Social Anxiety: Torture on the Inside

Social anxiety exists as a mental disorder that affects fifteen million adults and about eighteen percent of the American population. Social anxiety is a scary disorder that makes simple tasks seem like life threatening feats. This disease has many symptoms that disrupt ones daily life, making life hard, and even harder for them to live a normally. Medications and therapy go hand in hand with social anxiety and sometimes help tremendously with symptoms. The way society views social anxiety and mental disorders is a shameful stigma and we, as a country should not feel like that towards any human being. Social anxiety is not a joke people endure this real disorder every single day, even though it can prohibit one from living their ideal life, but there are many symptoms and many treatments and therapies to cope with social anxiety. The figure on the page following can describe some of the behavioral, cognitive, and emotional symptoms that can be experienced for someone who has social anxiety or social phobia.

One may be asking, what exactly is social anxiety? Social anxiety is the fear that everyone around is constantly judging one and that one is being critiqued or looked down upon. There are many misconceptions of what social anxiety actually is. Social anxiety is not being excessively shy. For example, a shy person could have a social anxiety disorder but they could not have one just as easily. Just as well, an outgoing person could have an anxiety disorder just as well as they could not have one. Social anxiety affects ones life in ways that are not pleasant and can sometimes be plaguing to the mind. Over 40 million people have been diagnosed with social anxiety, and many more are victims to it, but haven’t been diagnosed The...

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