Trying to figure out why complete strangers have such an impact on me

[oddOne]

I agree with alot of the responses on here mentioning self-esteem and the "support" network.
Miss Meek's post is exactly true... no one else cares about us, we are not special. Social anxiety I feel is a battle of staying balanced amongst the facts and the fear.

I had better self-esteem last year when I finally made a heap of friends/acquantances and felt at ease with myself. Then certain events unfolded and bit by bit they dropped off and left me with perhaps 2 friends I see on the odd occasion and a rather :/ home life.
Depression is back, yay, has been for 12 months or so. This is when my social anxiety thrives. Before, I truly believed it was gone forever. Because I was happy I guess. I had this support network and I had myself, supporting me, the most important thing.

Hypersensitivity to others is another fantastic benefit of anxiety, especially the social variety. I enter this zone of paranoia when I go out often, I get that psyched the World seems like a dangerous and surreal place... doing anything to avoid eye-contact, thinking EVERYONE notices your unease and complete fear.
Mind you, last night I had a great time shopping with my sister... because I was happy and having fun and there was no room for fear. It's a ****ing rollercoaster. It really does come back to yourself and your own happiness level/sense of esteem.

Your experience is eerily similar to what I deal with daily . . . that rollercoaster of soul-crushing [general] anxiety along with maddening depression . . . that periodically gives way to moments of "normality" (being able to function) . . . but almost never is there joy.

Feeling . . . something . . . besides the aforementioned . . . when it happens, I'm almost always shocked; that can't be good...

 

[Froggy246]

At least when it comes to MY brain, the *rational* part of it is fully aware that most passersby are hardly (if at all) concerned with anything not involving their primary social/familial circle.

Further, I have no (readily apparent) physical/mental abnormalities.

Still, being around ANYONE immediately throws me into a sort of primal "attack mode". . . a part of me perceives everyone else as a potential threat that's likely "sizing me up," looking for a weakness to exploit.

Of course, this is very irrational of me . . . but, then again, the human mind is fundamentally irrational . . . with only a recently evolved logical "add-on" separating us from most other terrestrial beings.

Eh, just something to keep in mind when trying to make sense of a mostly nonsensical thing (our braaaaaaaiiiinzzzzzzzz).

I really like what you've written here by the way oddOne..:thumbup:

Just a thought to put out there, sometimes I wonder if it is really self esteem issues, maybe highly sensitive people are so severely disturbed by things, heard on the news for example, truly awful things that people do/have done to people, that some protective mechanism has repackaged that fear into fear of judgements, because it's easier to acknowledge.
Sounds a bit silly, but I heard about this condition recently where the person loses conciousness if they are faced with any difficult situations, like confrontation or anything emotionally charged and it got me thinking.
Also, when my brother died, I totally went to pieces at the funeral and couldn't seem to compose myself, the emotion was overwhelming, then at the wake I felt something click in, or shut off, and from that moment it was as if it never happened.
So bringing it back to the complexities and mysteries of our brain machinery.... it's funny that we operate the body and brain/mind or what have you, but don't really know how it all works.
Anyway I've not thought this out properly just chucking it out there really while the goings good.