Social anxiety is something that many people have, especially students within our generation. As someone who was diagnosed with severe generalized anxiety disorder, meaning anything and everything can cause me anxiety, I struggle a lot with social anxiety in particular. I’ve moved throughout four different high schools, and personally, I never got any better at warming up to those I wanted to try to become friends with.
Social anxiety is something that holds people back a lot, and it’s not always something extremely visible to someone. It can be seen as someone being shy, stuttering, sitting in a corner on their own devices, or it can be someone who is constantly silent, eats alone in mostly everything, and only talks to themselves and the teacher, along with whatever friends may be on their phone.
It isn’t something that is really easy to deal with for anyone, and it is different for everyone. Not everyone will stutter, not everyone will be on their phone 24/7, not everyone will fidget with their hands and avoid eye contact like the plague. But some people will. Some people are more introverted than others, and can come off socially awkward as a result. Some people can find it in themselves to reach out to a person overtime and have a few friends they can confide in. But not everyone can.
Being the new kid, or a foreign kid, can be hard on someone who might not know social norms in America or might struggle to talk to other people in general. But that’s ok, whether you’re someone who struggles with it, or someone who just wants to read someone’s perspective on it, it’s all our own journey to self growth.
We’re all learning to be ourselves and to find a place to fit in. And that’s ok, because we’ll find that place eventually.
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