Best 70 quotes in «social anxiety quotes» category

Aloneness – that is what SM feels like to me. Isolated, alone, separated, left out as I silently stand by watching others experience life while the words freeze inside me, afraid to speak up or join in a conversation. Actually feeling the anxiety shaking inside my chest as I try to get up the courage to speak to someone or call or text a friend. SM feels like the child standing alone behind the door watching the other kids in the playground – afraid to ask, 'may I play?' It feels like the teenager standing silently against the wall, listening to classmates laugh and chat, invisible to everyone and wondering what it would be like to have a friend. It feels like the 50-year-old office worker, alone in her cube while others chat and laugh in the aisle, still left out. I live inside a shell, a mask that looks like me, but isn't me. I am in here, but it is really hard to let others see. I'm so grateful for the few dear friends I have now. Most people, though, only see the shell and assume I'm aloof and uncaring because I am quiet. I feel very deeply. I feel others' joy and pain intensely, yet they rarely know. I'm not quiet because I am uncaring. I'm silent because I'm afraid.

For most of my life, I was a worrier and an over-thinker. I had pretty bad social anxiety.

All it takes is common sense to understand that the Rajapaksa administration has vandalised every layer of the country’s resources to get rid of political obstacles while minimising the space available to facilitate the sharing of authentic political dissent. At the same time the opposition appears to be caged.

Annabelle is rarely relaxed anymore, not even in her own house. So here, her panic is rising. It's a tsunami of dread and obligation and the knowledge of bathroom use in small places.

A networking event is a farmer event, not a hunter event. You’re there to plant seeds and cultivate your garden, not bag prey.

A recent invention, vocal language may date back only ca. 200,000 years. As human primates, we have not fully come to grips with the prolonged, face-to-face closeness required for speech. Speaking to a stranger, e.g., stresses our autonomic nervous system's sympathetic (i.e., fight-or-flight) division, which a. speeds our heartbeat, b. dilates our pupils, and c. cools and moistens our hands. The limbic brain's hypothalamus instructs the pituitary gland to release hormones into the circulatory system, arousing our blood, sweat, and fears.

Fear has become normal and is covered by the idea of “patriotism”.

...co-rumination: the problem of talking too much about anything. Specifically,... when girls rehash their problems excessively, it leads to depression, anxiety, and a sense of hopelessness.

Even now it comes as a shock if by chance I notice in the street a face resembling someone I know however slightly, and I am at once seized by a shivering violent enough to make me dizzy.

Pain Waves are the sea's white daughters, And raindrops the children of rain, But why for my shimmering body Have I a mother like Pain? Night is the mother of stars, And wind the mother of foam— The world is brimming with beauty, But I must stay at home.

But I guess that was the whole problem, at that point, my inability to deal with normal human interaction.

Here are three separate but similar things: shyness, introversion and social anxiety. You can have one, two or all three of these things simultaneously. A lot of the time people thing they're all the same thing, but that's just not true. Extroverts can be shy, introverts can be bold, and a condition like anxiety can strike whatever kind of social animal you are. Lots of people are shy. Shy is normal. A bit of anxiety is normal. Throw the two together, add some brain-signal error - a NO ENTRY sign on the neural highway from my brain to my mouth perhaps, though no one really knows - and you have me.

Friends are great, except, I never know what to do with them. I see other people and it all seems so natural. They laugh and talk and make plans to talk and laugh some more at a later date. I would probably throw a fry at them and hope they were distracted enough not to notice me running away.

He felt himself falling into a state, very common when he was younger, of being totally cut off from the society he was in.

I don’t act weird because it’s awesome. I act weird because i’m not used to normal people

I always called back to cancel, which I hated doing because I hated talking to people.

I am often upset when I meet a person again.

I'd never been great at meeting people. I wasn't shy or anything, It was only that sometimes, with new people, I didn't know how exactly to start a conversation. I liked to listen first. You could learn a lot about someone that way.

I don’t ignore everyone because I have social anxiety. I ignore some people because I don’t need crawl backs that weren’t around when I was building myself, that are now currently building themselves

If I had a reader and he had read all I have written so far of my adventures, there would be certainly no need to inform him that I am not created for any sort of society. The trouble is I don't know how to behave in company. If I go anywhere among a great many people I always have a feeling as though I were being electrified by so many eyes looking at me. It positively makes me shrivel up, physically shrivel up, even in such places as the theatre, to say nothing of private houses. I did not know how to behave with dignity in these gambling saloons and assemblies; I either was still, inwardly upbraiding myself for my excessive mildness and politeness, or I suddenly got up and did something rude. And meanwhile all sorts of worthless fellows far inferior to me knew how to behave with wonderful aplomb-- and that's what really exasperated me above everything, so that I lost my self-possession more and more. I may say frankly, even at that time, if the truth is to be told, the society there, and even winning money at cards, had become revolting and a torture to me. Positively a torture. I did, of course, derive acute enjoyment from it, but this enjoyment was at the cost of torture.

I don't want to say hello, nor do I want him to know that I've seen him and failed to say hello.

I mistook some things for what they are. I remove myself almost to none on account of them not needing to be there. I think of the future and what effects can relate back. I want to be less, than more. Social media is powerful, always be careful how you use it, especially as you grow

- If it helps, I used to have a hard time knowing what to do around other people so I watched them and learned to mimic them. If you don't have to be on point, I would interact the minimal amount. If you don't interact at all, people notice and you stand out, and if you're socially awkward and interact too much, people notice too much, people notice that too. But if you speak up now and then in a conversation, of infrequently agree to hang out, poeple will lose interest. It might be harder for you, but that's one thing that works for me." "- Lfe was easier when I was just expected to shoot people.

I'm excellent at faking being okay with things, even when inside my brain there is a tiny screaming gnome who is definitely not okay.

I'm forever observing, trying to learn how to be an adult human being by watching others, and I'm constantly in awe of how easy some people make it look. And then I feel certain something is wrong with me for not being able to do said normal, easy, things with ease

I know I exude a certain confidence, but I have a little secret: parties always make me just a little bit nervous! The anticipation. What dress I would wear. Who I would dance with. Would anyone die.

Introverts may have strong social skills and enjoy parties and business meetings, but after a while wish they were home in their pajamas. They prefer to devote their social energies to close friends, colleagues, and family. They listen more than they talk, think before they speak, and often feel as if they express themselves better in writing than in conversation. They tend to dislike conflict. Many have a horror of small talk, but enjoy deep discussions.

I swear that I will never cause trouble for anybody, as long as I live!! So please! Nobody cause any trouble for me, either!!

I realised I really was shy. And once I was in it, I couldn't escape. I'd go to talk and find my face was made of cement. Nothing would come out. On winter days, I'd feel myself turning grey at the edges and fading into the walls. Was this defensive strategy? It was paralysing. And it went on for years.

It is human, to want to feel connected with others, to strive for a sense of belonging. Yet the ultimate hack is is to belong with yourself. Once you belong within, You belong with all.

I think the most important thing I’ve learned, however, is that being social is supposed to be fun. I tend to forget this when I’m curled up in a ball, alone in my room, avoiding everything

It's as if all the tears I cried were there for a reason, slowly watering my mind to allow for something beautiful to grow in place of the pain.

It’s weird how we have to get a little older to realize that people are just people. It should be obvious, but it’s not.

It's just that I know exactly how that conversation would have gone," I say. "I would've told her I'm too afraid to enter. She would've asked what I'm afraid of. I would've had to bring up the whole social anxiety thing, and she would've either encouraged me to enter anyway, completely disregarding my terror, or she would've nodded and excused herself

It was torture to be starving and not being able to eat. All I could think about was my face and my chewing and how much food was on my fork when I brought it to my mouth. Eating in front of people was like stripping and standing there naked for everyone to judge. My mind was in a constant state of panic wondering if I looked like a pig when I was eating, or if I was chewing too loud. Or worse, what if I ate too much and everyone saw what my mom always saw: a fat sob that could do with losing a few meals? The thought always left me in cold chills.

It was hard for me to come up with something on the fly, which is why I preferred, if at all possible, not to say anything at all for fear it wasn't the right thing.

I was so nervous about the airport, going through security and doing all that gives me some serious fucking anxiety. ... Everyone seemed so chill.

I want to say, Don't bother asking me anything. I want to say, There is nothing underneath.

I've found out that I may be more awkward than I thought I was, but then I never saw anyone because I was in my room a lot. It's fine not to speak when you're on your own and to stammer and to not have eye contact but, outside, it's frowned upon.

I wanted to just sink into my media downloads for a while and pretend I didn't exist.

My face is like some sort of bashful chameleon, flashing red at any sign of social interaction. Stupid face.

Like when you see a celebrity in a cafe and instinctively burst out, "Oh, hi there!" before you realize that your brain has had time to tell you, "Hey, that's probably someone you know, say hi!" but not, "No wait, it's just that guy from the TV!" Because your brain likes to make you look like an idiot.

Maybe my time's running out, but at least I'm living. And if that's what it is for you, being here inside where nothing ever happens, where you think you're safe, then stay. Stay right here and you let me know how that works for you. Bacause I'm gessing it'll never be enough.

Patriotism, currently, is nothing but the deadly evolution of narrow minded politics which has distorted language.

Never ignore the elephant in the room. That’s rude; play with it and introduce it.

Never hate social hierarchies

She didn't understand how other people did it, how they just strolled right up to strangers and started conversations -- how they made themselves into people strangers would ever want to meet. She wasn't shy, not exactly. She was afraid.

Rumors travel faster then the speed of light

Sometimes I see people at the supermarket or somewhere else, smiling and cheerfully making small talk with strangers and not looking tense or uncomfortable at all, and i just want to go up and ask them how they do it. How did they manage to do everything they need to do and go out in the world and be human without feeling the weight of it all questioning them into oblivion

She untied her ropes, her frazzled oily grimy ropes that held her down into the littered marshlands of a life too long lived in fear and dread of the unknown, and took a big step out of bounds.