For as long as I can remember I've suffered with Anxiety. I literally came out of the womb shivering and crying not because of the exposure to bright lights and noise, but because so many people were looking at me. This sense of an imaginary audience followed me into my childhood, teenage years, and now adulthood.
But as a child I luckily (or unluckily) went to a small private school where every kid is everyone else's friend. I had no problem making friends because they did all the work. They would initiate a conversation, they would maintain the conversation, and they would end the conversation.
A moment that will always stick out in my mind is when I was taking a piano lesson in Kindergarten. I needed to use the bathroom so badly. The classroom door was open and I was able to see the bathroom from my seat. I was so afraid so say 'can I use the bathroom' that I kept on playing the piano until I peed on myself. Shaking my 5 year old head.
My anxiety to interact with humans followed me throughout my life. I would never speak in class and rationalized it by saying that I wasn't a good speaker so if I ever did speak up I know that I would sound 'dumb' and people will look at me and also laugh at me. Not realizing that this would feed a vicious cycle. I would not speak in fear of sounding dumb. Then by staying quiet I would not get any practice in eventually sounding smart. I realized that I had social anxiety and had a huge irrational fear of speaking to people
As I went through college I had a few professors ask me why was I so quiet. For some reason I could never get the words out of my head in an eloquent manner.
As time went on my social anxiety morphed into generalized anxiety disorder (self diagnosed thanks to Google)
Now how would my brain look like during any kind of social interaction outside of my house? "Free calm down. Dammit why did you have to smile so hard. You're so dumb for thinking that. Awkward" This will go on all the while I'm trying listen to what someone is saying and contribute to the conversation. Can you imagine what the conversation would look like?
"Awkwardly laughter... yea... oh my gosh... ha ha.. more laughter.. thats crazy"
Followed by me thinking "Free you're so dumb and awkward"
Today I am no longer only afraid of people looking at me and laughing at me because I don't know what I'm talking about it turned into me telling myself that I am worthless any time I have a human interaction. Now I am anxious about the world in general. Every ride in a car will lead to a crash, every walk in the street will lead to me getting run over. Every ride in a train will be a terrorist attack. Every time I'm on my bed my leg will get broken. Cue in the repetitive thoughts of "You're so stupid you look like a monster" right about now.
