delve into what makes my social anxiety tick. Why do I have it? That I really don't know if I'll be able to answer. I'll write about situations where it plays itself out. I hope to discover something, maybe to unlock the key to overcoming it. I don't think I'll ever be able to cure it, but maybe one day I'll be able to grow and not have to take my medicine anymore.
Yeah, I take medicine for social anxiety. I have to or I may not be able to function in the world. I don't know how well it helps honestly, because I still am socially anxious and very, very aware of everything in social situations, but I do find that I am able to do more. I play the flute and piccolo in the orchestra at my church. I've been playing the piccolo since high school so I am good at it, I think. Before I started taking my meds I was really nervous about playing it in the orchestra. For some reason to me it didn't sound very reverent. Plus, I was really nervous about mistakes. I play the piccolo. I want to be the piccolo player of the orchestra so I should be able to play it well. I use playing the piccolo as a judgement on my medication. After I started taking it I gained confidence on my piccolo playing. I'm still nervous but that just goes with the territory of playing an instrument. I tell myself other instruments, like the trumpets, don't sound good when we start new music. They're learning it just as we all are. That's the same for me. If I don't sound good in the beginning that's okay. I'll practice to get to the sounding better part. I also tell myself that it's written in the music so I should not be afraid to play it. There's a reason the notes are there and that's because the arranger and/or composer thought it sounded good. If he (and most if not all are men) put it there, I should play it. There are a few pieces I have taken the piccolo out because it doesn't sound right even though someone thought it did and wrote it into the music.
Those thoughts I often wonder if they are because of my medicine or because I have matured. Maybe I have matured because of my medicine. I don't want to take medicine forever. I hate taking medicine.
To end this post I'll leave you with something on Twitter yesterday that is very fitting and gave me the idea to focus on social anxiety in my blog. It was a retweet from a friend who retweeted from a friend who retweeted or copied it from davestriderinthighhighs. It seems that could be a tumblr account due to using more than 140 characters. I don't know who to give credit to on this, but that's how I came about it. Looking at the picture, it says Source: stan-the-man-marsh so maybe that's where it originated. I don't know.
My next post may very well be explaining what that means to me. I haven't thought about it yet.
