I would say you are being yourself whether you are actively battling SA or letting it squeeze the life out of you like a boa constrictor from hell. I suggest that you be the fighting you, a courageous SA warrior. You have to be your own best friend and celebrate your little triumphs that add up to a big triumph because there are so many psychologically illiterate morons out there who won't care what you are going through and won't see you for the courageous person you are. There really ought to be college organizations for shy people like there are for LGBT people.

 

I would say you are being yourself whether you are actively battling SA or letting it squeeze the life out of you like a boa constrictor from hell. I suggest that you be the fighting you, a courageous SA warrior. You have to be your own best friend and celebrate your little triumphs that add up to a big triumph because there are so many psychologically illiterate morons out there who won't care what you are going through and won't see you for the courageous person you are. There really ought to be college organizations for shy people like there are for LGBT people.

seriously, but i guess since we are publicly known like lgbt we wont get an organization. plus lgbt has all the pressures of being publicly correct etc. whereas alot of people dont even know SA exists.

 

I'm in your situation to i'm starting college soon and really want to meet a lot of new people and find friends go out and party,etc but i know that if i don't make a change ill just come off as very shy and when i get approached it will usually be one word answers and make the other person feel like there not wanted. That's why i plan to take Xanax or something similar so i can be myself and talk more not caring what people think, i think once i get that first step of just meeting everyone for the first few weeks i can lower my dose and get off it.

 

When I've been in college/uni I've acted like myself-shy and quiet, but okay with it. I won't try and act like a normal person and I won't completely hide my personality away. It made me one or two friends, it'd literally be one out of twenty or so people I could just about connect with. The problem with being myself, and wanting to fit in, is that I don't naturally want to chat with people because I'm happy enough by myself. But now I'm going back in a few weeks I want to be myself and find a way to make friends without acting or doing things I'm not into, so moreorless what you want to do? The only way I see myself doing this naturally is by trying to engage with people based on what interests me...so seek out the people who have similar interests to me and just trying to strike up conversation based on it. It may still be the case of only finding that one in twenty that I can relate to but I'm gonna believe there's more and I'm gonna reach out to people to find them rather than just see whose gonna bother to talk to the loner that I always set myself up to be.

 

I think you are on the right track with trying to be yourself and just being more outgoing. There isn't a group for shy people like the GLBT. You might want to check though if your university has a therapy group to help people with relationship issues. My university had something like that. We would meet once a week and talk. Everybody was there for different issues and different reasons so most people weren't shy. It was really nice, though, as the people there were all real and didn't pretend to be something they weren't. I think it helped me with getting over my shyness somewhat as well.