Dealing with social anxiety

My first guess you've got a nice supportive environment in your high school. I mean, unless I'm missing something, the key seems to be environment, one way or another.

One solution I'm imagining is to train yourself in education. That way you could be class clown teacher type like in Dead Poet's Society. Something, roughly, along those lines might be worth exploring.

Hi @potholderz i experience what you do outside of school, am extremely quiet and probably come across rude too. But I don’t have the same with school… I’m not in school either, but I don’t have an environment where I am outgoing. Don’t really have any suggestions for you, but know your not alone.

Hey, I guess you're in your late teens? It can be a hard time. Different social situations affect us all in different ways. In an environment you feel accustomed to you can be outgoing, and in others, you feel the pain. Anxiety doesn't just hit you the same every time. Nothing wrong with not saying anything when you feel you cannot contribute. Too many people speaking 'noise' because their fear is not being heard. Same as being outgoing. Many famous 'outgoing' extroverts have social anxiety - in fact, many comedians say that it is their anxiety that drives the on. As I say, it all starts with finding someone in the mental health field with whom you can form a trusting relationship. Start with a GP. Find one interested in mental health, then find out if you can form a good relationship with them. You have the right to shop around to find someone you feel comfortable with. I've visited dozens of GPs who have referred me to mental health specialists, that I didn't click with. You must click!! If you don't click with one, find another. You are young, as with most injuries, fix it when you are young and you will recover quickly.

Hey @potholderz

It can be really hard to socialise outside of school sometimes because you are so used to the people around you, and they are so familiar to you. I experienced this when I was at school, I was super outgoing and able to make people laugh within my classes, but when I was meeting others outside of the classroom I felt so awkward and uncomfortable.

Since leaving school I realised it was because even if I didn't speak to absolutely everyone in my class, I still knew their faces and it made it a lot more comfortable for me to be my outgoing self around them. I found that when I left school, I was a bit more reserved until I found my groove again. Finding new people to be those 'familiar faces' will take time but it will happen once you start working, or studying again, or joining various other activities as you get older and navigate your way through life.

You will also still take parts of your persona that you had during school and use that in every day life as you get more confident and find your feet. It is all a learning curve and you just have to take it one baby step at a time 🙂

All the best,

Amber22

Hi there,

Totally get why one would get angry with themselves because they know in another context the issue does not exist. I think you're valid in feeling frustrated because of this.
I find I'm exactly the same. In a context where I'm feeling safe and comfortable I'm super outgoing and dare I say charismatic. I see this is the case for you at school. However, in a different context where you're not feeling safe (in terms of socially secure) and actually uncomfortable, the conditions to be outgoing are not there. So it makes sense that we do not act the same. I get like this at drive thru's/speaking with customer service anyone. I stutter, I panic, I just can not hold it together. It would stress me out so much because I didn't know about the context thing I just told you.
My therapist and I have been doing exposure therapy throughout the last year I'd say. It's been so helpful. At first I absolutely hated it. Just like you I got extremely anxious about what I've said (and how I've said it, and how I'm an adult panicking at a drive thru because I don't remember my order and I'm taking too long etc etc). I'd too beat myself up afterwards for looking stupid etc. It was life changing when my therapist told me that thoughts aren't always true. Like, there are times when my thoughts are me, other times, my thoughts are anxiety. Anxiety isn't always telling the truth. In fact, anxiety often lies. For example: "You didn't say anything in that conversation they think you're boring". But there is no way to know how they're thinking because you're not in their head listening to their thoughts. It can seem VERY true until you understand what kinds of things anxiety likes to say. Then you can see when anxiety talks and throw it away essentially.
I would say the outgoing carefree persona is not something one loses. It's something that comes out when we feel safe and comfortable. But sometimes we have to kind of force ourselves to feel safe and comfortable in certain contexts. To do that, start with lower stakes social interactions that are on the lower end of anxiety. So for example, 1 being tiny, negligible anxiety. 10 being absolutely not - this will be the end of me. This, of course is different for everyone, but it could be waving to somebody you know at the shops or smiling at a stranger at the shops or something. Continue to do this until you feel the anxiety 'grade' you've given it lowers to a manageable level. Then continue to up the ante.
For me, I still get nervous at some drive thru's if I'm having a bad day but it's definitely not at the level that it was. I've done it so much over the last year that it's so much easier for me.
I will caveat though and let you know leaving high school is a BIG social shock because the way you made friend's up to this point is not the way you make friends now. HEAPS (if not most) people feel super lonely after leaving high school. Especially if you're going into a whole new space like uni, TAFE, or full time work. That is something I'm telling you now most people experience. But continue to practice being aware of when anxiety is talking (I used to write down the common things my anxiety would say to make it easier), and practice exposing yourself to social situations that makes your social anxiety shoot up on an incremental basis. Your confidence will naturally build with experience.