Social Anxiety
Social anxitey is a disorder that “typically involves a persistent, intense, chronic fear of being judged by others and of being embarrased or humiliated by one's own actions. These fears can be triggered by perceived or actual scrutiny from others. While the fear of social interaction may be recognized by the person as excessive or unreasonable, overcoming it can be quite difficult.
Social phobics experience dread over how they will be presented to others. They may be overly self-conscious, pay high self-attention after the activity, or have high performance standards for themselves. A sufferer attempts to create a well-mannered impression on others but believes he or she is unable to do so.Many times, prior to the potentially anxiety-provoking social situation, sufferers may deliberately go over what could go wrong and how to deal with each unexpected case. after the event, they may have the perception they performed unsatisfactorily. Consequently, they will review anything that may have possibly been abnormal or embarrassing. These thoughts do not just terminate soon after the encounter, but may extend for weeks or longer. Those with social phobia tend to interpret neutral or ambiguous conversations with a negative outlook and many studies suggest that socially anxious individuals remember more negative memories than those less distressed.”
These quotes are all taken from Wikipedia, but I chose them as they best describe the way my social anxiety affects me. The best way I ever heard it described in Media was by Diwght Schultz's character on Star Trek: The Next Generation.
It affects everything! Your head is constantly filled with thoughts of “Did I do that right? Why are they looking at me. Why are they laughing? It's at me, isn't it. I'm so stupid, why did I come here. No one wants me here. Why would any one want to be around me. I can't do anything right.”
If my mind is not actively working on something, I go over things that happened awhile ago. Two days ago, I was berating myself for the way I stated something at the last job interview I went on. The job of which I got and have been at for the last seven months.
It's also why I can't watch comedies. Watching other people in embarrassing situations is uncomfortable for me as I feel their embarrassment, even if the characters don't
Worst of all for me, it extends to the internet. I don't think I can count the number of times I've opened the reply box on boards and memes only to close it again, thinking of thousands of way what I was going to say would be misunderstood. That's, of course, if I could think of anything in the first place.
So it's not that I haven't read it or that I didn't like it, but that I can't review the story. I'm probably grinning maniacal and bouncing in my seat at what you wrote, but the chemicals and synapses in my brain won't give me any words to tell you how much I liked it, or what I liked about it.
This make me very sad, as the people who have reviewed the things I’ve put up here leave lovely and in depth comments.
Which makes the worthless thoughts start up again. Because “how horrible do I have to be to not review my friends work when they review mine?” and so on.