When I was a teenager I imagined that I was the only suffering soul. When I thought of other people, and in particular other people socializing, I always had the image of smiling faces, laughter, dancing music and fullfilled expectations. It seemed that the world was a happy circle that I had to break into; if only I could muscle my personality into being something cool and exciting.
Now that I am older and I have had a chance to be emotionally open with a lot of my teenage friends I realize that they all had issues of their own. Some of them were depressed, some of them had problems with their mother/father, one girl that was always the life of the party had a brother that commited suicide and tried desperately hard to hide the fact from us (for reasons I don’t understand). Oddly enough, everybody I have spoken with thought I was the happy go lucky one. When I look back at the photos of myself and other people at a party or pub then it’s true; I’m just one smiling ’normal’ in a group of other smiling ‘normals’.
It’s funny the faces people pull when a camera is raised. Even the miserable sod will crack a smile for the camera. I am not saying that the world is trually miserable and the appearance of people being happy is superficial. I am saying that the world is more complicated and diverse than I used to romanticize about it. A person that is hungry most of their life might imagine that people that have three squares meal a day are indefinately happy because of it. It is often that we look towards the areas of our life in which we are lacking to fulfill ourselves and project unrealistic ideas of what it would be like to have what we are lacking.
As a social phobic I thought that being comfortable in a group of people was the only thing seperating me from the ‘happy world’. Now I realise that the ‘happy world’ was a myth but instead of having my aspirations shattered I can now see fragments of what other people were feeling behind my myth of what they were feeling. Lonely people, insecure people, people that want to share, love and be loved. The world’s sad, dangerous, exciting and far from perfect… but it is authentic and being imperfect it’s ideally suited for my personality. If the world was perfect then I’d be out of place.
I often find myself explaining social phobia by appealing to peoples fear of snakes. I say that the anxiety the social phobic experiences in certain social situations is like the anxiety a person with a fear of snakes might feel in the reptile section of the zoo. There’s a constant underlying sense of dread (even though the snakes are behind cages).
But there is a fundamental difference between a social phobic and a person with a fear of snakes. A person can avoid snakes from one end of the year to the next with relative ease. A person is understood and sympathised with when they say they fear snakes. A social phobic, on the other hand, must continually come into contact with ’snakes’ and not only this but they must befriend these ’snakes’ for their psychological wellbeing. If a person avoids snakes then they can carry out a normal life. If a person avoids people then they are susceptible to all sorts of conditions; depression, loneliness, boredom, doomed relationships, a sence of futility in life etc.
Avoiding snakes is easy. Avoiding people is destructive. Either way you flip it, a fear of snakes seems preferable to a fear of people.
If I had balls then I would:
- Express my feelings even if other people disagree.
- Go to the party and talk away to the person I’d like to know.
- Tell people how much I appreciate/disagree with them.
- Laugh more often; lighten up.
- Be confident; be a man (ROAR!!).
But I don’t have balls; I have social phobia.
Does having social phobia mean that I have no balls? I am a coward? I wanted to find out the answer to that question so I did something that would make even a ‘norm’ feel anxious - stand up comedy. That’s right, I got up in a bar in front of a crowd of drunken strangers and I told them jokes. The thought of doing it would the ‘average Joe’ cower.
It didn’t bother me too much. My variety of social phobia only kicks in when I feel I have to entertain people without any script. In other words, doing stand up comedy only gave me ‘normal’ anxiety because I had a script I’d already rehearsed. If I’d had to tell a joke, ad lib, in front of my family or best friends then my phobia would have kicked in. Strange really, but such is the obscene behaviour that is SP.
Having finished the stand up routine I could live with the idea that I steer clear of certain social situations because they cause me anxiety and that this does not mean I am a coward, at least in the wider context of my personality.
I wouldn’t call a snake-a-phobic (too lazy to Google the offical term) a coward because she didn’t like playing with snakes, so why think of myself as a coward because I avoid certain situations? I have social phobia and there are adjustments I have to make.
(By the way, the stand up routine was a disaster. The MC turned the lights down before my act was over and several “boo’s” had broken out from the drunken audience. Oddly, I felt exhilirated; this was nothing compared with the everyday social experiences I soldiered against).
I’m 29 years old. I’ve had social phobia since I was about 7. I still have social phobia and I probably always will have it to some degree.
One of the things that keeps hitting home to me with SP is the difference between how I’d like to behave and how I actually behave.� I know being in a group of people is not a danger to my health. I want to feel relaxed. I want to behave like somebody of my intelligence is capable of behaving. And yet something possesses me, talks and acts and clouds my mind whenever I am in a group of people.� Who am I? If I cannot control my own thoughts(paranoid, fearful), my own behavior(awkward), my emotions (fearful) then what is it about myself that I control? How does my will remain separated from my thoughts, behavior and emotions?
I have found over the years that my thoughts, emotions and behavior can be changed to variable degrees but the root cause of conflict within me is my will itself. I couldn’t think or behave ‘properly’ because my expectations of social encounters were unrealistic. It’s crazy. Whereas ‘normal people’ would go to a social event expecting to be entertained (and having the self esteem to assume that they themselves were interesting) I only saw social encounters as situations where I should entertain people.� I thought people would respect me if I said or behaved in a certain way and everything depended and centered on me.
I was wrong.
One of my pet fears throughout my teenage years was that of being boring to other people. I was so afraid of being boring that I’d never offer my opinion or even speak out. Guess what…I was boring.
I was boring because I was afraid of being boring.
When I was a teenager I’d observe popular behavior in the classroom, hoping that someday I would be one of Them. If somebody expressed an interest in something ‘unusual’; languages, science, a musical instrument, history, they’d be made fun of by my classmates. To escape abuse you had to be like everybody else. As a social Phil I secretly admired the status quo(I consoled myself privately by telling myself they were all sheep and I was an intellectual maverick), that was how I would be accepted and I was sure the quiet students with their unusual interests would never be accepted.
Time passes and people change. My classmates have gone their separate ways, some are socialites, some are quietly living the life they’ve made for themselves. I feel like that person that stands in the middle of the ballroom, observing the dancers for the proper queue to enter and then, when the music seems perfect, taking the first step - only to realize that music is over and the people have already gone home.
In my twenties there is a type of person that fascinates me. That is the person that is interested in something for what it is, not because it is ammunition for popular conversation.
As a teenager it is hard to believe, but the most interesting people are those that are interested.
Now that I’m aware of social phobia I see us everywhere. It’s like being part of a freaky cult with members you cannot talk to. The Free Masons are secretive, but being a member of SP International is the loneliest club you’ll ever be a part of because one of the conditions for entering; you want to be alone.
That dirty shy long haired weirdo drinking beer at the back of the bus..he’s one. That girl that never talks to anybody because ’she thinks she’s so important’…she’s one. The computer geek that’s so obsessed by gaming that he never goes out on the weekends…he’s one. That loner that’s probably gay because he never shows any interest in girls…he’s one. The girl that arrives at a party already drunk…she’s one. The man that’s so aggressive nobody ever wants to talk to him…he’s one. The class idiot that is so foolish nobody would think about having a serious conversation with…he’s one. The goth that’s so quiet and depressed…she’s one. The security guard that actually chooses the night shift…he’s one.
And me. The person writing a blog from his bedroom. I’m one.
As a teenager I often thought how much easier it would be to be gay than to have social phobia.
A social phobic is always in the closet; always fears public opinion. While the gay teenager has a definite fact that he wants to hid, the social phobic has everything to hide; their thoughts, emotions, behavior are all ‘terrible facts’ that he feels must be painstakingly hidden from the world. A gay person, like any teenager, may struggle with defining their social identity - a social phobic struggles to hide their identity and forms their identity based upon a negative impression of what he thinks other people think about him!?!.
The social phobic is blown haphazardly around a seemingly hostile sea of public opinion and clings to the scraps of other peoples words about him. A gay person can come out and say “I am gay” and discover his world in relative freedom.
So, what should a social phobic say if he was to come out of his closet?
Whatever he feels like.
A child was walking through the underground beneath the Earth’s surface. He was terrified of the Fear and wanted to keep himself as far away from it as possible. Fear was a monster; invisible, omnipresent, intangible. Even though he had been walking for years, sounds of the Fear still reached him down the tunnels; laughter, crying, whispering; people were shouting him down. He walked further and further towards security, the heat at the center of the Earth. The light at the center would reveal his true self.
Then he came to the furnace and he saw himself under the light. He saw himself perfectly. He was alone - utterly alone, the Earths furnace had no personality or presence. Only his thoughts were present and they spoke of the Fear.
“I’ve succeeded. I’m alone, I’ve emptied my world of all human contact.”
There was nobody to listen to his success. He cried out for recognition, happiness, but only his thoughts were present.
He turned his back on the great sacred loneliness and moved towards the fearful noise of the world. He ascended until the shouts, laughter and crying of the world were so clear as to be distinguishable from that of a monsters’. After a long time he came to the mouth of his cave and saw for the first time the multitude of colors in the world. By his side he saw what had been weighing him down - a sword; and on his head he wore a crown.
“There are monsters and things unspeakable to fear in this world. And yet there are also princesses, friends, palaces of gold, feasts and causes worth fighting - and dying - for.”
And so the Prince began uncovering the kingdom of his life. He was losing himself again, losing the Fearful self he had become and discovering the life outside himself; the life of the world.
