
Social Anxiety - ingve
http://inessential.com/2015/10/23/social_anxiety
======
nilkn
As someone who really has social anxiety, this is not it. I have absolutely no
issues understanding non-verbal communication. I'm simply _scared_ of certain
social situations, for no rational reason. There are relatively mundane group
scenarios that will leave my heart pounding and my hands almost shaking,
though I do my best to hide it, and over the years I have become pretty adept
at just dealing with it.

With that said, I do not mean to diminish the difficulties the author here has
experienced. I just think that anxiety is not the most descriptive label for
them.

~~~
smtddr
We're talking irrational fears?

For the longest time I had a fear of unfamiliar shower heads well into
adulthood. [http://i.imgur.com/qcVVJwCl.jpg](http://i.imgur.com/qcVVJwCl.jpg)

Like if I'm in a hotel room and need to take shower, I have to take a deep
breath and stare at it, telling myself "it can't hurt me" over and over again.
The same kind of nervous I get in a plane that's about to take off. I still
get a bit nervous to this day at 38 years of age. I suspect something happened
to me at a young age but nobody seems to know what it could be. I've noticed
that my 5yr old daughter is also scared of them when they make those whoosh-
sounds just before water comes out. Maybe I was traumatized from that too....
I dunno...

~~~
skizm
I'm always curious about stuff like this so I don't mean to be rude, but in
all seriousness, how do you think a shower head will hurt you? I understand it
isn't rational so maybe the answer is "I dunno" but figured I would ask.

~~~
firebones
I suspect it is a sensory-processing thing. I'm reading waaaayyyy too much
into this, but people on the Asperger's syndrome spectrum--even slightly--and
more likely to be in the HN commenter crowd--have peculiar sensory issues.
Often you see it with things like aversion (or preference) for certain food
textures, so it doesn't seem out of left field to hear that anticipatory
auditory and sensory stimulus (like the death rattle of a showerhead, or the
subsequent burst of lukewarm water) would be a trigger. And that it would be
passed down genetically or by behavioral role models...

~~~
lotharbot
part of the struggles we're having with my autistic son center around toilet
training -- I think in large part because the bathroom is full of things that
make running-water type noises, and those freak him out.

------
robotcookies
Hmmm. Much of what is described here is not social anxiety. He is really
describing what seems to be Asperger's. The two are very often co-morbid and
can be confused as being the same but they are not. While they often occur
together, they do not always occur together. You can have one and not the
other.

I have social anxiety but not Aspergers but I have spent time with others who
have Aspergers. The thing about staring into someone's eye and not
understanding social cues/norms is a trait of Aspergers and not social
anxiety.

~~~
thescriptkiddie
Can you describe what social anxiety by itself is like?

~~~
robotcookies
It's a morbid fear of social interaction. Some situations are worse than
others. And, for me, it isn't caused by confusion over what to do in social
settings (although when I was younger I had confusion due to lack of
experience in social settings).

I don't have any difficulty with social cues or understanding innate human
interaction. I am popular in the workplace because I'm forced to interact with
others. Almost all my friends are from work. By contrast, none of my neighbors
know me and probably think I'm odd because they never see me. That's because,
when I have a choice, I will always pick avoiding social interaction due to
fear. Whenever I leave, I check the peephole to make sure no one is around. I
have gone a week or more without leaving my home. If not for needing food and
to go to work, I could probably go months without leaving. And this is driven
by fear of human interaction.

I can appear completely normal in social interactions. I understand eye
contact and not to linger too long. I understand the need to balance talk and
listening when having a conversation. I get jokes and subtle humor. Fist pumps
get me excited. No one had to teach me these things. And most of my co-workers
think I'm completely normal in social settings, though on the quiet side. But
when given a choice I withdraw due to fear. In High School, I spent every
single lunch hiding in the library or a bathroom stall. I did not know what
the cafeteria looked like. I didn't go to a single party or a single date due
to crippling fear. But this fear was not the result of feeling confused over
social cues or behavior.

~~~
brazzledazzle
This all sounds very familiar. Thanks for writing this, I think I'll make an
appointment.

------
archagon
In my twenties, I discovered that a large part of getting over this stuff was
learning to completely dismiss yourself as an actor while talking to other
people. Forget you exist. Focus your thoughts entirely outwards. Don't worry
about playing "hot potato" with the conversation; let yourself become a black
box with no inputs back into that anxious, tumultous part of your brain that
has to analyze every little detail of every social encounter. Allow the
conversation to happen outside your head.

For me, once I figured this out, all that stuff about body language, social
time, and not feeling "weird" just naturally fell into place. These behaviors
were mostly functions of a mind trying to micromanage every single little
thing. I'm still very bad at actually getting into social situations, but when
I somehow end up in one, it's almost always OK.

I think this is why alcohol helps. When you're inebriated, you simply don't
have the concentration to reflect every thought back inwards.

~~~
tpiha
This sounds like a great advice. I've felt what you're talking about, I just
wasn't able to reproduce it.

------
coreyoconnor
A line that struck me as familiar: "I should add that my hearing’s getting
worse. Which doesn’t help at all."

I wonder if the author is sure his hearing is actually getting worse or his
perception is getting worse?

I once thought the same thing. tldr: Nope. My hearing is fine. Anxiety causes
my brain, afaict, to always be on the lookout for threats. No sound was being
filtered from my conscious. The perception was that I "couldn't hear". I could
hear fine, but I couldn't filter out unimportant from important. The result is
something that seems like bad hearing.

Taking anti-anxiety drugs solved the problem for me. Like magic I could hear
fine. Conversations, even in noisy situations, became easy to perceive and
follow.

I couldn't find any documentation on this at the time. The doctor didn't think
much about the idea. I wonder if anybody else had the same experience?

~~~
chejazi
This is a very interesting hypothesis. I've noticed my hearing has degraded in
recent years and I'm definitely prone to anxiety in social settings -
particularly in settings of new and/or recently acquainted people.

But, I've also been listening to deadmau5 for several hours each day since the
summer of 2012.

------
afs35mm
I was like this, to an extent, as well in my early twenties. What I realized
was that I _didn't_ want to be like this, and like anything - it takes
practice.

I consider myself smarter than the average Joe off the street, and you do too.
Otherwise you wouldn't be reading HN :) So social cues, reading a crowd, and
being engaging, it all takes practice. Yes, some people develop this naturally
and don't need to consciously practice, but others don't. So just like
programming, stop saying "No, I just don't get it", and instead reason why you
don't and next time nail it.

~~~
MattGrommes
I had a life-changing moment at 12 or so when I saw a local "human interest"
TV show about a kid who had trouble reading body language so he decided to
manually figure out body language and social queues, just like you describe.
As I saw this I thought to myself "You can do that?!" and set out trying to
train myself. It's definitely possible if you put your mind to it.

------
datashovel
I'm self-diagnosed only, but have believed for a while that I may have a form
of Aspergers. Pretty much ever since I knew what it was. And certainly have,
since early 20's, had a mild form of social anxiety.

These days I'm several years removed from the peer pressures of having a
robust social life, though I can't complain about those years. I did have a
great core group of friends throughout college.

The "condition" certainly in many ways has been a curse over the years, but at
the same time, now that I think I understand it, I feel it's a blessing. I
have many things I want to accomplish in life. The blessing is, given that
these days I'm highly focused and motivated with my projects, it would almost
be impossible (and imagine I likely would have abandoned them) had I felt
those efforts were in any way infringing on the social needs (status?) a
typical person seems to seek out.

But I can see how, without those same motivations / aspirations I have, it
could easily be considered a disease and something a person would have a hard
time coping with.

------
joslin01
It makes me happy that the author is better understanding himself and not
hiding behind blanket terms like "social anxiety" as if he were forever
prisoner to the label.

> I think probably because I stop caring about being weird or not — and
> there’s a big, obvious lesson right there for me.

I think this is the key for most people.

Everybody is different. I started dating this girl who's a real sweetheart,
but called herself awkward and weird. I said, "But that's not what I think.
And so if that's what you think and that's what I think, then isn't it
arbitrary?"

Labels are incredibly arbitrary and I wish people would treat them with more
care. Hey, person reading this, you're an asshole! It's ok -- it's a
meaningless label and bears no consequence on reality.. unless you let it.

The more you tell yourself you're "this" or "that", you're simultaneously
blocking yourself from who you really are. If the canvas (mind) is blank and
you're filling it with negativity, what do you expect to happen? Your
expressions only follow what's felt within.

Everyone has a unique purpose, vision, and perspective here; as a result, when
focused, everyone has a different way of applying themselves to the world.
Years of learning X things combined with Y perception creates a unique human.

However, it's not about being unique either. That's just a label and means
nothing in reality. The pursuit of specialness is properly defined and labeled
as vanity. There's something better than that in all of us -- some drive to
help other, to improve our own lives to improve others' lives, to guide others
into doing the same, the desire to connect, the desire to love, the desire to
impart wisdom onto others. There's always some good inside of us that wants to
be _expressed_.

Expression is limited when a mind clouds itself with arbitrary labels that
promote fear. One day, we'll all learn that all negative behavior stems from
fear. One form of this fear is fear from your own labels or others' labels
(also known as others' judgment). I ask you who's reading this, if you have a
good heart with good intentions, who cares if I think you're an asshole? Do
you really think it makes it true? Now you should be on the way to confidence
and a healthy lightheartedness.

------
abvdasker
What a great read. Very relatable.

I think one of the most difficult aspects of having moderate-to-severe social
anxiety is that people often misinterpret the anxious quietness as
standoffishness — then of course after you've experienced that enough times
you learn to compensate by being overly friendly or enthusiastic which ends up
weirding people out just as much.

~~~
Snhr
When you're attempting to be social and someone brings the attention to how
weird/awkward you are and then pauses like they expect you to respond to it
when you're just trying to float around in the background.

------
re_todd
There are a few things that have helped me deal with social anxiety: 1\.
Talking more with people that work in stores when I'm paying for something -
Cashiers are great people to practice talking to. You don't have to do it for
very long, and if you say something stupid, you rarely see them anyway, so no
harm done. 2\. Noticing what socially adept people talk about - I think about
the subject matter that social people bring up after I've seen them engage in
conversation. I've realized that most of the time it's pretty trivial stuff,
and that most people don't hold that against them. 3\. Avoiding people that
hold you back - people that often say that I'm shy, or coming out of my
"shell", just make me more self-conscious and awkward. I'll end the
conversation quickly with such people and will not pursue interaction beyond
the bare-minimum pleasantries. Even if they are well-meaning, they have a
negative effect on me, so I'll avoid them unless they are closely related.

~~~
firebones
These are great tips.

Classic cashier talk at movie theatre or game:

Cashier: "Enjoy the show/game!" Me: "You too!"

Me, later: D'oh!

------
doughj3
I haven't tried it personally yet but I recently read an article about a
startup trying to help folks with Social Anxiety. If that's something that
affects you, check it out: [https://joyable.com/](https://joyable.com/)

~~~
socially-awk
I find the idea of providing mental health to people as a startup somewhere
between horrifying and intriguing.

They are essentially offering to provide a doctor-patient relationship with
"coaches" to make it so that "in just 12 weeks, you can lead the life you
deserve".

I suspect no serious practitioner would be willing to state it quite that
boldly.

Their copy reads like homeopathic/vitamins/magic/juju gobblygook filled with
cherry-picked facts, figures, and good intentions.

On the plus side, the site has clear pricing information!

------
chavesn
> _" I wonder if all I’ve done here is to describe why introverts frequently
> describe being social as tiring. Extroverts have no problem with any of
> this"_

This is good, but he loses me with this line at the end.

Extraversion is defined as "being predominantly concerned with obtaining
gratification from what is outside the self."[1] Someone can have high social
_need_ without high social _skill_.

[1]:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Extraversion_and_introversion](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Extraversion_and_introversion)

------
mbritton72
Stopped reading as soon as he shifted from a description of his horrific
symptoms, to bragging about his intelligence and creativity. The dichotomy
wasn't endearing, but I got it.

------
unfamiliar
The author's initial belief that they were somehow special (even if special in
a bad way), plus the author's fascination with their own nature (to the extent
that they write a blog post about it and how unique their insights are) smacks
not of social anxiety but of narcissism.

What is the point of posts like this? So we can all get together and say, "oh
boy, I really relate to that"? There doesn't seem to be any insight or useful
takeaway from this article besides being relatable for a certain class of
people who feel misunderstood.

Most of the things in this article that the author describes as being
harrowing cognitive loads, like how long to make eye contact for or hold a
handshake, are things that I have heard very socially skilled people talk
about in a humorous manner. They have those same reservations and
insecurities, the difference is they don't obsess about them. Look around.
There is no such thing as "a normal amount of eye contact". Everyone is just
winging it.

~~~
tempestn
The point is that it gives you an opportunity to better understand someone
else's subjective experiencing. That can be an enriching experience whether
you relate to it or not. If you do relate to it, it might be comforting to
know that you're not alone. If not, it might help you be more empathetic
toward others. At the very least, it is interesting to many people to
understand how others see the world.

Regarding eye contact and such, there is no officially mandated normal amount,
but there are certainly social norms, which some people are able to follow
much more instinctively than others. That said, I agree that a large part of
the issue can be that people with social anxiety, or just insecurity, tend to
worry about it more than others.

------
bitcuration
Folks, this is why you invented texting, email, online community, almost the
entire web world and mobile revolution is due to people having social anxiety
like you.

Yet software eats world, digitization eats world, you conquered, and there is
a purpose you're born this way, that's why you strive.

Having some arrogance will help in your situation. Take pride of what you're,
change world to suit you, don't change yourself to suit the world. The funny
thing is, the world is moving towards this direction already.

Screw the social norm, screw those extrovert psychopath, they're the root
cause all human evil. Stop whining about who you are, you only need to
prevail.

------
nsmalch
Anxiety is a complicated subject, and can be interpreted differently depending
on the sufferer's knowledge of certain areas of neuroscience and psychology.
I've been lucky to study anxiety deeply enough that it no longer has control
over me. As a sidenote, anxiety comes from the German word for anger, and is
the result of unaddressed internal dialogue within the sufferer, closely
related to cognitive dissonance, or witnessing too many paradoxes throughout
the day. Avoid paradoxical thinking - it gets in the way of the task at hand,
which is usually something mundane like getting in a lift, or even walking the
dog.

~~~
aristidb
According to Wiktionary, anxiety comes from Latin "ango" ("to anger" \- which
also has the same root!), which in turns comes from Proto-Indo-European
"*h₂enǵʰ". Closely related German words are "eng" (narrow) and "Angst"
(anxiety).

~~~
nsmalch
Thanks for clearing that up :)

------
socially-awk
Except for the effort with non-verbal communication, I feel like I wrote this.

I read non-verbal communication about as well as spoken word. I hate getting
just the voice. Phone conversations are the worst.

Here's the thing... other people really do judge you. Some people make
everyone else in the room feel at ease. I'm not that way. Sometimes I can fake
it, but generally people don't seem to enjoy conversation with me.

It's very stressful alternating between saying nothing and too much, which
unfortunately makes it harder to practice this skill of conversation that some
people just find so easy.

~~~
EC1
Just stop caring what people think. It's up to them to signal you to stop.
Talking about synths too much and they get uncomfortable? "Oh sorry I'm just
really passionate about synths and I can fly off the handle sometimes!"

~~~
socially-awk
Just stop breathing.

That roughly how the first part of your advice comes across. You are not the
first and won't be the last. I bear you no ill will for saying it, but it's on
the level of telling a depressed person to just stop feeling sad.

I don't know if I'm diagnosable as actually having Social Anxiety. Heck, I
never even heard those words until some drug commercial came on TV, so I'm a
bit suspicious of the label.

I do know that I see social experiences as different than most people. I've
always been that way. Just a bit different in the head I guess. I like
different things, think differently, and behave differently. It's part of who
I am.

I'm very much the old-school nerd. The one that everybody rolls their eyes at
when he starts speaking. I care about things they don't. I don't care about
things they do. So it's work for me to communicate with others in a way that
doesn't make them roll their eyes. Yes, it's a skill. I'm better at it than I
used to be. I could probably be even better at it. But it sure won't be
because I stopped caring. If I do that that I'd become an oblivious blowhard.

~~~
EC1
I can tell you're autistic just by the way you are.

------
mediocrejoker
A somewhat related article that I just happened to come across yesterday,
including a novel treatment for social anxiety that is apparently helping some
people by exposing them to uncomfortable situations that are much more
uncomfortable than the ones they have been having trouble with.

I don't know if it would help this person, however.

[http://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2015/10/what-is-
so...](http://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2015/10/what-is-social-
anxiety/411556/)

~~~
ksenzee
The treatment that article describes is called exposure therapy. It's pretty
much the standard of care for treating anxiety disorders. If you're afraid of
flying, you fly. If you're afraid of people thinking you look weird, you walk
down the street with your clothes on inside out and backwards. If you're
afraid of inconveniencing people, you drive really slowly and just imagine
what the people behind you are thinking.

Eventually all this rewires your brain so it figures out you are not in fact
going to be eaten by a saber-toothed tiger every time someone laughs at you.
It's a lot of work, it's painful, it's hard to stick with, and it works
really, really well.

~~~
a3voices
The problem is it still doesn't become "fun". It always feels like work for me
to talk to people I'm not already comfortable with, so I generally avoid it
out of laziness. And I don't see enough gain in forcing myself to. You can't
collect people like you can collect money. I think the biggest issue I have is
socializing feels like a wasted effort to me. Like I put energy into something
that is fleeting and then gone. There were times in my life when I had really
good friendships, but now it feels like too much work and uncertainty to
establish new ones.

~~~
rmrm
I used to feel much like this. After dealing with my social anxiety, I looked
at it in a different light - that there isn't any pressure to make friends.
It's more about just enjoying the time you are with other people.

It might involve a little joke, or an observation you share or is shared with
you, that means nothing but a chuckle, or you get a smile and nice feeling,
and move along.

When suffering from social anxiety, this can be difficult as my brain was too
occupied worrying about what the other person was thinking about me, and that
anxiety leads one to not be very capable of being themselves.

Let that go and I found my brain freed up to actually be me in the moment. I
found that my prior rationalizations ended up just being that. I found people
actually are quite enjoyable, as is small talk. What I didn't like previously
in those moments turned out to really be all about me.

~~~
a3voices
I used to be very scared of talking to unfamiliar people, but I no longer feel
the fear. I'm thoroughly desensitized to it from lots of socializing in the
past, and being employed at various companies for years where I need to talk
to coworkers. I guess it's been replaced by an aversion to the whole
situation, a mild distaste for meeting people. It's like I have a lot of
mental baggage holding me back, which perhaps came from lost friendships and
relationships. Maybe it's also remnants of the strong anxiety I used to have.

~~~
rmrm
I know that I also dont maintain a lot of close friendships outside my family
and SO. I am relatively self contained and don't seek a lot of advice or
counsel. In that sense I'm very much a lazy friend as well, I don't want to
put a ton of effort into them. I don't know if that is similar to what you are
describing.

Perhaps being somewhat more self contained than others is a learned behavior
to have helped us deal with being socially anxious. Would make sense. I accept
it and it doesn't bother me about myself.

------
m_herrlich
Fantastic job, if only verbal communication were as easy as written. BTW I
have already deleted and rewritten this comment several times.

------
jmscz
I read the whole thing. Honestly, so what? You're beautifully awkward. You
drum to your own beat. Thats actually cool. Unlike you, I consider myself very
socially adjusted. Just because you're not doesn't mean I wouldn't want to
chat with you, or be friends. In fact, I'd find you more interesting. Most
people aren't judging. If they are, its a reflection of how critical they feel
others are of themselves. Own it

~~~
morgante
So what?

Because it's incredibly exhausting and frankly depressing to spend years
worrying about why nobody likes you.

------
solofounder8
I have a theory that at some point in their development everyone has this type
of anxiety however most people in their early youth have selected for
themselves a particular strategy to avoid being perceived as 'weird' which
they adopt for life. Many people adjust this as they go throughout life, or
adopt several strategies, but others simply stick with whatever worked for
them at an early age.

The rationale is that it's always better to be perceived as anything but "mal-
adjusted and weird". Here are some strategies which are considered considered
better than "strange": "tells too many bad jokes", "too negative", "drama
king", "never stops talking about his own achievements", or even "jerk".

"Oh he's just another class clown, or just another person who habitually
points out flaws in others", or just another <insert stereotype here>.
Basically as long as you can make yourself conform to an easy to understand
conceptual framework then other people mentally model you together with an
archetypal social role so to speak, and then you'll be perceived as normal.

While it's easy for me to summarize the negative sounding "non-awkward"
strategies I must also point out that for every negative one there is a nice
strategy available too. Choose wisely.

The nice versions require more patience, and practice to execute convincingly
and there greater room for error. The primary benefits of selecting a nice
strategy usually only surface over the medium to long term whereas the
benefits to being a bully for example show up immediately (you're mean not
weird, you're less likely to be picked on yourself, nobody thinks your shy,
etc)

Any of these strategies once incorporated can make you seem well adjusted and
can with time become second nature. Once you have one of these in your
repertoire then you can just reach for it whenever you would have otherwise
experienced anxiety over possibly being considered weird.

This whole situation presents a problem for people who feel like they might
want to develop a more moderate or atypical personality. They hear the advice
"just be yourself" and they think "oh, that means the world is my canvas and I
can just paint whatever I feel like" but no in actuality "just be yourself"
only works if you've already trained yourself to project one of these
preordained social personas. In that case you can gradually begin to
incorporate your own style into it but anything else going to end up being
labeled as weird.

It's not a hopeless for those who want to have a distinct personality, all you
have to do is FIRST learn to successfully wield at least one of these socially
preordained strategies and then later layer your distinctness on top.

Of course nobody is willing to admit any of this, because generally speaking
to let the cat out of the bag does two things:

1\. it makes people feel silly or embarrassed, and lowers their feeling of
self-worth (even though it shouldn't)

2\. to speak of it makes you sound.. well 'weird'

------
draw_down
I have a default of dreading social interaction, even doing things with people
I've known for over half my life, but I have noticed that there is a pattern
where I dread something before doing it, and then I enjoy it. So the dread is
irrational.

You know what's worse than people thinking you're weird, or dumb, or dorky? So
many things. A million things. Words only hurt if you let them. (Of course
there is a limit to this idea, but not in this context really.) So whatever
the dread is directed toward, it's a fake idea.

A lot of times people try to address social anxiety by giving advice like
"people don't think you're weird, they don't even think about you". There is
truth to that, but also, people will think you're weird if you act weird. So
you have to get used to the idea that people are going to think that about
you, if you're a weird person- and weird people know who they are. (Funnily
enough, if you don't care whether they think you're weird, you'll start to act
less weird.)

However, the downside of not caring what people think of you is that you have
no interest in being the life of the party or anything like that. So you can
actually travel through the other side of this situation back into not being
social.

Ultimately the key is being able to control your own thoughts, to interrupt
the fear thought and shut it down, recognize it for the nonce that it is. I'm
not sure what the process is for getting to that point, but you need to be
able to do it.

------
hackaflocka
So beautifully explained. So true. For me.

