I have always been extremely self conscious which has caused a lot of anxiety , pain and misery.
I dropped out of college after freezing up before an audience of my peers.
It was embarrassing and humiliating to the point that I had to quit and join the Navy.
That was years ago and I'm still plagued with it today. I have trouble thinking on my feet and concentrating.
I went back to college and graduated and nothing has changed except that I've gotten old. I'm still very anxious and depressed. And I'm a social outcast. I would love to be comfortable in my own skin.
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Mike615
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I was once in a lecture hall of about 200 people when a girl tripped down the aisle. Made a big ol' thud. The room came to a halt, a bit of laughter erupted, and then class just proceeded like usual. People fall! It wasn't that interesting. I can't remember that girl's name. I can't remember her face. If I ran into her today, I wouldn't even know who I was talking to. Most people probably don't remember you freezing because it was simply a brief moment in their day and a speck of time in their life. I mean, think about it: it was YEARS ago. Give yourself grace when meeting people and allow yourself to have embarrassing moments. They make you human.
Thanks for sharing your story. Hi I am a Christian Minister, once while officiating at a funeral - in front of a large grieving group of family and friends - I at a whopping 220lbs - fell in front of the lectern, all eyes on me - I felt awful, but just stood up and carried on, as the people the chapel I was asked if I was okay, I replied many times over, 'Yes thank you, but please do not ask for an action replay!' I had many letter of thanks including one from the widower, who told me I had 'smashed it.' I thought that meant I had spoiled it, but was assured by my grandchildren those words actually mean - I did good! It not the shame of what we do when something goes awry, its the joy of how we deal with it.
You’ve put it perfectly. Most of the time people aren’t all that focused on you. We’re focused on ourselves. I found that when I make a mistake or literally trip that if I laugh at myself people laugh with me. I think people are most comfortable with people who are openly accepting of their own mistakes.
Apologies in advance because I'm gonna say that I think the story doesn't match with the tone you're telling it at all -- that's such a cool life! Dropping out of the college and get accepted by the Navy? That sounds pretty bad ass. I wonder what it's like, the life in the army. There must be others especially kids that are willing to know the story. It takes courage to go back to college and face the fear head on. I went back to grad school after only working for a few years, and the pressure and the loneliness was already hard to bear for me. I can only imagine your challenges back then. But you successfully graduated despite all of that.
I apologize again if that's insensitive, but that's how I really felt after reading your post. I do understand what you're saying, that the self-consciousness has always been ruining the moment, and it doesn't seem to go away. I just think there must be more achievements in your life that any other people would be proud of.
Mike615 - Rejoice, you discovered you are human - with natural human frailties. Sad to hear you quit college, maybe this was more that the course was not right for you at the time, but that you went back years later and achieved, now that is worth rejoicing. I am almost 75 - from UK, and I certainly don't think of myself as OLD. 75 is the new 50. Stop dwelling on the past and live in the here and now. Well done!
Hi Mike, I can relate to a lot of what you wrote. What you are describing is social anxiety disorder and I had it for years without knowing what was really wrong with me or what I was really dealing with. SA is learned distorted thinking, perceptions and behavior that we adopted to defend or protect ourselves that you adopted for some reason. We think everyone is focusing on us and judging us and we magnify and blow things out of proportion. The reality is that most people are so focused on their own lives and thoughts they aren't even paying attention to us. You have taken that freezing situation you experienced and the shame you felt with it and expected the same thing to happen every time but now that you are an adult, you get to be in charge of how you react in situations.
The reality is that it wasn't your fault, you may be a sensitive individual like I am and be more sensitively hard wired plus I think we could be more genetically predisposed to it. I think my dad had undiagnosed social anxiety. I also grew up in an emotionally repressive household with verbal and physical abuse and was shamed and punished for showing any sign of being proud of myself or standing up for myself and even displaying normal anger. Consequently I had no self-esteem or self-worth and then was bullied in school and consequently developed social anxiety disorder. A number of years later I developed panic attacks and started getting help and was diagnosed with general anxiety disorder and tried medication. Eventually i was prescribed Klonopin and it was like a switch had been flipped and I was able to see and feel what "normal" could be like without anxiety. I eventually tapered off of the Klonopin but continue to take an antidepressant. It helped but I continued to have anxiety and worked with various therapists and then realized I actually had social anxiety. There wasn't a therapist that specialized in treating it near me so I did an online program from the socialanxietyinstitute.org that helped although I would have preferred to work with a therapist directly. There is some good info on SA youtube available and also a number of other online programs. I also realized I was still suffering with low-self-worth and low-self-esteem and a lot of shame and started healing it. There's a lot of good info also on youtube about it, I found a book I like called Drive your own darn bus by Julia Kristina and also a program by Dr. Bernadette Sewell called Break Free. I've read that some think social anxiety is actually caused by low-self-worth and I wouldn't be surprised if that were true. One of the things that happened to me that really moved my healing along was realizing one day how much people really liked me and enjoyed me and I was literally dumbfounded to realize it, I had spent many years thinking and believing just the opposite. I healed a lot of my SA but continued to have anxiety issues and then realized I was actually dealing with c-ptsd and the trauma of bullying and growing up in a abusive household with lots of shaming. I found a therapist that specifically treated trauma and worked with him to process and heal the shame and trauma. One of the therapies he used was emdr which was very helpful. I also learned and practice simple mindfulness to be able to let me thoughts come and go and I also found the DARE Anxiety book and youtube videos very helpful for constructively learning what anxiety really is and getting comfortable with the uncomfortable feelings of anxiety and not engaging with the anxious thoughts.
I hope some of this long response helps you and feel free to ask me any questions, i'm happy to help if I can.
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