Is this social anxiety?

Hi. This is my first post here. For some time now I have been experiencing a certain kind of self-sabotaging anxiety that affects my social interactions, and this scales to disturbing my everyday life even when I am on my own (as I remember, or I anticipate a social interaction). I would like to know if the patterns I experience are also experienced by others and whether you would consider this to be ‘social anxiety’. I will briefly describe what I feel hoping that you can help me find out more about why this happens to me.

When I speak of anxiety, I am referring to a state in which I feel short of breath, with the stomach muscles contracted, a faster heartbeat, a kind of a ‘hole’ in my chest area, a shivery body and a sense of intense concern and preoccupation mixed with some fear. This state severely interferes with my thinking and my speech – I loose track of what I was thinking and my speech becomes very inarticulate. Also, in this state, I feel very disconnected from everything else, unable to see things from outside my sphere of experience.

What triggers anxiety in me is any situation where I feel that I am being judged, particularly face-to-face interactions. In absence of a face-to-face interaction, I generally feel quite at easy with myself, and I trust the world. I have no problems walking down the streets at night, or even going to the forest at night, so I am not paranoid in this regard. However, as soon as I find myself in the context of a face-to-face interaction, I become extremely sensitive to the slightest gesture of disgust, suspicion or rejection, and I feel that I am being rejected in one way or another, that the other person thinks that I am very weird, crazy, dishonest, pitiful or disgraceful, and that I cannot be taken seriously. I don’t think that others are trying to hurt me or to make fun of me, what I think and what terrifies me is that I am annoying others. These concerns totally overcome me, and trigger the anxiety to a degree of interfering with my speech and my body posture/gesture, which in turn makes the other person look at me with even more suspicion, which in turn increases my anxiety, and this scales up as a snowball into making me feel in the middle of a catastrophe. I am constantly self-observing myself, finding all the potential things from me that could annoy the other person, and I feel that to an extent I self-sabotage myself, because many times I find a potentially annoying thing in me even before another person does.

I fear any sign of rejection even from people I have never met in my life. And I think that more than fearing that I will be abandoned (I can take good care of myself), what I fear the most is that the type of life that I have is of no good for others, that my presence does not help in producing happiness in others. I am desperate for making others happy, and whenever I see a gesture of rejection in others I read this as a sign that my life and my presence is not pleasant for others. The only way the anxiety disappears is when I isolate from face-to-face interactions for extended periods of time. Then, I find ‘magical’ ways of living, contemplating nature and talking to animals. But when I have a face-to-face interaction after extended periods of isolation, the anxiety can get even worse.

Do you think this is social anxiety, and do you have any recommendation on what I should do?

Thank you very much for you time and for your help.

Your situation sounds at least somewhat similar to mine. Much like you, I tend to shy away from social situations in favor of natural settings. And much like you, I don't feel much in the way of fear when it comes to doing such things as hiking alone in the mountains at night. But social interaction tends to be MUCH dicier for me. Like yoirself, I tend to feel awkward. But, although I feel uncomfortable in social situations, I don't really get hit with classic anxiety symptoms. Also, groups tend to bother me more than one-on-one. Perhaps this is because it is easy to get 'left out' and seeing other people communicating more at ease just tends to 'rub things in' so to speak.

So what should you do? Perhaps I am not the right person to ask. In many ways, I probably don't know any better than you do. However, there is one thing you might consider trying which I have found somewhat helpful: consider trying to strike up a conversation with someone while out hiking (or otherwise just hanging out in a natural setting). This tends to be ALOT easier than interacting with people in other settings. For one, you are more relaxed. And it just seems to bring out a better side of ALOT of people. The other person is probably going to be in a better mood, be less judgemental, and be more receptive to your company. This seems to be particularly true on top of higher mountains. People seem to REALLY like to share the experience with others. Being at 14000ft with someone just seems to create a bond with that person that doesn't exist at sea level (although a shorter mountain will certainly do). In any case, give it a try. Try hiking in an area where more people go and on a day on which more people hike. But maybe in your case, stay away from trails that are TOO crowded.

If you are not uncomfortable in groups, you may also try joining a hiking club (such as on meetup.com). However, in my situation, it did not seem to be very helpful. I just ended up feeling left out. Things MIGHT be different for you, though. Especially if you find groups easier than one-on one.

Also, I would DEFINITELY avoid medications. Yes, you tend to hear quite a bit on TV (and other places) about how people's lives wer transformed by pills like SSRIs. But, from what I have seen, this is less the case in the real world. Not only is efficacy questionable. But side effects are significant. And they don't just go away because you are in a situation where there is no reason to be anxious (like out alone in the woods). They just seem to make the people I know who take them tired, sluggish, spacey, and unmotivated. And I'm SURE this something you don't want.

Chances are, your problem (and mine) is mostly due to a lack of social skills and negative conditioning from repeated bad encounters with people in your past rather than some big, bad 'disease' which needs to be medicated away. So dealing with this problem is probably all about improving social skills and learning to be more comfortable around people. Although this is certainly easier said than done (believe me, I know), it is completely possible.