Basically social anxiety is a fear of people – or rather of their judgement or rejection of you and the resultant feelings of humiliation and embarassment. Social anxiety is not the type of worry most people might experience or simple shyness. It is a strong, disabling fear that causes major anxiety and/or avoidance of the feared situations. The situations feared may be specific such as eating in public, using public toilets, public speaking, work; or it may have generalised to any situation involving people.
Try these questionaires to see if you have Social Anxiety:
Social Anxiety Test
Self Help Test
How does it differ from Social Phobia or Shyness?
Social Anxiety & Social Phobia are both terms used to describe the Same condition. But while both conditions include "shyness" in their terminology, "shyness" is a totally different ball game.
Most probably everybody experiences "shyness" in some form or another at different points in their lives, but these people generally are able to put it aside and get on with life. Social Anxiety on the other hand, stays with you and creates fears and phobias (Social Phobias). These fears often lead to avoidant behaviours as mentioned above. So while "shyness" is a form of Social Anxiety, Social Anxiety is not a form of "shyness".
What are the symptoms of Social Anxiety?
The symptoms of Social Anxiety may be divided into the physical, mental, emotional and behavioural.
Physically, anxiety shows as fast breathing, pounding heart, shaking or trembling, dizziness or light-headedness, and particularly in social anxiety we may blush, have a trembling voice, dry mouth, feel like crying, and sweat.
Mentally, the thoughts may occur before, during and after the event, with anticipatory anxiety before the event, negative self-monitoring during the event, and a negative view of how things went. An example of this is anticipating the worst before the event; thinking that everyone is looking at you and assuming that they are judging you negatively during the event; thinking that you are not good enough and judging yourself after the event. This leads to the emotions of anxiety, humiliation, embarrassment, low self-esteem, and shame.
This then leads to avoidance behaviour. This may include total avoidance of the feared situation or when in the situation it may include avoiding eye-contact, keeping your head down, staying with a safe person, not talking, or leaving the room. Thus Social Anxiety can cause problems involving work, friends, romantic relationships, family or any social situation. Frequently this leads on to loneliness and depression.
Some people who suffer from Social Anxiety, also have other related conditions, such as Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (OCD), Depression, Avoidant Personality Disorder and various others.
What is the cause of Social Anxiety?
There are many factors involved in the development of this disorder. Briefly, there may be physical causes such as a family history of anxiety (heredity), and low serotonin levels. It may be a learnt behaviour from overly cautious or critical parents. It may occur after stressful life circumstances such as bullying, problems with friends, personal loss. Mostly though, it is the continuing anxious self-talk, mistaken beliefs and avoidance behaviour that maintains social anxiety, and these are the things that fortunately we do have some control over.
How is Social Anxiety treated?
The general treatment for social anxiety may involve cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT), and/or medication. CBT will involve retraining the way you think about things, and learning to gradually expose yourself to the feared situations. Working in a group is often helpful. Other things to work on are self-esteem, assertiveness, communication skills and dealing with criticism. There are many alternative therapies that can contribute to helping anxiety as well. Medications may include anti-depressants, Selective Serotonin re-uptake inhibitors (SSRI's), beta-blockers, or tranquillisers.
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