As I thought about every single thing that creates anxiety when I go out or am with people, all of them, without exception, are fears of some sort of abusive behavior:
- Fear of being laughed at.
- Fear of being harshly criticized.
- Fear of being shouted at.
- Fear of being ignored/dismissed as being unimportant.
- Fear of being treated as small and worthless.
- Fear of being invalidated.
- Fear of being gaslighted.
- Fear of not being capable of setting a boundary and feeling like we’re putting ourselves in second place (and we’re not able of setting a boundary because the other person might react displeased or angry).
- Fear of someone being abusive in general, and us not being able to see it for what it is, and then as a result blaming ourselves and taking the abuse as our fault and not theirs.
How can someone not have anxiety like this? Even for healthy people who feel anxiety when giving a public speech, would they feel it if the public consisted of purely unconditionally loving people? Like a huge loving family. Maybe they wouldn’t. Maybe there’s no such thing as social anxiety, it’s just fear of abuse. And for those who’ve been abused, it would be abnormal if we wouldn’t have more of this fear.
And where do I want to get to with this? That the solution to get rid once and for all of “social anxiety” is not on “just get out there more!” or “find hobbies that you like to meet people!” or other behavioral techniques or tricks that don’t work for those who are traumatized besides some possible short term positive effect.
That the solution, instead, is to realize all of the actual fears, examples above, behind this anxiety – All of the abuse that caused them, and then console those fears as we would any other fear. With:
- Love, kind self talk, as if you were talking to a stressed frightened child.
- Compassion and understanding for why the fear is there, knowing it is real, but what it says is not true.
- Preparation of boundaries and attitude to have for if such fear would actually happen
- Renegotiation of a feeling of safety after some fear comes true, and we “fail” to protect oursleves and self forgiveness.
- Patience, time and practice.
I hope this resonates and helps someone.