An Anxious Girl In A Scary World

How many times have we experienced a negative event and then carried it with us for quite some time? I know I have.  I've been plagued by so many things because of my social anxiety and I kept referring back to them any time something similar was happening. I would have horrible flashbacks to those embarrassing moments, uncomfortable situations and negative moments. It wasn't until I was talking to my therapist that I realized I kept all those memories close at hand to use as an excuse as to why I couldn't or wouldn't do something. It was my own personal backpack of horrors. Every little thing tucked away just waiting to be plucked out to haunt me all over again.  How many times have one of you refused to do something because of a previous bad experience? Well as it turns out you've got a backpack of horrors too.  After coming to this realization I made the conscious decision to "take off" my backpack.  I didn't want to live with the const...

Living with anxiety is hard and trying to understand why we have it is harder still… but one of the hardest things (to me) is explaining it to someone. The other day I was out with a friend and they asked me why I don’t go out a lot. I had a mini heart attack because I hate that question. I hate being asked why I don’t go out, why I don’t want to go to a club or a bar or to go dancing or anything even similar to those questions. I hate them because sometimes I’m still embarrassed of my answer. I hate having to say “I have anxiety.” So many times I’ve been asked this and when I do say “I have anxiety,” the person just looks at me like “okay…?” But, I told him the truth. I said that I’ve got social anxiety. He looked at me and was like “Damn! I used to have social anxiety too!”   He went on to explain why he had it and while it made me feel a little better but I don’t think I actually fully believed him. It’s just that I’ve heard that a lot and usually it’s nothing like what I...

Every day we are challenged by our anxiety and every day is a chance to overcome it.  Something important to remember is to not let a bad experience deter you from trying something again. There is a lesson in every thing you do even if you don't see it yet.  Each experience we go through gives us the knowledge to be better prepared for the next thing.  This can be applied to pretty much anything.  When something happens to you, whether it be being turned down from a job or having a bad/weird experience from going to a bar or an awkward lunch date, you have to try and see the positive in it.  You have to ask yourself: "what can I do differently to have a more positive experience?" "What can I do differently to ensure that the next job won't turn me away?"  "What did I learn from this experience?"  When you can step back from all the negative thoughts in your mind and only look at the positive, only then can you truly begin to co...

           Recently, I’ve had some trouble following my own advice. Why is it that it seems so much easier to dole out advice than to follow it? I honestly don’t even know that answer. But the fact remains true. I could totally go Dr. Phil on you and get into some deep emotional stuff but as soon as that advice pertains to my life, all of it goes straight out the window.             Anyways, I digress. I made a post (quite a while ago it seems) about co-dependency and being independent and I was really diggin’ my own stuff for a while there. But, somehow I managed to stray from the path that I was trying to get y’all to follow.             I split from my boyfriend of six years, I reenrolled in school, I got my own car, I was doing pretty well. Then, BAM. I have no idea what happened but I fell into the black hole of...

People with social anxiety have a severe fear of social situations, being watched, judged or criticized.       That kind of fear is so debilitating because it inhibits us from venturing out into the real world. Our homes and bedrooms or our best friends house are our safe zones. There are too many unknown variables outside of those zones and we don't like the unknown. For some of us, the outside world is like the deep blue depths of the sea.       The driving force for staying in our safe zone is JUDGEMENT.       I told my therapist once they if feels like I'm a bug under a microscope. I feel like I'm constantly being judged for how I look, how I talk, how I walk, what I'm wearing. If my teeth aren't white enough. If I laugh weird. If my feet are too big. Or too small. If I'm not skinny enough or am I too fat. The list goes on and on and on. I'm constantly saying these things to myself. If I'm out in public and someone s...

Let's Define "Social Anxiety" According to WebMD,  social anxiety disorder , also called social phobia, is an   anxiety disorder  in which a person has an excessive and unreasonable fear of social situations. Anxiety (intense nervousness) and self-consciousness arise from a fear of being closely watched, judged, and criticized by others.      While I was in therapy it was discovered that I had social anxiety disorder. One of the main things that I was told was that the best solution to my anxiety was exposure.       I looked at my therapist like "what?" What in the hell does that mean?  Let's define "exposure"  Exposure is: the fact or condition of being affected by something or experiencing something : the condition of being exposed  to  something      What this means is that the best way for me to overcome my fears and battle through the anxiety, I had to expose myself to the things...

   How many times have you crawled into bed exhausted from the day only to find yourself wide awake?      For some reason it seems like all of our worst fears, embarrassing moments and troublesome thoughts play before us like a movie reel. Instead of having a wonderful nights sleep like we envisioned, we are kept up by those daunting thoughts.      There have been countless nights where I have been haunted by embarrassing moments that happened months ago, years ago, or even in elementary school! At times I'm up having fake arguments in my head with people. Other times, I'm visualizing myself in horrific scenarios that will most certainly never happen.      At times like these it feels like I'll never be able to sleep so I might as well not even try. But that's not the way to go. Often times when I do eventually fall asleep, I'll wake up in the morning feeling more exhausted than that I was that night. And some times I'm even cran...