Social anxiety disorder is a mental health diagnosis that is sometimes used for people who experience a lot of fear in or worry about social situations. This is especially true for people who, due to concern about social judgment, either avoid some or all social situations or endure them with great distress. This may have serious consequences for the person, such as decreased job performance, challenges with family obligations or responsibilities, or difficulty enjoying life by trying new things or meeting new people. Social anxiety disorder may also have a performance component and make public speaking unbearable. This can really impact their ability to do well in important school or work projects.
In my experience, people with social anxiety disorder often want to connect with others, make new friends, or perform well at work or school. Their anxiety is a huge barrier to these goals, as they’re often terrified of saying or doing the wrong thing. They overthink all their words and decisions. Sometimes it can get so bad that they get to the point of paralysis, where it feels impossible to even speak because their minds just go blank!
If this is something that you’re familiar with, you might wonder, where do all my words go when I’m so anxious? Why can’t I even speak?? A lot of times, anxiety is good at telling us all the worst possible scenarios, or even horrifying scenarios that aren’t even possible. Anxiety about social situations tells us that we can’t say the wrong thing or we’ll be rejected, which is painful enough on its own, but what is so terrible about rejection? Anxiety tells the story that maybe we won’t have friends or family that will be there for us, or maybe rejection means that there’s something wrong with us and other people have figured it out! Maybe there’s another story that anxiety tells you. When the stakes feel really high, we get tongue-tied, and it’s hard to even think of the right words to say.
Now, you probably made it to the end of this post at this website because you want to learn more about anxiety and are curious about what can be done to help anxiety. So here’s the bad news and the good news: the bad news is that anxiety disorders are the mental health diagnoses that are made the most often. Many, many people will have some kind of anxiety in their lifetime, so, if you are one of them, you are definitely not alone. The good news is that they are probably the most treatable and responsive to therapy, especially for clients who are engaged and actively practicing therapy skills. And for many of these clients, they often do not meet criteria for their diagnosis after participating in therapy, which means they have less anxiety or the anxiety that is left does not impact their ability to meet their responsibilities or enjoy life.
In the next post, I’ll talk a bit about shyness, introversion, and social anxiety. Is there a difference?
Ideal Self Therapy, LLC 