I’m new and I already posted on another board about my current situation, but I want to introduce my story a little more fully. I have suffered from social anxiety for about 11 years, starting when I moved to a new school in 6th grade. I was pretty much selective mute and would dread every recess, or times when I had to read out loud. I remember kids subtly making fun of me and also assuming that I was stupid even though I was in all of the highest classes. I was even in the gifted program as well. I did make some friends throughout school, but never felt connected or truly myself around them. In later high school years, most of these friendships faded away. For a time my senior year of high school, I became selective mute again in some of my classes. In college, I had a really rough start, but started to make friends.
Dating has never been something that I have seen as possible for me because people that show interest in me or people that I find attractive and socially skilled are huge triggers for my anxiety. I liked this one boy in college and I would purposefully avoid the routes he would normally take, so I wouldn’t have to see him. I have never been on a date or been kissed at 22 years old. I even have a difficult time being friends with guys because I’m not sure of the way I am supposed to act or not act and it all makes me nervous. I dream of being married and having kids, but there will have to be a very special situation that pops up in order for that to happen.
I have had jobs, one in high school, and I worked doing different things during my summers in college. I moved to D.C. for two days to do this program, then left because I felt trapped and felt like my politics might rub up against other people’s for the entire year. That caused so much shame in me. I moved back in with my parents and found a job where I was living with friends before. I quit that job after a month because of all the cold calling and small talk and general social navigation that was so crucial to the job. Now I’m unemployed and not sure what job I should try to get next and I’m dreading having to tell everyone in my life that I quit. I have started therapy and Zoloft, so I am focused on healing right now.
So that is a synopsis of me. It has already been very cathartic to write all of this down and I hope I can also bring light to these groups. I’m a Christian as well and believe deeply that all the pain we experience in this life is nothing compared to eternity if we know Jesus Christ.
Dating has never been something that I have seen as possible for me because people that show interest in me or people that I find attractive and socially skilled are huge triggers for my anxiety. I liked this one boy in college and I would purposefully avoid the routes he would normally take, so I wouldn’t have to see him. I have never been on a date or been kissed at 22 years old. I even have a difficult time being friends with guys because I’m not sure of the way I am supposed to act or not act and it all makes me nervous. I dream of being married and having kids, but there will have to be a very special situation that pops up in order for that to happen.
I have had jobs, one in high school, and I worked doing different things during my summers in college. I moved to D.C. for two days to do this program, then left because I felt trapped and felt like my politics might rub up against other people’s for the entire year. That caused so much shame in me. I moved back in with my parents and found a job where I was living with friends before. I quit that job after a month because of all the cold calling and small talk and general social navigation that was so crucial to the job. Now I’m unemployed and not sure what job I should try to get next and I’m dreading having to tell everyone in my life that I quit. I have started therapy and Zoloft, so I am focused on healing right now.
So that is a synopsis of me. It has already been very cathartic to write all of this down and I hope I can also bring light to these groups. I’m a Christian as well and believe deeply that all the pain we experience in this life is nothing compared to eternity if we know Jesus Christ.