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Whenever I step into an interview room, meet new people or have to speak on the phone, ‘The Idiot’ takes over. In my mind I am an articulate human being, I imagine arguments or debates with people and all of these speeches are confidently relayed without self-consciousness or fear. If only such suave sophistication happened in real life interactions. In an interview, on the phone or really any situation where I have to talk to strangers my mind goes blank with white noise and ‘The Idiot’ starts blurting out a strict set of phrases in an ever increasing panic.
The end result is a nervous, stammering or overly bright demeanour that relays nothing but a highly strung and horribly shy human being. Afterward, I am left alone to pick over every mistake ‘The Idiot’ made and every embarrassment she caused. Rationally, I know that most of these mistakes and embarrassments must be imaginary; either they didn’t actually happen or they weren’t as bad as I think. But I’m strongly affected by the trembling ball of self-recrimination in my mind, and that’s perhaps the saddest thing. ‘The Idiot’ does her best, and she’s never happy with her performance. I am a horribly shy human being, so whenever I have to talk to people I just pack up and run off leaving “The Idiot” to deal with them.
When I was younger, I hated her. It took me a long time to realise that meant I was hating myself, that every time I berated ‘The Idiot’ for being useless, stupid or embarrassing I was berating myself for all of those things. So, now after a traumatic and anxiety ridden interaction with another human being, I try to be a bit more understanding and supportive of my poor idiocy. I think that’s the key to building up my own self-confidence again; I used to think I’d be fine if only I could stop being such a stammering moron whenever I spoke to people. If only all of my anxiety would just go away when I told it to.
Stressing about my anxiety in that way only makes me more anxious. I am ‘The Idiot’ and I don’t deserve to be hated for at least trying to talk, facing my fears and looking strangers in the eye whilst I talk about my own virtues. ‘Clever Me’ might be articulate and ready to defeat the world, but she’s also kind of an ass. At least with my idiotic tendencies I can occasionally garner some pity or even amusement from others, and other idiots hopefully see what an idiot I am and feel better about themselves. We are not alone.
I will always suffer from social anxiety; there is no cure and no amount of support or advice from my friends and family will get rid of it completely. The key to living with it is to keep a small part of yourself that knows the truth, that can see past the imagined social idiocies your mind picks out of every conversation you have. Hey, I never said it was easy.
