𝕋𝕙𝕖 𝕊𝕥𝕣𝕠𝕟𝕘 𝔾𝕚𝕣𝕝𝕤 ℂ𝕝𝕦𝕓 ☁︎☀

Methods to conquering shyness and social anxiety~ Jess

Hello! My name is Jess, Jesska, or Jessica, whichever you prefer and today I will be talking about shyness, social anxiety and fear of people. I probably have two or three of these, I'm not entirely sure.

When you think of shyness, you might think of a little girl hiding behind her mother when there is someone strange around. I don't exactly hide behind my mother but do stand beside my parents often after church instead of other girls my age. I have slowly been getting better and recently I have started standing and conversing with other people than my parents but when I have a bad day or am not feeling well I still resort to staying very close to my parents.

I am definitely more than just shy, I have wondered if I have social anxiety, but have never actually gone to doctor to find out so I don't know. It is possible I have it but it is more probable that I have a fear of people.

Why am I like this? If you are similar to me you may be wondering that too. As far as I know(I am not a scientist though so don't quote me on this), people aren't just born with things like this. In most cases something has happened to a person for them to develop these problems. In my case it is probably because I was verbally abused as child and because every time I made a friend something would happen, either she would move, I would move, or one of us switch churches or schools. As a result of those happenings I developed a fear, a fear that if I get close to someone, we will be separated and a fear that anyone I don't know super well might be abusive.

Fear and anxiety are pretty much the same thing if you ask me. My fear got so bad that at one point I would get sick because I wanted to avoid interaction with people. When I was forced to interact with people I would exaggerate the symptoms I have from asthma and pretend I couldn't talk. Sure there were times I actually could not talk but not as many as I made some people believe. Even when I didn't talk, just being around people made me break into a cold sweat and my heart would not pump properly causing my hands to become almost as cold as ice. These things still happen but not as much as about a year ago.

So how did I lessen my fear of people? It wasn't easy, and I didn't do it alone but I will tell you some of the things that helped me a lot.

Forced interaction

At some point my parents got tired of my hanging around them so much, so they wouldn't always let me and they forced me to interact with others. I didn't like it but eventually I started warming up to two girls my age at my church.

2. Find what you can tolerate.

Through some of these forced interactions I found out that it is not all people that I am scared of, it is only when there is more than one person. I found out that I could have a conversation with one person without get overcome with fear. It was difficult to socialize with two or more people, even if I knew them but I could easily have a conversation with a complete stranger as long as it was only one! This gave me a confidence boost and whenever I saw one girl my age I would go talk to her even if my parents didn't mind me staying right next to them. While talking a bit with the two girls at my church I found out that one actually has social anxiety and the other is quite shy and that is why they didn't really talk to me before. The one with social anxiety couldn't tolerate large groups of people and something she did to help herself if she was in a large group of people she didn't know was make friends with someone. As the saying goes, "A stranger is just a friend you haven't met". I'm not saying you should make friends with everyone stranger but if you are somewhere you know you can trust the people, like at a church related event, make friends with someone! One way I do that is I choose someone that looks kind and interesting and then I just stick like glue to that person's side. It is a little bit awkward at first but by the end of the day I have a new friend and I am not all alone. This brings me back to my first point, sometimes you have to force yourself to interact with other people, or ask someone you trust to force you to interact. There were times I would say I kinda want to go to this or that youth group event, and then the day of, or a day before I would get cold feet and not want to go or pretend to be sick, but my mom would see through me and make me go, and then I would have loads of fun and make new friends! It also helped that some of the older people (like over 20) people in my youth group took me under their wing so to speak and called me their little sister😊. So to those of you who don't have any major fear of people, please if you see someone how is anxious or shy, please please please talk with them, let them follow you around and if possible take them under your wing, it will mean so much to them, you might not realize how much you are helping them.

Get rid of the past

This is also quite important, if possible, get rid of the people that made you afraid of people, or at the very least, have as little to do with them as possible. I know it can be very difficult, if not impossible, especially if the person/people are related to you, so if you can't, don't beat yourself up about it. For me it was my oldest brother that was the most verbally abusive, once my parents kicked him out of the house things got a lot better for me.

Prayer and a relationship with God.

This should have been the first one as it is the most important but I wrote these in order of how I did them and I was not smart enough to do this first. About two months ago I started reading my Bible daily and praying daily. It wasn't an immediate difference but I slowly started to notice some changes in me, I was able to trust God more fully, as a result trust Him about people, I was more confident knowing He loves me, and I was able to realize that everything, and I mean everything that happens, happens for good to those who love Him. All the troubles in my life, including my fear of people are preparing me for something, what exactly I am not entirely sure, but I am completely confident God will use me for His purpose.

Thanks for reading, I hope I have benefited you in some way.

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