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. 6 months ago

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. 10 months ago

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. 10 months ago

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. 11 months ago

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. 12 months ago

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. 12 months ago

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. 12 months ago

This is the truth. 12 months ago

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? 12 months ago

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. 13 months ago

is how easily in circumstances, once I get going, I don’t feel so bad.

What I mean is: at first in social gatherings, I’m a stiff mute. I can go the entire time without saying a single thing to anyone. I could just sit in a corner in a room and not do anything.

But once I open up and say hello to someone, or get involved into a conversation, the initial anxiety usually melts away.

This is how most things go. 13 months ago

A few days ago I went for a ride in my mom’s car. Sometimes I just like to feel the warmth of an overheated car, a suffocating, choking air. Sometimes I like that.

As I was sitting in the car, staring out the window at the clouds, I thought about killing myself.

Then I thought of how normal it felt to me, these suicidal thoughts. How at that exact moment, if someone caught a glimpse of me in the car, they would see the exterior of a girl who looked calm and sane who was staring blankly out into space, and they would have no idea that the smile on my face was because I was thinking about ending my life.

And then I said to myself, did I think about killing myself yesterday? I couldn’t remember.

I guess the good in this is that I fully acknowledge how sick these thoughts are. 13 months ago

is dumb. It’s so fucking stupid. I tell myself this every day. A constant reminder that no one cares what I do or say NEARLY as much as I try to-try-to-not convince myself that they do.

Most things breed in your mind. They don’t really exist. When emit confidence, I feel it. I actually feel it.

I know all I’ve done lately is make posts about that cashier. But it makes me pretty pissed that I could be missing out on a big opportunity for me, because of social anxiety.

It has ruined so many things for me. 13 months ago

is it so hard to relax around people? I can’t let my guard down. And don’t think it’s because I was ‘hurt’ in the ‘past’. No such thing.

I’m naturally a very private person. I keep to myself. I don’t need or crave social activities often.

This will work against me in college, no doubt about it. But I’m trying to keep in mind that this is just who I am, and there’s nothing wrong with NOT being a social butterfly.

Right? 13 months ago

My mind is either one extreme of the other. That sounds like a douche thing to say. But it’s so serious.

I am never okay.

When I feel good, I feel good. So happy, ridiculously fantastic, energetic, and optimistic.

Then my mind switches from this euphoria to pure pessimistic brooding painfully painful depression.

I can’t switch it off. I am either GREAT or MISERABLE.

I would like to feel just normal for once.

Just once. 14 months ago

When I was bulimic, if I didn’t eat ‘right’ that day or I didn’t work out ‘enough’, I wouldn’t let myself listen to music or watch television. I created a sanction of hell for me, to punish myself for choices that weren’t even severe.

I used to wallow in the filth of my own mind.

I’ll take social anxiety over bulimia any day, but, in some ways, my mind is still pulled to the gutters when things don’t go the way it would for, let’s say, a normal person.

I don’t want to hear that “What is normal, anyway?” bullshit topic. No one is normal, but most people have the luxury of being more-so than others. 14 months ago