I feel completely frustrated and feel absolutely hopeless against my social anxiety.

Hey, I'm Brittany & I'm 19 years old. This is going to be a pretty long thread, so you don't have to read all of this, if you just wanna skim through thats perfectly fine, I just need somebody to tell me I’m not crazy or alone.

But I am completely frustrated and feel absolutely hopeless against my social anxiety. And if you feel the same way, I encourage you to read my story of my frustrations, because it would mean the absolute world to me to have somebody tell me they understand. Nobody I know does, and it’s killing me that I feel I have nobody to talk to that gets what this stupid debilitating disorder is like to live with.

Now let me go back a little bit. The beginning of my sophomore year, I moved twice. Once from Maine to Arkansas, once again from Arkansas to Colorado. I think this is where my social anxiety first began to develop. Moving twice was really hard on me, but the second time was definitely worse than the first. The first day of going to my new school in Colorado I was late. I walked into class and was immediately the center of attention.

A socially anxious persons worst nightmare!!

A few kids from class talked to me and tried to get to know me, and I tried my best to talk to them comfortably, but I found myself not really knowing how to carry a conversation with them, I found myself worrying they wouldn’t like me for some reason. Although a few people talked to me, none of those people had lunch with me, so I ate by myself. Actually, I would leave school at lunch and walk around outside until it was over so I wouldn’t eat anything at all. I didn’t talk to anybody in my classes, and I feel everyone probably thought I was snobby and thought I was to good to speak to anybody, but in reality, I was just to anxious and self conscious to say anything to anybody. So I kept quiet. Better to keep quiet than put yourself out there to possibly be negatively judged, teased, or criticized, right? I grew to hate this school and everything about it. I had never felt more alone than I did during this period of time, it was absolute HELL. I started to refuse to go. It became a problem, and eventually, I began going to school online. This definitely helped me at the time, but I think more than anything it helped my anxiety. I know longer had to face the fear of going to school physically on a regular basis and interacting with people, I could go to school online at home and avoid anything that made me anxious. I know longer had to try to fit in with a group of people. I was alone. I was safe. And I believe I fed my anxiety this way for a long time. I began working a lot harder, and I got really good grades, I was very successful school wise, but I was still very alone. Now not going to school everyday, nobody was around for me to talk to. I had no friends that I could hang out with in person. I wasn’t interacting with anybody in person other than my family for nearly 2 years. I still was unaware that I had social anxiety disorder at the time, in fact, for a very long time being alone did not bother me. I didn’t mind spending so much time by myself. I didn’t think it was unhealthy or that something was wrong. I just enjoyed my own company, especially after all the stress I had endured from moving twice in the course of two months.

A little while after going to school online, I did meet a friend. A best friend who's name was Adam. I met him online, and we met in person the summer before my senior year. He was a grade ahead of me, and we hit it off pretty well when we met. In the beginning of our friendship we had a thing for each other, so the 2nd time we hung out was a date. Although I was nervous, and a little bit anxious, I found it really easy to be myself around him, and a lot of the social anxiety I experienced around others didn’t really apply when I was with him. Things in the beginning of our relationship when we had one were great. He made me laugh all the time, we spent a lot of time together, I was extremely happy I found somebody I could spend time with whom I wasn’t socially anxious around, it felt amazing. That started to come to an end when he began mentioning meeting his friends and family. When he started to ask, I remember immediately feeling anxious, fearful, as if I was in danger all of a sudden. One of his really good friends was very eager to meet me, and I told him I couldn’t, that I wasn’t ready. Even then, I still was unaware of the possibility that I could have social anxiety. I thought my thoughts were reasonable, and I convinced myself that there was nothing wrong with not being ready, that I would when I was even though we had been dating for months and he had already met my family.

Anxiety convinced me that my thoughts were reasonable. That I was protecting myself. I was “living in my own head.”

This among other things due to my social anxiety at the time, ended our romantic relationship. Although we continued to be best friends soon after.

After graduating in 2016, I once again moved, this time to Oregon. Once again when I moved here, I did not have any friends. I didn’t know anybody. I was alone, or at least felt alone, once again. I was attending college in the fall (I didn’t end going for to long partly because financial reasons, partly because it was to much for my anxiety), and was living at home with my parents during the summer until then. During this time, I met a guy. His names Jesse and he is my current boyfriend, we’ve been in a relationship for almost a year. And its around this time that I began to discover that I had an anxiety disorder.

In the beginning of our relationship, things were absolutely amazing. We hit it off very well, and I felt like I could be 101% myself around this guy, which is very hard for me to do now-a-days with the severity of my anxiety. I knew he was a keeper. Since I didn’t have a whole lot of other people here, we spent a lot of time together, almost every single day. We began spending almost every single night with each other too once I got my own place. For the first 6-7 months, there was not a whole lot of mention of meeting friends or family on his part. He had met some of my family, my roommates, and a few other people I was around here and there. But he never brought up meeting his people. And when he did bring it up, I began reverting back to the same behavior I had in the last relationship I had been in. The thought of meeting/being introduced to new people made me sick to my stomach with nerves. Even just the thought of it was difficult for me. It hadn’t even happened yet, but just the thought was enough to cause fear and panic inside of me.

People are unsafe. Other people represent an enemy.

That’s what it felt like. This is the turning point, where I realized I avoid situations where I could possibly be judged or evaluated by others. Any situation where I worried about the opinions of others, I avoided as best as I could. I finally woke up and realized that this is problematic. It was causing major interferences in my life. My ability to keep & make friends (whenever I was invited out places, I would almost always avoid going), my relationship, even work from time to time.

I noticed I would monitor myself in order to make sure that other people accepted me and did not think I looked stupid in any way. Even with my boyfriend of almost one year, I found myself behaving this way from time to time. But I feel when he mentioned meeting his friends and family, my anxiety prevented me from doing it or even being able to think I could do it. It made it feel impossible to do so. I began to feel horribly self conscious, and the anxious thoughts would flood in. What if they don’t like me? What if I say something embarrassing? What if they think I’m weird because of how shy I am? What if my anxiety is obvious? I’m also worried I’ll be judged by my physical appearance. What if they think I’m ugly? I have 0 self-confidence. I would immediately began fearing the social situation, even though it had not presented itself yet. I would obsess about the possibility of meeting his friends or family, spend time thinking about everything. What could I say so they’ll like me? What should I wear? How do I hide my anxiety? I would shut down or zone out whenever he brought this up because I immediately just felt like I couldn’t do it. What if I didn’t know what to say? Didn’t know how to carry on a conversation? I would become angry and frustrated with myself for feeling this way. What was I so afraid of? I know my thoughts were irrational. Knowing something is very different from believing it I’ve come to realize. Knowing it didn’t seem to help very much, because my anxiety convinced me that there was real danger.

The social anxiety persists even though I wanted to face the fear and I know I had to.

We want people to like us. I wanted them to like me, desperately. My anxiety convinced me and still does, that they won’t. The thought of being the center of attention, which I would be for a small period of time, also makes me want to run far far away and hide. It scares the hell out of me.

I have anxiety in a lot of other situations, including most social encounters with strangers, or meeting those in authority. My anxiety has reduced the level of functioning that I have in building friendships and relationships and I’m so sick of it. My relationship is the biggest one of all to me because I don’t want my anxiety to drive a wedge between us like it has before with others.


It feels like its me against the world. More and more recently, I’ve resented being alone and I hate how I isolate myself because of my anxiety. I feel like I’ve lost my mind. I want to make it all stop, I want to find a way out.

I want to feel normal.

I've been there before. I used to feel totally crazy. I just wanted to feel like myself again when I was younger. Are you seeing a psychiatrist? I know it's hard to reach out and get help, but it's so worth it when you finally feel better.

You seem like a really cool person and I think you are normal. Anxiety is normal and very common. It might take a lot of trial and error, but it's totally treatable. I guarantee you won't feel like this the rest of your life.

Sending you my most positive vibes.

Thats exactly how I feel!! I know this isn't me. Its crazy how controlling anxiety is, how much it takes over your life and influences the decisions you make. I hid for so long that I feel like I just don't know how to put myself out there anymore. I have reached out for help, and I actually am currently seeing a therapist, I've had about 3-4 sessions. It is helping a little bit for sure. I just still feel imprisoned by my own mind.

Thank you so much for saying these things, it does help tremendously, especially hearing from people who have experience social anxiety themselves. I hope this doesn't last forever and I'm sure it won't if I work hard towards fighting it, which I'm dedicated to doing.

I must add if you haven't tried the medication route, it's definitely worth a shot. It has definitely reduced my anxiety significantly to where it's hardly a problem anymore. It took some time to find what worked, but I'm glad I finally got relief. Like you said, it really does feel like you are losing your mind.

I'm glad to help in any way. I know in my moments of anxiousness I sure would have liked some comforting advice. It sounds like you have the right attitude and I'm sure you'll kick your anxiety in the *****!

That captures a lot of what most of what we all experience.

I can only comment on the last sentence. The current zeitgeist, I believe more so than America, is "Average is Over".

Yet, maybe I'm only speaking for myself here, the only thing we want is to be average. It's okay if we aren't exceptional, talented, genius, prodigious or whatever synonyms the thesaurus supplies us with. Once we're average on the scale of normality, that's when we can try to think of being above average.


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Just wanted to say you are a great writer. I think you should publish this, i.e. Medium.com and/or ThoughtCatalog.com. Also, if you haven't already, maybe you should talk to your boyfriend about this. If he is really that great, he will be understanding.

I relate to some of this for sure, and I responded on one of your other threads about some of the ways I relate to your experience. I didn't start to realize I had SA until I got all the way through college and graduate school and started working full time. It has hurt my career a lot, and, personally, that's the predominant concern I have with having SA (which is probably the reason it took until trying to get a career going to figure out something was really wrong), even though it definitely has always affected me socially and still does. Being your age, realizing you have it and trying to find out how to get it under control will benefit you in so many ways beyond just what you've described in this thread.

Medication is the next step for me. I think pretty soon I am going to try them out. I've been on an anxiety med before but it didn't work very well, just made me tired a lot of the time. And its not that therapy isn't working, but I believe therapy as well as taking medication will have a tremendous positive impact on my recovery. Thanks so much for the advice

I just want to be average. So you're absolutely right!

Thank you so much for your feedback!! I'll check out my other thread to, to see what you said. It helps so much to not feel so alone, that other people experience this to, as awful as it is. I'm glad I woke up and realized I had this when I did for sure, I don't want it to follow me & haunt me in adulthood.

I'm the same age and I feel three same way. I feel powerless against my anxiety. It just gets worse and worse. Im supposed to go to this big rock concert on the 30th and usually im always nervous before a concert but recently i can't enjoy it anymore. I'm just so scared, i constantly feel like I'm going to die or something bad is going to happen :/ the base vibrating through my body gives me a panic attack and it never used to do that. Mind you ive attended this same concert, every summer for years. Pray and wish me luck. Fingers crossed, i hope that I'll have fun instead of having a freak out.

You arent crazy or alone, this is perfectly normal for social anxiety sufferers. Here is one of my posts i copied and pasted, its got useful tips on how to overcome social anxiety, from months of therapy and years of having SA:



You can get over social anxiety on your own, all you need to do is practice socializing whenever you get the opportunity. Even if its scary, challenge yourself. Take small steps and with each step, do something that is more challenging. Each time you practice being in a social situation like 5 times or something, you adjust to that situation and you are ready for more challenging situations. Also, when you are in social situations, you have to learn to be comfortable in them.


Relax your body and muscles, take deep breaths, and tell yourself that you'll be okay and that you are in control, no matter how anxious you feel. Also, act confident. When you do these things, with time and with challeing yourself a lot, you'll eventually overcome SA completely or at least to the point where you have very little anxiety left. Your thoughts affect your feelings, your feelings(happyness, depression, fear, anxiety, etc) affect your behaviours(actions that you do, decisions that you make). When you learn to control your thoughts, you eventually control your feelings/emotions, and from there you can control your actions without feeling much anxiety.


Basically, with social anxiety you want to challenge yourself to face your fears, but one step at a time. Small steps, for example, step outside the house or even go for a short walk. With time, the anxiety from that will decrease a lot. And on the socializing side, try ordering some food or something. Doing this frequently, like once a day(or two but every day helps much, much more) will make you adjust to being in a social situation over time. Once you are adjusted to that social situation, it isnt near as scary as it used to be. Then you are ready to challenge yourself with an even more anxious situation. Keep doing this until you completely adjust to being in social situations.


Also, a big part of overcoming social anxiety is by focusing your attention outwards, not inwards. Instead of thinking about your anxiety so much, try to realise that you are just another person and that there is no spotlight on you. Focusing your attention on the environment rather than on within will help you to feel much less anxious with practice. Also, pretending to be confident and trying to relax in anxious situations will help you to be confident over time. Ignore any thoughts that make you embarassed or anxious, and dont let anxiety/embarassment ruin your life. Good luck