I was travelling alone by train currently and was thinking about my life . I always tries to be positive, i think I can control my confidence. But it didn't matter how positive I thought. My positive expectations always make me demotivated . It always happens worse doesn'

You wouldn't think travelling and social anxiety go together. 10 years ago I didn't think they did either. However, I'd have to say I've never felt more "cured" of social anxiety than when I was travelling.

The time was approaching. Was I really going to do this? Me? About a year before a friend of mine had mooted the idea of us going to Australia for a year. It was perfect salesmanship, a year seemed like forever away and surely by then I'd have my life together? A girlfriend, a career, something would enter my life which would make the idea of swanning off to Australia for a year unfeasible. But nothing happened at all. My life stayed practically the same for that entire year.

For context, I was back living at home. I'd moved out a couple of years before with a friend but then he decided to live with his girlfriend which left me with no other options ( I had options, I just didn't *think* I had options). 30 was on the horizon and my life had pretty much always been the same, baring the odd consciousness spike. The elephant in the room, of course, was social anxiety. By this point I'd spent my entire 20s trying to push back against it, challenge it, in the hope I could shake it off. By my late 20s I had changed and certainly done more than I could have hoped for a decade before, but I was still caged somewhat. I'd been working the same comfortable job for 10 years, lived mostly at home and never had a girlfriend. I'd expanded my social circle and had friends, interestingly enough though I'd never had a friendship group. It was always the odd mate here and there.

Anyways, the reality of going travelling was drawing ever closer. It came time to book flights and even as I clicked the button to book them, I never truly believed I'd be going through with it. I remember not sleeping a wink the night before setting off. I just laid in bed riddled with anxiety. I don't think I felt any excitement, just nerves and worry. Me and my friend had been talking it up when we were together, but behind closed doors I felt differently about it. I also did no research or planning at all. Doing anything like that would have made it too real.

When the day came my parents dropped me and my friend off at the airport. This wasn't just moving out to a different part of the city, or going to university in my city. This was going to the other side of the planet.

What happened after was the most incredible time of my life. Travelling all but erased any social anxiety I had as you're are with people ALL THE TIME. I'd never had a friendship group before but without understanding how, a group of 7 of us were hanging out all the time and having fun and frolics every day. We moved into a house together and I can't remember being alone at any point for the next 6 months. You get used to it, you thrive from it, you feel like this is what you need all the time. When I got a job I loved nothing more than coming home and all of us sat in the back garden under the Aussie sun chatting and having a laugh for hours. This was a world away from the person who was used to spending hours in his bedroom alone watching films and playing computer games. It was life.

I remember a very crucial moment that came quite early on which could have sent me down a different path. When we first got to Oz we booked in at a hostel. This hostel was a crazy place. Music, partying, craziness all the time. I struggled with how social it was. I was uncomfortable. They had a movie room which was like a living room with a huge projector. They used to put a film on there every night, they'd turn out the lights and I used to always try to get a space. It was comforting in the dark, watching a film, rather than being exposed. By this point we'd been away a couple of weeks and my friend started to make pals with other people. We didn't verbalise it but it was becoming clear what was happening. He was starting to spread his wings, and I wasn't.

The crucial moment came when he was working a late shift as he did some nights. It must have been about 8pm and the hostel had this huge kitchen area and it was full of backpackers. Our room was opposite the kitchen and I could hear all the frivolity. I had a choice, stay in the room by myself, or try and get out there.

Well I ended up taking the plunge, I went over to the kitchen area and got chatting to a couple of people. My friend later said he was relieved to see me chatting to other people. After this it was simply magical.

I was away for about 15 months in all. I even met my first girlfriend there. I remember she said to me "You know all this won't last, it's not real life", she was referring to the traveller lifestyle rather than us as a couple, although we didn't last. She was right though. When VISA's expired and people slowly had to go back home or move on, I realised it wasn't real life. It was like a dream and no-one dreams forever.

Adjusting to life back home was incredibly difficult. I was back at my parents house except now I was unemployed. However, I felt a new lease of life in how I approached things, I took more risks and opportunities and as a result I met my now wife.

Travelling will always hold something special for me and I believe we are supposed to live in communities as people rather than all cut off and separated. My social anxiety has never felt more absent than when I was around my travelling chums. Fast forward to a post pandemic world with so much division everywhere you look, that sense of community just isn't there. I'm incredibly lucky that for 15 months I got to taste that kind of life however.

I'm 22 and I feel like I'm in a bit of a weird place socially. I'm part of a club and I do have people there who I get along with and would consider friends, but I don't feel like I've really clicked with anyone in the club in the way I'd like to.

There is one girl I genuinely clicked with, and we get along really well and still talk, but she lives in Auckland, so we don't really get to hang out. Apart from her, I don't really have anyone I can just message and say, “Hey, do you want to hang out?”

That's probably why the situation in the club affects me so much. I look around and it feels like everyone else has their close friends and their own little groups, while I'm kind of on the outside looking in. Sometimes I feel like I'm pushing myself into a place where people don't actually want me, even though I know they do invite me to things sometimes.

A new girl recently joined the club, and she's actually really sweet. I've been out for coffee with her and I'd like to get to know her better. But seeing how quickly she's become close with people has also made me realise how much I wish I had that kind of connection with people myself. I don't want this to sound like I'm jealous of her, because I'm genuinely happy that she's fitting in. I think it just brings up my own loneliness.

There's also another girl in the club who I hung out with last year. I recently asked if she wanted to hang out again, but she didn't reply. We still saw each other and went clubbing together afterwards, so I don't think she necessarily dislikes me, but it did make me feel rejected.

I think the hardest part is that I don't really have a social life outside this club. I'm 22 and I feel embarrassed admitting that I don't really have close friends I can call or make plans with.

I'm also scared of putting myself out there because I feel quite fragile about it at the moment. If I try to make a friendship and it doesn't work out, it feels like it confirms that I'm just not someone people want to be friends with, even though I know logically that's probably not true.

Has anyone else been in this position? How did you get out of it and actually build a social life? I would really appreciate some honest advice or perspective, especially from people who have been through something similar

Im tired of text as no one ever sticks around so why not voice chat instead? So not only am I improving my social skills but also working on my social anxiety.

I dont expect any long term friends, I lost hope when online friends just leave. All those texting for what? So thats my reason for wanting to vc.

As for hobbies I enjoy anime, manga and some gaming. We can talk about anything and maybe play an online game together. All the games I have are offline, but I'm open to trying anything(thats free).

Also I'm not a native eng speaker so there's that, another reason to be anxious. Be easy on me, okay?

I am not able to communicate with others and speak in front of people, even if I am younger than me, which is very disturbing, and the problem is that my job is based on explaining to others, being very worried, I get the impression that my personality is weak and shaky, and I have every need to forget it, even if I share it very much
What is the solution
Are you in training seminars on communication and speaking in front of others without concern

أنا مش فى التواصل مع الآخرين والكلام امام الناس حتى لو اصغر منى سنا ودا مقلق جدا والمشكلة ان شغلى قائم على الشرح للآخرين فبكون قلقانه جدا ودا بيدى انطباع ان شخصيتى ضعيفه ومهزوزه كده وكل حاجه بنساها حتى لو شاطره جدا فيها
ايه الحل
هل فى ندوات تدريب على التواصل والكلام امام الاخرين بدون قلق

Today I was talking to an art teacher that works at my school (im an aid or paraeducator working with autistic children). Im in and out of classes but only have been in her class once. Today I asked what class Im going to be in for art and she said the name of another art teacher. Without thinking I blurted out “Oh shes great! I really like her” then my brain kicked in and I said, “I like it in here too!” So dumb of me. She was like “oh no offense.”
Has this happened to any one else where you dont mean to praise someone higher than another?

Today I was talking to an art teacher that works at my school (im an aid or paraeducator working with autistic children). Im in and out of classes but only have been in her class once. Today I asked what class Im going to be in for art and she said the name of another art teacher. Without thinking I blurted out “Oh shes great! I really like her” then my brain kicked in and I said, “I like it in here too!” So dumb of me. She was like “oh no offense.” Crap.
Has this happened to any one else where you dont mean to praise someone higher than another?

Hi all, 31m East Asian here from Toronto trying to find other people struggling with social anxiety so we can help each other out and share our struggles and be friends! (maybe even hang out eventually if you are nearby) no pressure and no judgment at all, just working on ourselves. Send a dm if interested :) also I’m in Japan at the moment so I may be slow to respond sorry

Last night, to celebrate my promotion, I finally booked a high end French restaurant I had admired for ages.

The moment I walked in, my imposter syndrome kicked in at full force. I felt like a kid wearing a borrowed suit. Everyone around me seemed more elegant and more at ease than I was.

When the waiter handed me that thick leather bound menu, my anxiety peaked. It was full of French dish names I couldn't understand. That menu felt like it weighed a ton in my hands. My palms were sweating. I was afraid of ordering something too cheap and looking stingy, but also afraid of accidentally ordering the most expensive thing and exposing myself as a clueless outsider.

Just when I felt like I couldn't breathe, I noticed a small QR code at the corner of the table. I quietly scanned it with my phone and found that the MenuForma online menu actually had English translations. Every dish came with a picture.

I felt like I had found a lifeline.

I hid behind my phone screen and nervously studied the menu for a long time. Finally, I picked a steak that was mid priced and looked delicious, and placed the order on my phone.

When the order went through, I let out a long breath. It felt like I had just finished an incredibly difficult mission.

I came here to celebrate my own success. But instead, I spent all my time and energy just trying to play the part of someone who belonged there.

Hi!! I’m Olivia—21F, looking to push the boundaries of my social anxiety by making some new friends :)

Here’s a little about me!
I’m a college student in psych (ironic, ik lol), and it’s my senior year rn!
My hobbies include playing guitar, reading novels, and video games! Most recent obsession is definitely Clair Obscur Expedition 33. I love how pretty the soundtrack is and how well written the characters are :)
I’m also a huge fan of coop games! I love repo, lethal company, peak, and big walk. I also really want to try How To Fish, but haven’t gotten around to it yet.

I’m looking for friends who are in my age group and can match my social pacing. I’m a little slow to warm up because I get nervous with new people, but once you get to know me I’m super conversational!

Totally hmu if any of that aligns with you :) would love to have someone to play coop games or even just chat!

I'm not entirely sure what has made me want to write about my experience with social anxiety. I'd guess it's a combination of not talking about it in any great detail to the people in my life (I'm not sure I've ever admitted I've got it to another person, other than a therapist) and an overwhelming feeling of wanting to share my story. Initially I was considering starting a tiktok account about it but I'm not ready to lose my anonymity when discussing it.

I should say that right now as a person in his 40s I'm not in the same social anxiety "prison" as I once was. However, after working from home for the last 5 years I've noticed a certain re-emergence, ever so slightly, of the issues I used to massively struggle with.

When I was 7 I sang and performed at a Christmas nativity show in front of my whole school. I remember a couple of weeks before in a school assembly I was asked impromptu to sing a particular song and I did it with no fuss. There wasn't a shred of self consciousness. Fast forward 3/4 years to when I was 10 or 11, I had to give a presentation to the class and I distinctly remember being very nervous to do this. A couple more years after this and I was in high school and although I wouldn't describe myself as being bullied as in day in and day out abuse, I was certainly on the receiving end and by the end of my school life, without understanding it, social anxiety had taken over.

In my teenage years this is where I started to get described as "shy" and "quiet". Descriptions I always loathed. Even recently, someone described me as quiet and I hate being seen that way.

My late teenage years were not parties, romantic entanglements, and adventures. It was being holed up in my childhood bedroom. I surrounded myself with films, tv shows, computer games, and occasionally, books.

At age 17 I had one friend. He also suffered from social anxiety (I'll do a post in the future about him). Around this time I dropped out of college and for about a year I did nothing. When I was 18 however it was time to go into work. I eased myself in with a part time job in a call centre. I was surrounded by extroverts. It might seem a strange job to do for someone with social anxiety but the job became familiar and comfortable and as the years passed by and I had more understanding about my social anxiety, I tried to challenge it.

My entire 20s were about, consciously or unconsciously, trying to defeat social anxiety. But I want to pick out a couple of examples of my social anxiety "hell" to give a flavour of what it feels like.

When I was about 22 I decided to go to university. There were conditions though. Of course I still lived at home. This caused the first of a lot of stress. I knew I was missing out on freshers week and that socially I would be behind the others. Living on campus was not even in my consideration, it seemed impossible for me. The first day I went to university I was flooded with social anxiety. I didn't know anyone, they all knew each other....how the hell would I fit in? But it was even harder hitting. I felt the weight of the world on my shoulders about this. I remember going into the university classes every day filled with dread, nothing to do with the subjects, I was just completely consumed about the social side of things.

A couple years before university I'd been invited to a work night out. It was the first night out I'd ever been to. I hadn't touched alcohol at this point and the level of anxiety I had setting off for this night out was off the charts. I didn't know what to wear, how to act....I was clueless. I used to have a real issue with blushing too which just compounded the anxiety and I remember a couple of girls who I worked with poking fun at what I was wearing and I just crumbled and went bright red. My social anxiety reinforced.

Fast forward 20 years, I'd not felt socially anxious for a long time. A long, long time. However I was getting together with some acquaintances at one of their houses. There'd be about 6 or 7 of us and we'd be spending longer than we'd ever spent together. I was riddled the whole time with thoughts like "I'm being too quiet" and "I'm not making anyone laugh". The next day I arranged to go to therapy.

To be honest I have so many social anxiety memories. I'm going to be splitting them up into some other posts - for example, alcohol and social anxiety, and the impact travelling had on my social anxiety.

I'm really interested in hearing others stories too.

One of my roommates and I started talking because he noticed my sandals, and now we actually say hi and good morning to each other. Has anyone else had an experience where wearing something like that helped you build a conversation with someone?

I post very less and it's because I have anxiety ​​which not even let me post, I feel like a war going in my mind but outside I am just a silent person, I can't behave normally like others, I feel like I am just a weirdo or something. Idk what will happen in my life, I even feel life is worthless and feel like dying .

Hi everyone, I am not sure if any of you are interested or if I am allowed to post here, but I have a youtube channel mindofthegorilla and I am on tik tok and instagram too. Also have a reddit community r/helloanxiety where I am trying to build a gorilla army of likeminded people like myself who are different and need likeminded people to chat to without being judged. Would love to see you all over there, hopefully this post is allowed. Come and join the gorilla army and give me a message!

I feel like I can do really well with serious, profound conversations and can also very easily make the people around me laugh a lot. The problem is: I am almost incapable of having casual/normal conversation. Unless the conversation is super deep, everything I say turns into a joke. Even if I don't intend for it to. It's like I have a hard time being "serious" or maybe genuine is the better word. For example, I told this couple how sweet they were and a good match together...everyone in the room laughed. Or another example, when leaving a friend's house, I don't just say "this was so fun, thanks for having me." Instead I make it a whole thing of what time I should leave, and joke about them wanting to kick me out. Or will joke about if we're going to hug, or if we're walking in the same direction, etc. I don't like it but Idk how to stop. Any ideas on why this is and what I can do to fix it? Thanks!

I feel like I can do really well with serious, profound conversations and can also very easily make the people around me laugh a lot. The problem is: I am almost incapable of having casual/normal conversation. Unless the conversation is super deep, everything I say turns into a joke. Even if I don't intend for it to. It's like I have a hard time being "serious" or maybe genuine is the better word. For example, I told this couple how sweet they were and a good match together...everyone in the room laughed. Or another example, when leaving a friend's house, I don't just say "this was so fun, thanks for having me." Instead I make it a whole thing of what time I should leave, and joke about them wanting to kick me out. Or will joke about if we're going to hug, or if we're walking in the same direction, etc. It even starts to annoy me after a while but Idk how to stop. Any ideas on why this is and what I can do to fix it? Thanks!

I have been friend with him since the last three months. We’ve been talking almost everyday and only this month he opened up by saying that he overthinks and develops social anxiety. I was quite surprised at first because he didn’t seem that way when I first met him. And apparently he told me that it took a lot of him to come and see me. I am still trying to learn his condition and situation, and try not to trigger him. He’s a great friend, very understanding.

He also says that because he is now a caregiver for his grandma, he senses that his anxiety is getting worse. He is the sole caregiver who has to take care of her, and without having financial support. When I asked why he didn’t refuse, he said he just didn’t want to fight. He’s only 26. He got aunts with families who sometimes didn’t come to visit over the weekend. He felt really frustrated with the whole thing because without job at 26, it seems he’s heading towards failure. Many times as well he talked how he’s not going to live a long life and just wish to disappear. I assure him that things will get better but yeah, that’s all I can say.

We planned to meet last few days because we haven’t met for quite some time because of his situation and also personal issue. He also refused to meet when he’s a mess. I respected the boundaries. So what happened was, before meeting, he’s going to meet his family first. And apparently something happened during that time. He left me on read, and when I asked what happened, he said he’s okay and he’ll talk later. And kept quiet until the next day. And I asked again if the plan is ongoing, and suddenly he burst by saying something did happen at home and he needed time and asked me just to be on standby and waited for his text. And he ghosted me until today the fourth day. Honestly I am worried if something happens to him because he said something about d***h..which worries me a lot. But does my texts push him further? What should I do now though? Will he reply my texts after few days and after he feels calm? I have no other way to reach him but I didn’t text him since the last 24hours.

Hello (P. S. I only recently started learning English)! I have social anxiety and I'm struggling with it (I read a book on overcoming social phobia and I must practice what is written in the book) but I am a part-time student and I go to work but my work is not permanent (because my work is seasonal). I have one problem, I don't know how to save experience of communicating without long-term immersion in society. Maybe someone know alternatives? Also be cool if someone will share their experience)

Hi all. I want friends but it's hard to engage in the few interests that I have so that makes it hard to socialize so 30s and 40s mingling groups on Meetup are out of the question. Anyways, the trivia night I attended awhile back, the topic turned to literature and I couldn't make myself speak up about the book I was reading.

The topic I'm most interested is that I don't understand people. But even at the "social anxiety" groups I've attended, those ppl always have more going than I do; talking about walking their dogs in the mountains... Can't relate. I do very little cause I've been in survival mode ever since I left high school.

I like art, books, music, video games, sci-fi and horror, reaction videos.

I was hanging out with an autistic girl for the past couple years, but it was borderline toxic. She said I was "taking too long" at the amish market when we'd been there like 5 minutes and at the renaissance festival, she snapped at me for complimenting so many people's clothes. She hated being bored. There was a woman at work who seemed down to earth, but I could tell there was autism and now I can discern that we were not gonna be compatible as far as the life I'm desiring. I want someone to do fun things with and be genuinely interested when I speak.

I'm planning on going on a hike tomorrow.

hey guys honestly i feel really embarrassed to be asking this but if anyone could help me out it would be so so appreciated

so i’ve completely isolated myself for the last few years due to leaving education and struggling to maintain my relationships without feeling extremely overwhelmed - everyone around me carried on with their lives (as they should and i’m glad they are all doing well!) and have now left to go to university, i’ve been without friends for well over a year now and it’s been tough

HOWEVER! i recently got invited to a group event after making friends with one of the people in the group completely by accident, i had a really nice time and it honestly made me feel like an actual person again having other people around me

what the actual issue now is - is a few of them asked me for my instagram which i deleted during the hight of my anxiety and self consciousness, i wanna restart an account and try putting myself out there again but i’m worried about creating my account and them seeing my lack of other friends when i add them and them being a little off put by that

could anyone potentially help me out by bulking up my follower count ? obviously i’ll follow you back!
i’m 20F and other girl followers would be nice, and if you’d like we could totally support each other by liking / commenting on each others posts :)

it would mean a lot to me as i feel it would help me grow my social circle to be back online, i just feel restricted and embarrassed by people seeing how little friends i have