Quarter Life Of Crisis

Written by Andi Bazaar | Sept 10, 2022

The early stages of social anxiety start early in childhood and only increase as we grow up, it all comes together in early adulthood where it will generally collide with panic attacks and depression, given how prevalent social anxiety may be what can we do?

Let’s talk about social anxiety, it is more common than we think and can come in different shapes and intensity.

The pandemic has also increased it a lot given the long periods of isolation that we had to go through, let’s dive deeper into what it is and what we can do.

"Social Anxiety" is characterized by a phobia and fear of social situations, it can be about going to gatherings, meeting new people or simply going to places that have lots of people such as supermarkets or stores. We may start feeling anxious in anticipation of those events.

We start to prepare for them or even play those social scenarios in our minds to prepare for the worst, we may fear ridiculing ourselves "being judged" by other people and are generally hyper-vigilant in situations where we are around other people.

This can lead to strong anxiety attacks that make us feel as though we are about to lose control in public or do something embarrassing when we are in public, we also replay social scenarios in our minds and are hyper aware of times when we might have said something awkward.

We may even start to feel frustrated and angry with ourselves because we couldn’t carry a conversation or that we were nervous when interacting with other people, this spiral of anxiety and "low self-esteem" is continuously feeding each other while simultaneously making us worse.

In terms of what can cause social anxiety in the first place, there are quite a few of them and bullying is an obvious one. If we were bullied and embarrassed in front of others, then we carry that trauma into every social situation we may find ourselves in.

Other forms of abuse from caregivers and people around us can also cause us that social anxiety because we don’t know what to anticipate from people around us and how they may behave in public, for example: "we may have been spanked in public or yelled at in front of others."

It is also important to realize the context of culture as well, we are highly connected to how others perceive us and may have seen it with parents and other adults who place a lot of importance on how they are perceived and are stressed out when they are not viewed positively.

That anxiety from parents is often passed on to children in the form of comparison with other children, whether it is physically, school marks and other factors that can be used to put down children because they are not the “best” at the specific topic of comparison.

Generally, the early stages of social anxiety start early in childhood and only increase as we grow up. It all comes together in early adulthood where it will generally collide with panic attacks and depression, given how prevalent social anxiety may be what can we do?

There are a few things we can start doing slowly, first of all we can start to slowly expose ourselves to social situations and not escaping them when we feel deeply anxious. For example: "if I go to the supermarket and have a panic attack, leaving would make it worse."

This is because our brains will validate that anxiety that the supermarket is dangerous and repeat that process whenever we go to the supermarket but panic attacks while scary are not going to make us lose control and generally peak around 20-30 minutes.

Staying and soothing ourselves in that environment (as long as it is safe) through deep breathing, walking around, using our senses to reconnect with our environment, etc. will teach our mind that this place is not dangerous and I don’t need to escape it.

That will lessen the anxiety response over time and we will slowly habituate ourselves to situations that used to trigger a lot of social anxiety, another path is exploring the causes and triggers in therapy.

There is a reason that this social anxiety exists, it didn’t appear out of nowhere. Realizing the trauma behind it and working through it will help us gain an understanding of what happened and regain some of that control that we feel we lose in social situations, exploring these emotions in a safe environment is important.

Medications such as antidepressants can also help us lessen the impact of the anxiety response as we expose ourselves to more social situations and get used to them, they can be really good tools that aid in that endeavour. Combining them with therapy can also yield good results.

It is important to remind ourselves that people are deeply involved in their own situations, when we are in public most people are so worried about themselves, their life, that they don’t really have time to think or judge.

Even if the worst case scenario happens and someone may judge us for one reason or another, coming to the realization that it is on them and not us is important. Of course, it may take a while before we get there but please remember that you are amazing as you are.
This is an important topic that is not discussed often "self-soothing."

It is how we regulate our emotions or provide ourselves with the support necessary when we are not well, this mechanism is often broken because of our caregivers but can be learned as adults.

Parts of self-soothing behaviours can be more on the innate side. For example: infants using pacifiers, seeking caregivers, etc. as a way to regulate their emotions when they are under distress or when they need something. Communicating distress and soothing it starts from day one.

However, shortly after infancy that process is derailed specifically in our cultures where showing your emotions may not be encouraged. For example: there are many of us as kids who may have been punished more if we cried, we could not get angry with parents.

Expressing our emotions is such an important part of self-soothing especially at an early age when we may not understand or even know how to label emotions, we cry automatically when we feel sad or anxious and we get angry when we feel that we have gone through an unfair situation.

a) the problem is that we are discouraged from showing these emotions because they are not “inappropriate.” we lose the healthiest ways of displaying our emotions and regulating ourselves, on top of that we may witness upsetting and traumatic situations.

b) the problem is that we are discouraged from showing these emotions because they are not “inappropriate.” we lose the healthiest ways of displaying our emotions and regulating ourselves, on top of that we may witness upsetting and traumatic situations.

For example: we may notice our parents fighting and seeing the impact it has on them, feeling as though it is our fault even when it is is not or going through a traumatic situation with a family member or other people and feeling as though we deserved it.

It is not because we want to blame ourselves but when we are young, our sense of empathy is not fully developed yet and we can see the world and its events only through the lens of the "self." — when traumatic events happen, we internalize them as though they happened because of us

This is such a critical time to have caregivers who are in tune with our emotions and help us navigate and cope with those emotions, providing that reassurance and unconditional love. I mentioned that "our internal dialogue in our thoughts used to be external."

When our caregivers did not allow us to express our emotions, allow us to engage in self-soothing behaviours because of restrictions put on children and when they may have taken out their anger on us that creates the perfect storm for a situation where two things can happen.

• The first is finding unhealthy solo soothing mechanisms, that can be through self-harm behaviours, self-hatred. Yes, it is a form of soothing. If everything is our fault, then it is no longer uncertain and out of our control, we can hate ourselves to control uncertainty.
• The second way is simply to internalize everything and start having issues of numbness and dissociation from a young age because there is no safe place for us to express ourselves or to seek that help, we learn to bottle it up until it all comes out in the form of mental illness

Hopefully, this helped clarify why we may be stunted in that process even as adults and we can notice that because of our lack of boundaries, our anxious or avoidant attachment styles, hidden resentment for caregivers, etc. However, we can still learn to soothe healthily.

Yes, we are trying to undo years of unhealthy and replacing them with healthy coping mechanisms which is difficult but not impossible. It is important to realize that there are certain components necessary for healthy self-soothing.

• The first is space to express our emotions. Crying, anger, any emotion is appropriate. Expressing our emotions helps us know what we are going through and externalize them.
• The second part is unconditional love and acceptance. Being our best friend and self empathy are crucial. We need to remind ourselves that it is okay to feel any emotion and express it, we are not bad or unworthy of love because we are feeling low despite what caregivers may have done in the past.
• The third component for self-soothing is processing what we are going through, this can happen through journaling, talking out loud, challenging our harmful thoughts, etc.
• The last component is rest. Being vulnerable, accepting that vulnerability and supporting ourselves through those difficult moments takes a lot of energy and we need that down time after.

We are replicating what a healthy caregiver would have done in our childhood allow us to the space to express:

• our emotion.
• showing unconditional love and support through the process.
• help us process what we are going through and putting us to rest when we are tired after.

It is not easy to do it as an adult and it may take a while and a lot of practice for us to become our own caregivers again and internalize healthy self soothing mechanisms but it can be done through practice, repetition and the guidance of a therapist.

I hope that this article helped clarify this concept and what we can do to start practicing healthy self-soothing, it takes time but it can be worth it as we get better.

"we are less likely to be in dependent or co dependent relationship when we learn to do this ourselves."

A SPECIAL THANKS TO:

• Dr Oliver Schofield, MD (Consulting)
• Dr Seth Gryffen, MD (Consulting)
• Henrie Louis Friedrich (Analyst)
• Clayton Euridicé Schofield (Editor/Journalist)
• Timothée Freimann schofield (Photographed)
• Shot at GQ’s Studios by José Schenkkan and Benjamin Schenkkan Joseph
• In appearance: “Hugo-licharre Freimann”