[fight]

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.

[Can't Stop Crying]

Gaming is okay as long as it is not excessive, if you are using it to avoid real life people, then it's probably not the best idea. What do you enjoy doing? Is there a club or activity you could join to increase your social circle? Social anxiety is actually fairly common, unfortunately, the more you avoid people the harder it is to get back. So my suggestion would be to use gaming in moderation and try to spend time with people also. The more we avoid the things we are anxious about, the bigger they become. And to be perfectly honest, I think most of us are scared of what other people think but in reality they are not being as judgmental as we think they are.

Are you seeing a therapist? It might help to counter some of your negative self-talk with something more positive.

Hang in there! Hope this helps!

[fight]

I'm not seeing a therapist right now. I would love to join a basketball league but I am way to afraid to. I get so nervous around people, I am afraid of what they think of me and how they are always judging me. I know you said they do it less then I think, but I can't convince myself to believe it.

If I play basketball with people, I will get so nervous that I play terribly and make stupid mistakes. I am afraid I will miss an easy lay-up or turn it over. Many times I will tell myself, as long as you hit the rim it will be alright. I would plan on failure. It all makes me feel so sad and worthless. Nearly everything I do I am fearful I will be judged badly, even something as little as blowing my nose. I can't even do things that I am good at because I have so much anxiety.

I can't describe how frustrating it is to just sit around and do nothing all day. The only thing that really subsides this anxiety is gaming and surfing the internet for hours on end. I can let my mind go and just mess around.