I notice I start to get angry toughs whenever I have to go out, maybe it’s a reaction to prepare me to defend myself. Many times I give up leaving home, because I can’t handle people staring at me uncontrolably mad.
I tried to go anyway, everything happened as expected, couldn’t lift up my face to look at people. My eyes stuck the ground, I start sweating, and my face muscles become stiff, and i think, this never changes. Psychologists say you should keep insisting going out and facing your fears. But it never changes to me, it’s like the Murphy law “If something can go wrong it will”. I keep walking, on my way to the grocery store, and as usual the security guards stare as if I was a criminal, I go pickup my stuff ,always tense, whenever someone shows up in the section I pretend I’m reading the ingredients of a product just to calm me down, it doesn’t. I see another security guard inside the store,I avoid looking at him, to not get more attention, I don’t know if he is still looking because my eyes are almost blind for being so tense. I fear every security camera in the store, because I know someone in the security department is watching. And then the worst part, going to the cashier, where I have to really face someone and talk to her. Waiting on the line is hard. I try not to look at the manager that is prepared to rescue the cashier with any problems with clients, I look foward, and down, I can’t do more than that, and I see the security guards watching from the side of the eye. I can’t stop being tense and nervous.
Waiting is pain when you’re like this.
It’s my turn, I put my stuff on the counter, luckly the clients behind me don’t comment about my face nor how nervous I am. I give my card to the cashier, and the payment lasts a long time. I ask her “It’s not working?”, she just ignores me. I feel so embarassed, but I’m too nervous to realise it. I stare at the cashier, waiting, when I lift my face a bit, there is the police(the manager) looking right at me without blinking. My eyes fall down, and get more tension on my face and arms. I don’t know where more to look, the people in the line are still quiet, I don’t know how they’re looking at me because I’m too “busy”. She gives me the receipt and I walk away. It’s not over yet, I still have to face all that people on the way home.
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What bothers you so much about yourself? My brother suffers almost as much as that too, when he has to go and buy anything, but one day he said it’s because people is only interested in attending people with money or that look respectable. So he feels less than anyone around, and feels he shouldn’t be there. Me, on the opposite side, I know nobody cares much about no one else during the day, less of all while they are busy thinking about their own lives, so I know I am almost invisible to them. They interact with you for a minute and at the next one, they won’t even remember your face.
I’m sorry, but people do recognize me, because they don’t want clients like me. Even being I client I notice they rather attend happier and nicier clients than bad humoured like me. That’s why I’m always going to a different supermarket so that the others dont see me that often and remember me.
Do your brother have SA?
Yes, we know that is SA. But here everything is diagnosed all as the same thing and treated in the same way: depression. Doctors make you believe you are just being obstinate and lazy. So they give you meds and let you go home as if that was all. But we feel there’s so much more to it, and yet we don’t know what …
I don’t know what symptoms your brother has. Some AS pacients differ from others. Mine is serious, but I know people that only feel uncomfortable when along friends of their friends wich they dont have confidence in. Some have strong symptoms like vomit in front of people, or have panic atacks.
I don’t know how old your brother is , but I know when I was 20 it was more difficult for me to describe SA. And specially because I never been to a psychologist at that time.
SA is fear of interact with people or being watched by them. Wether they been over criticized over the years,feel embarassed by others judgements, specially is a fear of critic from others.
Yep
Ohh sorry, o just noticed my comment was rough. Didn’t meant to be so direct nor to diminish the importance of what you said. And I am sorry it’s so hard for you, and hope there was something I could say to help.
Thanks for worrying. Does your brother thrust you?
I’m the older sister, so I’ve always been bossy to him, and we are not very talkative… But I think he does. Just that we don’t even see each other all that often. Less now that I need to hide from my family most of the time so they don’t worry too much about my ‘mood disorder’ or whatever it is. I am an old person now, and so is him. Weird…
I don’t know if your brother can unburden about his worries. It’s very hard to tell the real feelings. In my case I did tell a lot to my parents but that’s just because they caught me trying to suicide. But there are things that are too embarassing and I also notice that they listen but don’t understand or mind about it.
I understand what you say, I see everyone in my family doing the same, avoiding each other.
wait
Social anxiety is especially difficult if you attend university. It is there that you have to really interact with other people such as the students and the teachers. I experience social anxiety even in front of people I get along with and who like to talk with me. I experience social anxiety even in front of my own mother and father. When it comes to my grand parents, it’s even worse….
To make matters worse, I also suffer from chronic fatigue.
I normally just don’t feel SA with my parents, only when we are getting along. When we’re not I feel as much disturbed as I’m with any other people.
University is very challeging for someone with SA. The classes have more students, if you miss a subject you have to talk to the teacher to help you out understanding what you missed,if you don’t have friends it’s very hard to find what to do in between classes. It’s a bit better than school because you can go home whenever you feel like runing away.
That’s why i love self-service checkouts.
I do too, unfortenaly there’s none of those nearby me. But still there’s a employee in those checkouts to help and to secure everyone pays their stuff. And he is always observing, wich disturbs me a lot.