Social Anxiety Series Post #4: How to Stop Yourself from Stopping Yourself

If you are like me, then there are places and situations in which you do feel comfortable, because you use something or someone to either make you feel more at ease, or avoid having to be social with people you don’t know well.  Maybe you ensure that you feel comfortable by having some sort of crutch that you lean on, or some sort of escape route planned at all times.  Maybe there is something that you hide behind in those social situations that gives you an excuse not to socialize and connect with people.  You could be hindering your own social development and not even realizing it.

For a lot of people, I think that their “crutch” is a person that they go bring with them to places where there is room for socialization.  This person makes it so you don’t feel awkward and alone, and because you have someone with you, people are less inclined to reach out to you specifically and you have less chances of talking to people.  You can just let the person you’re with do all the talking.  For me, in high school this was my best friend.  We both were a bit shy, so we would just stick together and not talk to anyone else.  After college when I was socially anxious, I would make sure that I was always with Mike, my now fiancé, and I could hide behind him or escape away with him if I was uncomfortable.  This worked a lot because he never likes to see me super anxious or panicky, so he would always save me from feeling like that, and take me away from whatever I was anxious about.  This was a good thing, but a bad thing at the same time.  I probably would have done the same thing if I was him.  In a lot of ways, caring about a person with social anxiety is harder than being the person with social anxiety.  It’s a very complicated and difficult role.

Photo credit: zazzle.com

I think that if you are a person who has someone else to hide with/behind, you can choose to use that as a tool to challenge yourself to improve on your social interactions.  You have to admit your vulnerability and tell that person that you really want to start putting yourself out there more, talking to other people more or whatever it is that you want to be more comfortable with.  A lot of people don’t like to ask for help, but it’s so much easier to push yourself if you have support.  So, the next time you are in a situation where you could be social, maybe that person goes to the bathroom, or has to make a phone call, and you’re alone for a minute or two with a chance to interact with someone else.  Use the fact that you know your crutch is coming back, so you can do this for a minute or two, to help you.  Ask people to support you, and you’ll find that you begin to support yourself more as well.

If you’re not the type of person that has a sort of ‘emotional/social crutch person’ that they rely on, maybe you do something else to avoid socially anxious situations.  Maybe you are constantly attached to your phone and you don’t put it down in social situations so you don’t have to talk to someone in the real world (I know I’ve done this).  Next time, challenge yourself to put your phone in your pocket for just five minutes, and say one casual thing to one person.  Next time, ten minutes, and two people, and so on.  Make your goals small and obtainable. If you force yourself to do this, it’ll get a little easier every time.

Thanks so much for reading and let me know if you think this post was helpful!