My Social Anxiety
Social Anxiety is ruining my life. I am 23 and I have had social anxiety for as long as I can remember, but it seems to be getting worse with each passing year. I didn’t actually know what social anxiety disorder was until maybe 3 or 4 years ago, and up until then I just thought I was really shy. I was treated for depression as a teenager, but I know now that it was really social anxiety that was the root of the problem. It has gotten to the point where I feel completely helpless. I want to get better, but I don’t have the energy or the motivation to do anything about it. I just sit around wasting my life away and I sometimes feel that life is just not worth living.
Only two people know that I have social anxiety- my best friend (who also has anxiety issues, albeit different from mine) and my mom. I have spoken to my friend about it a couple of times, but I get too anxious, so I tend to avoid the subject. I get even more anxious around my mom, so we’ve only spoken about it a few times as well. She tried to get me to see a therapist, but I had to actually call the therapist, and the idea of talking to a stranger on the phone about my anxiety (an issue I can’t even open up about to those closest to me) was too much.
I feel completely alone. Don’t get me wrong, I love my family and the few friends I have left, but I just feel worthless. The only people I feel truly comfortable around are my sisters and my mom, but I still feel distant because there is so much I am hiding inside. I just want to scream and cry but I can’t, and that just frustrates me more. I have a college degree, but my anxiety prevented me from going to graduate school. I have a crappy part-time job but I am too afraid to look into full-time work. Even if I weren’t afraid, I have no idea how to function in the world. I have done such a good job at avoiding people and normal human interaction that I feel like I won’t even be able to adjust to being a “normal person.”
I’ve spent a lot of time over the last few months thinking about how I just kind of want to die. I don’t want to kill myself (I couldn’t put my family through that and I couldn’t go through with it anyway) but I just want to stop existing. What’s the point? I have no personal life, no professional life, and I have no real aspirations for either because I am so fucked up I wouldn’t know where to begin. What always kept me going in the past was the belief that I could change and the belief that things will get better, but I am on the verge of losing all hope and that’s what terrifies me. And even if I do seek help, I don’t have much faith that I will actually get better. And the worst thing would be to try to get help and then realize that I am too fucked up to be helped.
