Shy or Social Anxiety?

     I must admit that I needed to do a little research on the topic at hand.  I had my own thoughts on what separated a shy person from a socially anxious person.  To me “shyness” was felt in the gut, to quote a cliche “butterflies in the stomach”.  A shy person may feel uncomfortable or nervous in social situations but they can face the situation and often times start to feel comfortable over time.  For me “social anxiety” has always been felt in my head in addition to the “butterflies” a shy person feels.  I always thought of it as “brain freeze”, not like what you get when you eat ice cream too fast.  In this case the brain freezes because there is so much the brain is trying to process that one can’t think straight. 

“Bill your heart rate has increased, your breathing is becoming faster and shallower, and you’re starting to shake.  Pull it together you don’t want to look scared because someone might approach you and ask you what is wrong.  How would you answer that, tell them you are scared?  That would make you look stupid.  Don’t look too confident and self-assured either because people will see that as an invitation to talk to you.  Don’t look too nonchalant either because people will think that you are stuck up or rude.  By the way do you know what the weather is like?  What if someone tries to make small talk with

The Great Debate

     Hello, I am Bill’s imaginative brain and voice. Bill has decided to take time off this week to spend time with his family. In place of his weekly blog I will be publishing the transcript of a recent debate between Bill’s inner negative and positive voices each of whom are vying to be named the Inner Voice of Choice.  The debate was held at the Imaginary Bill’s Brain Institute (IBBI) and moderated by Bill’s made up moderator Ms. Imagin Ary.

Ms. Ary: “Welcome candidates and thank you for participating in the IBBI debate. I am Ms. Imagin Ary your moderator for this debate. The rules and format of the debate were explained to each of you backstage. I have been told that Mr. Negative won the coin toss and elected to answer first”.

Ms. Ary: “Mr. Negative, please explain to our audience why you should be the Inner Voice of Choice for anyone suffering with Social Anxiety Disorder and/or Selective Mutism or for that matter why should you be the choice for anyone?”

Mr. Negative: “Thank you Ms. Ary and I would like to take this time to thank the IBBI for hosting this debate. I am always grateful when someone is willing to “Take a Chance on Me””.

Ms. Ary: “”Mamma Mia”, I can’t believe this happens every time. Mr. Negative you are confusing IBBI with ABBA (Actual Bill’s Brain Association)”

What are Social Anxiety and Selective Mutism?

     I found the following information about Social Anxiety at the Social Phobia / Social Anxiety Association (SP/SAA) website. This isn’t a definition but rather a description of what a Socially Anxious person goes though daily. Your homework challenge this week is to go to the SP/SAA website at http://www.socialphobia.org/, click on the “What is Social Anxiety?” link and read more about it.

“In public places, such as work, meetings, or shopping, people with social anxiety feel that everyone is watching, staring, and judging them (even though rationally they know this isn't true). The socially anxious person can't relax, "take it easy", and enjoy themselves in public. In fact, they can never fully relax when other people are around. It always feels like others are evaluating them, being critical of them, or "judging" them in some way. The person with social anxiety knows that people don't do this openly, of course, but they still feel the self-consciousness and judgment while they are in the other person's presence. It's sometimes impossible to let go, relax, and focus on anything else except the anxiety and fear. Because the anxiety is so very painful, it's much easier just to stay away from social situations and avoid other people altogether.”
---Thomas A. Richards, Ph.D., Psychologist

My Background

     "Bill, I have a great idea on how to get out of this blog thing that your positive voice has gotten you into. Tell everyone that your identity was stolen and you are just now finding out about this blog and you intend to shut it down" says Bill's negative inner voice. Bill's positive inner voice replies "Shut up and let the man speak for once".

     Before you can really understand the person writing this blog you will need a high level overview of my background. I am who I am today because I was who I was in the past. Well that didn't come out as cleverly philosophical as what it sounded like in my head. By writing about my background I can more effectively relate my life experiences to SAD/SM in future blogs and not have to repeat my background over and over, story after story after story. Future blogs would sound as if I'm repetitiously repeating myself over and over and over, again and again and again if I didn't start with some background information. In conclusion, below is my background information so that I don't have to keep repeating myself over and over and over again and again and again.

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.