#Social phobia

[serenityquest]

[fairiencarnate]

Living with avoidant behaviours means that for you to see me and be able to judge me, good or bad, inherently it means I am trying. Maybe not by yours, but by my standards I am succeeding too.

I don't think people understand how earth shatteringly terrifying it is to look for new jobs or meet new people with a panic disorder or social phobia. It puts me in a mindset where I have to actively remind myself that ending my life to escape the perceived danger is counterproductive, I am that out of my mind with panic. I know it doesn't make sense but knowing that doesn't stop the visceral fear from being so real. I wish people knew I don't want to be this way and I am actively fighting against it at all times even when it looks to others like I'm hiding away. The fact that I am still here, the fact that I answer messages sometimes and visit my family, the fact that I apply for jobs and leave the house to run errands at all is testament to how hard I'm trying.

If I stopped trying and gave in to my default state I would be shrivelled and pasty, dehydrated and sick from being too numb to feed myself, curled half-conscious and unshowered in grimy bed sheets, covered in nervous-picking sores, popping pills or drinking myself into slumber. I would not speak to a soul, not even immediate family. I wouldn't post at all. You would not know I exist.

For you to see me and be able to judge me, inherently means I am trying. Because I'm here and I'm not just awake. I'm the scariest thing I can be - perceivable.

[mynameis-a]

[lastsecondsquirrel]

I'm angry.

I know that I am here because of my own choices but fuck if these assholes didn't make the wrong choices feel like the only ones when I was a literal child and now I am supposed to be such an adult and it's my fault that these are the behaviors I learned. And I've been working to unlearn them for fucking years and it's fucking hard.

Because instead of teaching me coping skills my parents gave me reasons to need them.

[leafsea]

avoidance

the thought of making the phone call fills my head with a thick, oppressive fog

& every other thought i have disappears amidst this fog:

every idea, every plan, every dream

the solution is simple: pick up the phone, call, & then the fog will clear

but there will always be another one to make

all i can do is minimize, minimize, minimize,

make it so there's no reason to contact anyone

but my life has become so small already

and i think if i avoid the world more than i already do, i might just disappear too

[magpiethepunkfairy]

The emotional crash and anxiety spiral that hits immediately after hanging out with someone

Did I do good, did I socialize right, did I sound cool, gods do they hate me now, was I to weird, was I to much, did I talk to much, did I have enough to do, I miss them, do they hate me, God I fucked it up probably, whyd I say that, why didn't I say that, do they think I'm weird, do they like me, did-

It exhausts me, but I can't turn it off

[daffythefox]

Feeling a bit of a human connection and oversharing about yourself, about your trauma, about your deepest secrets and fears, just for the slimmest chance of feeling genuinely connected to someone, only to come away from it feeling hollow.

Because to you, you might as well have been telling them a story from some novel. Even now, after you've told them everything you can think of that might let them in on who you are, it's still not enough. The problem was never the being known. You aren't able to build those bridges in the first place. You got burned so badly your body took away the ability for you to do so. So you just have to watch your relationships from a distance, safe but just so far away.

You finally work up the nerve to touch your friend, to hug them, and you phase right through them. And while you're stunned, trying desperately to do anything to make contact, the other person looks down at you and says "it's so nice to finally be able to hug you like this". And you want it to happen so bad, you pretend like it's happening, but you have to wrap your mind around the fact that you felt nothing.

And you're terrified you'll never be able to.

[2amrainbow]

little comic about trying to post on social media

[themogaidragon]

Anxiety Disorders Pride Flags

[IMAGE ID: a flag with seven horizontal stripes. The second and sixth stripes are bigger than the others. Their colors are, from top to bottom, green, light green, grey, white, grey, light yellow and yellow. END ID]

[IMAGE ID: a flag with seven horizontal stripes. The second and sixth stripes are bigger than the others. Their colors are, from top to bottom, blue, light blue, grey, white, grey, light cyan and cyan. END ID]

[IMAGE ID: a flag with seven horizontal stripes. The second and sixth stripes are bigger than the others. Their colors are, from top to bottom, pink, light pink, grey, white, grey, light orange and orange. END ID]

Made by @anxiety_otd on Twitter! Original flags it tooks inspiration from.

Generalized Anxiety | Social Anxiety | Separation Anxiety

[serenityquest]

[sysboxes]

[Text: This social protector has social anxiety (and thinks the brain did a great job deciding that /sarcasm)]

Like/Reblog if you save or use!

[fairiencarnate]

Nobody talks about how triggering it is to be forced to prove your mental health struggles to doctors & government services so that you can receive help. Being abused and labelled "bad" by teachers when really I was anxious and struggling, to feeling like people think I'm faking anxiety attacks for sympathy/benefits/leniency whenever I'm asked to explain or prove my anxiety.

When I was 8 and shy with no friends, a teacher liked to pick on me. She did many cruel things, but one that sticks with me was she would call me bad, naughty, etc, whenever I was too scared or shy to do something. On my last day at that school, she wanted every kid to stand up individually and tell the class their most embarrassing story, for "fun". When I couldn't do it, she told me I was a really bad kid, and threatened to lock me in the resource room/cupboard over summer break if I didn't comply. I fell apart in the car when my mum picked me up and never saw the teacher again. The word "bad" was etched into my mind.

I remember being 14 with a social worker in my living room trying to assess my lack of ability to be at school without throwing up from anxiety, so I could start home schooling temporarily. I remember having no clue how to portray or explain my anxiety, no way to force a display of it. A few weeks later I was marched to an office where I was hounded with questions about my traumas by a skeptical woman until I was so overwhelmed and humiliated that I was bawling my eyes out and frozen, unable to speak. They intentionally triggered me to prove I was sick. Once I was in an uncontrollable state of emotion, she was suddenly warm, kind, even validating. She probably didn't want to make me cry. But government protocol made her.

15 minutes ago I got off the phone with a nurse who very much sounded like she didn't believe me. I asked for a doctor's appointment to sign a medical certificate on my work ability, just like the one I'd routinely gotten years ago before I found part-time work and decided to get off the benefit (even though I was still eligible since it was part-time, I just really hated being on it). The certificate tells the government that I can work up to 20 hours so they don't expect me to look for full-time work, which I can't without mentally crashing. I eventually booked the doc appointment, but not without having to explain and over-explain and explain again to this person why I think I need it. Certainly not without breaking into tears and barely being able to squeak out a "thank you, bye" before hanging up.

She didn't even do anything wrong, it's procedure to ask questions, but god it takes me back to feeling like nobody sees me as someone struggling with anxiety. People just see me as "bad".

And I wish I could grab these people by the shoulders and scream "I don't want to be this way. I would give anything not to be this way. I am deeply angry with myself all the time for the way that I am."

[boned4dday]

does anyone else think using "chronically online" as an insult almost always insinuates ableist undertones or

like, especially when it's targeted at folks who are neurodivergent and/or have anxiety disorders/disorders that center around social aversion

edit: it's also extremely and overly ableist towards people with physical disabilities/are not able bodied.

[bullet-ant]

i still think about this comment i found daily

DO NOT ACCEPT THE SHAME OTHERS WISH YOU TO FEEL. Don't give anyone else that power over you anymore.

[astrogriffin]

Learned helplessness is being given job offerings that would 100% improve your current living situation but you don’t respond because you have convinced yourself that it’s all going to go to shit somehow anyway because you know from experience that every time you have made a big life decision it got worse so you don’t trust yourself anymore.

[a-gnosis]

Last month I was asked by an art association in my town to talk about my comics at their annual meeting on April 20. I said yes. Now when it's getting close I'm hit with extreme nervousness. Shit, how could I forget that I hate to talk in front of people?! XD Oh well, at least I get to talk about something I like, so that makes it a bit easier. But it will be a big relief when it's over.