Fear Of Social Anxiety

I suppose I had always just assumed that those shaky moments filled to the brim with fear were normal, and “everyone felt this way”... sometimes. The constant panic mode was just me being me, shy, until one day in my seventh grade year, my mother took me to see the psychologist. The memory is as clear as it could be. A plain white room with two large windows, a wooden door, a desk with a single chair, similar to those at school. The room was alarmingly clean and smelt heavily of lemon chemical cleaner, Clorox wipes perhaps. I sat down and continued to survey the room. In front of me on the desk lay a thick packet that they had left me to fill out. One of the pages I remember instructed me to check all boxes that applied. Sadness for no apparent reason, check, fear of social situations, check, shyness, check. …show more content…
My heart rate is increasing, tears well up in my eyes, these intense feelings are all too familiar. I finish the booklet and wait for what felt like at least half of an hour, the doctor explained that yes, I was depressed, which was as obvious to me as it was obvious that fish lived in the water. Along with this diagnosis he added the fact that my depression was likely caused by my newly labelled shaky moments, social anxiety, along with panic disorder. I had no idea what I was expecting, for me to feel better after this or normal, or like all of these problems were going to magically disappear when meds were added to the situation. After such a long time of struggling I had a realization,labels don’t solve problems, problems are still problems and everyone has