Overcoming my social anxiety: A journey of awareness, reframing, and growth
Social Anxiety is a term that has become synonymous with being “shy” or “introverted”, and is often associated with teenagers. Social anxiety has been defined as significant anxiety, self-consciousness, and embarrassment about being judged or scrutinized by others. It has also been called social phobia, and clinicians now understand that social anxiety can go beyond fear of socializing and have a broader impact on how we perceive ourselves and our lives as a whole. Individuals with social anxiety can appear aloof or uninterested, when they actually do want to connect with others but their anxiety is holding them back.
My experience with social anxiety, both as a clinician and as someone who has it, has been a lifelong journey. Social anxiety can start from a very early age when we start to become self-conscious about how others perceive us. It changes how we perceive our interactions and ourselves, how we advocate for our needs, how comfortable we feel in our own skin, how easy or difficult it is for us to create new relationships, and engage in exciting opportunities. We start to compare ourselves to others around us and our inner voice starts to point out all of our insecurities. Cognitive distortions (imbalanced thought patterns) begin to form and start to solidify into our self-perception.
As our journey progresses, we start to become aware that something is off when we are socializing or thinking about our interactions, but we are unable to identify what is happening. That said, there are things that can help -- we don’t always have to be consumed with the constant anxiety that revolves around social situations by the thoughts of “If I wasn’t so awkward…” after routine conversations. Therapy and self-improvement groups can start creating awareness and a supportive environment that help people realize they aren’t alone and there are others who are experiencing the same anxiety about connecting with others. Other methods that can be helpful are becoming aware of your own thoughts and how they affect your perception about interactions with others. Social anxiety creates cognitive distortions that alter how we feel about interacting with others and how others feel about us and cause us to replay interactions over and over in our heads. Becoming aware that these are distortions gives us the opportunity to start challenging those thoughts and reframe how we perceive others and ourselves. There are common cognitive distortions like “all or nothing” thinking, the perception that your actions are magnified, or “mindreading” which can lead us to feeling judged by others and ourselves.
The recent pandemic has made it difficult for individuals with social anxiety to begin building on skills that create new patterns when socializing with others. Now we are used to connecting through a virtual world which causes some loss of connection. We start to ruminate about how we look on camera, how we sound, “should I unmute and participate or stay muted and be in my comfort zone?” These worries can cause constant turmoil. How we connect with others via camera has also affected our sense of being able to create meaningful connections, as if connecting with others while having social anxiety wasn’t hard enough.
Social anxiety is a lifelong journey that is tied to our experiences around socializing, our self-esteem, and self-awareness. Beginning the work is a scary process, and it can have long lasting effects on our lives, but over time, we can integrate our social anxiety into ourselves and move past the days when it ruled how we live our lives.
Dania Uritskiy is a Self Space Seattle therapist who works with people dealing with anxiety, depression, trauma, social anxiety, and individuals exploring a bi-cultural identity. Dania can provide therapy in both English and Spanish to create a deeper level of understanding and care.