Overcome social anxiety

that I have said hello to one particular coworker, and he just looked at me and didn’t say anything back. Then he walks off.

I don’t understand rude people. It takes me a huge amount of effort just to open my mouth and speak to people. And when they don’t even respond, it makes me want to never talk to them again.

I already suck at small talk.

Watching celebrity news shows gives me the worst anxiety.

I don’t even know why. All I know is, when I’m flipping through channels and I see The Insider or Access Hollywood or Entertainment Tonight or TMZ or any of those same type shows, forget it. I feel sick to my stomach.

Maybe it’s because those shows are, essentially, entirely about putting people under microscopes and telling the world everything they’ve ever done and judging all their actions.

Maybe.

I have quick, fleeting moments where I don’t think I’m ugly and that I am smart and have a great personality and am capable of being a very good person with a beautiful outlook on life.

I equate these feelings to the likes of someone finding their gold earrings inside a piece of their dog’s shit.

It is much easier to blame everyone else for my social anxiety than to look inward.

I can be feeling great about myself, until I see someone else also feeling great. And I instantly feel inferior or jealous and it is so energy sapping and ridiculous I almost feel like slapping myself.

Again, it is a good thing that I am able to recognize how stupid it is to feel this way. But does it change the fact that I do feel this way? No.

It’s as if seeing someone else doing better than me – be it in ability or physical appearance or personality or anything, really – takes everything away from myself that I consider good.

I was watching Fruits Basket today, kind of as a trip down memory lane. And something struck out, something one of the characters said.

They were talking about how ridiculous a certain saying was. The saying that says “How can anyone like you when you don’t like yourself?”

The character explained that when you feel as if no one likes you, you start to focus entirely on your negative qualities. You do this to an extent that you cannot possibly see any positive qualities. And when someone, anyone, likes you, that’s when you start liking yourself. You can see the good in yourself because someone else does, too.

I totally agree with this. Other people have a huge effect on how I view myself, whether I care to admit this or not. It has always been about ‘other people’. I am entirely preoccupied with what other people think of me. So much that I doubt I’ll ever arrive at a place in time where I truly do not care about others’ opinions. Even keeping in mind that all they are are opinions.

Sigh.

How I constantly feel like I need to validate myself. If one person is mad at me, then everyone must hate me.

But if one person is nice to me, I think they either feel sorry for me or there is something wrong with them. It can never be ‘just because’. I can’t handle the thought of someone ever liking me, especially if I like them. But I always believe every negative comment directed at me.

Just a stream of thoughts from my mind right now.

Witty: a cute quirkiness.

Awkward: an uncomfortable quirkiness.

I am both witty and awkward.

In school people often tried to talk to me. They tried to strike up conversations. They tried to include me in whatever they were doing. They tried to make friendships between themselves and whatever they thought I was.

But it was in their eyes. They felt sorry for me. And this pissed me off, so I never made friends. I always declined, retracted, said no, stayed silent.

I could have made friends in school. I could have, had I not hated everyone around me or myself.

Sometimes in stressful situations I’ll try to take a deep breath. But quietly, under-the-radar. As if anyone seeing me taking deep breaths would wonder why I need to and then they’d do some thinking and finally come to the conclusion that I am a social outcast.

I often try to imagine myself being with someone else, in a relationship, and I try to imagine me being in a good relationship with social anxiety in the mix, and then I realise that it would be almost impossible for that scenario to ever happen.

This is the truth.

I have an issue with compliments. When I get them, I think automatically, “You must be joking.”

I never say this out loud, because that shows self-loathing. Which I have by the boatload, but that’s another post.

It is really difficult to accept compliments. Not even because I don’t believe them. But for some reason, a lot of the time, I get the idea that if I say “Thank you”, the compliment-giver assumes I agree with what they’re saying, and then they’ll think I’m arrogant or something.

See how complicated my thought process is? Annoying.

It takes practice. Practice of accepting things, moving on, and not thinking too far into it.

Because the people who are giving me compliments aren’t thinking as far into their words as I am. So why should I?

Tomorrow I get to go to the health food store and pick up protein powder, that, we all know by NOW, I really don’t even care about.

A glimpse of this magnificent cashier, just a glance, could get me through a few weeks.

I hope he’s working. My mom said tomorrow at 10:00 am, she’s got a lady coming over for a haircut. And then around noon, a little later, I’ll get to go return some library crap and then buy some time to bask in the glory of this fine young man’s face.