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Comment by josephwegner | Hacker News Reader

I've been procrastinating (for obvious reasons) sharing this for quite some time... but this seems like as good of a kick in the pants as any.

I wrote a bit of a short story about my shyness/social anxiety. Hope helps people understand what goes on in the brain when anxiety strikes: https://stories.wegnerdesign.com/how-i-party

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Great read. We've all been there at one point or another.

>The story that my anxiety was telling my head was entirely fiction. The emotion was real, but the reasons behind it were imagined. I don't yet have an answer on how to solve this.

For me, this was a conscious decision to change worrying about how I come across to assuaging other people's worries about how they come across. It's easier to be your own wingman when you know how to be someone else's.

Haven't read this yet, but I just wanted to say well done for posting this. From your comment, it clearly took some guts on your part.

Hey, I really enjoyed reading this. I hear those thoughts 24/7, and they plan most of my days. You helped me put words to some of my own behaviors that I've mostly been lying to myself about. So thanks! And it was a well written story, besides.

Glad it was helpful. I wrote it for the same reason - needing real words for what was happening in my head.

Wow. You've described exactly what goes in my head during parties. I've been better at faking it / being able to emit short bursts of real gregariousness, but I've never been able to completely get rid of the anxiety.

Well done for publishing this! As I'm sure you know intellectually (but probably find extremely difficult to actually believe), telling people about it has drawn them closer to you, not pushed them away. There's so much here that resonates with me, and examining my reaction to your writing, I feel more inspired to discuss my own anxiety with the people close to me.

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