[CuriousCat34]

I'm new here and have a specific question to ask. To my knowledge, I never struggled with social anxiety. There were a few times in high school when I felt like I was unintelligent and disliked by everyone, or questioned the genuinity of a friendship. I struggled in a Dual Enrollment English class that required me to discuss my opinions on a reading assignment set by the teacher. I often kept my opinions to myself during the discussion because I felt like I would sound dumb or stumble over my words, even though I knew my grade would suffer for not participating. In college, I failed my introduction to mass communication class the first time I took it because the professor required his students to present two speeches to the class, one informative and one persuasive. I've always had a fear of public speaking, which mostly likely stemmed from being teased for a speech impediment I had when I was a younger--one that I still struggle with today.

Currently, I work full-time at Walmart as a self-checkout host. I've found that I am very sociable and friendly, and I love my job because I get to interact with the customers on a more personal basis (helping them use the self-checkout registers). However, recently I've come to dread going to work. I've noticed that I will become uncomfortable when larger groups of people come into self-checkout and I will often have to force myself to interact with them. Sometimes I will find myself reviewing a conversation I've had with someone, wondering if I said something wrong, talked too much or too little, or offended the person.

I don't remember having social anxiety growing up, and to my knowledge these feelings have only started two months ago. My anxiety in dealing with customers, friendly or not, is steadily becoming worse to the point where I'm mentally begging the Customer Service Managers (CSMs) to send me to break early just to get away from people.

Have I developed social phobia by working with people or have I always had it and never realized it until now?

Hi, and welcome.

My own thoughts are that some persons come programmed for mental illness given chemical imbalances, genetics, etc. As explained to me some with such propensity may go through life never being triggered while others may have multiple. This may describe the sudden onset of social anxiety you are now experiencing. Can you think of a possible trigger(s)?

Consider what coping skills you might arm yourself with. I like to keep a small stone in my pocket. I know longer need to touch it. It is enough to know it's there. I even brushed fingers across a seam on my pants for soothing myself in such situations. Self worth issues also affect anxiety. It may be helpful to do some work on this. Therapy for this is great as are some very good workbooks.

[mindwrench]

I have always had social anxiety to some degree. I did find that working with the general public at various times over the years made it worse, or to rephrase it my tolerance of people decreased the more I did that kind of work. Even when I did not work those jobs for awhile and then came back to it, it was like i had only been gone a few minutes. I don't think it caused my problems, but it certainly highlighted some issues and pushed me to levels of stress that made me the last person that should deal with the general public in a business setting.

[KarenSue]

Wish I knew how to help you here, CuriousCat. I was a quiet child in school, but people did not bother me. I like to give personal attention to people and help them. You get to do that every few minutes with someone new on your job, and they need your help. You would be my hero at those self-serve checkouts. I always have trouble.

On public speaking...I've had to do a lot of that over the years at jobs or organizations (or in front of our State Congressmen in session, on a webcast, for goodness sake!). It is only hard if you make it hard. No one in the audience could do any better than you, as long as you know your topic and your audience, you'll prepare and be fine. It gets easier as it goes.

Let me ask you this, when you are in the audience, do you criticize the speaker? NO! And people will not criticize you. Almost everyone is afraid of public speaking, but it isn't nearly as hard as it seems. You will do fine. Just look at a few people you have picked out and move your eyes back and forth between them. It will appear like you are looking at everyone, but not so scary.

Here is something my mom told me many years ago and it has helped me:

KarenSue, you are not better than anyone else, but you are just as good!

Best of luck to you dear.

I can't say whether your job is triggering you, but wanted to agree with KarenSue - you would be my hero too helping on those self service checkouts.

[Dan208]

I've always suffered from social anxiety. Loathed giving speeches in high school. Didn't continue on with college classes because I didn't want to take a public speaking class.

Anyway, years ago I joined our local volunteer fire department, and I also work as a meat cutter at a grocery store. I thought all that social interaction would help with my social anxiety, but I think it's had the exact opposite effect. After 14 years I resigned from the department because my anxiety got so bad I couldn't even attend meetings. Most days I'm nervous about going to work because of the possibility of having to take an order from a customer or explain something to them.

I'm trying really hard to change this but so far it hasn't been going well.

I have worked retail a great deal of my life. It has been excruciating the anxiety and stress that I often experienced. Some of it granted was from my fear of not peforming but much of it was actually fear of the public. Constantly going through my mind was the question of "Will they get mad at me?"

I pulled a wrench for a time as a reservist and I can tell you that a good day at retail was far more exhausting or stressful than a tough day in an engine room or repair bay.

[notz]

I have always had significant contact with the public and I had some serious social anxiety in the beginning! As I look back over the years to evaluate what has helped me, the knowledge of my subject matter is tops. Also, every day I remind myself to be gracious and kind and that's what I go by. I also rely on company policy to guide me in my actions but first and foremost I try to be a good employee and person. The rest seems to fall into place.