I am nearly always nervous around people, whether it is someone my age or a tenured professor. My hands will start shaking, my lips will feel dry and my mouth will “sweat”. I also blush really easily. I find it hard to just talk to people because I am afraid I am boring them or saying the wrong thing. I just know that they are counting to time until they can get away from me. I get so nervous that it is hard to use my facial muscles, so this results in awkward smiles and it is uncomfortable and hard to talk. After the conversation ends I feel sad and disappointed because I feel I should have done things better.

Other times I feel nervous is when I have to ask a teacher a question. I will think it through repeatedly so I make sure that I am not asking a stupid question, and most of the time I will just not ask the teacher. Just the other day I wasn’t sure what we needed on an assignment and we were working silently in class, and I was nervous I would make too much of a commotion and disturb others or ask a stupid question and the others would hear and think I am stupid.

Being social is really important to me, and until I can overcome this I will never feel completely happy. It is a horrible feeling being the awkward kid that always gets forgotten. All this stress just drains the energy from me and it’s even harder to deal with people when I am tired or cranky. Simply put, interacting with people is very stressful for me.

Though, within the last 4 years I have gotten heavily into online games, mainly First Person Shooters. I would play them for 10-12 hours a day and I loved them and it was better than sitting around doing nothing. I was comfortable playing these games and was able to overcome my anxiety in dealing with people. I would focus on the game and talk with people while I played, so I was sort of distracted from my worries. When school came around I didn’t give it a thought, just went with the flow. I loved talking to people all of a sudden. I always had things to say and could make people laugh whenever I wanted too. I could not have been happier. Unfortunately I relapsed about halfway through the year when I girl I was infatuated with (to say the least) told me she wasn’t interested. I think this threw me into depression, and took away all confidence I had. Soon I lost all my friends and was back to being a loner. My life during this time was horrible. I think it was a mix between Depression and Anxiety.

That was about 2 years ago and I feel that I am just starting to come out of my Depression, or it has subsided enough for me to see things more clearly. When I play games I feel so relaxed and comfortable, it makes it so easy to forget my problems with people. I am getting back into gaming (I stopped the last couple of years) and I was wondering if this was a good idea. I hate wasting all my time on the internet but it helped me so much last time I was hoping I could get back to that, only this time without a relapse. It seems that I can either be totally relaxed and happy and a total goof off and social, or completely anti-social but do well with work and be unhappy and be successful. I just cannot seem to find a happy median.