Social Anxiety
In relationships, it's pretty normal to wonder about what someone else is thinking or feeling about us. Sometimes these thoughts are neutral: “I wonder if they understand what I’m saying.” Other times, what we wonder might be more anxious and related to our insecurities: “Do they like me? Am I annoying them?”
In groups we might worry about being rejected, excluded, or made fun of. We might never feel sure whether or not our friends, colleagues, or teachers are secretly mad at or judging us. To deal with these worries on our own we might try to avoid people or situations or try not to care about what they think. These strategies create other burdens in our lives, like loneliness and isolation.
Oftentimes social anxiety is connected to our sense of self-esteem. If we feel confident that we are lovable (to the right person given the right opportunity), we won’t take it personally when someone doesn’t like us. We’ll think “oh! Maybe that’s one of the folks I won’t get along with” or “they didn’t really get a chance to know me.”
If we’re unsure that we’re lovable or, worse yet, confident that we’re not very lovable at all, evidence that someone doesn’t like us feels like confirmation of just how invaluable we are. It might simultaneously hurt us to feel rejected, but we might say to ourselves: “it’s our fault anyways.”
These beliefs about our self worth (for example, “I’m fun to be around and people enjoy me!” or “I’m awkward and unlikeable”) inform how we view and interact with the world.
One of the ways therapy can be helpful is that a therapist can help you identify your underlying beliefs about yourself. After identification, and especially if we can understand how our beliefs were formed in response to events (rather than being true about us or our character), we can be freer to consider other possibilities and explanations and therefore form new expectations about the world.
If you were looking for resources on shyness instead, check out this video by Alain de Botton: How to Overcome Shyness.