The Crippling Effects of Social Anxiety
I didn’t really know I was a social phobic until I was in my 40’s and starting my most important job up to then. In looking back I now can see serious performance anxiety appearing as early as about six years old. At that time, I sobbed in abject panic as I begged my mother not to make me try to entertain her friends with a song or dance. Then there was Camp Little Bear, where my girlfriend and I, maybe 8 years old, stood together on stage well rehearsed and ready to sing to our fellow campers and counselors. She began and ended the song while I stood in involuntary silence with my mouth open but with no sound coming forth. Elvis had left the building. I was about 12 when I actually fainted – as I opened my mouth to begin singing with other choir members. The next public display was at a high school conference where I was asked to read a passage out loud and I so lost control of my voice that it warbled through my chattering teeth. And yes, everyone stared.
Still, I did not see these isolated events as any way connected to each other or to my ability to perform. Only after I started teaching, and my fear escalated until I had passed out in three different classroom settings, did I seek professional help. At first the clammy, blank feeling that signaled I might faint could occur anytime during the dreaded event, but over time and with psychological and pharmaceutical help, the anxiety was contained to before and right up to the moment I started speaking. Once I actually started and could see that my performance was ok, things would relax.
Anxiety can be defined by physical feelings in the body, especially the stomach and chest, such as shakiness, feeling woozy or faint, even diarrhea. A phobia, much more intensely and acutely felt, develops due to one’s thoughts about the anxiety. The phobia part of anxiety is the fearful anticipation that the worst is going to happen. The dread of what might happen becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy, bringing on that very thing. For me the slightest early sensation of shallow breathing or clammy skin was enough to paralyze me. Passing out at the crucial moment of performance was pretty much for me the worst that could happen, so that in the early days of the phobia I needed anti-anxiety medication in order to be able to create a positive outcome to learn from. Finally, after years of successful public presentations, supported by medication, behavioral and talk therapy, an arsenal of contingency plans, and simply having opportunities to behave confidently in general, I could finally say, “So this is what it feels like to be normal.”
Recently, however, what I thought I knew about myself under stress changed, as I entered a new field of self-discovery. About a year ago I had a stroke. For the first ten months or so after the stroke, I felt wrapped in the arms of peace far greater and unrehearsed than the learned relaxation of my teaching days. Although I was cognizant, understanding and being understood, events around me, no matter how potentially disturbing or anxiety filled, just didn’t bother me. I was automatically operating in an almost blissful state of “let it go, let it be, everything will work out as it should, all is well.” But social anxiety must lurk inside like a dormant, opportunistic virus, for mine, apparently, was just waiting for new inroads.
It has taken me some time to track how the old unfounded dread of teaching days started to surface again, this time intimately connected with my body’s new post-stroke limitations. Because of the stroke, my left leg and arm muscles spasm or cramp when under as simple a stress as stretching to take a step up stairs. Regular exercise and strength building help somewhat, but I was told that the curving and locking is “pattern” that may or may not change over time. Walking is difficult now. It requires paying attention to my surroundings, while concentrating on balance, pace, and which foot to use for each task. My relaxed foot drags, so that, even with the help of a moderate leg brace, I have to remember to place it flat before applying weight and to lift with my thigh muscles to take a step.
Stepping off a curb, for example is scary, and something like the old phobia days: my fear of falling is directly connected to my toes curling under and my foot locking up, so it is hard to tell which comes first and which response causes the other. But one behavior has been repeated enough times for me to see a sign of the old social anxiety: I will be walking along fairly well with my foot relaxed and my toes flat until I encounter another or others in close proximity. They may want to pass, or perhaps have to wait as I pass first. The worst is when I am inching my way over a crosswalk while drivers sit at the wheels of their cars waiting. Now I am no longer invisible, I am thrust in the middle of a social situation where I am expected to perform smoothly and quickly – or at least that’s what my mind says.
A friend was trying to grasp what I could possibly fear. “You think people will get mad at you for walking slowly?” This is where my mind wants to complicate things. The reason I really don’t mind my wobbly, awkward appearance when walking is most likely I don’t have to observe it. There are seldom mirrors exposing me to myself in public places, and, fortunately, no one is videotaping. But I do mind my foot cramping at crucial times and thus slowing me down even further just because I feel so unexpectedly out of control.
In the case of my mind’s old programming, people won’t be mad at me, but just mad and impatient, inconvenienced during their busy scurrying about. Exercise can only do so much. Therefore, I am currently thinking of the cramping as a phobic response, and I am mentally reviewing my old lessons in working with social anxiety. My work is not to concentrate on how we all need to slow down, or how foolish of me to think they care, or even how I should not care that they care. Those are all good suggestions for other types of people, but my work is precisely this: Although my petty mind wants to think I am a worm, my deeper truth is that I am a good person. I always make every effort to accommodate others, and I try never to take advantage. Therefore, ironic as it sounds, I’ve earned the favor of causing inconvenience whenever the need demands and I cannot do otherwise.
Good afternoon, Jan. Your new assignment, should you choose to accept it: move the idea to your memory and on to your belief system. This tape will not self-destruct.
8/7/12
