Severe social anxiety is debilitating. It freezes the brain and takes away all ability to think, function, and interact. It shapes my life. No matter what I do or don’t do, my anxiety is always the driving factor.

I cannot go to the store by myself. I cannot go work out by myself. I basically can’t go anywhere by myself.

Walking into a room of people is one of the scariest experiences in the world. Especially a classroom. A classroom of 60 people. Terrifying.

Let’s talk about school for a minute. School is one of the BIGGEST anxiety inducers for me. I can’t handle participation. I can barely manage to walk into a full classroom. And if I’m late? Forget it. I’d rather die. People don’t understand that when I say “I have anxiety. I can’t participate in class”, that I really truly mean it. They tell me to get over it. To just participate. “It’s not that hard”. “If we can do it, you can do it”. “If we have to do it, so should you”. “Well, no one else wants to participate either”. And the list goes on and on….

But the problem with severe social anxiety is that it’s not just a small fear, but an overwhelming, debilitating condition that greatly restricts my ability to communicate in social situations. It’s not that I don’t want to participate, it’s that I physically CAN’T participate.

I’ve even dropped classes because the participation grade was weighted so heavily and I knew I wouldn’t be able to do it.

Riding the school shuttle is terrifying. What if the driver doesn’t stop at my stop? What if I have to ask people in front of me to move so I can get out? What if the bus is packed? I have to plan out where I sit. I have to wait until everyone else is inside so I can be at the front and not have to ask anyone to move for me. But what if more people trickle in after me? Even the thought of this situation is scary. I don’t want to have to yell out “excuse me!” to the people in front of me on a shuttle packed full of people. Terrifying.

I bet my classmates tend to think I’m stupid. I bet the teachers tend to think I didn’t do the reading. Sometimes I feel like I really am stupid. Because when the teacher’s eyes fall on me and they ask me to answer their question, my brain freezes over like a lake in the dead of winter. I cannot remember my name, much less the information from the reading or the lecture the teacher has just given. Wait what was the question again? Oh my god oh my god I don’t know I don’t know the answer I must look so stupid oh my god kill me now. This is basically the only thought I can muster in such a situation, and evidently, that thought never helps me answer the question. Then, I spend the rest of the class just replaying my response over and over again, feeling humiliated and wanting to disappear. I can’t pay attention anymore. I no longer understand what the teacher is saying because all I can think is everyone in the class must think I’m an idiot. And I cannot express how difficult and painful that feeling is.

If I know a specific class is participation heavy, I will often have a hard time paying attention every single day of class. The only thing that will be on my mind is a small, overwhelming prayer that I do not get called on today. “Not today” I think to myself. “Tomorrow is okay, just not today”. And if I am so lucky as to avoid participation, I will feel a huge relief as I walk out of the classroom, and I will tell myself “I don’t have to worry about this again for another two days”.  

I often wonder what it would be like to have a day without my anxiety. How easy would everything be? How amazing would it be to go to the store and not think twice about it? Make a phone call without encouraging myself to do so for an hour before I actually build up the courage. Go to school without a sinking, suffocating feeling in my chest and stomach. Volunteer to speak in class. Approach somebody and strike up a conversation. There are so many things that people without anxiety do absentmindedly without even thinking twice. What kind of person would I be if anxiety didn’t rule my life? How successful and motivated could I be? Anxiety builds up obstacles to life that are so difficult and so terrifying to overcome, and sometimes it just seems hopeless.

I wish I could tell you that my anxiety gets better every day—that I’m constantly improving. But this isn’t the case. Sadly, this will likely be something that I will have to deal with for my entire life. Each day is an uphill battle and no two days are the same. And though I always survive, sometimes I’m just so fed up and tired of dealing with my anxiety that I don’t want to wake up the next day and do it all over again. Some days it’s so hard to get out of bed knowing the struggles I will face that day.

In writing this I feel frustrated, as though I can’t fully express the feelings and effects of my anxiety with words. This is the second time I’ve tried to write this post, and I still don’t know if it truly captures my experience. I know that people who don’t suffer from severe social anxiety will never fully understand, and people who do suffer from it will know how difficult it is to explain. But I believe it’s truly so important for people to understand that mental health issues are real and valid. They’re debilitating, terrifying, painful, difficult… And they’re actually quite common. I have a tendency to feel like I’m the only person who will understand what I suffer from and no one else could possibly have the same struggle, but this simply isn’t true. Severe social anxiety is incredibly hard, but it doesn’t have to be isolating, and it doesn’t have to be shameful, or embarrassing, or lonely. So here I am, sharing just a taste of my experience with you, hoping that you will take a moment to either reflect and understand, or to feel understood and supported.