Mental Health Mondays - Social Anxiety

LuAnn at Back Porchervations is starting a new meme called Mental Health Mondays.  Her purpose for this weekly meme is "to reduce some of the stigma associated with mental illness by talking about it more...in public."  And, having suffered from various mental health issues for most of my life, I highly applaud her efforts.  Talking about my own depression isn't something new here on Sanity's Overrated.  But for this first week of LuAnn's meme, I'm going to talk about an aspect of my own mental health that I don't talk about often - social anxiety.

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I don't remember when, or even if, I was formally diagnosed with social anxiety disorder.  All I know is that when I was doing an intake to see another new therapist and was told that my fear of making phone calls, of dealing with the public, sounded like social anxiety disorder to the person doing my intake, I felt relief.  What I'd thought of as an abnormal quirk that fed into my depression actually had a NAME.  And if it had a name, it meant I wasn't alone. And that was the biggest relief I'd felt in so long. 

I also don't remember when these fears started.  In high school, I had no problem making phone calls.  It drove my step-mother nuts because, like a lot of teens, I spent too much time on the phone.  Granted, it was friends rather than calling places like the local pizza delivery, but even those calls weren't a problem.  And I worked at McDonald's through high school, having hectic days of people coming in for food.  Dealing with people was something I could do with my eyes closed.  But by the time I met my husband, I couldn't make the calls that I needed to for appointments.  I couldn't go into businesses for anything more simple than to make a routine purchase.  Anything that might put me in even the slightest bit of conflict with someone scared me senseless.

Part of what lead to it, I think, was a bad relationship I was in.  For seven years, my self esteem got lower and lower, and it was more and more difficult to think I could do anything right.  It started to slide into my professional life, where I was working as a customer service rep.  I'd get calls from frustrated members and they would take their frustrations out on me, "proving" that I was everything I'd thought of myself.  From there, making calls for anything else just got more and more difficult.  What if I said or did something wrong? Would the people I was dealing with treat me with contempt?  Would they laugh at me?  It was easier to not deal with it at all and just pretend I was an ostrich with my head in the sand.  Even calling friends and loved ones became difficult.  What if they were busy?  What if they didn't really want to talk to me?  I couldn't put myself out there for them either.

As the internet grew and e-mail became more popular, I was able to avoid putting myself in uncomfortable situations.  Instead of making phone calls, I e-mailed people.  Instead of going in to stores to buy something, I purchased it online.  I tried to have as many interactions online as I possibly could.  Dealing with people was too scary.  

I've been trying to force myself to change this, however.  I can't let myself hide from the world.  There are too many times that I can't have Rich make calls for me - particularly when it comes to trying to get help for me with regard to my mental health.  There are times when, because I'm the one at home, it makes more sense for me to be the one to call when something needs to be done for the kids. And I'm forcing myself, a little more each month, to make those calls.  Even today, I made a call that I needed to, a call to try to get help for Pete with his issues at school.

Am I ever going to be able to pick up the phone and make a call as easily as someone that doesn't have social anxiety disorder?  Probably not.  Like my depression, this is something that I'll probably be dealing with for much of my life.  But it's something that I can try to make better.  Tomorrow I have my second appointment with my therapist.  Last time, we talked about the stresses that I've been dealing with regarding getting and keeping the house clean.  Now, though, since I'm getting myself more under control in regard to that, I'm going to talk about the social anxiety issues. Because it's something that I desperately need to work on in order to make the most of who I am. And maybe she'll have some great ideas to help me get past my issues.  I won't know until I talk to her.

It's Not as Easy as You Think - PYHO

"You know this is a supposed to be a social event.  You need to play with other people."
"Why don't you just call the school?"
"You should contact your school board member.  That's what they're there for."
Three phrases I've heard this week.  Three phrases from well-meaning people that don't understand how difficult social anxiety can be.
I've always been a shy person, afraid of confrontation and worried about what people think.  When I was a kid, I was teased for being smart, for being overweight, for being poor.  There were many times when I opened up to someone, sure that they were going to be a real friend, that they would be someone I could talk to and trust, only to find out later that they were making fun of me behind my back.  I still remember overhearing one boy say to another, "Amber likes you?  You'd better run!"  And my heart broke and I cried.  Which, of course, let me in for more teasing.  And this was a regular thing for me in my tiny K-12 school until I moved to Florida and attended a much larger school.
But by then, the damage was done.  Yes, in my new school I had more friends.  I was accepted for who and what I was.  I was able to reinvent myself a little without having to live down the embarrassing moments from my youth.  But the seeds of doubt were firmly in my mind, the conviction that things weren't what they seemed.
As I got older, it became more and more difficult for me to handle any kind of confrontation.  Oh, I could go into a store and shop.  I could handle being a call center employee where 90% of the calls coming in to me were ones where I got to help rather than ones where I was yelled at.  I could handle calling a select few friends and family members.  
But not all of them.  If there was a new friend, or someone that I hadn't talked to in awhile, I had a difficult time picking up the phone.  What if they are in the middle of something?  What if their "call me" wasn't sincerely meant?  What if what if what if?  And if I needed to talk to someone about something that was wrong, like calling about Teddy's busing situation, I freeze up.  What if they aren't the ones that are wrong, but I am?  Will they make me feel even worse about myself than I do on my darkest days?  Even knowing what I do from working customer service doesn't make it any easier.  The negative thoughts keep circling.
People think it's easy to just join in the fun.  After all, everyone around you is having fun.  They're there to talk, to play a game, to participate in the fun that they are their to have.  And that's, supposedly, why I came too.  And it is.  And I want to.  But what most people don't realize is the fact that I'm even there is a big step for me.  Going out of my house and joining in a new situation where I don't know the people, don't know the rules, don't know how things usually happen, is almost paralyzing to me.  Large groups, like Nashville's Celebration of Cultures isn't a problem because I can hide among the large number of people.  I don't have to be social.  But smaller groups, like our local Pokemon League, are a different animal.
With the Pokemon League, we've been going for about 9 months, almost a year.  At first, I let Rich take Teddy and I'd stay home with Pete.  I didn't know the people and I didn't know the game.  Then Rich started taking Pete to give me a bit of alone time.  Then, for a reason I still don't understand, I started joining them.  First, it was things like Pre-release tournaments.  Then I started coming on Sundays.  Most of the time, I kept an eye on Pete, read or played on my Kindle and kept to myself.  Slowly, I started getting to know a few of the PokeMoms-and-Dads.  We'd talk about little things, things that weren't terribly important, sharing things we had in common like various geekisms or what it was like to be a parent.  But even now, I generally stake out a table and sit by myself in the corner, saying hi as people walk by rather than come up and sit with someone that's already there or invite others to sit with me.
Pokemon is, in a lot of ways, Teddy's life.  He plays the DS game, plays the card game, reads Pokemon books, plays pretend Pokemon with Pete, compares things to Pokemon.  It's his current obsession and, as obsessions go, he could have worse.  Pete's getting to be very much the same way.  And Rich also plays at League and in tournaments.  And for the longest time, Teddy's been wanting me to play as well.  So I asked Rich to make me a deck.  And, without realizing why, I asked Rich to play a round with me at League the other week.  I signed up for a POP ID and started playing.  But only with Rich and Teddy.
I know a lot of the people that play, both the kids and the adults.  They know me.  I can call them by name, ask them about things in their life.  But I can't, without serious fear, ask them to play a game with me.  I don't know the rules well.  I make a lot of mistakes when I play because I forget things.  My deck isn't very good so they won't be getting a good amount of play out of me.  And if I make a mistake, I'm sure I'll cry from embarrassment  which will just embarrass me more.  (As a matter of fact, thinking about it is bringing tears to my eyes as I type this.)
All these thoughts go through my head, keep me from enjoying something that I know I do enjoy, keep me from putting myself out there where I can learn more.  And it makes me want to jump back into my hole, not play, not try to push myself out there because of the fear of rejection.  And people just don't understand it.
It's so easy for someone to suggest that I do something that they, themselves would find easy.  It's easy to look at me from the outside and suggest how to handle a situation.  And it's easy for them to be in the situation.  But for them to be me, just for a day when the pressures of facing my fears is overwhelming... they can't do it.  Because they aren't made the way that I am.  And the worst of it is, I can't even tell them when the situation comes up, because that feeds into my fears as well.
I'm trying.  I really am.  Sunday, I'm planning on asking the head of the League to play a round with me.  Monday, I called the school system again to complain about the bus situation.  I was forceful about what my worries and concerns and what I had a problem with.  I gave them the information they needed without resorting to screaming, swearing or breaking into tears.  I was told they'd call me back with answers to my questions regarding why they can't get my son home at close to the same time every day.  And so far, I've heard from no one.  But I can't take the step to make another call yet.  Because it's too hard of a step to take right now.
I just want people to understand that it's not as easy to be inside my head as they think it is.