Makes sense.
I can't actually get my head around how someone could have healthy self-esteem and yet still have social anxiety. Where would the anxiety come from?
*ponders*
This same train of thought is what made me (sometimes still makes me) reluctant to think I had(have?) social anxiety despite the fact I've been a recluse for years and find it difficult to go out in public.
This may be peculiar to Americans from my age group, but school literally bombarded us with a constant message of LOW SELF ESTEEM IS BAD. FEEL GOOD ABOUT YOURSELF! PLEASE ALLOW US TO GIVE YOU ALL GOLD STARS EVEN IF YOU ARE A MISERABLE AND INCOMPETENT FAILURE. Don't use red ink on tests! Grades make people feel
bad, so let's get rid of Fs! There's a whole movement that would rather give low self-esteem a shower of rainbows and gumdrops and then give a big thumbs up while riding their unicorn into the sunset, out to "help" the next kid. Needless to say this is like putting a tiny little band-aid on someone who's bleeding internally.
My worst fear is that this brainwashing
worked, and that while I feel good about myself, it's just some weird Stockholm syndrome-like thing and I'm really just a depressed optimist deluding himself that he's a realist.
The less depressing version is that I don't have a screwed up vision of myself - I have a screwed up vision of others. I may be smart, funny, and generally a worthwhile human being, but other people may not see that and reject me (and this is a big part - fear of rejection. I feel like I have to make so much effort to do anything social, and rejection means so much effort expended with nothing to show for it - even if rationally I know it isn't that bad). This makes it easy to fall into misanthropy, I think, and then start assuming everybody else just isn't worth my time.
So I guess the gist of it is the whole 'you have to love yourself first' line may be true, but that doesn't just magically make it go away.
