Am I suffering from social anxiety

Hi Everyone,

I am facing a problem which has been affecting my life to a very large extent.

I'm not sure whether this is related to social anxiety, anthrophobia or just plain fear or shyness.

I tend to smile akwardly when I see or pass by people. Let it be any place. Shops, school, bus-stop etc.

Let me give you a few examples:

When I take the lift and there is a person inside already, my mouth will automatically twitch to an akward smile before I know it.

When crossing the pedastrian crossing or walking along the pavement, if there are people walking at the opposite direction, my mouth will twitch to a smile as well.

If I enter a classroom with many students seated in it, my mouth automatically twitches to smile.

Even if I feel someone is looking at me, the smile occurs.

I just hate this problem. I feel like i'm behaving like a lunatic person. I just don't know why but i can't force myself to not smile. Its damn humiliating and embarrassing. I mean people who see me smile out of the sudden will think i'm crazy or something.

I hate going out nowadays and prefer to stay at home. I don't even step out of my house on weekends due to fear of crowd.

I'm 23 yrs old now. But I only started to have this problem since 2012. Before 2012, I had no problem going out and walking pass people, even if it is crowded or not. Sometimes, I wish that I could go back in time back to 2011 whereby I was still normal.

I used to have dreams of finding job overseas and travel around the world. Now with this problem, I can't even step out of my house at all. =(

I have interest in taking up language classes but now i dare not take up classes due to this fear.

Is this social phobia or just plain shyness?

When I board the bus or train, I face the same problem if there are people and i tend to watch videos in my ipod to avoid this damn smiling.

It this able to be cured by medication or some injection that can prevent this smiles?

I am taking my degree currently and i have started to skip classes regularly. =(

I feel very worthless nowadays and think whether is it worth it to go through this pain everyday. Sometimes, I wonder whether I should just take my own life (suicide) to stop all this suffering.

I just feel sad that my normal life have turned out to be such a disaster.

Everything else sounds like some kind of anxiety.

Don't know about the smiling. That sounds like you smile due to a fight or flight response.

Like you do it out of nervousness.

Kind of like how I sometimes laugh even though nothing is funny to me.

Thank you for your reply MotherWolff

there is nothing weird with smiling. go to class.

wise_wind said:

Hi Everyone,

I am facing a problem which has been affecting my life to a very large extent.
I'm not sure whether this is related to social anxiety, anthrophobia or just plain fear or shyness.
I tend to smile akwardly when I see or pass by people. Let it be any place. Shops, school, bus-stop etc.
I'm 23 yrs old now. But I only started to have this problem since 2012. Before 2012, I had no problem going out and walking pass people, even if it is crowded or not. Sometimes, I wish that I could go back in time back to 2011 whereby I was still normal.

Click to expand...

I do this all the time, I'm walking to class, or walking home and I smile when someone passes by. For me it's definitely shyness and it was always that way. My own personal guess is that it is largely anxiety, especially since it sound like it's a very recent occurrence.
Anxiety can cause shyness though, you should do some searching to see what may be the cause of the anxiety and if necessary see a doctor.

Thanks for your replies

we need more information before we can determine if it's social anxiety... sounds like something traumatic happened in your life around 2012 that's changed something in your brain. or maybe a naturally occurring chemical imbalance that just happened for some reason. or it could be environmental/situational... or a combination of these things.

while you try to figure it out in the meantime... try chewing gum when you go out in public, it'll help you focus on something when you pass ppl by. you can blow a little bubble instead of doing the weird smile thing. or rub your eye with a finger so your hand is covering your mouth. I could probably list a dozen little gestural quirk hack-moves that'll take your mind off the smiling, or at least conceal it and thusly reducing anxiety from the situation

Hey, nothing wrong with the smile but it looks that it is your reaction to awkwardness and if you really want to get rid of it you should do 2 things:

1) Become more socially comfortable
2) In order to become more comfortable you should do exercises
3) In order to do exercises you have to go to university

I can relate to what you are experiencing now, although I'd have different response (My eyeballs would start racing and would try to catch the whole picture of the class).

Become socially calibrated, comfortable and then, smile won't occur, unless you will actually want to smile

Thank you for your replies members

You can overcome this. I had a similar problem but for me my eyes would water whenever I crossed paths with another person. I felt just like you. It was so humiliating.

The worse thing you can do is to retreat back into your house. That will make it worse. For me, it took a lot of exposure and self talk. I suspected that it might be rooted in fear so I would tell myself that I have nothing to be scared of and that my eyes would not water.....after weeks of failed attempts and a lot of anger and frustration, I finally succeeded and never had the problem since.

Thank you for your reply ImNotMyIllness

I also have these issues and just feel uncomfortable around others but i also can feel extremely lonely too. X

Thanks for your reply cazza33