Have you ever felt like everyone is watching you when you enter a room? Have you felt uncomfortable speaking to others, or even ordering take out? Do you feel like you don’t know how to act in social situations such as dating or meeting new people?  If you answer yes to any of these questions, you may struggle with social anxiety. 

There are two types of social fears for those with social anxiety, one is performance based (public speaking, eating in front of others and so on) and the other is interactional fears (which are meeting new people, going on a date, or saying no to unreasonable requests). Someone with social anxiety can experience both or one or the other.   Regardless of how your anxiety is experienced, there are common characteristics in social anxiety disorder. Let’s take a look at them:

• Fear or anxiety about one or more social situations in which others will scrutinize them
• Fear that acting in a certain way or showing signs of anxiety will lead to them being negatively evaluated (example, “they will think I’m weird and wont talk to me again”)
• Social situations almost always provoke anxiety or fear, and they must be avoided at all costs or individuals will have to endure the intense anxiety
• Anxiety or avoidance of social situations lead to distress and impairment in important areas of functioning (such as dating, friendships and work)
• The anxiety persists for at least six months

So with all of this said above, let’s talk about how social anxiety works.  Before a social event, someone with social anxiety will image themselves performing poorly (saying something silly, stupid or embarrassing for example) and think the worst-case outcome will without a doubt happen. This is called anticipatory processing. When someone with this type of thinking enters a social situation they focus all their attention on themselves, thinking everyone is watching them and analyzing their every move.  Individuals often feel others notice their anxiety and it only makes the person with social anxiety more anxious and act in accordance to that anxiety. 

Another thing about social anxiety is that individuals will have many safety behaviors in attempt to feel safe, for example, come late to a party and hang out in the corner of the room or constantly look at their phone.  These behaviors only keep the anxiety going because it reduces it in short run but makes the anxiety stronger in the long run.  

Another interesting thing about how social anxiety works is that people’s anxiety in social situations results in them feeling like they have skill deficits (they may feel like they don’t know how to talk to others or act).  The reality is that almost all people have the minimal appropriate social skills, it is the anxiety that dampens people’s ability to use them. With this being said, people with social anxiety hold negative beliefs about themselves and also believe that they are vulnerable and hold high-performance standards for themselves and are VERY concerned about the impression they are leaving on others.  

The last piece of social anxiety that is important to mention is called post-event processing. This is where the person analyzing and over thinks everything they said or did at the social event, almost always focusing on what they perceive as negative.  This doesn’t help, because these thoughts are then recounted over and over in ones mind and they fail to see anything neutral or even positive that may have happened.

The good news to all of this is there are effective treatments and strategies one can learn and practice to overcome their fear of social anxiety.  This will be covered in our next blog post, so stay tuned.