This post is about the beginning of my self-healing journey to overcome social anxiety.
I Prayed To God About My Social Anxiety
I think it was October 2022 when I started asking God what in the world did I have to do to be free from social anxiety. What needed to be my first step? I had been begging God to make me outgoing and bring me some friends since I was in elementary school and now I was finally exhausted. I was drained after 26 years of being overly aware of myself, overly sensitive to how people treated me, and stuck inside my own head. When I asked God that question, I never would have thought his answer would involve me breaking down on the night of my aunts wedding.
He Allowed Me To Get Hurt
November 2022 – It was a long week with my family in North Carolina. Thanksgiving, the movies, a color party, a wedding rehearsal, and a wedding all over the course of 4 days. The entire time I watched from a distance as my cousins hung out and talked with each other. I stayed up under my parents like I always did, too afraid to go over and jump in the conversation.
It hurt when I sat down at the wedding rehearsal and watched as my girl cousins and their boyfriends walked pass me to sit in the back of the church… Okay, I admit. Maybe I should have chose a seat further back instead of sitting right in the first row. Then they probably would have sat with me (I was never a cool kid, I don’t know the rules!).
It hurt watching my family dancing freely at the reception while I sat on the sidelines watching. Again, I have to admit. My uncle did drag me to the dance floor to teach me a new line dance. I did do it, but my mind kept me stiff and slightly off beat. I was so focused on everyone watching me (even though nobody was) that I couldn’t get the moves down (I also twisted my ankle in my heels LOL). It sucks knowing you can KILL a dance if you could just let loose lol.
And Hurt Some More
But as the night progressed, my uncle left the party and my brother and his kids left the table where we were sitting. I didn’t see any of my cousins and assumed they had all went outside without inviting me to come. Just in those few moments while I was alone at the table, my brain attacked me with thoughts of how undesirable I was.
Nobody even wants me around. I’m the only one too afraid to dance. Maybe if I was skinner, my cousins would actually like me and think I was pretty enough to hang out with them. I can’t even have a relationship with my own cousins because I’m so scared. They look so much better than me, that’s why they hang out together.
My Thoughts Got The Better Of Me
Everything I was thinking got further cemented in my mind when I got called over to take a group picture. I was in the middle of posing next to my younger girl cousin, when my older girl cousin ran over and shoved (not literally) me out of the way so that she could pose next her instead. At the same time it happened, the entire group somehow shifted and I ended up behind them. I stared at their backs for a few seconds and thought about just going to sit back down. I could already feel the tears welling in my eyes. The half a second it took for me to walk from behind the group and to stand next to them again felt like an eternity.
In that moment, their backs to me was like a visual representation of the rejection I had been feeling all week. I felt SO left out. It confirmed everything I was already believing. I also 100% believed my older cousin did it on purpose because I was ugly and she hated me… As I’m writing this now, I know how completely unintentional the whole situation was… It’s so clear that I was never rejected in the first place. I chose to separate myself from everyone because of my fear. No wonder I have to heal first lol.
It All Led To Me Opening Up
Right after it happened, I couldn’t bear to stay there for another minute. I immediately started looking around for anybody who I thought could get me out of there. But I couldn’t find anybody who was leaving and that I also knew well enough to ask for a ride. My parents and aunts had all left to go to an ATM. My brothers cars were packed with their kids and they weren’t going to the same place I was. I felt trapped. But thank God, I ran into one of my girl cousins (she wasn’t apart of any of this. She was the wedding director and was too busy running around the whole week) just as she was walking out the door.
Not even 5 minutes into the ride is when I broke down. She had asked me a question about friends and when I said I didn’t have any, she was shocked. “You don’t have any at all?” Cue the waterworks.
In between sobs I tried my best to tell her how ugly and weird and boring I was. How I could never hold anybody’s attention for long. When my crying died down, she calmly asked me:
“Who told you that?”
I stumbled over my words trying to come up with an answer. But the truth was that I couldn’t name anybody who had called me ugly. Or weird. Or boring. I just always thought that about myself. Later on though, when I would start my self healing journey, I would realize just how many times people DID call me ugly, weird, and boring. It wouldn’t always be them directly calling me those things. But it would be in the little comments they’d make and their reactions toward me. I had accepted their words as truth and never questioned that they could be wrong about me. All that being the root cause of my social anxiety never crossed my mind either.
God Answered Me Through My Cousin
When I couldn’t give her an answer that night, she explained the following things to me and told me I needed to heal (not direct quotes because I only remember the gist lol):
- Our negative thoughts about ourselves come from what people have said about/to us throughout our lives. We don’t innately think anything is wrong with us until someone says there is.
- In Genesis 3 – Adam and Eve only realized they were naked after they bit the apple. They became ashamed and hid themselves from God and when God asked them why they were hiding, they said it was because they were naked. God’s response was, “Who told you, you were naked?” (hence where her question came from)
- People may say things about us, but what does GOD say about us?
She Had Her Own Healing Journey
She also told me about her own journey to learning to love herself and how she had to heal as well. Her story was so similar to mine (minus the social anxiety) and it led to the greatest conversation I have ever had. We talk for HOURS that night about God, faith, things we liked to do, you name it. It was a conversation I had been craving to have with someone for so long. It was also the first time in like ever, where I felt like I was MYSELF during a conversation.
I know God intended for me to talk to her that night (and I honestly love the way he allowed it to happen). Because for at least a year (or more) I kept saying I was going to text her and ask for prayer for my social anxiety. But I was always too afraid and embarrassed to actually do it… He brought that conversation to me… As a matter of fact, when she asked me about friends, the thing I said right as the tears started streaming was, “That’s actually want I wanted to talk to you about.” Wow.
I also just realized that God had to finish bringing her through her own self healing journey. She had to heal first, so she could know exactly what to say to help me.
What tips do you have on starting a self-healing journey? Share them in the comments below!
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