I have social anxiety. I am not able to get out of my house I avoid picking up phone I feel very anxious in social situations. I always feel like I will do something wrong. I keep on thinking about small things I get headaches and feel weird all the time and I cannot stop thinking about things I have a profession where I have to socialise a lot with people and my social anxiety is making it difficult.

Dr. Saul PereiraPsychologist47yrs exp

91% (40657 ratings)

Ask Free Question

Your two queries are related. I think that your anxiety, which is fear based, irritates you easily and gets you angry. In other words the anger/irritation is an escalation over the fear. This is the cause of your headaches. This is not advisable and it is happening because you are not dealing well with the anxiety. Anger is a cover-up feeling for the fear, and people may mistakenly respond to the anger whilst the scare remains unresolved and it may also increase because of the discomfort you have caused to others with the anger! For this to come up at this age is significant because it is the last chance you will get to resolve it before it becomes a permanent negative trait. About the issue itself: Do you know if this is a family trait, or is the family by anyways less to socialize, or have you had any problem with fear because of some family or childhood experience? Have you ever been embarrassed in public by someone that it has left an indelible mark in your personality? You can take the answers to these questions to a counselor and resolve the same. Anyway, you must deal with your fear of people and it will be the best solution to your problem. In the meantime do some confidence building exercises by attending a personality development course, public speaking skills course (I suggest you join the Toastmasters Club), work out at a gym to build good self-image, and join social events to practice your skills. Surprisingly many people are often in the same boat as you, and so you are not alone. The very people you are intimidated by may be afraid of you too! There are three important developments to have to make an autonomous personality: Awareness, intimacy, and spontaneity. If you are super aware or too conscious of yourself, it will affect the intimacy and spontaneity. Although your problem is now directly to do with intimacy, you can see that they are all connected. Go and work on these matters with a counselor for this level of social anxiety to disappear from your life for good.  

2 person found this helpful