Hi everyone. I'm a 17-year old guy from Singapore who's been lurking around these forums without posting for some time now. I'm quite sure i suffer from social phobia of some sort but after getting to know more about fellow SPs from around the world I realize that my condition isn't that bad after all.
AFAIK i've always been a pretty shy and reserved guy, mainly because I've always been concerned (usually overly) with what other people thought of me. Whenever people didn't respond to me or seemed to ignore me (usually they were just something else and had no reason to talk to me) I got the impression that they were ignoring me. That they hated me or thought i was boring.
I'd always felt the symptoms of social phobia in one way or another, but it wasn't until I entered secondary school (middle high school) that my SP started getting worse. I was somewhat afraid of talking to other people - people I didn't know since I was in a new school. And so I didn't. I was the quietest guy in class. People hardly heard me talk. I did make a number of friends, since I was quite ok interacting one-on-one or in small groups with most people. But when placed in class, I shut off. I didn't have much of a problem answering a question in front of the class, but I was totally uncomfortable interacting in big groups. And since people tended to hang around in groups all the time, I couldn't find anybody to talk to. I failed to develop much in the way of social skills, and that made me feel out of place even further.
Being the quietist guy in class, I got the idea that everyone didn't talk to me because they hated me or thought I was really boring. That isolation made me feel even worse, becuase the more isolated i became, the more I didn't want to draw attention to myself, the more I became convinced that I was hated universally. And that worsened my SP.
I tried to tell myself to speak up, but it far easier to tell yourself to get rid of SP then to do it. In fact, its practically impossible without actually changing the way you think about yourself. Those old feelings of fear, of the rejection that you assume you see in the eyes of other people, all comes back in a sort of overwhelming way.
Now im 17, having just joined a junior college (or high school, if you're american). And the same pattern of self-isolation I saw happen to me in secondary school seems to be repeating itself. I don't think I suffer as badly as some of the other SP cases I've read in these forums. I perfomed in a band (I'm a guitarist, though not a very good one
) and i didn't feel as anxious as I thought i;d feel, and I'm quite okay making friends with other people so long as we aren't in a big group.
I'm sorry if its a little long. I just needed to get my experience with SP off my chest. I do have more to say actually, but I quite sure it'll bore you all to death reading the details. :? Well, all the best people. bye.
