Welcome

     Welcome and Thank You for taking some of your time to read this blog.  This is a BIG undertaking for me.   If you read the review of my blog above you hopefully got a little chuckle out of it as that was the intent.  However, the idea for the reviews came from "reality".  As a socially anxious and selectively mute person I've never revealed my "true self" to anyone other than a small handful of close relatives and friends.  Throughout the process of putting this blog together my positive and negative inner voices have been battling it out.  So far the positive voice has persevered but the negative voice has slowed my progress down and is still active, trying to stop me from speaking out.  This is a typical struggle on a daily basis when dealing with social anxiety.

     One of the most basic human needs is to build relationships and share life's ups and downs with friends and family.  Now imagine what your life would be like right now if you had grown up with an intense fear of interacting with people.  Millions of people in this world including myself don't have to imagine this kind of life because we live it everyday.  We genuinely like people and want to form friendships and intimate relationships but our anxiety controls our bodies and minds.

     I started this blog to raise awareness of Social Anxiety Disorder (sometimes referred to as Social Phobia). Although I will be using my life experiences for illustration and emphasis this is not a blog about my life.  Awareness is the key.  Many years ago little was known about autism and children were "written off" as never being able to contribute to society.  Today, schools are able to mainstream many autistic children so that they can lead productive lives in our society.  Much could be done to detect Social Anxiety at an early age and help these children to interact with their peers and learn the social skills that are needed.  But in order to accomplish such a goal this disorder needs to be known so that parents and school administrators can work together to develop a plan to help these children succeed at an early age.

     I plan to write a blog about once a week.  I will try to keep them fairly short but I am known to be long winded sometimes (once in high school I put together a 5 word sentence)!  I don't want to overwhelm anyone but at the same time I want to give you enough information to understand this disorder.

     Finally, I have a favor to ask each of you.  Whether you want to follow this blog or not is fine with me.  I at least have given you the awareness that social anxiety is real and a serious matter.  I would like it if you would help me in my quest to raise awareness by letting your friends and family know about this blog.  I understand that the subject matter is not going to be of interest to everyone but the main intent is to increase awareness and there is more influence in numbers than I will ever have on my own.

 I am only one,
But still I am one,
I cannot do everything
But I can do something,
And because I cannot do everything,
I will not refuse to do
The something that I can do

- Edward E. Hale

Peace,
Bill